February 2024

Features

• Greg Osby

  From the Abyss to Minimalism

  By Ted Panken

• Larry Goldings

  The Variety of Fun

  By Allen Morrison

• DB Venue Guide

  100+ Great Jazz Spaces

  By DB Staff

Blindfold Test

“I might not have felt this way 30-40 years ago, but I’ve reached a point where I can hear value in what people do, even if it’s not how I’d do things,” alto saxophone grandmaster Charles McPherson said during his second DownBeat Blindfold Test. Famously a sideman with Charles Mingus between 1960-1972, with 24 leader albums to his name, McPherson demonstrated that he is playing as strongly as ever at a searing Charlie Parker tribute concert at NYC’s Tompkins Square Park on the last weekend of August. All of that at the age of 84.

• Sonny Red: “Ditty” from Breezin’ (Riverside, 1960)
• Steve Coleman/Von Freeman/Greg Osby: “It’s You” from StrataInstitute - Transmigration (Rebel-X/Columbia, 1991)
• Gary Bartz: “April in Paris” from Bird at 100 (SmokeSessions, 2019)
• Brian Lynch Big Band (featuring Donald Harrison): “The Struggle Is In Your Name” from The Omni-American Book Club (Holistic, 2018)
• Miguel Zenón/Luis Perdomo: “Mucho Corazon” from El Arte Del Bolero, Part 2 (Independent Release, 2023)
• Lakecia Benjamin: “Trane” from Phoenix (Whirlwind, 2023)
• Sherman Irby & Momentum: “Sybad” from Cerulean Canvas (Black Warrior, 2017)
• Jim Snidero: “Old Man River” from Live at Deerhead Inn (Savant, 2022)
• Alexa Tarantino : “Surge Capacity” from Firefly (PosiTone, 2021)

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