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…
Bassist Christian McBride (left), saxophonist Joshua Redman, drummer Brian Blade and pianist Brad Mehldau reconvened in the studio after more than two decades for RoundAgain.
(Photo: Michael Wilson)He recalls trying to connect his love of Black music to his background by playing with his father and experiencing “the depth of feeling and the soul, and the anguish, but also the affirmation in his sound.” Redman also discovered a brotherhood with other African-American musicians, including Blade.
The drummer mentioned that he and Redman were just recently talking about Floyd’s killing. Their experiences as jazz musicians—generally being treated with respect and deference wherever they go, engaging positively with people of all races and backgrounds—seem like they’ve sprung from a world different from what so many people who look like them encounter every day.
“It makes me feel sometimes like I live in a bubble,” Blade said. “We make music and we sort of exist in that idealism. So, how can we send more of that out into the world?”
Redman, who once considered becoming a civil rights attorney, sees music as a reconciliation: “Part of the genius of jazz is that it ultimately resolves these inherent tensions [of Black and white culture]. In its best expression, you get these opposing elements, but somehow, some sort of transcendence is reached where there’s a sort of resolution, some affirmation in the face of all this anguish and heartbreak. It’s a privilege to play the music.”
Like many musicians, both performers are looking to engage with the call for social justice. Perhaps the music they’ve created—following in the footsteps of jazz masters who worked to address societal ills—is their best answer.
But even amid the tumult of the past several months, Blade embodies the eternal optimist: “Martin Luther King [said], ‘Where do we go from here?’ [King] was asking that question, and we’re still having to ask that question. I just hope that we all can go there together.” 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.
Sep 9, 2025 1:18 PM
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.
Sep 9, 2025 12:19 PM
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…
