Columbus, OH

Blue Note Records has embodied the best jazz has to offer for over 80 years. With a catalog of greats, from Horace Silver, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Lee Morgan, Hank Mobley, Art Blakey, Herbie Hancock, Dexter Gordon and countless others from the bop and post-bop eras, to the funky recordings that hip-hop artists have repeatedly sampled, to its current roster, the label remains at the forefront of the genre.

Designing Jazz: The Iconic Album Covers of Reid Miles

When a February 2022 gig at John Zorn's experimental showcase The Stone was unexpectedly canceled due to Covid protocol, Wollesen seized the lemon juicer and booked the band into Shahzad Ismaily's famed Figure 8 studio in Brooklyn for the following two days. The session was engineered by Lily Wen and produced by Will Shore, a composer who plays vibes alongside Wollesen in the utopian art-jazz group Užupis. Playing together for the first time ever, Latralarecorded nearly the entire album and its first session together in a flurry of extraordinary first takes. "I love that energy, that first-time feeling," says Wollesen. "I'm a big believer in the early stages of creating something. It's really exciting! You don't know where you're going, but you're playing with incredible musicians so it somehow works." It is a testament to the band's trust in each other and their willingness to embrace spontaneity and imperfection. This approach ensures that every nuance, every spontaneous idea, and every moment of collective inspiration is preserved, providing listeners with an intimate snapshot of a fleeting, yet powerful creative moment.

Kenny Wollesen: Latrala

This is the first edition of the new radio-style Jazz First podcast series "They Call It Jazz." This is my first radio work for 16 years, and 30 years since my days at the BBC. I'm a little rough around the edges and a few tweeks are needed, but generally, I am fairly pleased with the overall production. Every week I select ten brand new releases to keep AAJers bang up to date with "what's new." The page features New York pianist Emmet Cohen with a "behind the track" video about the title track from his new album Vibe Provider. Always in the groove!

Emmet Cohen, Warren Wolf, Miguel Zenon, And More

New music from Saxophonist Bill Evans, british band Lydian Collective, The Fearless Flyers, and Finnish guitarist Varre Vartianen with special guest Mike Stern. Australian guitarist Josh Meader, Daniel Weiss, Roman Bondarenko, Antoine Fafard, Gavin Harrison and Danish guitarist Soren Lee. Playlist. Bill Evans "Camel Strut" from Who I Am (Vansman)...

New music with Bill Evans, Lydian Collective, Ron Bosse and Josh Meader

Guitarist Juanma Trujillo's Howl explores some of the ways acoustic guitar can flourish in a small jazz group setting. Instead of playing simple rhythm parts, he is fully engaged in the music made by his three bandmates. His tangled strumming makes an interesting counterpoint to Kevin Sun's barrelling tenor sax on "Catharsis." On "Howl," his abstract phrases pirouette over the stormy bustle of Matt Honor's drums and Andrew Schiller's bass before Sun storms in, stuttering and wailing off Trujillo's chords.

Juanma Trujillo: Howl

Los Angeles, CA

Community Voices represent independent, third-party users who have joined our contributor program but not yet verified their accounts. Community Voices are expected, like all users, to adhere to our Community Standards.

community_voice

Herbie J Pilato

It's been more than four decades since former child star William “Billie” Thomas Jr. died in Los Angeles of a heart attack at only 49 on October 10, 1980. Best known as "Buckwheat," the character he portrayed in the original Hal Roach-ignited Our Gang/Little Rascals classic film shorts from 1934 to 1944, Thomas faced similar challenges and misfortunes of several of his co-stars and other former child actors. This is his story.

Billie "Buckwheat" Thomas - 'Little Rascals'/'Our Gang' Child Star: 44 Years After His Tragic Death

In 2019, after I'd been writing for DownBeat Magazine for about a decade, I was asked to review a batch of new albums from Brazil, including one by a Rio de Janeiro-based singer named Delia Fischer who wrote her own songs. I gathered that, in addition, she was a jazz pianist, an arranger, and the musical director for several hit musicals in Rio. She had worked with Brazilian legends like Marcos Valle, Egberto Gismonti, and Milton Nascimento, who recorded one of her songs that became the theme for a TV Globo soap opera. This album, her fifth, was called Tempo Minimo.

Delia Fischer: Beyond Bossa

Luiz Millan's new single, "Madrugada", is a beautiful ballad featuring gorgeous performances by two living legends of contemporary jazz: clarinet virtuoso Eddie Daniels and vibraphone master Mike Mainieri. Produced by Arnaldo DeSouteiro and arranged by Michel Freidenson. Personnel. Date featured. This song appears by permission of the contributing artist and/or...

Madrugada (featuring Eddie Daniels & Mike Mainieri) by Luiz Millan

Throughout the history of country music, there have been some legendary pairings of frontmen and side players that resulted in some of the best country music ever made. The best example is probably Buck Owens and guitarist/harmony singer Don Rich. Clint Black’s long time co-writer and lead guitar player Hayden Nicholas is another good example. Willie Nelson and his drummer Paul English resulted in some of the best country music ever made, including the song “Me and Paul.”

20 Years Ago: Dwight Yoakam & Guitarist Pete Anderson Split

James Brandon Lewis / Red Lily Quintet For Mahalia, With... Sylvie Courvoisier & Cory Smythe / The Rite of Spring –... Darius Jones fLuxKit Vancouver / (i ̶ t ̶ s̶ suite but... Support All About Jazz. All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz...

Jazz em Agosto 2024

Los Angeles County, CA

It's been over twenty-five years since actor/photographer Roddy McDowall died of lung cancer in 1998. McDowall, despite some career challenges, was one of that breed of rare former child actors who successfully transitioned into Hollywood adulthood. He was also, however, one of the industry's "openly closeted" actors, which came with its own sense of issues. This is his story.

The Not-So-Secret Gay Life of Actor Roddy McDowell: 25 Years After His Tragic Death From Lung Cancer

Towards the end of the recording session for “Heart”, I asked Al Foster if he’d be open to playing a few completely improvised things. We had already recorded a lot of standards and, Al being such a fantastic listener and improviser, I wanted to see what would happen without a framework. I wasn’t sure he was going to see yes, but he was down to do it, even though, much to my surprise, he said he had never done it before. He ended up loving it. I had noticed that when warming up for the session, Al played some really great grooves, so for “Lead the Way”, I just asked him to start a groove and we all played off that, hence the title!

Lead the Way by Jerome Sabbagh

His giant footprint in pop music and pop culture often overshadows the fact that he was an incredibly gifted singer who came of age in the era of the great song stylists of the jazz era and brought that approach, with his rich baritone voice and his powerful command of that remarkable instrument, into his music in a seamless manner.

Roots to Branches: Broadway, Jazz, and David Bowie?

American Songwriter

Bruce Springsteen is just one of many artists who will be contributing music to an album celebrating the work of Jesse Malin, best known as the vocalist for D Generation. Malin suffered a spinal stroke in 2023 which left him paralyzed from the waist down. Now, a group of musicians and friends has banded together to release an album of Malin’s songs, donating the proceeds to the Jesse Malin Sweet Relief fund.

Bruce Springsteen Contributes Cover Song for Benefit Album of Jesse Malin’s Work

A 23-year-old musician from Donegal says it is "hard to believe" he will be supporting music legend Paul Weller on tour. George Houston is set to support the former frontman of The Jam on the US leg of the Modfather's tour. George, who lives in Belfast, says the experience will...

From Burt to Brooklyn: Donegal man to support Paul Weller

HOLAUSA

New Album Viva Tu Features Willie Nelson, Laeti, and 13 Tracks of Classic Manu Chao magic

Manu Chao returns 17 years after his hit song "Me Gustas Tu" with a new single, "Tu Te Vas"

New Jersey State

As serendipitous as was the confluence of circumstances that brought Davy Knowles and Jorma Kaukonen to The Essex Experience Summer Music Series, it was all the more providential that both men gave solo performances on two late summer night dates so close to each other. For the former, this first stop in Vermont since just prior to the pandemic found him on the threshold of releasing another studio album with a band even as he consolidated his multi- faceted approach to the stage by touring on his own. For the latter, the concluding stop on his own itinerary confirmed his desire to keep playing in the acoustic format after bidding adieu to electric Hot Tuna in the fall of 2023. Davy Knowles and Jorma Kaukonen are both gracious men of impressive talents whose healthy egos mirror their technical skills and given the solitary setting of their concerts in the Green Mountains, the open air events comprised a fascinating study in contrasts: the respective timelines of these men parallel each other in almost eerily similar fashion.

Davy Knowles and Jorma Kaukonen at The Essex Experience Summer Concert Series

Sonny Simmons calls the early 1960s “a time of tragedy. I am conscious of that when I play this.”. This recording is, at first glance, a bit of an unusual choice by Craft Recording for its Contemporary Records Acoustic Sound Series audiophile vinyl series. Neither Prince Lasha (pronounced Lashay) nor Sonny Simmons make an appearance in Bill Kirchner's The Oxford Companion to Jazz (Oxford University Press, 2000). An earlier reviewer for AAJ allowed as how both players were talented, but probably understood no more about Ornette Coleman's theory of "harmolodics" than the average listener did. Skepticism or, indeed, lack of notice may be understandable. Coleman was hardly transparent about what he had been up to, so why expect any more from some followers? The judgment is, perhaps, a bit unfair. At a remove of sixty years from the recording, and the passing of the principals, perspective, if not objectivity, may be somewhat easier to come by. Lasha and Simmons were not simply disciples of Coleman, they were childhood friends of his; assuming they had no idea what he was up to is, for want of a better word, unserious.

Prince Lasha: The Cry!

Wild-willed vibraphonist Patricia Brennan gets straight down to business without any fanciful mission declaration with the Afro-Cuban, effusively powered, clear-the-dancefloor and blow-the-ceiling-off this joint "Los Otros Yo (The Other Selves)," the opening cut of her third album Breaking Stretch. She does so in a captivatingly, wickedly good way. Brennan—who has...

Patricia Brennan: Breaking Stretch

Several decades into the jazz reissue boom, first on CD and now increasingly on vinyl, one might imagine the bottom of the barrel is being scraped, and that any newly rediscovered obscurities might at this point have been best left alone. Yet so vast are the archives of recorded jazz that diamonds remain in the mine, exemplified by Green Line, a beautiful document of a single session in Tokyo on September 11, 1970, credited jointly to saxophonist Steve Marcus, bassist Miroslav Vitous, guitarist Sonny Sharrock and drummer Daniel Humair. This well-pressed, gatefold vinyl reissue on the Endless Happiness label is a boon for fans of early fusion, just as it emerged from free jazz and incorporated funk and rock rhythms.

Steve Marcus, Miroslav Vitous, Sonny Sharrock, Daniel Humair: Green Line

NewsBreak

Lucinda Williams At Stern Grove 2024

Rickie Lee Jones, Butch Walker, Jesse Malin, Lucinda... All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and,...

Lucinda Williams At Stern Grove 2024

Comments / 0