Latest posts
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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…
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Placebo: Marc Moulin’s Visionary Belgian Jazz Fusion Band
The Forgotten Fusion Band That Helped Shape Modern European Jazz When most people hear the name Placebo, they immediately think of the British alternative rock band formed in the 1990s. Yet more than two decades earlier, another group bearing the same name was quietly redefining the possibilities of European jazz. Founded in Belgium by pianist,…
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Ryo Fukui: Scenery and the Remarkable Rediscovery of a Japanese Jazz Pianist
A Late Beginning in Sapporo Ryo Fukui’s story is often introduced through the fact that he began playing piano at twenty-two, and the detail is remarkable enough to invite exaggeration. It can easily become the foundation for a familiar mythology: the self-taught outsider who ignored conventional training, developed almost miraculously and emerged a few years…
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Tenório Jr.: The Brilliant Brazilian Jazz Pianist Behind the Masterpiece Embalo
A Remarkable Pianist Lost Too Soon Few musicians have left such a profound artistic legacy through so little recorded work as Francisco Tenório Cerqueira Júnior, universally known as Tenório Jr. Although his recording career was tragically brief, his influence on Brazilian jazz and instrumental music has continued to grow with every passing decade. His only…
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Hiatus Kaiyote: The Future Soul Band Transforming Contemporary Jazz and R&B
The Band That Changed the Sound of Modern Soul Few contemporary groups have challenged musical boundaries as successfully as Hiatus Kaiyote. Since emerging from Melbourne in the early 2010s, the Australian quartet has developed a sound that defies easy classification, blending jazz harmony, neo-soul, funk, progressive rhythm, electronic textures and improvisational freedom into a style…