Articles

Daily articles carefully curated by the All About Jazz staff. Read our popular and future articles.

ALBUM REVIEW May 18, 2018

Kobie Watkins: Movement

Read "Movement" reviewed by K. Shackelford

Solidifying a musical 'voice' could take five years, or it could take 15 years. Yet when an artist's 'voice' or style comes, well, you just know it. The result is work with musical moves that are distinctive and ideas that are au courant. Drummer/Composer/Bandleader Kobie Watkins' voice resounds with artistic certainty and savoir faire on his second album entitled Movement (Origin Records, 2018), featuring the Kobie Watkins Grouptet. Watkins, a Chicago native, has toured and recorded as a ...

INTERVIEW December 5, 2014

Kobie Watkins: A Drummer's Voyage

By K. Shackelford

jny: Chicago native Kobie Watkins is a leading voice in the new generation of jazz drummers. I saw Watkins several months ago at The Jazz Room in jny: Charlotte and his performance was bananas--the crowd was in awe and after each solo there was thundering applause. An absolute wonder to watch, his polyrhythmic creativity and concepts create unique musical art that has put him in the category of a young jazz master. For this reason, he has been sought after ...

ALBUM REVIEW August 20, 2009

Etienne Charles: Folklore

By Larry Reni Thomas

Trumpeter Etienne Charles' Folklore is a wonderful, colorful, vibrant recording filled with Caribbean flavor, Latin grooves and solid jazz arrangements and solos. A percussionist and composer as well, the 26-year-old Charles has an extremely unique trumpet sound that is his and his alone. He doesn't sound like Wynton Marsalis, Roy Hargrove, or Miles Davis, nor does he sound like fellow West Indian native, the Jamaican-born Dizzy Reece (a trumpet sensation of the 1950s and 1960s and one the Caribbean's most ...

ALBUM REVIEW May 18, 2009

Kobie Watkins: Involved

By John Barron

Perhaps the title to drummer Kobie Watkins' debut, Involved, makes reference to the Chicago native's involvement with some of the highest profile jazz artists around. A regular in the bands of saxophonist Sonny Rollins, guitarist Bobby Broom, and vocalist Kurt Elling, Watkins has proven himself a stand-out accompanist, possessing a confident blend of fire and sensitivity. With a slew of fellow Chicagoans, including Broom, trumpeter Pharez Whitted, and saxophonist Geof Bradfield, Watkins blends straight-ahead blowing and unabashed funk to create ...