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Featured Jazz Articles
Eliane Elias: For The Love of Jazz
Grammy award winner. Child prodigy. Internationally renowned artist. Sophisticated and improvisational jazz pianist. A vocalist of style and grace. A woman of beauty and integrity. Yes, I am speaking of Brazil's gift to the jazz world, Eliane Elias. To be so fortunate to recently speak with this remarkable woman was a treat and memorable moment in time. We spoke about the past, present, and future. We certainly talked about her superb, and soon to be released, new album. We spoke ...
read moreTula's Jazz Club: Soliloquy to a Seattle Jazz Institution
It was the tail end of a long weekend. Temperatures had risen to 80 degrees under a sunny only-in-Seattle blue sky, the waterways and markets humming with a sea of humanity. It was not a night one would expect many to venture into the quiet, dark solitude of Tula's Jazz Club, where for nearly 26 years the best of Seattle's vibrant jazz scene had come to roost. The scene up and down Second Avenue in Belltown was its usual interesting ...
read moreRichie Beirach: Indelible Memories and Thought-Provoking Reflections on a Life in Jazz, Part 1
Part 1 | Part 2 Richie Beirach hovers somewhat mysteriously in the pantheon of the great modern jazz pianists. Some of the others in that category from his generation (coming up in the 1960s/'70s), like Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, and Kenny Barron have greater celebrity, but Beirach easily qualifies alongside them as one of the most accomplished masters. While the aforementioned have developed a signature style, emotional power, and virtuosic technique, Beirach, above and beyond those ...
read moreNewport Jazz Festival 2019
Newport Jazz Festival Fort Adams State Park Newport, RI August 2-4, 2019 The 65th Anniversary Newport Jazz Festival continued an established tradition of delivering an exceptional level of high quality musicianship. Over the three fully packed days (and one special evening at the International Tennis Hall of Fame) from August 2nd to 4th, an amazing range of talent was on stage, from debut performances of up and coming artists, to the famed legendary veterans still ...
read moreScenes From a Life in Jazz, Part 2: Life on the Road
Part 1 | Part 2 Duncan Lamont was one of the UK's musical treasures. He passed away unexpectedly, a couple of days before his upcoming 88th birthday on July 4th, 2019, having done a gig at the 606 Club in London the night before. I'd known and admired who he was for years and we had several close mutual musical acquaintances. I finally got to play with him at The Pizza Express in Soho, London in 2018. Sammy ...
read moreMaureen Choi: A Fusion of Passion and Intent
Maureen Choi is certainly not the first musician to find their way into the improvisational jazz world after years of training as a classical violinist. It was an unlikely direction for a woman who grew up with formal classical training and further had never really listened to jazz. Fast forwarding to the present, we now have the Maureen Choi Quartet. A nothing-short-of-brilliant ensemble of musicians who play and compose with intense and fiery passion. Choi's music is a seamless symmetry ...
read moreRalph Peterson: True Messenger, True Warrior
Drummer Ralph Peterson has been on the jazz scene for some 35 years or more, carving out a career as a performer and an educator that would be the envy of many. His main influence is the legendary Art Blakey, and Peterson has been a standard bearer for that music and that style for some time. It's not his only thing though. He's played with Walter Davis, {{Jon Faddis, David Murray, Stanley Turrentine, Craig Harris, Henry Threadgill, Michael ...
read moreBack to Brazil: Part One
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 The recent passing of Brazilian music icon João Gilberto at the age of 88 invites us to reflect on the music revolution he was influential in sparking over six decades ago. The singer and guitarist, partnering with composer Antônio Carlos Jobim, announced the arrival of a distinctly new style with his 1958 recording of Jobim's “Chega de Saudade," and the new Brazilian sound, dubbed Bossa Nova (the “New Thing," among ...
read moreA to JazZ Festival 2019
A to JazZ Festival 2019 South Park II Sofia, Bulgaria July 5-7, 2019 Jazz on a summer's day. There's nothing quite like it. To see Sofia's South Park II packed with somewhere between fifteen and twenty thousand people for three days of jazz, where a veritable sea of good vibes held sway, was an uplifting sight. That people came in such numbers was chiefly due to the fact that A to JazZ ...
read moreWOKE JAZZ: The Fast-Forward Evolution of British Jazz
After a lifetime in the shadow of its American parent, British jazz is finally coming of age. A community of young, London-based musicians is forging a style which, while anchored in the American tradition, reflects the modern Caribbean and African cultural heritages of the majority of its vanguard players. The music also addresses the race, class and gender inequalities which are features of life in Britain. The new London scene is by no means racially exclusive, but it ...
read moreMonty Alexander: Still Rolling
If there's one defining quality to Monty Alexander's music, it's joy. An unmistakable undercurrent of happiness has been constant across several decades, dozens of recordings and countless performances all over the world. He could be honoring classic jazz balladeers, exploring the danceable “riddims" of his native Jamaica or anything in between, and you can always hear the spirit of celebration in there somewhere. Alexander turns out to be just as delightful and effusive in conversation as he is ...
read moreBarry Mayo Reframed: From Radio Mogul to Photographer and Award Winning Filmmaker Chasing Light
“Innovators always seek to revitalize, extend and reconstruct the status quo in their given fields, wherever it is needed...they are forever guided by the great and eternal constant—the creative urge. Let us cherish it and give all praise to God." —John Coltrane My friend Barry Mayo, former radio industry mogul and innovator, now an artistic photographer and award-winning documentarian once told me, there are no coincidences in the impactful moments which alter our trajectories. He calls these times ...
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