Hearsay
May 2005 By John Murph
Meshell Ndegeocello: Jamia Session
Meshell Ndegeocello has built a solid career in the socially conservative world of R&B by being a provocateur. She fearlessly sings about religious hypocrisy, homophobia and sexism, all in a dark, mellifluous voice. It also doesn't hurt that Ndegeocello...
May 2005 By Aaron Steinberg
Hod O'Brien
In 1957, a 21-year-old Hod O'Brien replaced pianist Bill Evans in Oscar Pettiford's band. Evans had been performing "strange things" on the keyboard, so the bassist welcomed the orthodox bop sound of O'Brien. It was the pianist's first big break. It was...
May 2005 By John Murph
Lea DeLaria
It's really hard to be a 'hyphenate' of any kind because people tend to not take you seriously," says Lea DeLaria, minutes after performing the role of Winnie in the Classic Stage Company's production of Samuel Beckett's Happy Days. The 48-year-old is referring...
May 2005 By Felix Contreras
Dafnis Prieto
An interview with drummer Dafnis Prieto is not limited to talking about the usual reference points of influences and current activities. The conversation twists and turns from references to the colonial ambience of his native Santa Clara, Cuba, to his newly...
May 2005 By Andrew Lindemann Malone
Eldar
The CIA Factbook lists the primary exports of the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan as cotton, wool, meat and tobacco, but it's also sent a jazz piano wunderkind our way. Eighteen-year-old Eldar Djangirov (who records under just his first name) moved...
May 2005 By Bill Milkowski
John Ellis
A member of guitarist Charlie Hunter's various groove-oriented aggregations over the past four and a half years, tenor saxophonist John Ellis steps out again as a leader with One Foot in the Swamp (Hyena). Though he grew up on an 18-acre farm in a small...
April 2005 By Christopher Loudon
Sylvie Lewis
I reached my teens midway between the rock 'n' roll and disco eras, so my musical puberty was largely defined by such female singer-songwriters as Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro, Carole King, Janis Joplin and the McGarrigles-women who marched to their own drummers...
April 2005 By Bill Milkowski
Avery Sharpe
Varied elements come to bear on Dragon Fly (JKNM), bassist-composer Avery Sharpe's latest recording as a leader. You can hear touches of his 18-year tenure with McCoy Tyner on the urgently swinging modal number "Oh No!," a piece partially named for the degree...
April 2005 By Mike Shanley
David Friesen
In name, the David Friesen Trio might seem like a unit that puts the veteran bassist in the spotlight, but its namesake says it doesn't quite work that way. "The music leads," Friesen says. "Any one of us can be the leader in a given moment just because...
March 2005 By Nate Chinen
Soweto Kinch
Soweto Kinch had a banner year in 2004, winning accolade after accolade in his native U.K. But to hear the alto saxophonist tell it, his most momentous experience was an autumn sojourn at his aunt's house in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, USA...
