Opinion
Deconstructing Free Jazz
by Robert J. Lewis
In the continuously evolving history of artistic expression, certain movements emerge that challenge the very foundations of our aesthetic sensibilities. In the early and mid-20th century, Expressionism and free jazz were two audacious musics that not only broke all the rules but broke the spirit of many well-intentioned listeners. If the terms are not quite interchangeable, Expressionism and free jazz share a common genesis that goes back to the early 20th century with the introduction of the 12-tone ...
Continue ReadingImprovisation Versus Composition
by Robert J. Lewis
What is it that attracts music lovers to jazz (improvised music)? Is it the loose structure, or the beat or the notes and melodies we have never heard before and will never hear again, unless the performance has been recorded? Or is it the musician's uncanny ability to spontaneously translate feelings that inform the notes into the language of music? Perhaps it is the musician's audacity and courage --daring to play without a script; to make it up as they ...
Continue ReadingListening To Music On Its Own Terms Fallacy
by Robert J. Lewis
It is an all-too common complaint. The under-appreciated or ignored composer/songwriter accuses the listener of not engaging with the work 'on its own terms.' It sounds straightforward, but the accusation is packed with all sorts of tangled ideas about what a listener's job is, and whether art has some kind of fixed value. When the composer speaks of having to listen to music on its own terms, he invariably conjures a specific, often rigid, paradigm of ...
Continue ReadingJazz Riffs Amidst the Rubble: How Ukraine's Artists Keep Jazz Alive in Wartime
by Cheptoo Kositany
In bomb shelters, makeshift clubs, and even occasionally on the front lines, Ukrainian jazz artists are keeping the flame of the music alive. The story of jazz in Ukraine is long and winding, stretching back to the Soviet era. In the 1920s and '30s, jazz seeped into the Soviet Union, brought by records, radio broadcasts, and visiting musicians. Despite the ideological disapproval of the Communist Party, which viewed jazz as decadent Western music, it found a dedicated audience, ...
Continue ReadingThe Cinderella So Few Got to Hear: Late Artie Shaw is the Best Artie Shaw
by Richard J Salvucci
Artie Shaw will always be a bit of a puzzle to his fans--"morons, “ as he once characterized some of us. The best band he ever fronted, and said so more than once, was his 1949-50 “bop" band. Benny Goodman had a similar outfit around the same time, which, like Shaw's, featured excellent young musicians who were comfortable with the bop idiom. But as for the clarinet playing, Goodman's remained more swing than bop, while Shaw's was arguably the other ...
Continue ReadingWhy the 7 Virtual Jazz Club Matters
by Valerio Pappi
The 7 Virtual Jazz Club is the first and only fully online contest dedicated to improvised music, now in its 11th edition. This groundbreaking competition provides a global platform for talented musicians, allowing them to showcase their skills and gain recognition from an international audience of jazz professionals and enthusiasts. Its digital format breaks down geographical barriers, making it accessible to musicians from all over the world. A Contest Open to All One of the defining features of ...
Continue ReadingWhen is a Jazz Festival (Not) a Jazz Festival?
by John Kelman
This article was first published at All About Jazz on May 20, 2011. It's becoming almost pandemic for jazz festivals around the world to be challenged for deciding to broaden their programming into areas either peripherally related to jazz... or, in some cases, away from jazz entirely. Festivals like the near-iconic Montreux Jazz Festival, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and the Ottawa International Jazz Festiva have become easy targets for purists, who are loudly proclaiming “This ...
Continue ReadingNot Like Before: Michael Robinson's Jazz Without Borders
by Michael Robinson
Playing my personal vision of jazz, claiming that name as part of my heritage, I endeavor feeling the rhythms of life in the present, past and future, entering into them through touch and nuance at the piano, connecting rajas, sattva and tamas; circular movement, cohesion and disintegration. I've been fortunate to know masters of improvised music personally from jazz, Indian classical and rock. From jazz, I studied improvisation with Lee Konitz, later becoming close friends. From Indian classical, I first ...
Continue ReadingRenegade or Retrograde: Questioning Little Richard's Legacy
by Jacob Bloomfield
In the many retrospectives on rock musician Little Richard since his death on 9 May 2020, some major narratives have emerged: he has been alternatingly cast as a queer forefather in the tradition of Oscar Wilde; a transgressive figure who broke racial, gender, and/or sexual boundaries; and a music pioneer largely defined by his influence on subsequent artists such as The Beatles. But in exalting the singer as a boundary breaker, observers have overlooked retrograde elements of Richard's legacy: his ...
Continue ReadingA response to yet another senseless public murder of a Black Citizen by officers of the law
by Wynton Marsalis
With the crescendo of public outcry and proliferation of opinions and justifiable expressions of outrage by so many experts, officials and popular celebrities, I fear there's little room or need for yet another person voicing a commonly held opinion. I also believe that the everyday tragedies that are commonplace and routine to our everyday way of living, should be addressed when they happen, not when so much pressure has built up in the system that it must be ...
Continue Reading
