Interviews

Everybody loves the romance of a comeback: the phoenix-like rise from adversity, long-term exile, obscurity or defeat. Think of US President Abraham Lincoln's travails, boxer George Foreman's regaining the World Heavyweight title at the age of 45, actor Sean Connery's return as Bond, David Bowie's eternal reinvention or, indeed, the peculiar cycles of fashion that have ...

Norwegian trumpeter Arve Henriksen is one of a handful of creative upstarts, like trumpeters Nils Petter Molvær or Erik Truffaz, who are embracing electronics and the improvisational side of jazz in their music. Henriksen's music is an otherworldly amalgamation of different and sometimes opposing elements, with imaginative soundscapes built on the tradition that trumpeter Miles Davis ...

Kim Nazarian went to college in upstate New York for acting, with dreams of the Broadway stage. Some 25 years later, she's enjoying a career that has taken her to stages around the globe--but as a singer. Not just a singer, but one of four that makes up New York Voices, a group that has won ...

The home page of guitarist John Etheridge's website reveals that he's involved in seven current projects: nothing too unusual in the life of a contemporary jazz musician. Closer inspection quickly shows that the term “jazz musician" fails miserably to encompass the full range of Etheridge's work. There's his career as a solo performer; his duo with ...

Joy Division existed for three and a half years before it reached its tragic end in 1980, but its musical legacy still resonates strongly today. Within that limited period, four young lads from Manchester changed the direction of music--first, by pioneering what is now called post-punk, and inspiring countless other artists along the way, most notably ...

Kendrick Scott, considered by many as one of the most gifted drummers of his generation and trusted on stage by peers such as trumpeter Terence Blanchard, is ready to take the spotlight as a bandleader once more with his third studio project. This is a record about a true desire to act as an instrument of ...

"Better Git It in Your Soul," a perspicacious jazz man once communicated in a song title more than half a century ago. Drummer Terri Lyne Carrington wasn't even born yet, but she sure did have it in her soul upon arrival. Long before she was even aware of bassist Charles Mingus, the author of those words, ...

[Editor's Note: A shorter version of this interview was originally published at Jazz.Ru. It has been translated and expanded exclusively for All About Jazz.] Ralph Bowen was born in Canada but he has pursued a jazz career in the United States for over 20 years, as tenor saxophonist, composer and arranger. He strikes neatly with his ...

Ask 10 people when they first heard of guitarist Nels Cline and you'll get 10 different answers. Maybe it was when he joined award-winning, arena-packing, ever-touring rock band Wilco. Or maybe it was stumbling upon a guitar internet forum where nerd boys and girls go over the minutiae of his expansive and varied effect pedals, amps, ...

Lionel Loueke, the guitarist from Benin in West Africa who brings to jazz music rich melodic and rhythmic sensibilities influenced from his homeland, always had an eye for inventing his own lines; injecting his own persona into the music even when it was against the rules. Even when he didn't yet realize the magical sounds he ...

Long considered to be one of the most innovative areas of graphic design, record sleeve art has a history of introducing complex imagery to the mass market. Popular music s, as it is known, is a form of youth culture closely connected to visual culture. Record sleeves have never been only a packaging. In a way, ...

Jorge Rossy arrived at Berklee College of Music in 1990 to study trumpet, despite already being a professional drummer. In Boston, the front line musicians--most of them were his teachers at the school--would hire him to play important gigs. Even with this brief anecdote one can get an idea about the Spanish multi-instrumentalist's special charisma and ...

It often comes as a surprise to people when they discover that trumpeter/flugelhornist/composer Kenny Wheeler is not British. Well, not British born, for although born in Toronto, Canada, in 1930, Wheeler has spent the last 60 years living in England, which surely makes him as English as Ploughman's Lunch or a pint of bitter. The recording ...

Composer, arranger, bandleader, pianist, soloist and accompanist Dick Hyman has already lived several jazz lifetimes, and as he contemplates his 86th birthday in March 2013, his career shows no sign of slowing down. A New York City native, Hyman served as pianist with a Dixieland band and with Lester Young at the December 1949 opening of ...