Jan 21, 2025 7:54 PM
Southern California Fires Hit the Jazz Community
Roy McCurdy and his wife had just finished eating dinner and were relaxing over coffee in their Altadena home, when he…
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
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.
Jan 21, 2025 7:54 PM
Roy McCurdy and his wife had just finished eating dinner and were relaxing over coffee in their Altadena home, when he…
“She said, ‘A lot of people are going to try and stop you,’” Sheryl Bailey recalls of the advice she received from jazz guitarist Emily Remler (1957–’90). “‘They’re going to say you slept with somebody, you’re a dyke, you’re this and that and the other. Don’t listen to them, and just keep playing.’”
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In the April 1982 issue of People magazine, under the heading “Lookout: A Guide To The Up and Coming,” jazz…
The Old Country: More From The Deer Head Inn arrives 30 years after ECM issued the Keith Jarret Trio live album At The Deer Head Inn.
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Last November, Keith Jarrett, who has not played publicly since suffering two strokes in 2018, greenlighted ECM to drop…
“The first recording I owned with Brazilian music on it was Wayne Shorter’s Native Dancer,” says Renee Rosnes. “And then I just started to go down the rabbit hole.”
Jan 16, 2025 2:02 PM
In her four-decade career, Renee Rosnes has been recognized as a singular voice, both as a jazz composer and a…
“If you don’t keep learning, your mind slows down,” Coleman says. “Use it or lose it.”
Jan 28, 2025 11:38 AM
PolyTropos/Of Many Turns — the title for Steve Coleman’s latest recording on Pi and his 33rd album overall —…
