Jazz at Lincoln Center brought their show, “Songs We Love,” to the IU Auditorium Feb. 20. A revival of the opener to JALC’s 2016 season, the show explores the early years of jazz music from the 1920s to the 1950s. Directed by trumpeter Riley Mulherkar, the ensemble is made up of many up-and-coming jazz musicians [...]
Born in Kansas City and now based in the Pacific Northwest, veteran jazz saxophonist Kenney Polson is a true musical citizen of the world, having visited and/or performed in over 50 countries (including tours of Japan, Korea, Hawaii, France, Colombia, Brazil and the Caribbean) and developing a cosmopolitan style that fuses urban contemporary jazz, Latin, classical, [...]
One of the most interesting aspects of checking out new artists making waves on the contemporary jazz scene is realizing that in many cases, they've been with us all along. So as we allow ourselves to be seduced by and groove along to Kevin Stevenson's infectious new single "Talk to Me," we can read up [...]
Engaging in the most basic online research, we learn some fascinating things about veteran guitarist Duffmusiq as we listen, dance, bop, sway, chill and groove along to the multitude of funky/bluesy/jazzy old-schooling vibes on his nonstop poppin’ sophomore album Sidewalk Sequel. Most notable is this: After 15 years of playing in a successful band (Jamesking), producing [...]
If “The Father of Invention,” Thomas Edison had Grace Brancale’s energy and drive, he probably would have had about 5,000 inventions instead of the mere 1,093 patents that he actually had! Grace Brancale is an untiring, global artist whose output of creativity is astounding and seemingly inexhaustible! Calling Ms. Brancale a “busy” artist is not [...]
What started out as a slow burning, blues-rocking CD release last October, Voodoo Blues is deservedly achieving acclaim of incendiary proportions as word travels globally about Grainne Duffy’s best album to date. By Christmas It became the tenth most played album by members of the Independent Blues Broadcasters Association (IBBA). Utah based Roots Music Report [...]
Jazz skeptics may have never heard Alice Coltrane and Pharaoh Sanders trade trippy harp and saxophone licks on “Journey in Satchidananda,” but they probably conjure something akin to the song’s avant-garde experimentation when imagining jazz. To those unfamiliar with swing or boogie woogie or Latin jazz, the whole genre has been dismissed as esoteric and [...]
Nomadim – Nomadim (Unit Records. CD review by Jane Mann) Nomadim is the first album from a young Switzerland-based trio of the same name. Nomadim were originally the Marc Crofts Trio but decided to change their name to reflect their musical style which they call “nomadic jazz with a classical tinge”. Leader and composer Marc [...]
If there is one thing that jazz fans are probably missing most of all during the current pandemic, it is the ability to go out and listen to live music. I am hoping that well before the end of the current year, we will all be able to channel our new-found “vaccine fuelled” enthusiasm into [...]
Jeremy Pelt, a trumpet virtuoso who could have dropped without blinking into classic 1960s Blue Note sessions cut years before he was born, has interlaced his familiar mix of agile contemporary bop and elegant ballads with spoken-word passages on African American jazz life, edited from his own interviews with musicians across the generations. Pelt’s inspiration [...]