Interview
From emerging talents to today's brightest stars, we interview musicians from around the globe.
Ralph Towner: The Accidental Guitarist
by Mario Calvitti
This article was first published on All About Jazz on May 16, 2017. Ralph Towner is a rather atypical figure in the vast world of jazz guitar. His instruments of choice are the classical guitar, which when he started, in the '60s, was played almost exclusively by guitarists related to Brazilian music like Charlie Byrd, Laurindo Almeida and Bola Sete, and the 12-string guitar, very common in the folk world but virtually unknown to jazz. These choices led ...
Continue ReadingDave McMurray Hears Himself In All Of Detroit's Music
by John Chacona
Saxophonist and composer Dave McMurray has much of the celebrated history of Detroit music in his memory and under his fingers. Now 70, and with four acclaimed releases on the storied Blue Note label, he is arguably at the pinnacle of a long and remarkably varied career. All the strands of that career are gathered by Don Was and the Pan-Detroit Ensemble, in which McMurray is a featured voice. In advance of the band's appearance in Cleveland, Ohio ...
Continue ReadingRoger Glenn: A Lifelong Latin Heart
by Mark Sampson
The photograph shows the hero of this tale, Roger Glenn, sometime in the late 1940s when he was five or six, learning to play the marimba with his father, Tyree. An alumnus of the Swing Era, Tyree Glenn played trombone with Cab Calloway during the orchestra's “Hi-De-Ho" prime between 1939 and 1946 and with the small-group-within-a-group, the Cab Jivers. He was even implicated in the notorious “spitball" incident that led to a young disruptive Dizzy Gillespie getting his marching orders. ...
Continue ReadingIgor Willcox: Have Drums, Will Travel
by Joshua Weiner
Brazilian drummer Igor Willcox is fast becoming one of the most interesting young artists in jazz. A string of superb releases with his jazz fusion quartet, which currently includes saxophonist Wagner Barbosa, electric bassist Ricardinho Paraiso, and pianist Erik Escobar, culminated in the 2025 album Time Traveller (Room73 Records, 2025). Music is in Willcox's blood, as Igor descends from several generations of successful musicians. “My mother, Sônia (Rocha) Willcox, is a celebrated Brazilian singer, and my father, Paulo César Willcox, ...
Continue ReadingMary Halvorson: About the Ghosts in the Guitar
by Dean Nardi
No, guitarheads, recently Mary Halvorson has been inspired to put out records with her Amaryllis sextet more so than some jaggedy, lyrical shredding, but these are pretty darn good jazz records from a tight ensemble consisting of Adam O'Farrill (trumpet), Jacob Garchik (trombone), Patricia Brennan (vibraphone) and a rhythm section of Nick Dunston (bass) and Tomas Fujiwara (drums). Saxophonists Immanuel Wilkins (alto) and Brian Settles (tenor) join the aforementioned party of six on half the tracks of Halvorson's About Ghosts album, ...
Continue ReadingSivan Arbel: Oneness is the Hopefullest Number
by Dean Nardi
Israeli vocalist and songwriter Sivan Arbel has a unique composition technique, which she calls “squeezing the sponge." It involves absorbing diverse influences and transforming them into her own original and eclectic musical language. Driven by a desire to bring healing and connection through her music, Arbel's December 2024 release on Adhyâropa Records, Oneness, recorded at Kaleidoscope Sound in New Jersey, brings together the diverse elements of Moroccan grooves, Brazilian sounds, classical Indian music and her Israeli Middle Eastern roots. The ...
Continue ReadingBryan Stovell: The Secrets Of Viral Jazz
by Kerilie McDowall
Nanaimo, BC's multi-award-winning and highly esteemed Bryan Stovell has been mentoring and developing the talent of Canada's greatest jazz musicians for decades. Stovell's school bands have won numerous provincial and national awards, and his groups have performed in Japan, Europe, the United States, and every major city in Canada. Some of Stovell's former Nanaimo Musicians Association band members and students include the international elite of Canada's jazz world, like past Nanaimo residents and multi-JUNO winners Ingrid Jensen and ...
Continue ReadingTessa Souter: Singing Her Way to Happiness
by Dean Nardi
The English/Trinidadian artist is a bona fide treasure--consummate stage presence, captivating singer, accomplished songwriter. Arriving in New York via San Francisco in 1997, Souter won a scholarship to the Manhattan School of Music in 1999 but left after one semester to study privately with Mark Murphy, who mentored her for four years in return for booking his workshops, and who remained a lifelong friend. “As a full-time features journalist for the international press, it was very hard to fit in ...
Continue ReadingAmaury Faye: A French Jazz Composer Returns To The Source
by Frank Housh
Amaury Faye was a child in Toulouse when he began his unlikely love affair with American jazz. A piano teacher exposed him to ragtime which led to Art Tatum, which led him to Ahmad Jamal and the great jazz trios. He released trio recordings in 2016, 2017, and 2018 and a solo album, Buran (L'Esprit du Piano, 2019) followed by Arise (Suite) (Hypnote Records, 2023). In her review of Amaury Faye: Arise (Suite), Jane Kozhevnikova wrote: “In Arise, ...
Continue ReadingLara Somogyi: Finding Her Muse in the Desert
by Dean Nardi
When one is making a pilgrimage to Joshua Tree in California--even by Zoom call--you must be careful about protecting your eyes from the blinding sunlight and keep your cap on to cover your brain. Listening to the music of Lara Somogyi from her album désert (Mercury KX 2025), one's brain is constantly heated by thoughts of striking it rich musically, thoughts that do not fade much with the late afternoon sun going down over the horizon. You may need some ...
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