Nov 12, 2024 1:03 PM
2025 Grammy Nominees Announced
The official 2025 Grammy nominations have been announced with a slate of 94 categories. Here, we’ll focus on jazz and…
Pianist Sullivan Fortner is one of this year’s nominees for Best Jazz Instrumental Album.
Nov 12, 2024 1:03 PM
The official 2025 Grammy nominations have been announced with a slate of 94 categories. Here, we’ll focus on jazz and…
A concert of duets featuring trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire and bassist Dave Holland was cerebral and unhurried at this year’s Montreal Jazz Festival.
Aug 13, 2024 12:07 PM
In its third edition since rebounding from senior management changes and COVID-related disruptions, the 44th Festival…
“I’m also at a point in my life where I don’t feel like I have anything to prove, like at all,” Akinmusire says about his art.
Mar 26, 2024 12:54 PM
At the risk of oversimplifying and romanticizing the story, Ambrose Akinmusire came bursting on the jazz scene at the…
Akinmusire graduated from the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz Performance in 2007.
Aug 22, 2023 12:44 PM
Ambrose Akinmusire has been named artistic director of the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz Performance at UCLA. A 2007…
Trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire performs with the trio Trefoil at this year’s Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Apr 12, 2022 1:39 PM
During the opening concert of this year’s Big Ears Festival, a train roared by just as the Kronos Quartet leaned into…
John Beasley earned Grammy nominations in multiple categories, including Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album.
Jan 8, 2021 3:57 PM
Big band leaders John Beasley and Maria Schneider, pianist Gerald Clayton, trumpeter Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah and…
On his new album, Ambrose Akinmusire includes original compositions that pay tribute to Roscoe Mitchell and Roy Hargrove.
Sep 14, 2020 9:15 AM
Hearing Ambrose Akinmusire perform brings to mind Louis Armstrong’s description of first hearing cornetist Bix…
Terri Lyne Carrington, who topped three categories in the 2020 DownBeat Critics Poll, is the first female instrumentalist to win the Jazz Artist of the Year category.
Jul 6, 2020 5:39 PM
Trailblazing drummer and bandleader Terri Lyne Carrington has made history numerous times in her career, and the…
A live Alice Coltrane recording from 1972 marks a turning point in her music.
Jun 12, 2020 8:50 AM
Festivals in the States still aren’t happening, though some in Europe are moving ahead despite the uncertainty around…
Robert Glasper (foreground) and Herbie Hancock in a scene from the documentary Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes.
Nov 13, 2019 4:32 PM
Swiss-born director Sophie Huber’s Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes (Eagle Vision), which coincides with the…
Anthony Braxton performs Nov. 3 with his Zim Music ensemble during Jazzfest Berlin.
Nov 14, 2019 10:15 AM
Halfway through composer and multi-instrumentalist Anthony Braxton’s six-hour opening performance at Jazzfest Berlin,…
Miguel Zenón and Melissa Aldana perform Sunday at the Chicago Jazz Festival with Latino-America Unida, a new collective that also included drummer Antonio Sánchez, bassist Ricky Rodriguez and pianist David Virelles.
Sep 4, 2019 3:25 PM
Epic and epochal performances defined the 41st annual Chicago Jazz Festival, which ran Aug. 29-Sept. 1 at Millennium…
Norah Jones is among the artists who pay tribute to Joni Mitchell on a new album and DVD.
Aug 15, 2019 10:15 AM
The two sold-out concerts staged in November at Los Angeles’ Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, both in honor of…
Trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire (left) and saxophonist Joshua Redman join Gard Nilssen Acoustic Unity during a performance at the Molde Jazz Festival in Molde, Norway.
Jul 25, 2019 11:37 AM
Gard Nilssen’s Supersonic Orchestra—a juggernaut of an ensemble incorporating three rhythm sections of bass and…
Cécile McLorin Salvant performs at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival on May 3.
Jul 2, 2019 9:46 AM
Singer-songwriter Cécile McLorin Salvant is among the artists who topped multiple categories in the 2019 DownBeat…
As part of the Chicago Jazz Festival, Grammy-winning singer Cécile McLorin Salvant will perform at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park on Aug. 31 at 7:45 p.m.
Apr 25, 2019 9:58 PM
A parade of stars will perform at this year’s Chicago Jazz Festival (scheduled for Aug. 23–Sept. 1), including…
Ambrose Akinmusire and Kris Davis perform in New York at Vision Festival, which ran May 23–28. Akinmusire’s Origami Harvest earned a 5-star rating in DownBeat during 2018.
Sep 26, 2019 4:45 PM
The list below is a round-up of the 5-star, 4.5-star and 4-star reviews that ran in print editions of DownBeat during…
Concord Label Group president John Burk (left), Monk Competition winner Tom Oren and Thelonious Monk Institute chairman Herbie Hancock
Dec 13, 2018 10:50 AM
The winner of this year’s Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz competition, Tom Oren, hails from Tel Aviv, Israel—a…
Emmylou Harris performs during Joni 75: A Birthday Celebration at The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, California, on Nov. 7.
Nov 15, 2018 10:19 AM
Joni Mitchell was running late.
It’s hard to be anywhere in Los Angeles at 6:30 p.m., unless you leave by 4:30.…
Vibraphonist Roy Ayers performs last year in Pittsburgh.
May 11, 2018 12:06 PM
Pittsburgh’s contributions to the jazz firmament stretch from seminal figures like Roy Eldridge, Kenny Clarke and…
Robert Glasper (left), Derrick Hodge and Kendrick Scott perform following a screening of the documentary Blue Note Records: Beyond The Notes at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 23.
Jun 6, 2019 12:33 PM
UPDATE: The theatrical run begins June 14 in New York at Metrograph. June 28, the film opens in Los Angles at Laemmle…
AMP Trio is one of the featured performers of the Jazz in Progress: The Next Faces of Jazz series.
Feb 12, 2018 5:16 PM
Journalist, author and arts presenter for more than 40 years, Willard Jenkins’ career has grown out of a serious love…
Singer Dee Dee Bridgewater was among the performers on Blue Note at Sea.
Feb 7, 2018 1:12 PM
For years, Entertainment Cruise Productions Executive Director Michael Lazaroff has been trying to strike the right…
Tyshawn Sorey (left) leads a “conduction” performance at this year’s Berlin Jazz Festival.
Nov 21, 2017 10:54 AM
The Berlin Jazz Festival handily accomplished a two-fold mission to preserve its prodigious historical legacy while…
Kaja Draksler performs as part of the trio Punk.Vrt.Plastik at the 2017 Berlin Jazz Festival on Nov. 4.
Nov 13, 2017 8:23 PM
Once again, the compass needle for important jazz happenings pointed to Berlin recently, with the daring and impressive…
Vocalist Bobby Carcassés, percussionist Yaroldy Abreu and bassist Esperanza Spalding perform Spalding’s composition “I Adore You” in Havana on April 30. The BET network will broadcast the concert Sunday (June 18) at 2 p.m. EST.
Jun 19, 2017 2:18 PM
If you weren’t fortunate enough to attend the 2017 International Jazz Day Concert in Havana, or if you didn’t watch the…
Ambrose Akinmusire will release A Rift In Decorum: Live At The Village Vanguard (Blue Note) on June 9.
Jun 6, 2017 3:00 PM
April showers bring May flowers. But what do May flowers bring? June album releases! There are plenty of reasons to…
Herbie Hancock performs at the International Jazz Day “All-Star Global Concert” in Havana, Cuba, on April 30.
May 1, 2017 10:22 AM
The International Jazz Day “All-Star Global Concert” took place in Havana, Cuba, on, April 30, and is now archived…
Herbie Hancock (left) and Igor Butman shake hands after their performance during the International Jazz Day 2015 Global Concert at UNESCO on April 30, 2015, in Paris, France.
Apr 30, 2017 9:56 PM
The sixth annual International Jazz Day will be celebrated worldwide on Sunday, April 30, and, just as in years past,…
Dec 12, 2023 12:39 PM
Sep 18, 2018 3:29 PM
Aug 8, 2017 7:29 PM
