Latest posts
-
Hiromi Uehara: Virtuosity Without Borders
Before Speed Became the Story The Problem With Calling Hiromi a Virtuoso There is an obvious way to write about Hiromi Uehara, and it is also the least interesting. Watch almost any concert performance and the vocabulary arrives immediately: speed, energy, precision, intensity, technique. Her hands move across the piano with extraordinary physical confidence; rhythmic…
-
Casiopea: How a Japanese Quartet Created Its Own Language of Jazz Fusion
Tokyo and the Birth of a Different Fusion Before Casiopea Had a Sound Casiopea emerged at exactly the kind of historical moment that encourages misleading comparisons. By the middle of the 1970s, jazz fusion had already become an international language. Miles Davis had opened possibilities that extended far beyond conventional jazz instrumentation, Weather Report was…
-
Cama de Gato: The Brazilian Jazz Quartet That Revolutionized Instrumental Music
The Quartet That Expanded the Language of Brazilian Jazz Few Brazilian instrumental groups have combined virtuosity, rhythmic sophistication and collective creativity as naturally as Cama de Gato. Since emerging in the early 1980s, the quartet has built a reputation for transforming the rich traditions of Brazilian music into a modern jazz language that is simultaneously…
-
Melissa Aldana: The Blue Note Saxophonist Shaping the Future of Contemporary Jazz
A New Voice for the Modern Tenor Saxophone Few saxophonists have emerged in the twenty-first century with the artistic maturity and individuality of Melissa Aldana. Combining remarkable technical command with lyrical improvisation and a deeply personal compositional style, the Chilean-born tenor saxophonist has established herself as one of the defining voices of contemporary jazz. Although…
-
Robert Glasper: From the Jazz Trio to Black Radio and Beyond
Houston, New York and the Acoustic Trio Long before Black Radio made Robert Glasper one of the most visible musicians working between contemporary jazz, hip-hop and R&B, those categories were already overlapping in his musical life. The conventional version of his career can make the story appear more orderly than it was: a gifted jazz…
-
Chucho Valdés: The Afro-Cuban Jazz Legend Who Redefined Modern Piano
The Pianist Who Changed the Course of Afro-Cuban Jazz Few musicians have shaped the history of Latin jazz as profoundly as Chucho Valdés. For more than six decades, the Cuban pianist, composer and bandleader has combined dazzling virtuosity with extraordinary musical imagination, creating a style that unites Afro-Cuban rhythms, jazz improvisation, classical technique and the…
-
Avishai Cohen: The ECM Trumpeter Shaping the Future of Contemporary Jazz
From Tel Aviv to New York and the 3 Cohens Long before Avishai Cohen became associated with the spacious recordings he would make for ECM, his musical identity was being shaped in environments that demanded very different things from a young trumpeter. There was the discipline of formal training in Israel, the experience of playing…
-
Mulatu Astatke: The Architect of Ethio-Jazz and the Sound of Modern Ethiopia
Between Addis Ababa, London and New York Few musicians embody the international history of jazz as naturally as Mulatu Astatke. His music was shaped by movement across countries, institutions and musical traditions, but it never settled comfortably inside any one of them. Ethiopia provided the melodic foundations and cultural memory; London introduced him to a…
-
Abdullah Ibrahim: The South African Jazz Legend Who Transformed Modern Piano
Cape Town, the Jazz Epistles and the Road to Exile Before exile, before Duke Ellington, before Mannenberg and before the name Abdullah Ibrahim, there was Cape Town. The city was not simply the place where the pianist was born. It provided the musical environment from which almost everything that followed would grow. Adolph Johannes Brand,…