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Article: In the Artist's Own Words

Henry Mancini: The Genius Composer - 25th Anniversary Edition

by Nazareno Bicocchi
April 21, 2026

The Personal Bond with Henry Mancini: The genius composer who redesigned my world through his magical notes My first encounter with Henry Mancini didn't happen by a deliberate choice, but through a cassette recorder and a local radio station in Rome. It was 1998, and at sixteen, I was a young musician obsessed with searching for ...

Article: In the Artist's Own Words

Miles Davis Centennial Celebration At SFJAZZ 2026

by Walter Atkins
April 5, 2026

The 2026 Miles Davis Centennial Celebration at SFJAZZ marked the first hundred years of the innovator, musician and painter Miles Dewey Davis III. Davis' nephew, producer and Miles Electric Band leader Vince Wilburn Jr has maintained and directed the influential legacy of Davis for decades. This year, Wilburn introduced several fresh elements to his annual visit ...

Article: In the Artist's Own Words

Alison Shearer In Her Own Words

by Walter Atkins
March 5, 2026

Bandleader Alison Shearer brought her talented Quartet to San Francisco's Black Cat for an expansive four-day residency. Her quartet consisted of keyboardist Kevin Bernstein, bassist Marty Kenny, drummer Diego Joaquin Ramirez and Shearer, saxophone and flute. The set included her compositions “Celestial," “Liberty Market" and “Cycles." After a productive week, she spent an extra day in ...

Article: In the Artist's Own Words

Why Is Japan a Jazz Paradise? Part 2—From Sake to Soul: Jazz Musicians and Their Love for Japan

by Atzko Kohashi
August 6, 2025

Part 1 | Part 2 In May 2025 Japan welcomed an estimated 3.693 million visitors, marking a surge in global fascination with the country--up 125% (more than double!) compared to a decade ago. Many come for the exquisite Japanese cuisine, the tranquil atmosphere of temples and shrines, the ultra-modern buzz of Tokyo, or the ...

Article: In the Artist's Own Words

Why Is Japan a Jazz Paradise—or—Why the Japanese Feel at Home in Jazz?

by Atzko Kohashi
July 6, 2025

Part 1 | Part 2Why is Japan such a jazz-loving nation? No other country has reissued so many classic jazz albums as Japan. From Blue Note to Riverside to Prestige, masterpieces are constantly being revived--remastered with pristine sound, released in exclusive paper sleeves, or in ultra-high-quality formats like SHM-CD or SACD. Some albums long ...

Article: Opinion

Not Like Before: Michael Robinson's Jazz Without Borders

by Michael Robinson
March 22, 2023

Playing my personal vision of jazz, claiming that name as part of my heritage, I endeavor feeling the rhythms of life in the present, past and future, entering into them through touch and nuance at the piano, connecting rajas, sattva and tamas; circular movement, cohesion and disintegration. I've been fortunate to know masters of improvised ...

Article: In the Artist's Own Words

On the Road With Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids

by Gioele Pagliaccia
October 11, 2021

The first time I met Idris Ackamoor was inside of Centro Stabile di Cultura on a Sunday afternoon in November 2018. The organizers at this historical venue in San Vito di Leguzzano, a small village half hour from Vicenza surrounded by foundries and wheat fields, asked me if I could lend my Ludwig Drums to the ...

Article: In the Artist's Own Words

Bobby Sanabria: West Side Story Reimagined

by Bobby Sanabria
July 27, 2018

West Side Story holds a special place in my heart. I first saw the movie as a young boy when my parents José and Juanita took me and my sister Joanne to the luxurious Loews Paradise on the Grand Concourse in my hometown Da' Bronx in celebration of the film's 10th anniversary. At that time there wasn't ...

Article: In the Artist's Own Words

But Beautiful: My Life with Billie Holiday

by Lara Downes
September 24, 2015

Every Saturday morning, when I was a little girl, my sisters and I went to the San Francisco Conservatory of Music for what we called “Saturday Classes": piano lessons, theory, music history--serious classical music training for serious little musicians. Saturday afternoons, when we got home, we had a ritual. We'd get out our “dress-up" from the ...

Article: In the Artist's Own Words

The Most Beautiful Thing

by Michael Bisio
September 26, 2014

For me music is full of magic, mystery, spirituality, joy, passion and fire, blue to red, yet my journey to conceptualize finds me chasing the most objective truths I can discover, truths stripped of every aesthetic element possible. In High School during an intro to theory class my teacher announced: music is sound in time. We ...