Latest posts
-
Krzysztof Komeda: The Polish Composer Who Helped Redefine European Jazz
Before Komeda Became a Symbol Before Astigmatic, before Roman Polanski, before the haunting melody associated with Rosemary’s Baby, there was Krzysztof Trzciński, a young man from Poznań attempting to maintain two lives that did not naturally belong together in postwar Poland. One belonged to medicine. The other belonged to jazz. He was born on April…
-
Jean-Luc Ponty: The Jazz Fusion Pioneer Who Revolutionized the Electric Violin
The Musician Who Gave the Violin a New Voice in Jazz Few instruments have traveled a more unusual path through jazz than the violin. During the Swing Era, pioneers such as Joe Venuti and Stéphane Grappelli proved that bowed strings could swing with elegance and spontaneity. Yet by the late 1960s, as jazz entered one…
-
Perigeo: The Italian Jazz Fusion Pioneers Who Changed European Jazz
A New Italian Language for Jazz When Perigeo appeared in Italy in 1972, jazz was passing through one of the most unsettled and productive periods in its history. The electric transformations initiated by Miles Davis had already demonstrated that amplification, rock rhythm and studio technology could become part of a modern jazz vocabulary, while groups…
-
Mulatu Astatke: The Visionary Who Invented Ethio-Jazz
The Musician Who Invented an Entirely New Jazz Tradition Very few musicians can honestly be described as the founders of an entirely new musical language. Duke Ellington permanently expanded the possibilities of jazz composition. Antônio Carlos Jobim reshaped the relationship between Brazilian music and modern harmony. Astor Piazzolla reinvented tango. Mulatu Astatke belongs in that…
-
Gábor Szabó — Jazz Raga: When Jazz Guitar Entered the Psychedelic Age
Beyond Spellbinder: Drones, Sitar and the Search for Another Musical Language After the Borders Had Already Begun to Disappear By the time Gábor Szabó made Jazz Raga, the idea that his music should remain inside the conventional boundaries of jazz guitar had already become impossible. Spellbinder had demonstrated how naturally he could move among standards,…
-
The Don Burrows Quartet: The Ensemble That Defined Australian Jazz
Building an Australian Jazz Voice For much of the twentieth century, Australian jazz lived with a geographical problem. The music’s most influential developments were taking place thousands of miles away, first in New Orleans, Chicago and Kansas City and later in New York, Los Angeles and other American centers. Records traveled, musicians toured, radio transmitted…
-
Sadao Watanabe: The Japanese Jazz Legend Who Bridged East and West
The Musician Who Gave Japanese Jazz an International Voice Every great jazz nation eventually produces an artist who becomes its ambassador to the world. For the United States, there were countless pioneers who carried the music across continents. For Brazil, Antônio Carlos Jobim and João Gilberto introduced new rhythmic possibilities to global audiences. For Japan,…
-
João Donato: The Brazilian Genius Who Changed Jazz, Bossa Nova and Latin Music
The Musician Who Made Groove Sound Effortless Some musicians transform music through dazzling virtuosity. Others do so through revolutionary harmonic ideas or breathtaking technical command. João Donato achieved something far more elusive. He transformed the feeling of rhythm itself. Few pianists in the history of Brazilian music have created a musical language that sounds so…
-
Snarky Puppy’s We Like It Here: The Album That Defined a New Era of Jazz Fusion
Before Utrecht: How Snarky Puppy Found Its Sound When Snarky Puppy arrived in Utrecht in October 2013 to record We Like It Here, the band was approaching a moment that would eventually become inseparable from its identity. The cameras, the audience sitting only a few feet from the musicians, the dense arrangements, the multiple keyboards,…