Articles by John March

Opinion

Bomb Shelter Bebop

by John March
November 13, 2026

This may be the shortest article I've ever written for All About Jazz. It may also be one of the most important. It's about musicians, students, and teachers in Ukraine heading into another winter of war without reliable electricity, heat, or in some cases without even instruments, and what our community can do about it. I first met Mariana Bondarenko, head of music at the Ukrainian Institute, earlier this year at jazzahead! in Bremen. Since then, we've had ...

The Jazz Life

15 Minutes with MacKenzie Scott

by John March
July 29, 2026

Let me be clear about the title: I have never met MacKenzie Scott, and a 15-minute conversation has not happened--at least not yet. Yes, the headline is intended to get your attention. I can live with that. Artists have been asked to promote themselves in far less honest ways. But the invitation is genuine, and this article is my case for why the conversation is worth having. We are living through a difficult and contradictory moment for the ...

Interview

Tamara Lukasheva: The Dangerous Beauty of Silence, Slowness and Modern Jazz

by John March
July 14, 2026

Tamara Lukasheva is one of those artists whose work becomes more difficult to categorize the longer you spend listening to it. A vocalist, composer, and improviser originally from Ukraine and now based in Europe, she moves fluidly between jazz, contemporary composition, improvisation, experimental vocal practice, and forms that do not comfortably belong to any one category. What makes her work especially compelling is the feeling that composition, sound, language, structure, and improvisation are all unfolding simultaneously rather than behaving like ...

Interview

Mariana Bondarenko and the Work of Sustaining Ukrainian Music Culture

by John March
July 6, 2026

During this year's jazzahead! conference in Bremen, Germany, All About Jazz publicly introduced the new All About Jazz Media initiative--an expansion of the platform into a broader international media and creative production effort focused on music, culture, improvisation, and long-form artistic dialogue. I was there as Creative Director and Head of Production for the new media division, spending most of the event moving between conversations about artists, technology, cultural initiatives, future collaborations, and the increasingly important role independent media may ...