Boundless Fire
By Tina Edwards
Jacob Collier started to build his fanbase back in 2011 when he began sharing intoxicating arrangements to popular songs on YouTube. One of those fans was Quincy Jones, who in 2015 flew to Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in London to watch Collier’s solo show. Jones began managing him soon afterward. The rest, as they say, is history … but not quite. Just turning 30 — with five studio albums and four world tours under his technicolored belt — the multi-instrumentalist, producer, arranger and educator is just getting started.
By John Murph
It was less a matter of “if” and more of “when.” Meshell Ndegeocello’s transfixing new album, No More Water: The Gospel Of James Baldwin (Blue Note), seems an inevitability when one considers her career trajectory.
By Philip Freeman
The Kyoto Prize is not as well-known as the Guggenheim fellowship, or the MacArthur grant, both of which pianist, composer and musical seeker Cecil Taylor received during his lifetime. But it is more exclusive — only three, or, at most, four people in the fields of science, philosophy and the arts receive it each year. What happened when pianist Cecil Taylor received it is a tale of woe.
We ran Part I of this fantastic double Blindfold Test in the July issue. The live test was administered at the International Society of Jazz Arrangers & Composers Symposium held in Nashville back in May, with an interesting twist: Instead of bassist-composers Rufus Reid and John Clayton being “tested” by a journalist, they chose songs for each other — both quite enjoying the opportunity to tease, trick and bend each other’s minds. Before heading into the second half of the “test,” which picks up right where we left off at the end of Part I, Reid told the audience about his work as a mentor for the Bridges Composition Competition at Ravinia in Illinois, which, as an incubator for jazz-classical fusion, gives young composers an opportunity to write for jazz trio and string quartet.
