Aug 26, 2025 1:53 PM
Blindfold Test: Buster Williams
Buster Williams, who at the age of 83 has been on the scene for 65 years, had never done a Blindfold Test. The first…
Greenleaf Music recently released Meaning & Mystery from label owner’s Dave Douglas Quintet on April 11. The album, Douglas’ first quintet recording since 2004’s Strange Liberation, was recorded on Feb. 1 in New York and includes nine new original compositions by Douglas.
The ensemble playing on Meaning & Mystery has been together for six years and includes Uri Caine on Fender Rhodes, Donny McCaslin on tenor sax (who replaced Chris Potter), James Genus on bass and Clarence Penn on drums.
Douglas tapped into inspiration from poetry, visual arts, architecture, dance, film, and artists such as Lee Morgan and Anthony Braxton, as well as groups he said are “not given the appropriate credit for the great expansions in music.” Of the songs that fill Meaning & Mystery, Douglas said they are “songs that can be approached with –- that invite -– personality, expressiveness, immediacy.”
A national tour in support of the new album will launch with three nights at The Jazz Bakery in Los Angeles, April 20-23.
Tour dates and more information can be found at greenleafmusic.com and davedouglas.com.
“What I got from Percy was the dignity of playing the bass,” Buster Williams said of Percy Heath.
Aug 26, 2025 1:53 PM
Buster Williams, who at the age of 83 has been on the scene for 65 years, had never done a Blindfold Test. The first…
Don and Maureen Sickler serve as the keepers of engineer Rudy Van Gelder’s flame at Van Gelder Studio, perhaps the most famous recording studio in jazz history.
Sep 3, 2025 12:02 PM
On the last Sunday of 2024, in the control room of Van Gelder Studio, Don and Maureen Sickler, co-owners since Rudy Van…
The Free Slave, Cosmos Nucleus and Sunset To Dawn: three classic Muse albums being reissued this fall by Timer Traveler Recordings.
Aug 26, 2025 1:32 PM
Record producer and “Jazz Detective” Zev Feldman has launched his next endeavor, the archival label Time Traveler…
This year’s Jazz em Agosto set by the Darius Jones Trio captured the titular alto saxophonist at his most ferocious.
Aug 26, 2025 1:31 PM
The organizers of Lisbon, Portugal’s Jazz em Agosto Festival assume its audience is thoughtful and independent. Over…
Trio aRT with its avalanche of instrumentation: from left, Pheeroan akLaff, Scott Robinson and Julian Thayer.
Sep 3, 2025 12:03 PM
Trio aRT, a working unit since 1988, shockingly released its very first studio recording this summer. Recorded in…
