Results for "Earth Wind & Fire"
Take Five With Guitarist Scott Emmerman

by AAJ Staff
Meet Scott Emmerman Scott Emmerman is a jazz-rock guitarist whose playing incorporates elements of r&b, jazz, & rock. Born in Chicago, Scott was steeped in the blues at an early age but became enamored with the music of Jimi Hendrix and later began to explore jazz through the music of John McLaughlin. He performed on guitar ...
Steve Argüelles: Home

by Ludovico Granvassu
How do you approach a solo recording session as a drummer? Especially as a drummer that does not seem to believe in drum solos? What challenges does such a format pose to a musician with a penchant for nurturing long-lasting collaborations rather than pursuing vanity projects? Does a solo album leave room ...
Take Five with Tobin Mueller

by AAJ Staff
Meet Tobin Mueller Connecticut-based composer, arranger, playwright and pianist Tobin Mueller has just released his 35th album: Prestidigitation, drawing on a long career of innovation and artistry. Mueller's compositions range from Jazz Fusion to Progressive Rock, Broadway musicals to Old-School Funk, Classical ballet to video games. His jazz ensemble recordings have featured legendary bassist Ron Carter, ...
The Persistence of Big Bands

by Geno Thackara
It's faintly amazing to be able to talk at all about big-band recordings--plural--emerging during an ongoing pandemic with no end in sight. Nonetheless it's a milieu that still enjoys plenty of devotion, and musicians (especially jazz players) are no strangers to realizing ideas that seem practically impossible. Here we have scores of them willing to keep ...
Emma-Jean Thackray: Yellow

by Jim Trageser
Many of the most prominent exponents of melding jazz with soul, funk and hip-hop have been trumpeters. Even in the late 1970s, Chuck Mangione was already taking soul-jazz and moving it further into an R&B orbit (and taking heat from jazz purists for supposedly selling out"), and in so doing exposing lots of pop fans to ...
Brian Jackson: Winter In America Pt. 2

by Chris May
As Gil Scott-Heron's songwriting and performing partner during the 1970s, keyboardist, composer and arranger Brian Jackson was co-author of some of the most galvanising liberation music of the era. Inhabiting the intersection of jazz, soul and spoken word, Jackson and Scott-Heron, who met while they were both students at Lincoln University, were a team from Pieces ...
Josh Lawrence: Triptych

by David A. Orthmann
Triptych succeeds on the connection between Josh Lawrence's writing and a coterie of players with whom he has been associated for several years. A brilliant, enterprising band comprised of the leader's trumpet, pianist Zaccai Curtis, his brother, bassist Luques Curtis, alto saxophonist Caleb Curtis (no relation), and drummer Anwar Marshall readily embrace the contours of Lawence's ...
Gideon King: Street Jazz

by Paul Naser
New York based guitarist/composer/ songwriter Gideon King is no stranger to the city. Growing up there, he is well positioned to tell a story or two about the place. This is just what he sets out to do with his forthcoming release with his band City Blog, entitled Upscale Madhouse. Far from a condemnation, the title ...
Phat Phunktion: Live at the High Noon

by Doug Collette
If you have an abiding appetite or innate taste for old school funk a la Tower of Power, then Phat Phunktion is right in your wheelhouse. This band is poetry in motion-constantly-but without the off-putting histrionics and faux showmanship that so often undermines the impact of the musicianship. Consequently, as with Don't Destroy the ...
Ajoyo: Ajoyo

by Chris M. Slawecki
Multi-reed player Yacine Boulares has picked up, and left behind, musical footprints literally all around the world. He was born in North Africa (Tunisia) but grew up in Paris, where he studied philosophy at the Sorbonne and jazz performance at the National Conservatory and New School for Jazz. As a Fulbright scholar, Boulares continued his musical ...