Marysia Osu

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Marysia Osu: Harp, Beats & Dreams

by Chris May
October 4, 2024

Who knows how the jazz harp paradigm might have evolved had the instrument's most adventurous twentieth-century player, Detroit-born Dorothy Ashby, lived beyond her premature passing in 1986. Since then, most American jazz harpists have stuck pretty closely to the neo-classical glissandos and block chords-based style established by Alice Coltrane. New York's Brandee Younger is among the few who have shown a more than passing interest in Ashby's work and its emphasis on horn-like single-notes runs. In Britain, ...