Featured Jazz Articles
A Brief Guide To Ukrainian Jazz: Part 2
by Ian Patterson
The second installment of A Brief Guide To Ukrainian Jazz--a series developed with the cooperation of the Ukrainian Institute--introduces five more highly talented jazz artists/groups from Ukraine. In addition, we profile the jazz festivals and jazz clubs that are keeping the Ukrainian jazz flame burning brightly in these most difficult of times. Pokaz Trio Pokaz Trio takes its name from pianist and composer Andrew Pokaz, who founded the trio in Odesa in 2016. Its debut album, Kintsugi (Losen ...
Continue ReadingBrilliant Corners 2025: Days 5-8
by Ian Patterson
Brilliant Corners 2025 Black Box/Various Venues jny:Belfast, N. IrelandFebruary 28-March 8, 2025 If the first four days of Brilliant Corners 2025 leaned towards long-form contemporary composition and free improvisation, the music of the last four days had a more spiritual tone, and a more heavily African-accented character. Many would say that all music comes from God, or that it is an offering to God, but as became clear, others find creative inspiration in much more ...
Continue ReadingKinan Azmeh: Berlin and Beyond
by Katchie Cartwright
Syrian-born jny: New York-based clarinetist and composer Kinan Azmeh and his CityBand released Live in Berlin on March 1, 2025 (recorded in 2021), dedicating the project to the people of Syria with this statement: “It moves me profoundly to be sharing this album with the world as my Syrian people are able to sing again after the long and costly struggle against tyranny and dictatorship. The album is dedicated to all who believe that making music is also an act ...
Continue ReadingGrateful Dead: Idiosyncratic Improvisationalists
by Doug Collette
As the Grateful Dead morphed from an eccentric folk-blues group into an eclectic jam juggernaut, the band adopted an idiosyncratic approach to improvisation they would then hone over three decades. Regular shifts of personnel nurtured an ongoing alteration of the Dead's musicianship, as did the growing wealth of original material the group interspersed with a wide range of cover songs. The following selections taken from the arc of the iconic unit's history illustrate how their distinctive means of playing together ...
Continue ReadingAnat Cohen and Oded Lev-Ari: On Togetherness, The 3 Cohens and The Art of Interaction
by Dan Bilawsky
As clarinetist Anat Cohen and arranger Oded Lev-Ari sit down to chat on a frigid February morning, they're completely cognizant of a pair of major milestones on the horizon in early 2025: Anzic Records--the label they initially launched with valued partner and supporter Colin Negrych, and have long run as a two-person team--marks its 20th anniversary; and separated by a matter of weeks, each is celebrating their golden jubilee. Jazz at Lincoln Center, spotlighting the virtuoso reedist, is hosting several ...
Continue ReadingMoving On Music: Literal Magic
by Ian Patterson
2025 marks the 30th anniversary of Moving On Music (MOM), one of Ireland's finest music promotion companies. There will probably be little hoopla, no big party and probably not even a cake. Instead, it will be business as usual for the small but industrious team of four, and that means bringing the best music of all stripes to the island. Jazz, traditional Irish, folk, electronic, contemporary classical, indie-rock, choral... and plenty that slips between the ever-widening genre ...
Continue ReadingThe Father of Early Jazz: James Reese Europe
by Karl Ackermann
In 2020, I published A Map of Jazz: Crossroads of Music and Human Rights (WS Publishing), a book that looks at the culture of jazz on a timeline with cultures of the world. At more than 500 pages, the book is incomplete by necessity; there is no well-marked path, and the history is sometimes nebulous. However, as a map and as jazz music, it leads to unfamiliar places. The series Backstories dives deeper into people and places along the genre's ...
Continue ReadingEmilio Solla: Uncovering Music Already There
by Dean Nardi
In the '40s, the jazz scene was dominated by bebop with its roots in swing music, formerly the purview of the big band era. Trios and quartets became the combo of choice for players such as Charlie “Yardbird" Parker and Thelonious Monk, who took the harmonies of the old jazz and superimposed them on chord substitutions, resulting in complicated improvisations. Gradually as the 21st century unfolded, a new generation of big band proponents have brought back the tradition ...
Continue ReadingA Brief Guide To Ukrainian Jazz: Part 1
by Ian Patterson
The history of jazz in Ukraine can be traced fairly precisely according to academic, literature teacher and jazz journalist Alexander Yudin. Writing in The History Of European Jazz: The Music, Musicians And Audience in Context (Equinox Publishing, 2018), Yudin credits Yuliy Meitus with leading the country's first jazz band. Meitus' band, which consisted of vibraphone, violin, drums and percussion, reportedly gave the first jazz concert in Ukraine on December 29, 1925. The concert took place in Kharkiv, “with the band ...
Continue ReadingJazz: Cultural Diplomacy, Art or Show Business?
by Anastasia Bogomolets
There is a firm belief among scholars that jazz and the American Jazz Ambassadors programme played an important role during the Cold War era. Extensive literature explores the significance of jazz in shaping global post-war relationships. The world has changed dramatically since then. On one hand, music, including jazz, has become increasingly commercialized; on the other, unlimited access to free streaming platforms has significantly reduced governments' ability to influence musical preferences. Do you think we are entering another historical period ...
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