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Ignition of the Ages: Sonny Sharrock’s Seismic Siege of the Detroit State Theatre
Sonny Sharrock was a singular force in music, a brilliant and volcanic guitarist who bridged the jagged divide between the visceral power of Jimi Hendrix and the spiritual depth of John Coltrane. In 1991, he released his masterpiece, “Ask the Ages," a record that remains a high-water mark of modern jazz. Tragically, it would serve as his final statement; Sharrock passed away just a few years after its release, leaving behind a profound “what-if" in the history of the genre. ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Take Five with Saxophonist Steve Treseler
Meet Steve Treseler Steve Treseler is an award-winning Seattle-based saxophonist, composer, and innovative leader in teaching improvised music. Hailed by Earshot as a “firebrand of the tenor saxophone," DownBeat calls his music “beautifully crafted... whether free, through-composed, or somewhere in between." Steve performs and leads improvisation workshops throughout North America and Europe, performing at Birdland, Blue Note Hawaii, and live on NPR's Jazz Night in America. Steve has performed or recorded with Bill Frisell, Bob Brookmeyer, Leroy Jones, Jeff Hamilton, ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra With Wynton Marsalis at Hancher Auditorium
Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis Hancher Auditorium Iowa City, IA January 29, 2026 Wynton Marsalis, the great trumpeter, composer and educator, founded New York City's Jazz at Lincoln Center (JALC) in 1987 and has served as its artistic director ever since. JALC, home to the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (JLCO), exists “to entertain, enrich and expand a global community for jazz through performance, education, and advocacy." The JLCO, a big band ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Don Was and the Pan-Detroit Ensemble at the Newman Center
Don Was and the Pan-Detroit Ensemble Newman Center Denver, CO January 29, 2026 What to make of Don Was? He was co-leader of the band Was (Not Was), a band known for Frank Zappa-esque irreverent, off-beat humor that drew musical inspiration from rock, funk, soul, r&b, dance music, jazz, pop, world music, country, fusion, reggae and more. How does someone like that end up as president of Blue Note Records, one of the most storied ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
The Maria Schneider Orchestra at Birdland
The Maria Schneider Orchestra Birdland New York, NY February 4, 2026 Seeing the Maria Schneider Orchestra is always a singular experience. It's not just the music, although that is unfailingly rich and distinctive. In person, Schneider also disarms, and in the best way. At Birdland last Wednesday, the Minnesotan managed to marry the sophistication of jazz with the homespun directness of small town America through both her music and her Midwestern charm. A case in point came early ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
In Memoriam Richie Beirach: Chronicalling A Magical Encounter With A Jazz Hero I Never Met
Note: This story about the late great pianist, composer, and educator Richie Beirach shares the author's feelings and thoughts about him as a result of their four-year email and phone exchange from July 25, 2019 to March 11, 2023. These exchanges followed an in-depth, two-part interview for All About Jazz in which Beirach spoke at length and in detail about his life and musical journey. The interviewer, Victor Schermer, got to know him at a deeper, more intimate level personally ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Mozart in the Void: Air from Other Planets
The candle on the bedside table had long since gone out. The room was cold, the kind of Austrian winter chill that seeps into the bone and settles there, yet Maria Anna “Nannerl" Mozart was numb to it. It had been nearly a week since the tragic news had arrived from Vienna. A week since her world had turned gray. “Wolfgang." Now, his name itself was like a jagged stone in her throat, impossible to swallow, impossible to ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Vincent Peirani: Magnetic Dancing on the Cliff
There exists a mystery to melody. For example, “Left Alone," composed on a cross-country flight by Mal Waldron and Billie Holiday. In a few hours, the melody and the chords were established, an absolute compositional masterpiece, full stop. So much beauty served by implacable writing rigor: giants achieve it. Vincent Peirani achieves it. “Physical Attraction," released on Living Being IV (Time Reflections), ACT Music, 2025), consists of a few notes composed by Peirani and rendered by Emile Parisien, another giant. Five, ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Let Me Be Frank: The Extraordinary Life and Music of Frank Sinatra, Jr.
Let Me Be Frank: The Extraordinary Life and Music of Frank Sinatra, Jr.Bruce Klauber and Andrea Kauffman216 Pages ISBN: # 97-1-4968-5865-8 University Press of Mississippi2025 Sid Mark, the legendary Philadelphia broadcaster who for many years hosted the iconic radio show “The Sounds of Sinatra," liked to tell a joke about the Chairman of the Board that inspired instant self-recognition among most men of the time who heard it. “A great musician dies, ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Patrick Watson: Peter, The Wolf, And The New Orleans Bayou Ghosts
Is Patrick Watson a jazz musician? Lennie Tristano said that jazz is defined by feeling. Having seen Patrick Watson on stage in 2025 in Lausanne and 2026 in Winterthur, Switzerland, he definitely has it, plus very cool vibes. He deserves the title. Since its release, “Peter and the Wolf" from Uh Oh (Secret City Records, 2025) has been stuck in my head. I thought I should (try to) exorcise it here. It is a simple twelve bar melody ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Greg Osby at SFJAZZ Center
Greg Osby SFJAZZ Center San Francisco, CA February 1, 2026 Alto jazz saxophonist Greg Osby has an impressive résumé. A St. Louis, Missouri native, Osby finished his studies at Howard University and the Berklee College of Music before moving to New York City in 1982. Since then he has performed and recorded with a number of legendary musicians, including pianists Jaki Byard, Muhal Richard Abrams, Andrew Hill, and John Abercrombie. He was also a member ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
A Wind For All Seasons
There is something positively elemental in the artistry of Martin Wind. Beyond being one of the music's premier bassists, he is a creatively driven composer and leader--a seemingly bottomless font of expression in action--and his work most certainly represents the breadth, and breath, carried in his name. One minute he's conjuring a Brazilian Nordeste with buoyant allure, the next he's evoking a warm and enveloping zephyr with his woody tones. His fertile imagination draws out föhns, sondos, mistrals, kogorashis, siroccos, ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Winter Wine & Song
These days, and especially in January, it seems like we're saturated in conversations about the question: “to drink, or not to drink?" The topic is nearly always about alcohol --a broad genus with many varied species from moonshine to Château d'Yquem. It's like talking about the entirety of foodstuffs as “calories" and failing to distinguish between an apple and a Dorito. Anyhow, I'm here to keep us on the artful side of things--so let's dim the discourse and get to ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Ben Wendel With Gilad Hekselman: October
Ben Wendel's 2015 The Seasons was initially a video-only project featuring the saxophonist in a different duet for each month of the year. The project was so successful, it later spawned a tour and a studio album [The Seasons (Motéma Music, 2018)] that featured Aaron Parks, Gilad Hekselman, Matt Brewer and Eric Harland. “October," with guitarist Hekselman, was a highlight of the original 12 duets for its seamless and inventive use of real-time technology--not to mention that it's pretty darn catchy....
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Brandon Woody And UPENDO At The Buffalo AKG Museum’s Art Of Jazz Series
Brandon Woody And UPENDO Buffalo AKG Art Museum Auditorium Art Of Jazz Series Buffalo, NY February 1, 2026 The afternoon sun was fading on a cold Buffalo Sunday as a sold-out crowd made its way into the Buffalo AKG Art Museum's Auditorium for the first of four concerts in the 2026 Art Of Jazz series. The space emitted a relaxed, treehouse vibe as a group of rising young Baltimore musicians took the stage. On ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Brazil Music Club at Winter Jazzfest 2026
Hamilton de Holanda Trio, Flávio Silva, Jamile & Vinicius Gomes Brazil Music Club at Winter JazzFest Nublu 151 January 8, 2026 Nublu, which sits on the corner of Avenue C and 10th Street on the Lower East Side of New York City, was overflowing for Brazil Music Club night at the 2026 Winter Jazzfest, with fans in the aisles, on the steps, and up on the catwalk. The early evening performance on Thursday, January 8, presented ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Marek Śmietański's Favorite Polish Jazz Albums Of 2025
As part of Year in Review series, I've already highlighted my favorite albums of 2025 (you can view the list here). While I included artists from around the world, intentionally leaving out my own Poland. And yet Polish jazz has a remarkably strong and distinctive identity. It emerged from a deep craving for freedom and a dialogue with the West, serving for decades as a subtle form of artistic resistance. After many years of searching for its own voice, it ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Mark Lettieri: Expanding Boundaries
In the years since Mark Lettieri first sat down with All About Jazz, much has changed--and, in a sense, much has not. At the time of that (2020 interview), Lettieri had a budding solo career, but was still primarily known as being part of Snarky Puppy's (SP) formidable six-string triumvirate (along with fellow guitarists Bob Lanzetti and Chris McQueen). Today, he's still very active in SP--and the Vulfpeck-adjacent Fearless Flyers--but Lettieri's profile as a solo artist has seemingly ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Introducing Saxophonist Langston Hughes II
In the April 2024 issue of Jersey Jazz, drummer Ulysses Owens, Jr. told me he had recently taken four young musicians with him for a tour in Tokyo. One of them was saxophonist Langston Hughes II, then studying for his master's degree at Juilliard. Hughes, said Owens, is “burning up the scene." The 24-year-old Hughes vividly remembers that experience. “It was my first trip out of the country. The culture and the respect they have for jazz in ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz