Sep 3, 2025 12:02 PM
Keeping the Flame at Van Gelder Studio
On the last Sunday of 2024, in the control room of Van Gelder Studio, Don and Maureen Sickler, co-owners since Rudy Van…
On Monday, pianist Anthony Davis won a Pulitzer Prize for his opera, The Central Park Five.
(Photo: YouTube)Anthony Davis, a frequent Wadada Leo Smith collaborator, on Monday was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in the musical composition category for his opera, The Central Park Five.
The pianist, who currently teaches at the University of California, San Diego, premiered the work at the Long Beach Opera in California on June 15, 2019. The piece follows the travails of five New York teenagers who are accused in the 1989 murder of a jogger in the city’s park. Each of the five—who also were the focus of a 2019 Netflix series, When They See Us, which was directed by Ava DuVernay and scored by jazz pianist Kris Bowers—were convicted and later exonerated.
The Pulitzers, which this year included Jon Batiste as a judge in Davis’ category, said the composer’s work “skillfully transforms a notorious example of contemporary injustice into something empathetic and hopeful.”
Notably, in 2016, jazz composer Henry Threadgill won the category for his In For A Penny, In For A Pound (Pi) recording.
Davis—whose other work includes albums released on the India Navigation and MPS imprints, and X, The Life And Times Of Malcolm X, An Opera In Three Acts—also received $15,000 as a part of the win. DB
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…
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…
“Think of all the creative people I’m going to meet and a whole other way of thinking about music and a challenge of singing completely different material than I would have sung otherwise to my highest level in dedication to the moment,” Elling says about his Broadway run.
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Kurt Elling was back at home in Chicago, grabbing some family time in a late-June window between gigs. Sporting a smile…
Pat Metheny will perform with his Side-Eye III ensemble at Big Ears 2026 in Knoxville, Tennessee, next March.
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Big Ears has announced the lineup for its 2026 festival, which will take place March 26–29 and include 250…
Mark Masters, right, with Billy Harper.
Sep 3, 2025 12:00 PM
The Rising Star Category of this publication’s annual Critics Poll was once called Talent Deserving Wider Recognition…
