In the Artist's Own Words
Henry Mancini: The Genius Composer - 25th Anniversary Edition
by Nazareno Bicocchi
The Personal Bond with Henry Mancini: The genius composer who redesigned my world through his magical notes My first encounter with Henry Mancini didn't happen by a deliberate choice, but through a cassette recorder and a local radio station in Rome. It was 1998, and at sixteen, I was a young musician obsessed with searching for the timbres of the most diverse musical instruments. I spent my afternoons recording Radio Vaticana Musica specials on cassettes, using their broadcasts to study ...
Continue ReadingMiles Davis Centennial Celebration At SFJAZZ 2026
by Walter Atkins
The 2026 Miles Davis Centennial Celebration at SFJAZZ marked the first hundred years of the innovator, musician and painter Miles Dewey Davis III. Davis' nephew, producer and Miles Electric Band leader Vince Wilburn Jr has maintained and directed the influential legacy of Davis for decades. This year, Wilburn introduced several fresh elements to his annual visit to honor his uncle's 100th anniversary. These included a panel discussion of Davis' posthumously released 1992 album doo-bop (Warner Bros.), featuring collaborator and hip-hop ...
Continue ReadingAlison Shearer In Her Own Words
by Walter Atkins
Bandleader Alison Shearer brought her talented Quartet to San Francisco's Black Cat for an expansive four-day residency. Her quartet consisted of keyboardist Kevin Bernstein, bassist Marty Kenny, drummer Diego Joaquin Ramirez and Shearer, saxophone and flute. The set included her compositions “Celestial," “Liberty Market" and “Cycles." After a productive week, she spent an extra day in town to provide her personal insight on touring the west coast, her early instrument choices and musical motivations. Shearer talked effusively about ...
Continue ReadingWhy Is Japan a Jazz Paradise? Part 2—From Sake to Soul: Jazz Musicians and Their Love for Japan
by Atzko Kohashi
Part 1 | Part 2 In May 2025 Japan welcomed an estimated 3.693 million visitors, marking a surge in global fascination with the country--up 125% (more than double!) compared to a decade ago. Many come for the exquisite Japanese cuisine, the tranquil atmosphere of temples and shrines, the ultra-modern buzz of jny: Tokyo, or the soothing beauty of rural landscapes. But long before this boom, our proud jazz legends--the predecessors with finely tuned ears and sensitive ...
Continue ReadingWhy Is Japan a Jazz Paradise—or—Why the Japanese Feel at Home in Jazz?
by Atzko Kohashi
Part 1 | Part 2Why is Japan such a jazz-loving nation? No other country has reissued so many classic jazz albums as Japan. From Blue Note to Riverside to Prestige, masterpieces are constantly being revived--remastered with pristine sound, released in exclusive paper sleeves, or in ultra-high-quality formats like SHM-CD or SACD. Some albums long out of print even in the U.S. have been revived only in Japan. For instance, Bill Evans' Waltz for Debby and Sunday ...
Continue ReadingOn the Road With Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids
by Gioele Pagliaccia
The first time I met Idris Ackamoor was inside of Centro Stabile di Cultura on a Sunday afternoon in November 2018. The organizers at this historical venue in San Vito di Leguzzano, a small village half hour from Vicenza surrounded by foundries and wheat fields, asked me if I could lend my Ludwig Drums to the drummer playing in The Pyramids at the time; as a reward I would watch the show for free and get to meet the band. ...
Continue ReadingBobby Sanabria: West Side Story Reimagined
by Bobby Sanabria
West Side Story holds a special place in my heart. I first saw the movie as a young boy when my parents José and Juanita took me and my sister Joanne to the luxurious Loews Paradise on the Grand Concourse in my hometown Da' Bronx in celebration of the film's 10th anniversary. At that time there wasn't anything that acknowledged the contributions we had made, let alone the existence of NYC's Puerto Rican community, other than articles about gangs and crime ...
Continue ReadingBut Beautiful: My Life with Billie Holiday
by Lara Downes
Every Saturday morning, when I was a little girl, my sisters and I went to the San Francisco Conservatory of Music for what we called “Saturday Classes": piano lessons, theory, music history--serious classical music training for serious little musicians. Saturday afternoons, when we got home, we had a ritual. We'd get out our “dress-up" from the vintage steamer trunk that housed a collection of my mother's 1960's party dresses and my grandmother's furs, go through my parents' record collection--the Beatles, ...
Continue ReadingThe Most Beautiful Thing
by Michael Bisio
For me music is full of magic, mystery, spirituality, joy, passion and fire, blue to red, yet my journey to conceptualize finds me chasing the most objective truths I can discover, truths stripped of every aesthetic element possible. In High School during an intro to theory class my teacher announced: music is sound in time. We tapped metal chairs with pencils, scratched blackboards until they screamed, and poked and prodded classmates hoping for squeals of surprise, trying to discover music ...
Continue ReadingSteve Khan: The Making of "Parting Shot"
by Steve Khan
The term, “parting shot" can certainly be interpreted in any number of ways. Perhaps for most of us, it would be best defined like this: “a threat, insult, condemnation, sarcastic retort, or, gesture delivered while departing." I choose to view it as the latter, thinking of a light punch to the shoulder as the final gesture! This interpretation led me to invent my own Spanish title: “Golpe de partida." I think that someone else would have chosen, “La última palabra"--the ...
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