May 17, 2022 12:24 PM
Melissa Aldana: A Sprinkle of Stardust
Melissa Aldana’s musical journey has been sprinkled with stardust, from 1990s TV appearances as a saxophone prodigy…
“I always have this feeling of emptiness after I play a concert,” Aldana said. “This has been for years. Sometimes I can easily cry, and there’s nothing wrong.”
May 17, 2022 12:24 PM
Melissa Aldana’s musical journey has been sprinkled with stardust, from 1990s TV appearances as a saxophone prodigy…
“I’ve always been into the zodiac and the truth that’s within it, but during this pandemic, we all had to time and space to do that,” Hill said.
May 17, 2022 12:20 PM
Trumpeter Marquis Hill speaks in quietly determined tones. Through a Zoom conversation from his college office in…
“The idea of dancing with a ghost, or a memory — I connect with that idea so much,” Salvant says.
Apr 12, 2022 11:06 AM
During the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic, Cécile McLorin Salvant spent about 200 hours devouring Marcel…
Thurman was the first woman to tour and perform full time with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.
Apr 5, 2022 4:55 PM
Here’s a question: How many tenor saxophonists would feel comfortable stepping into John Coltrane’s shoes to…
Fiedler and crew return for a second batch of rearranged, reharmonized Sesame Street tunes. From left: Michael Sarin, Sean Conly, Fiedler, Steven Bernstein and Jeff Lederer.
Apr 5, 2022 1:29 PM
With Fuzzy And Blue — his second volume of Sesame Street songs following the 2019 release of Open Sesame —…
“In many ways, truth has been stranger than fiction, and that is what I have been feeling,” Gordon says.
Mar 29, 2022 11:45 AM
As a young boy living amid poverty and dysfunction in a home on Staten Island, Jon Gordon clung to the thought that the…
“I have to continue the conversation and shed light on the fact that Black women have always been undervalued, not protected and not cared for,” Charles says.
Mar 29, 2022 11:09 AM
As a singer, flutist, beat-maker, remixer and conceptualist, Melanie Charles saturates Ya’ll Don’t (Really) Care…
“We’re sacrificing our bodies to innate feeling and becoming vessels for this music,” Wilkins says.
Mar 29, 2022 10:55 AM
“My work is the intersection between spiritual practice and Black aesthetics,” Immanuel Wilkins says. “The two…
“Don Cherry had his own original thing going on ... and you can’t duplicate it,” Randy Brecker says.
Mar 20, 2022 10:45 PM
Randy Brecker has done four Blindfold Tests, according to DownBeat archives. This one was his first in a long time,…
“I wanted to give the strings fun things to play,” Fred Hersch said.
Mar 8, 2022 1:08 PM
Over the past year, the breadth and fire of jazz artists dipping a toe into the classical world has been staggering —…
