Latest posts
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Hiroshi Suzuki: The Japanese Jazz Master Behind Cat
The Trombonist Behind a Japanese Jazz Cult Classic Some jazz records become famous immediately. Others disappear into catalogs, circulate quietly among collectors and only much later find the audience that seems to have been waiting for them all along. Hiroshi Suzuki’s Cat belongs unmistakably to the second category. Recorded in Tokyo in October 1975 and…
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Lonnie Liston Smith & The Cosmic Echoes: The Visionaries of Spiritual Jazz and Cosmic Funk
Before the Cosmic Echoes Long before Expansions became a jazz-funk anthem, before the Fender Rhodes seemed capable of turning a recording studio into an imaginary landscape, Lonnie Liston Smith had already lived several musical lives. His later reputation can make his career appear almost inevitable: a keyboardist discovers the electric piano, forms a group called…
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Tomasz Stańko: The ECM Trumpeter Who Redefined European Jazz
A Trumpet Voice Born Behind the Iron Curtain There are trumpet players whose identity is established through velocity, range or technical spectacle. Tomasz Stańko followed another path. A few notes can be enough to recognize him: a rough-edged attack, a tone that seems simultaneously fragile and resistant, phrases that frequently leave as much meaning in…
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Roy Ayers Ubiquity: The Jazz-Funk Collective That Changed Modern Music
Before the Sunshine For many listeners, Roy Ayers begins with sunlight. A slow electric-piano figure. A bass line that seems to move without urgency. A synthesizer hovering in the background. Voices repeating a phrase that feels less like a conventional chorus than a state of mind. Then the vibraphone enters, bright but never intrusive. “Everybody…
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Eberhard Weber: The ECM Bass Pioneer Who Redefined European Jazz
A Bass Sound That Seemed to Come From Somewhere Else There are musicians whose importance can be recognized within a few notes, before a composition has revealed its structure or an improvisation has gathered momentum. Eberhard Weber belongs to that category. His bass sound—sustained, resonant, unusually lyrical and often surrounded by spacious reverberation—became one of…
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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…