Mar 15, 2022 2:10 PM
Jamie Baum Septet Delivers Poetic Reflections on Pandemic
The Jamie Baum Septet breezed into Dizzy’s Club in New York this February premiering a variety of pandemic-inspired…
Mar 15, 2022 2:10 PM
The Jamie Baum Septet breezed into Dizzy’s Club in New York this February premiering a variety of pandemic-inspired…
Dec 3, 2020 8:58 AM
Welcome to our enthusiastic, optimistic look at the future.
Below, DownBeat presents short profiles of two dozen…
Nov 9, 2020 2:28 PM
Singer Veronica Swift returned home from a gig in Italy just in time to celebrate the birthday of her mother, acclaimed…
Nov 3, 2020 2:51 PM
Singer and guitarist Camila Meza was slightly anxious when, as a 19-year-old jazz novice, she took the stage for her…
Nov 23, 2020 11:58 AM
Kuba Więcek is clicking the plunger of his pen with a kind of restlessness that’s manifested in his studies and…
Nov 23, 2020 11:52 AM
With ambition to spare and serious cred supported by a weighty professional resume, Camille Thurman has made a…
Nov 17, 2020 8:46 AM
The very act of identifying Luke Stewart’s latest project is exhausting. Rarely is there just one.
The prolific…
Nov 13, 2020 8:56 AM
When pianist Christian Sands titled his latest Mack Avenue album Be Water, he had no idea how appropriate its…
Nov 13, 2020 8:56 AM
Four years after moving to New York to study music, Joel Ross—already a veteran sideman—released his leader…
Nov 12, 2020 8:53 AM
On March 11, when the U.S. State Department advised Americans to “reconsider” international travel in response…
Nov 3, 2020 12:29 PM
Cellist Tomeka Reid remembers when she started telling people about her quartet. Not everyone was encouraging about…
Nov 3, 2020 10:52 AM
Nearly six months into the pandemic, Chicago native Junius Paul packed up his stuff and moved out of his apartment,…
Nov 3, 2020 10:42 AM
The 26-year-old trumpet-playing son of pianist Arturo O’Farrill and grandson of composer/arranger Chico…
Nov 15, 2020 6:44 PM
When he was 17, pianist Nduduzo Makhathini discovered jazz and realized that this was the door he had been seeking.…
Nov 5, 2020 9:20 AM
“Especially in the beginning, when we were kind of searching for ourselves—we were just playing music and we…
Oct 30, 2020 8:50 AM
If one were looking for an album to illustrate an aesthetic shared by several musicians who appear on DownBeat’s…
Oct 29, 2020 8:47 AM
Considering the environment in which he was raised, it’s not terribly surprising that Jimmy Macbride was creating…
Oct 30, 2020 8:50 AM
Shabaka Hutchings’ M.O. is to spend much of each year on the road, circling the globe at the helm of three…
Oct 26, 2020 2:13 PM
In pre-COVID times, Jazzmeia Horn recalled that her packed touring schedule meant “singing into my recorder while…
Oct 23, 2020 2:52 PM
Morgan Guerin conjures earthbound grooves and then releases them into the cosmos. At 22, the multi-instrumentalist,…
Oct 20, 2020 1:11 PM
Affectionately nicknamed “Empress” or “Queen” by British journalists and fans, saxophonist Nubya Garcia took…
Oct 9, 2020 12:40 PM
With Flight, his spirited debut album released by Blue Note in 2018, pianist James Francies avoided musical…
Oct 20, 2020 9:06 AM
“If you’re not working with people that are pushing you,” said drummer Yussef Dayes, “then it’s missing…
Oct 15, 2020 9:02 AM
Trumpeter Theo Croker is tired of being boxed in as a jazz musician. He expressed that sentiment while also…
Oct 26, 2020 11:30 AM
Lakecia Benjamin’s approach to jazz is influenced by the belief that Black music of all genres has a shared…
Oct 9, 2020 9:04 AM
Pianist Fabian Almazan has a distinct recollection of an incident that took place years ago at the Village Vanguard,…
Oct 7, 2020 9:04 AM
On the three studio albums flugelhorn player Yazz Ahmed’s released, there’s a very clear unfolding of singular…