Jan 31, 2024 2:39 PM
Sean Mason’s Southern Spirit of Celebration
Pianist-composer Sean Mason lives in New York — he moved there in 2018 to attend Juilliard — but he remains deeply…
“Everybody thought I was smooth when I was growing up, so they called me ‘silky,’” Sean Mason says. The Southern Suite, his new album, proves it.
Jan 31, 2024 2:39 PM
Pianist-composer Sean Mason lives in New York — he moved there in 2018 to attend Juilliard — but he remains deeply…
Steven Lugerner and Ross Eustis put their experience in the non-profit world into creating Slow & Steady Records.
Jan 31, 2024 2:28 PM
In the land of 1,001 tech startups, Steven Lugerner and Ross Eustis decided to launch a record label.
Founded in…
“One of the first things I checked out heavily when I got serious about playing music was Weather Report’s Heavy Weather,” Payton says of his early influences.
Jan 23, 2024 12:35 PM
There was a time, back in the mid-’90s, when trumpeter Nicholas Payton was being hyped as a Young Lion on the scene.…
Emmet Cohen, right, with one of his heroes, Houston Person.
Jan 23, 2024 12:24 PM
Emmet Cohen’s first DownBeat Blindfold Test transpired on the only day in September that didn’t involve traveling…
Samara Joy performing at the 2023 Monterey Jazz Festival.
Jan 16, 2024 11:55 AM
Samara Joy posted a personal video on her social media this fall in which her grandfather, Elder Goldwire McLendon, is…
The Black Men of Labor Club leads a second line parade, from the documentary City of a Million Dreams.
Jan 16, 2024 11:38 AM
Last year was a good one for jazz and jazz-adjacent documentaries. Most prominent among them are the well-distributed…
Billy Mohler’s Ultraviolet was inspired by Sonny Rollins’ A Night At The Village Vanguard and Ornette Coleman’s The Shape Of Jazz To Come.
Jan 16, 2024 11:27 AM
As part of the finale evening of this year’s Angel City Jazz Festival, bassist-bandleader Billy Mohler took the stage…
Seeking to create a vibe similar to New York’s Village Vanguard, Paul Solomon (left) and David Robaire have made L.A.-based Sam First an artist-friendly club with its own record label.
Jan 16, 2024 11:22 AM
The back entrance opens into a cozy, darkened room, leather-cushioned benches snaking around the irregular, rounded…
“I feel honored to have been a part of this legacy and tradition,” Jackson says of his years at the helm of the Monterey Jazz Festival. “I’m proud of the work that I did.”
Jan 8, 2024 10:48 PM
“It’s an honor,” said Monterey Jazz Festival artistic director Tim Jackson, when he heard he would be receiving…
“He knew how to administer to the needs of a beginner, and had the skill set and patience to teach somebody young,” says saxophonist Greg Osby of his first music teacher, Fred Irby III.
Jan 8, 2024 10:42 PM
The 2023–’24 academic year marks the 50th year that Fred Irby III taught in Howard University’s Department of…
