Jan 16, 2024 11:27 AM
Billy Mohler’s Open Vision
As part of the finale evening of this year’s Angel City Jazz Festival, bassist-bandleader Billy Mohler took the stage…
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…
“I mortgaged my house a couple of times, but it was worth it,” Muscarella says of working to establish Jazzschool and California Jazz Conservatory.
Jan 8, 2024 10:03 PM
There’s a paragraph in Susan Muscarella’s book California Jazz Conservatory: A 25-Year Retrospective that brings a…
“I really respect people who could learn this vocabulary and find a way to express it in a way that is so unique,” Nduduzo Makhathini said of the late pianist Don Pullen during his live Blindfold Test.
Jan 2, 2024 11:19 PM
Much powerful and resonant music has emanated from South Africa and, in part due to the reprehensible cultural scatter…
“No matter what you produce or do in your life, the thing you’ll be remembered for is rescuing all that Blue Note material,” Woody Shaw once said of Michael Cuscuna, and Cuscuna is fine with that.
Jan 2, 2024 11:13 PM
Once upon a time, a tiny handful of early jazz critics wrote about rare old jazz records like priests talking about the…
Calligram founders Geof Bradfield (left) and Chad McCullough are dedicated to putting out physical product.
Jan 2, 2024 11:03 PM
Texas tenorist Geof Bradfield’s playing possesses a steely grandeur and deep sophistication. He’s grown a…
Pops at home in Corona, Queens.
Dec 27, 2023 12:44 PM
On July 6, the hottest day in recorded history, a new institution devoted to the man who gave the world “hot” jazz…
Davis says, “I wouldn’t call myself a jazz musician; my music is more about crossing boundaries.” Her band Alula, from left: Chris Tordini, Davis, Tyshawn Sorey and Val Jeanty.
Dec 27, 2023 12:32 PM
A rigorous intellectual, Caroline Davis makes intensely visceral music that mines everything from the cardiology of the…