Jazz Articles about Skylar Tang

About Skylar Tang

Album Review

The Technocats are a Michigan-based co-op septet devoted for the most part to performing the music of fellow Michigander Gregg Hill, who composed every number on the group's 2026 recording, Passionata, including its sure-to-please “bonus" track, “Double Play." The first of Hill's compositions, “Normality," sets the enterprise in motion but in so doing lands slightly on the wrong foot. After that lone misstep, however, Passionata easily qualifies as Comeback Album of the Year, as everything else is beyond ...

Album Review

Joshua Redman: Words Fall Short

Read "Words Fall Short" reviewed by Doug Collette

by Doug Collette
July 6, 2025

After extended tenures on Warner Brothers and Nonesuch Records, saxophonist/composer/bandleader Joshua Redman debuted on the Blue Note jazz label in 2023 with Where We Are. And while its successor, Words Fall Short, is right in line with that record by featuring vocals, it initiates a new phase in the leader's career by showcasing his new quartet in its recorded debut. Formed as prelude to the world tour designed to support the previous effort, pianist Paul Cornish, bassist Philip ...

Album Review

NYO Jazz: Live in Johannesburg

Read "Live in Johannesburg" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
June 5, 2025

In the summer of 2024, trumpeter/music director Sean Jones and Carnegie Hall's prodigious NYO (National Youth Orchestra) packed their bags and headed overseas for a tour of South Africa, pausing at one of that country's historic landmarks, the Market Theatre, on July 26-28 to present three days of impressive concert performances that thankfully were taped and preserved on this marvelous two-disc compilation, Live in Johannesburg. If these twenty-two young musicians represent any sort of barometer, the future ...

Rising Stars

Introducing Trumpeter Skylar Tang

by Sanford Josephson
February 6, 2025

"Every now and then," said trumpeter Sean Jones, “a musician comes along who has a vision and focus that you just know will affect the world--a sense of high artistry, skill, and profound leadership. Skylar Tang is one of the ones in her generation who fits this description." Jones is Artistic Director of Carnegie Hall's NYO Jazz, a musical ensemble that invites 22 high school students from across the country each summer to be part of a residency, ...