Mar 2, 2026 9:58 PM
In Memoriam: John Hammond Jr., 1942–2026
John P. Hammond (aka John Hammond Jr.), a blues guitarist and singer who was one of the first white American…
Firehouse 12 will release Xenogenesis Suite: A Tribute To Octavia Butler on April 29, the new studio recording of Chicago-based flutist Nicole Mitchell’s extended composition of the same name. The piece, performed by her group Black Earth Ensemble, was commissioned by Chamber Music America’s New Works Presentation program. It premiered in June 2007 at the 12th annual Vision Festival in New York and was performed again at the Chicago Cultural Center in December. The composition is inspired by the work of Afrofuturist writer Octavia Butler.
“My compositional journey was stimulated by my emotional reaction to Butler’s novel Dawn, rather than the specific events of the story,” Mitchell wrote in the liner notes. “Dawn intimately deals with the condition of fear and our ability to adapt in inhumane circumstances. The process of writing this music allowed me to face the feeling of fear head-on, to enter and explore it.
“Xenogenesis Suite: A Tribute To Octavia Butler represents a new direction for my work as a composer. I purposefully rebelled from my natural attraction to certain compositional devices in an effort to discover new methods of stimulating human emotion. I created the instrumental music as the surrounding alien environment, and used the voice of Mankwe Ndosi to portray the human element. Ndosi represents a sole human, a woman, in the midst of a wondrous and perhaps frightening landscape.”
More info: nicolemitchell.com
Hammond came to the blues through the folk boom of the late 1950s and early 1960s, which he experienced firsthand in New York’s Greenwich Village.
Mar 2, 2026 9:58 PM
John P. Hammond (aka John Hammond Jr.), a blues guitarist and singer who was one of the first white American…
“Cerebral and academic thought is a different way to approach music,” Flea says of his continuing dive into jazz. “I’ve always relied on emotion and intuition and physicality.”
Mar 30, 2026 10:30 PM
In the relatively small pantheon of certifiable rock stars venturing into the intersection of pop music and jazz, the…
Vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater will be among the headliners at this year’s DC JazzFest.
Mar 2, 2026 9:48 PM
The first wave of artists scheduled to perform at the 2026 DC JazzFest have been announced. This year’s headliners…
Blindfold Test proctor Ted Panken, left, with the Grammy-winning Nicole Zuraitis.
Feb 24, 2026 12:00 PM
After earning the 2024 Best Jazz Vocal Album Grammy for her seventh album, How Love Begins (La Reserve), comprising 12…
“These days, with curated news, where people only get half the story, people can’t even speak to family members anymore,” Schneider laments.
Mar 10, 2026 1:43 PM
Maria Schneider is doing her part to try to fix what ails America. Which got her thinking about crows, specifically,…
