Dec 17, 2024 9:58 AM
Tabla Master Zakir Hussain, 73, Succumbs to Illness
Tabla master Ustad Zakir Hussain, one of India’s reigning cultural ambassadors and a revered figure worldwide…
On May 16, Ropeadope Records will drop the long-awaited Christian McBride 3-CD set Live At Tonic. This release is the first from the bassist in three years and he brings his ace band along for the ride. The band features Geoffrey Keezer on piano and keyboards, Ron Blake on tenor and soprano saxophones and flute, and Terreon Gully on drums. The set also includes an all-star cast of special guests including Charlie Hunter on guitar, Jason Moran on keyboards, Jenny Scheinman on violin, DJ Logic on turntables, Eric Krasno on guitars, Scratch on beatbox and Rahsaan Peterson on trumpet.
The album is more than three hours of jazz, pushed to its limits, with elements of hip-hop, funk and soul mixed in. Recorded on January 3 and 4 at the Tonic, the set includes some of McBride’s most popular songs, improvised. McBride and his band performed two sets each night, and well into the following mornings, and all that music is captures on each disc.
“Watching people like Max Roach or Elvin Jones and seeing how they utilize the whole drum kit in a very rhythmic and melodic way and how they stretched time — that was a huge inspiration to me,” Hussain said in DownBeat.
Dec 17, 2024 9:58 AM
Tabla master Ustad Zakir Hussain, one of India’s reigning cultural ambassadors and a revered figure worldwide…
“I love doing ballads,” Mike Stern says. “It’s just a part of me, some part of emotionally how I feel sometimes.”
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Stories of major shifts and rebirths among musicians during the past five years are common, from weathering the…
Gerald and John Clayton at the family home in Altadena during a photo shoot for the June 2022 cover of DownBeat. The house was lost during the Los Angeles fires.
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Roy McCurdy and his wife had just finished eating dinner and were relaxing over coffee in their Altadena home, when he…
Queen Latifah extols Harlem and the Apollo Theater at this year’s Kennedy Center Honors.
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“With jazz I thought it must be OK to be Black, for the first time,” says singer Sofia Jernberg.
Jan 2, 2025 10:50 AM
On Musho (Intakt), her recent duo album with pianist Alexander Hawkins, singer Sofia Jernberg interprets traditional…
