Apr 15, 2025 11:44 AM
Blindfold Test: Ethan Iverson
Between last Christmas and New Year’s Eve, Ethan Iverson performed as part of the 31st Umbria Jazz Winter festival in…
Mary Halvorson remained busy during the pandemic year, releasing a new album with her group Code Girl, as well as with the trio Thumbscrew.
(Photo: James Wang)Since her debut on record about 15 years ago, guitarist and composer Mary Halvorson has stood out. A fierce experimentalist who’s consistently pushed the boundaries of her own sound, and that of avant-garde jazz, the Brooklyn-based Halvorson has become one of New York’s most sought-after and beloved musical voices.
This year was a significant one for Halvorson. Not only did she celebrate her 40th birthday, but she also released two fresh albums: October’s Artlessly Falling, her second Code Girl record, but first lyric and poetry-focused album; and July’s The Anthony Braxton Project with the trio Thumbscrew, a tribute to the legendary composer who inspired Halvorson to become a professional musician.
In November, DownBeat had the chance to chat with the guitarist about her weighty new releases, which nod to the her biggest influences, Trump-era politics and the lessons she’s learned during her latest turn around the sun.
The following has been edited for length and clarity.
With the political landscape in mind, I wanted to start by chatting about the song, “Last-Minute Smears,” on your newest Code Girl album, Artlessly Falling. Tell me a little bit about the process of writing that song?
I wrote that song in 2018, [during Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing]. I was so disgusted, but I couldn’t turn the TV off. I started writing down phrases that he said in my notebook. I just arranged his words into a poem form. Then, I thought to give the song a regretful quality that was entirely absent from his testimony. It’s a little snapshot of what was happening in the world with the #MeToo movement ramping up during the Trump Era.
It’s so weird, too, because the Supreme Court has come back into the spotlight in a really intense way between Ruth Bader Ginsburg dying and then Amy Coney Barrett’s appointment, and just [recently] Kavanaugh was back in the news amplifying Trump’s notions of election fraud. It almost gave the song, to me, a renewed sense of life.
“I’m certainly influenced by Geri Allen,” said Iverson, during a live Blindfold Test at the 31st Umbria Jazz Winter festival.
Apr 15, 2025 11:44 AM
Between last Christmas and New Year’s Eve, Ethan Iverson performed as part of the 31st Umbria Jazz Winter festival in…
“At the end of the day, once you’ve run out of differences, we’re left with similarities,” Collier says. “Cultural differences are mitigated through 12 notes.”
Apr 15, 2025 11:55 AM
DownBeat has a long association with the Midwest Clinic International Band and Orchestra Conference, the premiere…
“It kind of slows down, but it’s still kind of productive in a way, because you have something that you can be inspired by,” Andy Bey said on a 2019 episode of NPR Jazz Night in America, when he was 80. “The music is always inspiring.”
Apr 29, 2025 11:53 AM
Singer Andy Bey, who illuminated the jazz scene for five decades with a four-octave range that encompassed a bellowing…
Foster was truly a drummer to the stars, including Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins and Joe Henderson.
Jun 3, 2025 11:25 AM
Al Foster, a drummer regarded for his fluency across the bebop, post-bop and funk/fusion lineages of jazz, died May 28…
Davis was a two-time Grammy winner for liner notes.
Apr 22, 2025 11:50 AM
Francis Davis, an august jazz and cultural critic who won both awards and esteem in print, film and radio, died April…
