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Featured Jazz Articles
Aaron Parks: Rising To The Challenge
"I'm always trying to put myself into scenarios with people who play in a way that challenges me and gives me a chance to grow," says pianist Aaron Parks, who has carved an impressive career in jazz since going to jny: New York City early in the new century and eventually garnering a major gig with trumpeter Terence Blanchard's band. The group's he's played in are nothing but challenging, as he serves music made by people like Kurt ...
read moreGeneration Next: Four Voices From Seattle
Each generation, an insidious notion arises, and is passed about the musical world that jazz music, the only uniquely American art form is somehow experiencing a slow, but certain death. Inevitably, this notion is set aside, and somehow projected forward in time, as a new generation of artists rise to the occasion, not only facilitating the survival of, but enabling the forward journey of the genre. In Seattle, the vibrant scene has moved forward from Quincy Jones and Ernestine Anderson, ...
read moreMiles Mosley Gets Down!
Bassist, singer and composer: Miles Mosley is all of this and much more. After studying with bass giants like John Clayton and Ray Brown, Mosley extensively toured with musicians of the caliber of Lauryn Hill, Jeff Beck, Gnarls Barkley and Mos Def and participated in the recording of albums by Korn's Jonathan Davis and Avenged Sevenfold, showing remarkable versatility and contempt for music barriers. Mosley is one of the pillars of the West Coast Get Down collective together with his ...
read moreELBJAZZ 2017
ELBJAZZ 2017 Blohm and Voss/various venues Hamburg, Germany June 2-3, 2017 Although Gregory Porter was the marquee name at the sixth edition of Elbjazz, with a strong supporting cast including Joshua Redman, Jan Garbarek, Hildegard Lernt Fliegen and Youn Sun Nah, the real star of the show was the spectacular festival setting. The Blohm and Voss shipyard, where most of the concerts were held in four different venues, provided a dramatic industrial backdrop to the ...
read moreTerri Hinte: Co-Creating the Image of Jazz
[This is the second of an All About Jazz series of interviews and articles on “The Many Faces of Jazz Today: Critical Dialogues" in which we explore the current state of jazz around the world with musicians, journalists, and entrepreneurs who give us their own unique perspectives. In the first interview of the series, saxophonist Bobby Zankel provided the perspective of a seasoned musician on his efforts to maintain his creativity and independence in an increasingly “homogenized" consumer-based environment. The ...
read more"Close Your Eyes" by Bernice Petkere
One of the major challenges of writing this column remains how to choose one song among several by a given composer that I have decided to feature. When determining to include a song by the very talented Great American Songbook composer, Bernice Petkere (1901-2000), two of my favorite songs immediately came to mind: “Close Your Eyes" and “Lullaby of the Leaves." I also marveled that both happen to be among my favorite standards written in minor keys... However, for the ...
read moreLike A Jazz Machine 2017
Like A Jazz Machine Centre Culturel Regionel Opderschmelz Dudelange, Luxembourg May 25-28, 2017 Size, as Like A Jazz Machine knows, isn't everything. The audience in the Centre Culturel Regionel Opderschmelz amounts to just four seated rows downstairs, with a small standing section to the rear, and ten rows of seats upstairs. Yet this intimate setting is the arena for an international jazz program that would be the envy of much bigger towns ...
read moreJazz Lovers Series: Hugh Hefner
If, for some reason, one were to make a list of the most famous and influential lovers of Our Music, one would find it a Sisyphean task. Jazz lovers come in all shapes and sizes, and from all walks of life. One would find us well represented across the entire spectrum of society, from sports to entertainment to politics and then back to sports because frankly, I've had enough politics for one lifetime lately. But then.
read moreMy Fats Waller Obsession: Why Do We Collect Music?
The collector pauses to reflect. As a young pianist back in high school in the 1970s, I fell into the theater crowd. We put on shows and we went to shows on Broadway. One of my favorites was Ain't Misbehain', the tribute to pianist-composer Fats Waller. I was enthralled. This was music with verve and personality, and it swung like crazy. I bought the soundtrack record and wore it out. I bought the music book and taught myself ...
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