Interview News

Esbjorn Svensson: "What Jazz Is, Not Was" 2004 Interview Re-Featured at All About Jazz

Source: All About Jazz
June 16, 2008

We're featuring this 2004 interview in memory of Esbjorn Svensson. Svensson died on June 14th at the age of 44. Esbjorn Svensson: What Jazz Is, Not Was By Joshua Weiner Pianist Esbjorn Svensson leads the Swedish group EST, one of the most exciting and original piano trios in jazz today. They've been playing together for over 10 years, an extraordinary length of time for a jazz lineup, and have known each other much longer than that. The group has evolved ...

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Drummer George Schuller Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
June 16, 2008

Throughout musical history, the influences of substantial artists, recorded works, or certain epochal periods, have their effect on contemporaries and ensuing generations.

For those that make music, it shows up in their playing or composing. Tracking those influences, whether well-known sources or those under the radar, is not as important as the end result of an individual's statement.

Forward-thinking artists can find inventive ways of incorporating influences into personal statements. That's what Brooklyn-based drummer George Schuller has done in his ...

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Keyboardist Brian Culbertson Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
June 11, 2008

Keyboardist extraordinaire Brian Culbertson has a style that is a mixture of inimitable funk and suave grooves. Growing up, Culbertson was heavily influenced by the work of Maynard Ferguson, Dave Sanborn, the Brecker Brothers, Blood Sweat & Tears, James Brown, and Earth Wind & Fire. Bringing Back the Funk (GRP Records, 2008) employs outstanding musicians to accompany him on the exploration of his funk music roots, many of whom were a part of the very acts that influenced him. The ...

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Saxophonist John Ellis Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
June 10, 2008

Saxophonist John Ellis is a hybrid of New Orleans funk, New York modernity, Presbyterian sanctification and good ol' performing skills. He blends all those things together on his new record, Dance Like There's No Tomorrow (Hyena, 2008), which features saxophone, sousaphone, organ and drums.

AAJ contributor, and host of The Jazz Session, Jason Crane was on hand on May 14, 2008, the second of two nights at New York's The Jazz Standard where, just before hitting the stage to celebrate ...

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Pianist/Los Gauchos Leader Guillermo Klein Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
June 9, 2008

Argentine pianist, composer, and bandleader Guillermo Klein is a musician for the global age. He grew up in Buenos Aires, studied in Boston, made his name in New York, returned home for two years, and then relocated to Barcelona. His wife is American; his children are Spanish. His most famous band, Los Guachos, has an international cast that has included the likes of Miguel Zenon, Chris Cheek, Bill McHenry, Luciana Souza, and Jeff Ballard, and features an adventurous genre-defying sound. ...

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Vision Festival's Patricia Nicholson Parker Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
June 3, 2008

Patricia Nicholson Parker has been an indefatigable organizing spirit in New York City's artistic community centered on the Lower East Side since 1981, when she directed and helped to organize “A Thousand Cranes Peace Opera," for the opening of the UN Special Sessions on Disarmament. After working with bassists Peter Kowald and William Parker to help organize the ground-breaking artist-run Sound Unity Festivals in 1984 and 1988, Nicholson Parker successfully initiated and coordinated the Improvisers Collective, which ran from 1993 ...

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Father and Son Team Dino and Jose Saluzzi Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
June 2, 2008

"Remove the records from Texas, and someone will learn to sing," the composer John Cage once said. The life of Argentine bandoneonist/composer Dino Saluzzi lends weight to Cage's words. Saluzzi was born in 1935 in Campo Santo, a small city in the mountainous Argentine province of Salta, and learned music in the context of daily life without access to radio, recordings, or formal concerts. Even as Saluzzi became an internationally known artist for his unique blend of jazz, tango, folkloric, ...

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Saxophonist Roy Nathanson Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
May 27, 2008

Saxophonist Roy Nathanson was in one of the earliest versions of The Lounge Lizards, which he left to found The Jazz Passengers, a group that slowly morphed into his new ensemble, Sotto Voce. In between he also co-led a duo with keyboardist and composer, Anthony Coleman and released, among others, the ground-breaking album I Could've Been a Drum (Tzadik, 1997).

As an independent composer he also scored the work of monologue artist, David Cole. He also scored music for several ...

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