Latest posts
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Jiro Inagaki: The Japanese Jazz-Funk Pioneer Behind Funky Stuff
Before Funky Stuff: A Japanese Jazz Scene in Motion When Funky Stuff appeared in 1975, Jiro Inagaki was not a young musician suddenly discovering funk. He had already spent years moving through a Japanese jazz scene undergoing profound transformation. Acoustic modern jazz remained important, but the boundaries surrounding it were becoming increasingly permeable. Electric instruments,…
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Kamasi Washington: How The Epic Changed the Scale of Contemporary Jazz
Los Angeles Before The Epic When The Epic appeared in May 2015, Kamasi Washington seemed to arrive fully formed: a tenor saxophonist leading an enormous ensemble through nearly three hours of jazz, soul, gospel, orchestral writing and improvisation. The scale alone demanded attention. Seventeen tracks spread across three discs, a core band expanded by strings…
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Zimbo Trio: The Story of a Brazilian Jazz Institution
Zimbo Trio: How Three Musicians Helped Define Brazilian Instrumental Jazz When pianist Amilton Godoy, bassist Luís Chaves and drummer Rubinho Barsotti formed Zimbo Trio in São Paulo in 1964, Brazilian music was already undergoing one of the most fertile transformations in its history. Bossa nova had radically altered harmony, rhythm, vocal interpretation and international perceptions…
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Nubya Garcia: The Saxophonist Redefining Contemporary British Jazz
London Before the Breakthrough When Nubya Garcia’s Source arrived in 2020, the London-born tenor saxophonist was often presented internationally as one of the leading figures in a remarkable new generation of British jazz. The description was understandable, but it could also be misleading. Garcia had not suddenly appeared with a debut album and a fashionable…
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Pharoah Sanders — Karma: The Spiritual Jazz Vision Behind a 1969 Landmark
After Coltrane, a Different Kind of Freedom In February 1969, Pharoah Sanders entered RCA Studios in New York to record music that would become one of the defining statements of spiritual jazz. The sessions took place on February 14 and 19, with producer Bob Thiele, the same producer whose work at Impulse! had been closely…
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Dom Salvador & Abolição: The Brazilian Jazz-Funk Masterpiece That Changed Black Music
The Band That Brought Brazilian Jazz and Black Soul Together Few groups in Brazilian music have been as influential—or as ahead of their time—as Dom Salvador & Abolição. Formed at the dawn of the 1970s, the ensemble fused jazz improvisation, American funk, soul music, samba and Afro-Brazilian rhythms into a bold new musical language that…
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Sun Ra: The Cosmic Jazz Pioneer Who Changed Music Forever
The Man Who Claimed to Come from Saturn Few figures in the history of music have inspired as much fascination, debate and admiration as Sun Ra. Composer, pianist, poet, philosopher, bandleader and self-proclaimed visitor from Saturn, he transformed jazz into something far greater than a musical style. Through an extraordinary combination of improvisation, mythology, science…
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Edison Machado: The Brazilian Drummer Who Revolutionized Samba Jazz
From Engenho Novo to Beco das Garrafas Brazilian jazz in the 1960s is often remembered through harmony: the sophisticated chords of Antônio Carlos Jobim, the understated guitar of João Gilberto, the pianists who carried bossa nova into instrumental settings and the composers who transformed samba through increasingly elaborate arrangements. Yet another revolution was taking place…
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Yussef Kamaal: Black Focus and the Rise of Modern London Jazz
South London Before Black Focus When Black Focus appeared in November 2016, Yussef Kamaal seemed to arrive at precisely the moment London jazz was becoming impossible to ignore. The album had the immediacy of something new: Yussef Dayes’s restless drumming, Kamaal Williams’s Fender Rhodes and keyboards, deep bass lines, fragments of funk, broken beat and…