Mar 18, 2025 3:00 PM
A Love Supreme at 60: Thoughts on Coltrane’s Masterwork
In his original liner notes to A Love Supreme, John Coltrane wrote: “Yes, it is true — ‘seek and ye shall…
Yazz Ahmed is among the 25 artists DownBeat thinks will help shape jazz in the decades to come.
(Photo: Seb JJ Peters)On the three studio albums flugelhorn player Yazz Ahmed’s released, there’s a very clear unfolding of singular ideas—an expansion of color and intent.
“I think I’m on the sort of outskirts, really,” Ahmed said about where she fits into the London jazz scene, a loose cohort of players who have come to impact the global understanding of how identity interacts with genre. “Shabakah [Hutchings] and I, we went to music college together, so that’s how I know him—I’ve known him for a very long time. But there are connections, even though my music, it’s not sonically similar to the people who are grabbing the headlines.”
What might cement her link to London’s current crop of players is a willingness to engage popular forms of music. As with La Saboteuse, Ahmed’s latest album is set to receive the remix treatment. “My friend, Charlie Jungle-Schaber, he sent me a list of a load of electronic artists that he thought I might like,” Ahmed said, discussing Polyhymnia Remixed, due out Nov. 6. “I wouldn’t have thought that I would have liked electronic or electronic experimental music, but I got into a lot of it. ... I chose the [producers], because I thought they would represent and respect my music. And also, they all have different backgrounds, so I thought it’d be interesting to hear my music through a different perspective.”
On Polyhymnia, Ahemd wrote for an ensemble of more than 20 musicians, etching in choruses and chanted vocal sections, but also space for improvised spotlights. As her approach to composition has continued to develop, the ensemble she’s worked with has grown, too, adding in instrumentation when she hears it in her mind. But the album’s premise—each song detailing the story of a woman who pushed against societal expectations—entailed a different kind of exploration for the bandleader.
“Polyhymnia, it was kind of very outward looking, you know? I was finding inspiration from these women that I was reading about,” said Ahmed, who lived in Bahrain until she was 9. “That really gave me the opportunity to learn about their stories and the music that they were brought up with. That really informs and inspires my writing, and you take that into your art.” DB
This story originally was published in the November 2020 issue of DownBeat. Subscribe here.
“This is one of the great gifts that Coltrane gave us — he gave us a key to the cosmos in this recording,” says John McLaughlin.
Mar 18, 2025 3:00 PM
In his original liner notes to A Love Supreme, John Coltrane wrote: “Yes, it is true — ‘seek and ye shall…
The Blue Note Jazz Festival New York kicks off May 27 with a James Moody 100th Birthday Celebration at Sony Hall.
Apr 8, 2025 1:23 PM
Blue Note Entertainment Group has unveiled the lineup for the 14th annual Blue Note Jazz Festival New York, featuring…
“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…