Catching Up With

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

Less formal than our standard interviews with a focus on an artist's recent recording project or tour.

CATCHING UP WITH December 29, 2020

Ron Miles: Rainbow Sign Of The Times

The title of Ron Miles' Rainbow Sign (Blue Note Records, 2020) carries great personal meaning for the Denver cornetist/composer and educator. The initial influence was The Carter Family song “God Gave Noah the Rainbow Sign," with its line 'No more water but the fire next time," which in turn gave James Baldwin the title for his famous book on racial injustice, The Fire Next Time (Dial Press, 1963). “That's where James Baldwin got that," says Miles. “This kind of sense ...

CATCHING UP WITH December 22, 2020

Allison Miller: Driving the Balance

By John Pietaro

Allison Miller sits at the vintage Camco drumkit in her Brooklyn home, playing post-bop over a rolling samba. Within the shimmer of an age-darkened cymbal, she switches from sticks to brushes, filling the room with the shush of summer rain, then a sudden hailstorm as her arms, aerial, traverse snare, tom-toms and cymbals in a blurring, but loving assault. Just a release of Covid fallout frustration? Maybe for some, but Miller remains unstoppable: this time also marks the rising of ...

CATCHING UP WITH December 20, 2020

Claire Cowan: Jazz in Ballet

By Martin McFie

Composer Claire Cowan has been writing film scores since 2007. She branched out from her film work to accept a commission from the Royal New Zealand Ballet company, producing a completely new score for the Brothers Grimm fairy tale “Hansel and Gretel." An old lady living in the woods who fattens up children with gingerbread to make a tasty meal would today find herself high on the FBI's most wanted list. However, in 1802, the publication of a collection of ...

CATCHING UP WITH December 7, 2020

Jack DeJohnette: Bill Evans Legacy

By Franz A. Matzner

Modern Drummer Hall of Fame inductee, drummer and pianist Jack DeJohnette has shaped jazz drumming for decades. A compatriot of illustrious players like Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, John Scofield, and many more, DeJohnette helped shape a new conception of what the drums could bring to ensembles, including adding color, detail, and fluid interplay. His contributions to the music are legendary and could fill volumes. Reinforcing this impact, Resonance Records has been releasing a series of never-before heard live recordings of ...

CATCHING UP WITH November 28, 2020

Olafur Arnalds: Music and Art are Most Important in Times like These

By Nenad Georgievski

Icelandic composer Olafur Arnalds has been described as a contemporary composer and synthesist, but that doesn't adequately reflect the alchemy of modern and traditional that he is able to blend on his new record, some kind of peace (Mercury KX, 2020). The album is steeped in reflective and introspective emotions, and themes that provide an underlying narrative. Cinematic in its scope and scrupulous in its detail some kind of peace has a melancholy beautiful yet is an uplifting album. Characteristically, ...

CATCHING UP WITH November 23, 2020

Sarah McKenzie: A Mysterious Thing Called Songwriting

By Emmanuel Di Tommaso

Secrets of My Heart is the fifth studio album of the Australian singer, composer and pianist Sarah McKenzie. Released in 2019, this album represents a joyous and uncanny combination of classical jazz standards and new original compositions with a brilliant fusion between jazz, blues and latin sounds. We took the opportunity of the European tour of Secrets of My Heart to speak to the Australian Jazz Bell Award-winning about the genesis of this album, the importance of songwriting and the ...

CATCHING UP WITH October 14, 2020

Tigran Hamasyan: Music and Arts Have a Purpose to Elevate People Spiritually

By Nenad Georgievski

Armenian pianist Tigran Hamasyan is a composer who has built his career on defying expectations, taking chances, exploring and pushing the boundaries between genres and geographies. His albums serve as a testament to his diverse musical tastes where any combination of musical possibilities can emerge. In a sense, he has managed to find a way to make all of these sounds and influences work seamlessly and imaginatively, resulting in series of groundbreaking albums. Each of these records has its own ...