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Monty Alexander: Still Rolling
by Geno Thackara
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 Creative Musicians Improvisers Forum: New Haven's AACM
by Daniel Barbiero
The late 1960s through the 1970s and '80s were difficult years for jazz and jazz-derived improvised music, but they were also years that saw musicians—by necessity—respond to these difficulties with creative solutions. With first the rise and then the commercial dominance during those years of rock music and the corresponding eclipse of jazz, creative musicians in ...
Theo Croker: It's Just Black Music
by Keith Henry Brown
In a field teeming with talented young lions, the bright sound of trumpeter Theo Croker still sticks out. Grandson of the legendary jazz trumpeter Doc Cheatham, the native Floridian graduated from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and is part of a new movement of emerging jazz artists who expertly incorporate hip hop, electronic and R&B elements ...
Omar Sosa: Building Bridges Not Walls
by Duncan Heining
Cuban-born pianist, Omar Sosa is a passionate man. Music, religion, family, his relationship to the planet—all these are inseparable to an artist whose musical world is steeped in the Afro-Cuban heritage that he draws upon so personally and individually in his work. Spinning culinary metaphors to describe the processes of music-making, he sings the praises of ...
April Birthday Salutes
by Marc Cohn
This week we salute Alfred Lion (co-founder of Blue Note) with three tracks (Hubbard, Green, Turrentine with James Oscar). Then we add two blues with lyrics by Alberta Hunter, including Bessie Smith's very first recording; the April 'first ladies of song' do Ellington; Ellington does Ellington in three different settings; and Mingus celebrates in Paris (impress ...
Women in Jazz, Pt. 2: The Girls From Piney Woods
by Karl Ackermann
In Part 1 of Women in Jazz we looked at the historical position of women in early jazz. Despite their influence in shaping the art, their talent as composers, arrangers, instrumentalists, and band leaders, women have often been token additions; marginalized window dressing in a male-dominated world. One hundred years after Lil Hardin held ...
Kresten Osgood Quintet: Kresten Osgood Quintet Plays Jazz
by Dan McClenaghan
One way of getting a handle on a jazz artist's style is a perusal of their “played with," “recorded with" resume. Danish drummer Kresten Osgood has collaborated in the recording studio with the likes of pianists Paul Bley and Masabumi Kikuchi, bassist Mark Dresser and saxophonist Sam Rivers--free-flying iconoclasts all. The drummer/bandleader lives up to that ...
2018: The Year in Jazz
by Ken Franckling
The year 2018 was a busy one for the jazz world. The genre's version of the #MeToo movement resulted in a new Code of Conduct and other efforts to make the music workplace more equitable. International Jazz Day brought its biggest stage to St. Petersburg, Russia. The Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, which ran a high-profile ...
In Memoriam: Jazz Musicians Who Passed in 2018
by Maxim Micheliov
As 2018 comes to a close, we wanted to take a moment to remember the extraordinarily gifted musicians who made an indelible mark on jazz. With sadness, we bid farewell to NEA Jazz Masters Bob Dorough, Nancy Wilson and Cecil Taylor as well as trumpeters Hugh Masekela, Tomasz Stanko, Jerry González and Roy Hargrove.
Weston Culture
by Patrick Burnette
Inspired by Randy Weston's passing, Mike and Pat explore four pivotal albums from the pianist/composer's long career, taking in works from 1960 to 2003. Weston's collaboration with trombonist/arranger Melba Liston is discussed in some depth, as her contributions were crucial to some of his greatest recordings. Pat laments not including Weston's album Highlife from 1963, which ...
