November is traditionally the month when JazzTimes focuses on percussion, and that’s one reason why Brian Blade is on the front cover. Another reason: The last time he was on our cover, it was November 2000. Having been a fan of his drumming ever since I first saw him in Daniel Lanois’ band back in…Read More
The fourth annual BRIC JazzFest in Brooklyn, N.Y., was a four-night extravaganza. First, Antibalas played its potent blend of Afrobeat for the festival’s kickoff night on Oct. 13. Then, from Oct. 18 to Oct. 20, there was the three-night live music marathon, featuring sets by Terence Blanchard, Stefon Harris & Blackout with Casey Benjamin, JD…Read More
In late June, at the club Nublu in Manhattan’s East Village, I sidled up to the musician and bandleader Steven Bernstein at the bar. I said hello and explained that I needed to interview him for an article on the slide trumpet, that obscure brass instrument he’s long been synonymous with. I wasn’t rolling tape,…Read More
Who would ever have expected a young man from a tiny medieval town 10 kilometers outside of Versailles to land in the gritty center of Philly jazz? Many of us in the Quaker City would have expected nothing less after meeting Alex Delcourt, a self-taught French bassist who had James Jamerson licks burned into his…Read More
On Sunday, Sept. 30, the royally retro sights and sounds of the New York Hot Jazz Festival took over the McKittrick Hotel in Chelsea for the second straight year (the festival itself is now six years old). On three stages, artists like Kat Edmonson, Vince Giordano & the Nighthawks, Mwenso and the Shakes, Queen Esther,…Read More
On Sept. 29, 2018, six blocks of Columbus Avenue in Boston, Mass., were closed off for the annual Berklee Beantown Jazz Festival. Along with an array of food and drink vendors, arts, crafts, and a so-called “instrument petting zoo,” music was presented on three stages by an intriguing roster of artists that included Gregory Lewis,…Read More
Jazz has changed a lot over the past hundred or so years, but at least one thing about it has remained a constant: New York is—and probably always will be—its undisputed hub. Ever since Duke Ellington decamped from Washington, D.C., for Manhattan in the early 1920s, eventually establishing his orchestra as the house band at…Read More
On the final day of the 2018 Newport Jazz Festival (Sunday, Aug. 5), sunshine returned—along with tropical temperatures—to Fort Adams State Park. For his third set of the fest, Charles Lloyd turned to his “Friends,” including Lucinda Williams, Jason Moran, Marvin Sewell, Stuart Mathis, Reuben Rogers, and Eric Harland. Particularly righteous sets were put on…Read More
It began with an album cover. A profile shot, slightly blurry around the edges, of a man with a dark, sharp-pointed goatee, wearing a green plaid jacket and black fedora. His right eye (the only one visible) was shut, as if he’d been caught in repose, but that slight blurriness suggested his moment of rest…Read More
The second day of the 2018 Newport Jazz Festival (Saturday, Aug. 4) was both a tough slog and an inspiration. The skies opened, the winds picked up, and the ground flooded, but the music kept playing. While Harold Mabern and Eric Alexander’s quartet dug into some classic bop, Trio 3—Oliver Lake, Reggie Workman, and Andrew…Read More
