One of the perks of being artistic director at a major American performing arts venue? Putting oneself on the program. But the grand Two Wings: The Music of Black America in Migration wasn’t some vanity project. The collaboration between pianist Jason Moran and his mezzo-soprano wife Alicia Hall Moran premiered at Carnegie Hall in New York…Read More

Call it the Jazz at Lincoln Center influence, but the Savannah Music Festival’s annual Jazz Week (March 29-April 5) had a bit more of an educational tinge this year. Not only was the Jazz at Lincoln Center Youth Big Band one of 12 finalists in the annual Swing Central playoffs, SMF’s nationwide high school big…Read More

Knoxville, Tenn.’s determinedly eclectic Big Ears Festival celebrated its 10th anniversary with a packed long weekend of boundary-stretching music from March 21 to 24. Rather than spend too much time trumpeting its own first decade, the festival chose to shift the spotlight to two even more impressive landmarks: the 50th anniversaries of both ECM Records…Read More

Black Mountain College was a noble experiment in progressive education that existed from 1933 until 1957. Its legacy is preserved in downtown Asheville, N.C., by the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, based in a new and roomy gallery space with clear sightlines to the street outside. Downstairs on a wall display you can…Read More

The 15th annual Winter Jazzfest in New York opened on Friday, Jan. 4 at Le Poisson Rouge with “Thing Called Life: Prince Reimagined,” a concert by the festival’s artist-in-residence Meshell Ndegeocello. It was a risky move, for it recalled the bad old days when the Kool Jazz Festival toured the nation with such headliners as…Read More

Helsinki in December looks ominous when your plane touches down. At noon, the world is dim in the fog. Black sky descends to the ground. On the train into town from the airport, all the buildings are the same shade of gunmetal gray. The train station is a landmark designed by famous Finnish architect Eliel…Read More

There came an aha moment at the NEC Jazz Orchestra’s Dec. 6 concert in Jordan Hall that doubled as a reminder of why it was worth the time during this busy season of the year to brave the cold and venture into this venerated space. The moment arrived during the third number, Ran Blake’s “The…Read More

The Art Ensemble of Chicago in full cry, especially on a 50th-anniversary tour, is a powerful way to kick off a jazz festival. That said, if you have just flown in to Milan from the west coast of the United States and have not slept for 27 hours, the AEC can sound a little harsh.…Read More

The idea of the avant-garde has always been built around the shock of the new, the unceasing urge to push further, reinvent, or question what’s come before. All of which can make it somewhat disconcerting to realize just how long some of our most challenging artists have been stretching those boundaries, and how many have…Read More

How to play a chord that feels like Toni Morrison writing, “I didn’t fall in love with you, I rose in it”? How to play a melody with that feeling? These are the kinds of questions that Danilo Pérez, Avishai Cohen, and Chris Potter were mulling over in the leadup to the debut performance of…Read More