Latest posts
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BADBADNOTGOOD: How a Toronto Band Rewired Jazz for the Hip-Hop Generation
Before the Algorithms Knew What to Call Them BADBADNOTGOOD began with a problem of classification. When Matthew Tavares, Chester Hansen and Alexander Sowinski met while studying jazz at Humber College in Toronto around 2010, they shared the technical vocabulary expected of young jazz musicians, but their listening habits did not respect the boundaries of the…
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Azymuth: How Brazil’s Legendary Trio Reinvented Jazz-Funk and Samba
Before Jazz-Funk Became a Formula There is a temptation, when discussing Azymuth, to describe the group through a sequence of familiar ingredients. Samba. Jazz. Funk. Bossa nova. Electric keyboards. Fusion. Put them together and the description appears complete. But Azymuth’s importance begins precisely where that list becomes inadequate. The Brazilian trio did not simply combine…
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Toshiko Akiyoshi: How a Japanese Jazz Pioneer Reinvented the Big Band
From Postwar Japan to the Jazz Orchestra Long before Toshiko Akiyoshi began transforming the language of the modern jazz orchestra, she faced a more fundamental question: how could a musician enter a tradition created thousands of miles from home and eventually speak through it in a voice unmistakably her own? Her answer would take decades…
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Orquestra Jazz de Matosinhos: How Portugal Built a Contemporary Big Band Institution
Building a Jazz Orchestra in Matosinhos A Big Band Built for the Present By the end of the twentieth century, the big band occupied an unusual position in jazz. Its importance to the history of the music was unquestionable, yet the economic and cultural conditions that had once allowed large ensembles to flourish had largely…
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Emma Pask: The Australian Jazz Singer Who Made the Standards Her Own
The Night a School Concert Became a Career Some jazz careers begin with years of conservatory training, jam sessions, small clubs and gradual recognition. Emma Pask’s began almost overnight. She was sixteen years old, still attending high school in Sydney, when Australian jazz virtuoso James Morrison visited her school for a workshop. Pask was already…
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Masayoshi Takanaka: The Guitarist Who Gave Japanese Fusion Its Brightest Colors
From Sadistic Mika Band to Seychelles Before the Tropical Landscape Long before beaches, palm trees and impossible shades of blue became inseparable from Masayoshi Takanaka’s musical identity, there was rock. His career began in a Japanese music scene undergoing rapid transformation, as musicians absorbed British and American rock, progressive music, soul, funk and the expanding…
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Oscar Castro-Neves: The Bossa Nova Architect Who Took Brazilian Music to the World
Before Bossa Nova Had a Name Some musicians become symbols of a movement. Others become so deeply embedded in its construction that history eventually forgets how much they contributed. Oscar Castro-Neves belongs to the second category. When the story of bossa nova is told internationally, a familiar constellation appears: Antônio Carlos Jobim, João Gilberto, Vinicius…
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ZASKA: How Dublin’s Collaborative Soul Scene Found Its Own Groove
ZASKA: How Dublin’s Collaborative Soul Scene Found Its Own Groove There are bands built around a fixed lineup, bands built around a singer, and bands whose identity depends on the chemistry of a few musicians who remain together for years. ZASKA belongs to a different category. From the beginning, guitarist, composer, producer and musical director…
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Louis Stewart and the Flawless Linear Architecture: Bebop Virtuosity, the European Jazz Guitar Metamorphosis, and the 1977 Out on His Own Masterpiece Monolith
The Chronicle of an Era: The Mid-Seventies Archtop Evolution and the Solo Guitar Frontier By the middle of the 1970s, the jazz guitar universe found itself fiercely divided between two extreme philosophical poles. On one end, the explosive, high-voltage innovations of jazz-rock fusion were pushing players toward solid-body instruments, massive effects racks, and screaming rock…