Harpist Alina Bzhezhinska, one of 15 European artists DownBeat critics selected as must-hear music.

“I always let the music lead me, and it’s led me to a really rich life,” Hilton said.

“Just like my parents who raised me to be who I am today, all my musical influences live inside me, in my bloodstream forever, as if they were my musical moms and dads,” Eli Degibri said.

“I knew that I would be playing music, and that it would be part of my identity, the way that it’s part of my dad’s identity,” Gerald Clayton (right) said of his upbringing with his father, John.

“Songwriting is intuitive for me,” Eugenie Jones said.

“I came to terms with my influences — accepting that I love this or that player, but being comfortable in my own skin, recognizing that I have an identity,” Michael Weiss said.

​“The power of unison is super,” Turner said. “It’s 10,000 years old, or more.”

Black Lives—From Generation To Generation makes a multi-generational plea for equity and equality with artists like Alicia Hall Moran, left, and E.J. Strickland.

“I know that tensions are high and emotions are intense right now, but the beauty of music is beyond words,” Arriale said.

​Benevento calls the outcome of his deep walk through polyrhythmic grooves, electrifying self-jams, West Africa-derived dance music, songs based on poetry and short lyrical ditties his “small batch psychedelia.”