In the Artist's Own Words
Why Is Japan a Jazz Paradise? Part 2—From Sake to Soul: Jazz Musicians and Their Love for Japan
by Atzko Kohashi
Part 1 | Part 2 In May 2025 Japan welcomed an estimated 3.693 million visitors, marking a surge in global fascination with the country--up 125% (more than double!) compared to a decade ago. Many come for the exquisite Japanese cuisine, the tranquil atmosphere of temples and shrines, the ultra-modern buzz of Tokyo, or the soothing beauty of rural landscapes. But long before this boom, our proud jazz legends--the predecessors with finely tuned ears and sensitive souls--had ...
Continue ReadingWhy Is Japan a Jazz Paradise—or—Why the Japanese Feel at Home in Jazz?
by Atzko Kohashi
Part 1 | Part 2Why is Japan such a jazz-loving nation? No other country has reissued so many classic jazz albums as Japan. From Blue Note to Riverside to Prestige, masterpieces are constantly being revived--remastered with pristine sound, released in exclusive paper sleeves, or in ultra-high-quality formats like SHM-CD or SACD. Some albums long out of print even in the U.S. have been revived only in Japan. For instance, Bill Evans' Waltz for Debby and Sunday ...
Continue ReadingOn the Road With Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids
by Gioele Pagliaccia
The first time I met Idris Ackamoor was inside of Centro Stabile di Cultura on a Sunday afternoon in November 2018. The organizers at this historical venue in San Vito di Leguzzano, a small village half hour from Vicenza surrounded by foundries and wheat fields, asked me if I could lend my Ludwig Drums to the drummer playing in The Pyramids at the time; as a reward I would watch the show for free and get to meet the band. ...
Continue ReadingBobby Sanabria: West Side Story Reimagined
by Bobby Sanabria
West Side Story holds a special place in my heart. I first saw the movie as a young boy when my parents José and Juanita took me and my sister Joanne to the luxurious Loews Paradise on the Grand Concourse in my hometown Da' Bronx in celebration of the film's 10th anniversary. At that time there wasn't anything that acknowledged the contributions we had made, let alone the existence of NYC's Puerto Rican community, other than articles about gangs and crime ...
Continue ReadingBut Beautiful: My Life with Billie Holiday
by Lara Downes
Every Saturday morning, when I was a little girl, my sisters and I went to the San Francisco Conservatory of Music for what we called “Saturday Classes": piano lessons, theory, music history--serious classical music training for serious little musicians. Saturday afternoons, when we got home, we had a ritual. We'd get out our “dress-up" from the vintage steamer trunk that housed a collection of my mother's 1960's party dresses and my grandmother's furs, go through my parents' record collection--the Beatles, ...
Continue ReadingThe Most Beautiful Thing
by Michael Bisio
For me music is full of magic, mystery, spirituality, joy, passion and fire, blue to red, yet my journey to conceptualize finds me chasing the most objective truths I can discover, truths stripped of every aesthetic element possible. In High School during an intro to theory class my teacher announced: music is sound in time. We tapped metal chairs with pencils, scratched blackboards until they screamed, and poked and prodded classmates hoping for squeals of surprise, trying to discover music ...
Continue ReadingSteve Khan: The Making of "Parting Shot"
by Steve Khan
The term, “parting shot" can certainly be interpreted in any number of ways. Perhaps for most of us, it would be best defined like this: “a threat, insult, condemnation, sarcastic retort, or, gesture delivered while departing." I choose to view it as the latter, thinking of a light punch to the shoulder as the final gesture! This interpretation led me to invent my own Spanish title: “Golpe de partida." I think that someone else would have chosen, “La última palabra"--the ...
Continue ReadingWayne Wallace: The Thrill of the Grammys
by Wayne Wallace
I have had the honor of performing on four Grammy-nominated recordings. Mister E, by Pete Escovedo, S.F. Bay, by the Machete Ensemble, Then Some, by Steve Berrios, and Far East Suite, by Anthony Brown and the Asian American Orchestra. This was my second time being a part of a Grammy presentation, but my first as the leader of a nominated project, let alone as a presenter for the Pre-Telecast Awards ceremony. I arrived at LAX on Saturday ...
Continue ReadingBill Dixon: Excerpts from Vade Mecum
by AAJ Staff
Introduction by AAJ Contributor Clifford Allen.
It is rare in the climate of this music to be presented with a view of an artist that is truly multifaceted, even though the collected works of most artists operate at a number of levels and, on occasion, in a number of media. Bill Dixon is probably best known as a trumpeter and composer; he is also a visual artist, professor (Bennington College, 1968-1996), and has created an expansive body of written material, ...
Continue ReadingBassist Jeff Berlin Pays Tribute to Charlie Banacos
by Jeff Berlin
[Editor's note: Bassist Jeff Berlin first emerged in the early 1970s with artists including Gil Evans, Ray Barretto, Pee Wee Ellis and Don Pullen. But it was his fusion work with British drummer Bill Bruford on albums including Feels Good to Me (Winterfold, 1977) and One of a Kind (Winterfold, 1979) that he gained greater international exposure and a reputation as one of jazz's finest (and undervalued) electric bassists. Since that time, Berlin has released a small but significant discography ...
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