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Daryl Johns

Daryl Johns was born in the Bronx and began playing bass at age seven with encouragement from his father, drummer Steve Johns, and his mother, saxophonist Debbie Keefe. Johns has studied with Chip Jackson and Dave Santoro. He has attended the Jazz in July program, the Vermont Jazz Center, and the Litchfield Jazz Camp. Johns sits in regularly around the New York area with musicians including Joe Lovano, Dave Liebman, and Randy Brecker. He also performs throughout New York and New Jersey with a trio of his peers. Johns was featured on a Fox television segment called “12-Year-Old Jazz Prodigy."

The Thelonious Monk Institute awarded Daryl a special mention award at the 2009 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Bass Competition. That's where producer Don Sickler met Daryl, and he immediately wanted to get Daryl into the recording studio. By the end of January, 2010, Daryl was recording at the Van Gelder Recording Studio.

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Liner Notes

Wallace Roney: Understanding

Read "Wallace Roney: Understanding" reviewed by John Kelman


With the concept of mentoring an increasingly forgotten part of how young, up-and-coming musicians cut their teeth--learning from older, more experienced musicians before heading out into the world as leaders--the jazz world needs more people like Wallace Roney. One look at every record the trumpeter has made since signing with HighNote in 2004, with Prototype the first of seven albums culminating in the album you're now holding in your hands, and it's clear that Roney takes the concept of mentoring ...

2
Album Review

Meredith d'Ambrosio: Sometime Ago

Read "Sometime Ago" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Dopo dieci anni di silenzio discografico è un gran piacere ascoltare un nuovo album della cantante di Boston, il diciassettesimo per la Sunnyside, con cui pubblica dalla metà degli anni ottanta, qualche anno dopo il suo debutto. Più che cantante Meredith preferisce definirsi “song stylist" e tale resta all'età di 81 anni, senza perdere un grammo di classe interpretativa e pregevole essenzialità. Con l'età il timbro s'è irrobustito, conferendo nuove ombreggiature al suo eloquio ma intonazione e ...

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Album Review

Immanuel Wilkins: The 7th Hand

Read "The 7th Hand" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic


That we are free to think saxophone firebrand Immanuel Wilkins' 2020 Blue Note debut Omega served as a sign of hope amid a particularly hopeless year puts an awful lot of weight on the shoulders of a 25-year-old and, beyond doubt, colors the fate of The 7th Hand. Humbly and characteristically, Wilkins and company meet the challenge head-on. Searching for nothingness in a culture of excess, “Lift," the seventh and closing exhortation to empathy that guides The 7th ...

Album Review

Immanuel Wilkins: The 7th Hand

Read "The 7th Hand" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Dopo l'acclamato debutto di Omega Immanuel Wilkins disegna un altro avvincente affresco, confermando l'intento a elaborare nuovi percorsi musicali inglobando la tradizione. Con lui ritroviamo i giovani partner del suo quartetto (Micah Thomas al pianoforte, Daryl Johns al contrabbasso e Kweku Sumbry alla batteria) più la bravissima flautista Elena Pinderhughes (già con Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah e Ambrose Akinmusire) e l'ensemble di percussioni Farafina Kan. Mentre conferma il magistrale eloquio strumentale con lunghi, intensi ...

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Album Review

Immanuel Wilkins: Omega

Read "Omega" reviewed by Paul Rauch


At the moment Omega, the debut solo album of young alto saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins, was released on Blue Note in May 2020, America was ablaze with the fight for justice following the murder by police of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The sessions for the album were recorded prior to the event that propelled the Black Lives Matter movement, and spread to the streets in demand for racial justice like no other time in American history. Yet the album is an ...

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Sometime Ago

Sunnyside Records
2021

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The 7th Hand

Blue Note Records
2021

buy

Omega

Blue Note Records
2020

buy

Understanding

HighNote Records
2013

buy

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