Oct 2, 2024 1:48 PM
Younger Returns to BRIC JazzFest as Artist Curator
BRIC, a multi-disciplinary arts and media institution based in Brooklyn, New York, has announced the return of the BRIC…
Makaya McCraven will perform at Brooklyn’s BRIC JazzFest on Oct. 18.
Oct 2, 2024 1:48 PM
BRIC, a multi-disciplinary arts and media institution based in Brooklyn, New York, has announced the return of the BRIC…
An all-star cast from 2019’s New York City Winter JazzFest.
Dec 21, 2021 12:54 PM
If COVID cooperates, there will be a live New York City Winter JazzFest, and it will be spectacular.
Scheduled for…
Veronica Swift has both a historical connection to the music and a desire to expand its artistic purview.
Dec 3, 2020 8:58 AM
Welcome to our enthusiastic, optimistic look at the future.
Below, DownBeat presents short profiles of two dozen…
Makaya McCraven is among the 25 artists DownBeat thinks will help shape jazz in the decades to come.
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…
Johnaye Kendrick is set to stream a performance with her quartet on Friday.
Oct 23, 2020 9:51 AM
As performers look to replace income from lost gigs and regain a sense of community amid the coronavirus pandemic, a…
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…
Drummer and producer Makaya McCraven revamps Gil Scott-Heron on We’re New Again: A Reimagining by Makaya McCraven (XL).
Apr 27, 2020 9:07 AM
Chicago’s Makaya McCraven is best known as a drummer and producer, mixing and matching genres until they blend as…
Drummer Jeremy Cunningham enlisted Jeff Parker, Jaimie Branch, Makaya McCraven and others to play on his new album.
Apr 21, 2020 11:31 AM
About 12 years ago, drummer Jeremy Cunningham had plenty of reasons to feel that his life was going great. He was…
Norah Jones is slated to appear Aug. 7 at the Newport Jazz Festival in Newport, Rhode Island.
Feb 26, 2020 11:29 AM
The Newport Jazz Festival has announced its slate of performers for this year’s edition, to be held Aug. 7–9 at…
Mark Guiliana performs during Winter Jazzfest, which ran at various venues in Manhattan and Brooklyn between Jan. 8 and 18.
Feb 3, 2020 4:47 PM
Winter JazzFest’s already tremendous musical scope has been widening in recent years to include crucial ideas and…
A staple of Chicago’s jazz scene, Junius Paul’s debut full-length, Ism, takes into consideration the city’s past musical triumphs while incorporating the bassist’s own passions.
Dec 20, 2019 2:13 PM
Bassist Junius Paul is an unmistakable emblem of free Chicago.
In demand as both a performer and composer, Paul’s…
Makaya McCraven performs at the Jazztopad Festival in Wroclaw, Poland, on Nov. 17.
Dec 1, 2019 5:38 PM
With so many annual jazz festivals filling the music calendar across Europe, it takes savvy programming to make such…
Keyboardist Aaron Parks performs with his Little Big ensemble Oct. 9 at Mr. Musichead Gallery in Los Angeles as a part of the Angel City Jazz Festival.
Nov 6, 2019 7:35 PM
Rocco Somazzi has exceptionally good taste.
At a trendy eatery in the Fairfax district of Los Angeles, the…
“Iron sharpens iron,” Marquis Hill says while discussing work with his collaborators on Love Tape, his latest dispatch.
Oct 31, 2019 2:24 PM
Before composing new music for Love Tape, Marquis Hill set out to explore existing concepts of love. The trumpet and…
Chick Corea’s Trilogy, which also includes bassist Christian McBride and drummer Brian Blade, are set to play the 2019/20 Symphony Center Presents Jazz series in Chicago on Nov. 1.
Oct 7, 2019 9:40 AM
The 2019/2020 Symphony Center Presents Jazz series in Chicago is set to return Nov. 1.
During the past two-plus…
Joel Ross and Good Vibes celebrate the vinyl release of Kingmaker on Friday, Aug. 2 at the Newport Jazz Festival in Newport, Rhode Island. Ross—who also played with Makaya McCraven and with the collective In Common—performed three sets in two days during the festival.
Aug 12, 2019 1:45 PM
By the time Paul Gonsalves shook up Fort Adams with 27 blistering choruses in 1956, the Newport Jazz Festival already…
Marilyn Mazur performs at the Copenhagen Jazz Festival, which ran July 5–14 in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Apr 21, 2020 11:30 AM
Music spilled out of regal concert halls and onto the streets to mark the Copenhagen Jazz Festival’s 40th…
Brandee Younger’s Soul Awakening is a meticulously curated collection of music she recorded between 2012 and 2013.
May 20, 2019 2:21 PM
Harpist and composer Brandee Younger often faces a curiously inexhaustible question: What kind of music do you play?
…
Since the 1980s, London-based DJ and record label founder Gilles Peterson has been a force in music. The first installment of his We Our Here festival is set to run Aug. 15–18 in Abbots Ripton, Cambridgeshire, U.K.
Jun 11, 2019 4:31 PM
Being a curator has become a defining ethos for the 21st century. With digital platforms bombarding us with choice, a…
Marquis Hill benefited from time spent at the Velvet Lounge, a jazz room on the South Side of Chicago run by saxophonist Fred Anderson (1929–2010).
Feb 8, 2019 9:52 AM
Sipping tea in the Harlem hangout Common Good, Marquis Hill wore a serene smile. The expression was hardly one…
Seeing guitarist Jeff Parker perform sparked new ideas for drummer Makaya McCraven.
Jan 22, 2019 9:42 AM
Makaya McCraven uses various means to create and redirect energy, as evidenced on his latest album, Universal Beings…
Josh Johnson (left), Alex Boneham, Jay Bellerose and Jeff Parker perform at ETA in L.A.’s Highland Park neighborhood.
Jan 7, 2019 12:16 PM
When bassist Anna Butterss moved to Los Angeles in 2014, her plan was to stay for no more than a year. Her main draw to…
Mary Halvorson performs at JazzFest Berlin, which ran Nov. 1-4 in Berlin, Germany.
May 30, 2019 2:08 PM
A festival is supposed to be too much of a good thing. An overabundance, for example, of garlic in Gilroy, California,…
Trumpeter Jaimie Branch is scheduled to play International Anthem in Paris, a label showcase set for early November.
Oct 8, 2018 12:12 PM
Trumpeter Jaimie Branch’s impulsive, free-spirited nature gives her music life, movement and excitement in ways that…
Starting Today, keyboardist Joe Armon-Jones’ debut on Brownswood Recordings, is out May 4.
Aug 16, 2018 4:12 PM
Keyboardist Joe Armon-Jones is sitting on a sofa in the South London house he shares with four other musicians.…
Drummer Makaya McCraven has a new leader album, Highly Rare.
Dec 7, 2017 10:05 AM
Drummer Makaya McCraven was in a jubilant mood during his quartet’s set at Chicago’s Thalia Hall on Dec. 2. “This…
Junius Paul (left) and Makaya McCraven at the So What’s Next Fest? in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, on Nov. 5.
Nov 18, 2016 12:33 PM
By posing the event’s name as a question, the So What’s Next? Festival hopes to pique audience interest in “below…
Makaya McCraven performs as part of the International Anthem Summer Showcase at (Le) Poisson Rouge in New York on June 12.
May 25, 2018 4:16 PM
On June 12, the Chicagoans invaded New York. That’s when (Le) Poisson Rouge held a showcase for International Anthem…
