Jazz Articles
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Todd DelGiudice: Mas Alto
by Dan McClenaghan
It seems that every saxophonist at some point in their career decides to pare the music down to its essentials. It is hard to pare down beyond the sax, bass, and drums trio. The history of this musical setup is long. Sonny Rollins, Joe Henderson, Sam Rivers, Lee Konitz and Joe Lovano (and so many more) tried the trio mode out with great success. There is always the feeling with this type of recording (studio or live) that things leaned ...
Continue Reading...Chapter 6: Will the beguine ever end?
by Larry Slater
Artie Shaw was an enigma. A self-taught, brilliant clarinetist blessed with movie-star good looks, he became one of the defining musicians of the Big Band era. Yet at the height of his fame, he walked away from the music business, leaving behind a legacy as fascinating as it was influential.In the early 1990s, Ted Hallock--a passionate jazz scholar and former Oregon State Senator--spent a week with Shaw recording an extraordinary series of in-depth conversations about music, life and ...
Continue Reading...Denny Zeitlin: Odyssey
by Katchie Cartwright
"Don't count stars or you might stumble," the lyric warns. The song is about falling in love, but Denny Zeitlin zooms in on the cosmos at the outset of his live journey into It Could Happen to You" on Odyssey. He flashes around the piano's twinkling top end with whole-tone swirls and crystalline dissonances, like Tinkerbell or maybe a firefly, with drummer George Marsh at his side, articulating icy stick figures on the ride cymbal, while bassist Mel Graves stays ...
Continue Reading...Remembering Randy Weston on his centennial
by Larry Slater
Two legendary artists, Miles Davis and John Coltrane, celebrated their centennial in 2026. Lost in the numerous tributes to these towering figures are several important artists whose centennial has been overlooked.Randy Weston was a pianist and composer whose creativity was inspired by his ancestral African connection. Described as America's African Musical Ambassador," Weston once said: What I do I do because it's about teaching and informing everyone about our most natural cultural phenomenon. It's really about Africa and ...
Continue Reading...Bill Laswell, Kronos Quartet, Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, And More.
by Lawrence Peryer
The first half of our show is a deep dub run: an obscure mid-1990s compilation cut, Harry Mudie's 1976 session with King Tubby, Scientist's early-'80s Channel One sound, Prince Far I, and Bill Laswell, who shows up twice, once under his own name and once as the producer who reassembled Bob Marley's catalog into ambient dub on 1997's Dreams of Freedom. The second half slows all the way down: a new quartet session built around Christer Bothén's donso n'goni, Kronos ...
Continue Reading...Sequoia Snyder: Growing in the Light of the Masters
by Paul Rauch
It was day three of the 47th annual Detroit Jazz Festival, a sunny Sunday late afternoon with just enough white, puffy, high sky clouds to keep the massive crowd gathered at Hart Plaza comfortable. The JP Morgan Chase stage at the southeast corner of the plaza seemed to hang perilously on the edge of the Detroit River Walk, the afternoon turning to evening sun dancing off the blue-green waters of the river. Pianist-keyboardist-composer Sequoia Snyder, also known by her childhood ...
Continue Reading...Fergus McCreadie Solo: Brahms And Beyond At Islay Jazz Festival
by Mark McKergow
Fergus McCreadie Caol Ila Islay Jazz Festival Islay, Scotland September 12, 2026 Piano virtuoso Fergus McCreadie stepped into new territory with this extraordinary solo performance, pairing Brahms' piano music with his own improvisation. The idea proved irresistible, drawing the largest ticket sales in the festival's history. The music will stay with everyone lucky enough to hear it. McCreadie is a leading figure in the new wave of Scottish jazz. His award-winning albums Cairn (Edition ...
Continue Reading...Eddie Parker's Airborn With Rob Luft: Airborn
by Neil Duggan
Trying to pin Eddie Parker's music to a specific genre is a thankless task. For over 40 years, this acclaimed flautist and keyboard player has explored a variety of musical territory including rock (Eschersteps), classical and world music (The Debussy Mirrored Ensemble), South African Jazz (Bheki Mseleku) and Ibiza (A Man Called Adam). He is also a regular member of the Will Gregory Moog Ensemble and a former member of the acclaimed big band Loose Tubes. His focus ...
Continue Reading...Luca Benedetti: Slow Down For Turtles
by Doug Collette
Guitarist/composer Luca Benedetti is emerging from the same hallowed Brooklyn community that has nurtured the alchemy of Medeski Martin & Wood as well as the chameleonic likes of his fretboard peer Will Bernard. The winsomely titled Slow Down For Turtles, Benedetti's third album with bassist Tony Scherr and drummer Tony Mason, is an object lesson in the concept of less is more;" its music in deceptively stark contrast to its intricate cover images, photographs by Benedetti's father of ...
Continue Reading...New Music from Dennis Mitcheltree, Michael Sarian, Kelly Green, And More
by Bob Osborne
On this edition we have a selection of new releases from a wide variety of jazz stylings together with a classic live recording of Cecil Taylor from 1962.Playlist Dennis Mitcheltree 911" from Seeing Red (Dengor Music) 00:00 Michael Sarian The Eyes of Parajanov" from In This Desert (Burning Ambulance Music) 07:09 Kelly Green Tongue Twister" from Eat Your Greens (Green Soul Studio/La Reserve Records) 20:29 Enzo Favata Sine Nomine" from Ritomare (ECM Records) 27:02 Nicolas Meier World Group ...
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