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…
Trombonist Roswell Rudd had teamed with the Mongolian Buryat Band for an exploration of jazz and Asian Music. Blue Mongol, which is set for an Oct. 11 release on Sunnyside/Soundscape, is a 13-track synthesis of cultures that is an extension of a 2004 concert that features Rudd with musicians from Mongolia.
The Mongolian musicians on Blue Mongol are led by throat singer and multi-instrumentalist Battuvshin Baldantseren, a virtuoso on the bamboo flute, horse-head bass and jaw harp. Joining Rudd and Baldantseren are singer Badma Khanda, Dmitry Ayurov on fiddle, dulcimer player Kermen Lakyaeva and Valentina Mandykova on zither.
Rudd calls their music “art folk, because is combines the sophistication of conservatory, Western training with the indigenous performance style of their long history.
“The Mongolian instruments and the trombone create a sound that is the ideal acoustic realization of these Central Asian flavors,” Rudd said.
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…
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