Aug 26, 2025 1:53 PM
Blindfold Test: Buster Williams
Buster Williams, who at the age of 83 has been on the scene for 65 years, had never done a Blindfold Test. The first…
“What I got from Percy was the dignity of playing the bass,” Buster Williams said of Percy Heath.
Aug 26, 2025 1:53 PM
Buster Williams, who at the age of 83 has been on the scene for 65 years, had never done a Blindfold Test. The first…
“I’m not getting any younger, and in my later years I want to make sure my own visions can be realized,” says pianist George Colligan.
Aug 26, 2025 1:48 PM
From one perspective, the eminently versatile pianist George Colligan claims membership in the population of jazz…
Butcher Brown, clockwise from top left: Marcus Tenney, DJ Harrison, Morgan Burrs, Corey Fonville and Andrew Randazzo. (Keyboardist Harrison couldn’t make the gig, so special guest Jacob Mann sat in with the band at the Reno Jazz Festival.)
Aug 19, 2025 12:41 PM
The band known as Butcher Brown has enjoyed the last half-decade basking in the glow from the twin engines of critical…
“I love the place that fate or whatever has positioned me in Gil Evans’ life and legacy,” said Ryan Truesdell.
Aug 5, 2025 12:26 PM
“I originally set out to give two years of my life to Gil,” Ryan Truesdell said of his mindset in 2009, when he…
Christie Dashiell, left, and Terri Lyne Carrington demonstrate the resilience of Max Roach’s classic ’60s protest recording.
Jul 22, 2025 11:22 AM
We Insist 2025!, the new album by Terri Lyne Carrington and Christie Dashiell, resonates from its core with echoes of…
“I feel that the discipline that we call music is an all-dynamic proposition that includes discovery, momentum and transposition,” Braxton said.
Jul 17, 2025 12:39 PM
Anthony Braxton turned 80 in June, and his productivity this year alone exceeds that of some other artists’ entire…
Joe Satriani, left, and Steve Vai are in the midst of an action-packed European tour.
Jul 15, 2025 11:41 AM
They are the offspring of Jimi Hendrix, forever changed by hearing “Purple Haze” and “Voodoo Child (Slight…
“Hamiet was one of the most underrated musicians ever,” says Whitaker of baritone saxophonist Hamiet Bluiett.
Jul 8, 2025 7:30 AM
At 56, Rodney Whitaker, professor of jazz bass and director of jazz studies at Michigan State University, is equally…
“As human beings, when we talk to one another we can come together in one community,” said Sunny Jain, leader of Red Baraat. “To me, that’s the most important thing.”
Jul 1, 2025 11:58 AM
When Red Baraat hits the stage and starts pumping out its ecstatic melange of genre-busting music that fuses 18th…
“I would follow Barry [Harris] wherever he went,” Pasquale Grasso says of one of his early mentors. “His concept of music resonated with me, and I loved how he approached it.”
Jun 24, 2025 12:27 PM
Pasquale Grasso plays virtuosic guitar in a style that incorporates intricate harmonies and bebop phrasing with a…