Latest posts
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The Afro-Brazilian Jazz Band That Was Decades Ahead of Its Time
The Other Sound of Ipanema Say the word Ipanema and a particular version of Brazil immediately appears. A beach at sunset. João Gilberto’s restrained guitar. Antônio Carlos Jobim’s elegant harmony. A voice barely above a whisper. The sophisticated cool that transformed Rio de Janeiro into one of the great musical images of the twentieth century.…
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Scott LaFaro and the Reinvention of the Jazz Bass: Sunday at the Village Vanguard and the Bill Evans Trio Revolution
The Sunday That Changed the Piano Trio On Sunday, June 25, 1961, Bill Evans, Scott LaFaro and Paul Motian entered the Village Vanguard in Greenwich Village for what appeared to be another engagement in the working life of one of the most remarkable young trios in jazz. Across five sets that afternoon and evening, the…
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Count Basie: The Atomic Mr. Basie and the Orchestra That Turned Swing Into Precision
The Big Band That Discovered the Power of Less By 1957, the big-band era was supposed to be over. The economic machinery that had sustained enormous touring orchestras during the swing years had weakened, bebop had radically altered the language of modern jazz, rhythm and blues was reshaping popular entertainment, and the LP was creating…
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Nelson Faria and Três : The Brazilian Guitar Trio Built on Conversation
Nelson Faria and Três: The Brazilian Guitar Trio Built on Conversation Brazilian instrumental music has always resisted simple borders. Jazz vocabulary may be present, but so are samba, bossa nova, choro, the harmonic sophistication of MPB, regional rhythms and a tradition of improvisation that developed according to its own history. Few guitarists embody that intersection…
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Vincent Peirani and Émile Parisien: How Belle Époque Reinvented the Jazz Duo
There is something inherently improbable about the combination of accordion and soprano saxophone. Neither instrument belongs to the standard architecture of the modern jazz rhythm section, and together they remove almost every conventional source of security. There is no drummer to establish the pulse, no bassist to define the harmonic floor, no pianist or guitarist…
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Anat Cohen: The Clarinetist Who Turned Musical Borders Into Open Doors
There are musicians whose careers can be understood through a single tradition, a recognizable lineage, or a clearly defined scene. Anat Cohen has never belonged comfortably to that category. Her music moves through jazz, Brazilian choro, samba, Caribbean rhythm, Middle Eastern memory, chamber-like lyricism, big-band color and the improvisational culture of New York without treating…
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Dizzy Gillespie and Afro: How Bebop Met the Rhythms of Cuba
Dizzy Gillespie and Afro: How Bebop Met the Rhythms of Cuba There are moments in jazz history when two musical languages meet and neither emerges unchanged. Dizzy Gillespie’s encounter with Afro-Cuban music belongs to that category. It was not simply a matter of adding congas to a jazz orchestra or placing a Latin rhythm beneath…
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Kenny Barron and Wanton Spirit: The Art of Conversation in the Modern Piano Trio
Kenny Barron and Wanton Spirit: The Art of Conversation in the Modern Piano Trio Kenny Barron has spent much of his career making difficult things sound inevitable. His touch can be delicate without becoming fragile, his harmonic language sophisticated without calling attention to its sophistication, and his improvisations can develop with such natural continuity that…
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Miles Davis and the Psych-Electric Genesis: Polyrhythmic Voodoo Cauldron, Tape-Editing Sorcery, and the 1970 Bitches Brew Masterpiece Monolith
The Chronicle of an Era: The Mid-Century Collapse and the Columbia Studio B Forge By August 1969, modern jazz was staring directly into a terrifying, apocalyptic void. The historic acoustic structures that had sustained the genre for generations were rapidly burning to the ground, crushed beneath the massive cultural weight of psychedelic rock, stadium funk,…