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Daily articles carefully curated by the All About Jazz staff. Read our popular and future articles.
Maria’s A Winner & Sonny Is Too
Sometimes in this business, you get so saturated with new music that your ears are paralyzed. The blues to the rescue, including Dexter Gordon singing with his voice, not just the saxophone. We also salute and celebrate Maria Schneider's receipt of a Jazz Masters' Award this spring from the National Endowment for the Arts. The first 2019 segment of our Sonny Rollins retrospective precedes Maria, with the 1951 Dig sessions with Miles. Then we turn reflective at this start of ...
read moreMaria Schneider: On the Road Again
Five time Grammy Award winner Maria Schneider and her eighteen-piece collective, some of the finest musicians on the jazz scene today, is on the road in 2018. All About Jazz spoke to the composer/arranger about her work, her love of music and her involvement and commitment to improve on the Music Modernization Act during a stop-over on the tour. The interview was conducted via telephone. All About Jazz: Good morning, Maria and welcome to Virginia. Maria ...
read moreThem There Eyes & Songs for the New Year
Welcome September and happy New Year! In the first hour, a celebration of songs by Doris Tauber (composer of “Them There Eyes" and “Drinking Again"), followed by artists covering songs by Maria Schneider, and new releases to herald the change of season. Playlist Rachel Z “All I Want" from Moon at the Window (SHRAPNEL (ORCH)) 00:00 Ian Shaw “Chelsea Morning" from Drawn to All Things(Linn Records) 05:08 Claire Martin “Two Grey Rooms" from Time & Place (Linn ...
read moreMolde International Jazz Festival 2018
Moldejazz Festival Molde, Norway July 16-21, 2018 The Moldejazz festival is the second oldest in Europe--it was started in 1961, just one year behind Ljubljana, in 1960--and is still the most important one in Norway. It was here that Keith Jarrett and Jan Garbarek took their first steps in creating the Allentown pianist's “European quartet." It was here too, even earlier, that Garbarek came into contact with George Russell, the composer and pianist from ...
read moreMaria Schneider on "The Thompson Fields"
Maria Schneider is one of the most influential artists on the international jazz scene. Her open minded approach has led her to become a referent as a composer without being tagged to a specific genre. In the jazz panorama, she receives recognition for her impeccable, beautiful and meaningful compositions as well as for her passionate and determined work as a conductor of her orchestra. The Thompson Fields (ArtistShare, 2015) marks the first Maria Schneider Orchestra release in eight years. With ...
read moreMaria Schneider Orchestra: The Thompson Fields
At the time Maria Schneider released Evanescence (Enja, 1994), big band jazz--especially in the US--was overly predictable and indecisively hanging on like ballroom music in a ghost town. Schneider, while embracing the best practices of earlier legendary big band leaders and her mentors, Gil Evans and Bob Brookmeyer, had added unconventional elements to her own compositions. With each release she has become more of an avant-garde impressionist capturing the beauty and sadness of a nomadic soul wandering through what was ...
read moreMaria Schneider Orchestra: The Thompson Fields
The singular achievement of Maria Schneider is to merge the particular with the universal: to use her very personal experiences and memories as grist for music which is aurally beautiful and deeply infused with love. This love originates from Schneider the person and artist; it is amplified and returned by those directly involved in the creation of this work through the ArtistShare process (including those who commissioned “Arbiters of Evolution," “Home" and “Lembranca"); finally, it is received by ...
read moreFeatured Video
Balinese Butterflies by Frank Macchia & Brock AveryFeaturing the music of Frank Macchia
Contest Giveaway
ELIGIBLE WINNERS: 10 | DAYS REMAINING: 28
Prize: 10 copies of Rhythm Abstraction: Azure by Frank Macchia
Rhythm Abstraction: Azure is the first volume of new compositions created as a follow up to 2018’s release Rhythm Kaleidoscope. As with that release, Brock Avery improvised drum and percussion solos. Frank Macchia then composed music for woodwinds and orchestra to Brock’s creations. Azure is the first of three extended play albums of 6-7 compositions which will be released starting in January and followed up in April and July. In Azure we have a created a group of pieces that continue our quest for honoring the art of improvisation with a “stream-of-consciousness” sense of composition,...
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