Interview
From emerging talents to today's brightest stars, we interview musicians from around the globe.
Miho Hazama: Where Groove Meets Orchestra
by Angelo Leonardi
Since making her debut in 2013 at the helm of M_Unit with Journey to Journey, Miho Hazama has built a body of work that has firmly established her among the leading orchestrators of her generation. Over the past decade, the Japanese composer and conductor has collaborated extensively with European orchestras, and since 2020 she has served as one of the three chief conductors of the Metropole Orkest, alongside Vince Mendoza and Jules Buckley. Among the many ...
Continue ReadingEliane Elias: Lively and Live
by R.J. DeLuke
Eliane Elias is a jazz musician of the highest order. Her skills as a superlative pianist became known not long after she arrived in New York City from her São Paulo, Brazil, home in 1981. She drew notice as a member of Steps Ahead, a groundbreaking fusion group of the early 1980s that included Mike Mainieri and Michael Brecker, among others. As her career grew, she became a prolific composer and interpreter of songs across a broad spectrum ...
Continue ReadingSonny Rollins: Still a Student
by Chris M. Slawecki
This article first appeared on All About Jazz sometime in Spring 1999. Considering his five decades as a fixture among the tenor greats, it's pretty safe to say that in 1999 most jazz fans under the age of sixty have never known a time when saxophonist Theodore “Sonny" Rollins was NOT on the scene. From the time he emerged on tenor late in the 1940s to his release of Global Warming in early 1999, Rollins has ...
Continue ReadingFrom Madrid to New York: Marina Alba’s Voice Across Many Worlds
by May Yu
Since moving from Madrid to New York, Marina Alba has quickly begun establishing herself in the city's creative music scene with a unique artistry that moves between violin and voice, classical discipline and jazz freedom, Spanish heritage and contemporary improvisation. Born in Madrid to a family of musicians, Alba grew up surrounded by classical music, tango, flamenco, opera, and improvisation, shaped in part by her father, the renowned flamenco cellist José el Marqués. A ...
Continue ReadingJamile and Vinicius Gomes: Acoustic Thrills With Brazilian Twist
by R.J. DeLuke
The music of Brazil made its way into the jazz lexicon in the late 1950s and early 1960s when the bossa nova style emerged and caught on in the U.S., its chords and harmonies ripe for combining with the sensuous side of jazz. It's been a popular style ever since, with people in North America discovering artists like Antonio Carlos Jobim, Joao Gilberto, Sergio Mendes and many others. Over the years, the music of South America and Cuba ...
Continue ReadingYazz Ahmed: Bridging Worlds Through Sound
by Marco Iacoboni
Yazz Ahmed is one of the most compelling and innovative voices in contemporary jazz, an Anglo-Bahraini trumpeter and composer acclaimed for her fusion of jazz, avant-garde electronics and Middle Eastern musical traditions. Her music creates soundscapes that feel at once ancient and futuristic, deeply rooted yet constantly searching for new directions. Rather than using music simply as a vehicle for performance, Ahmed approaches it as a means of building bridges between cultures and reshaping perceptions--through a musical language ...
Continue ReadingJohnathan Blake: 'My Life Matters'—Genesis of a Small Masterpiece
by Marco Iacoboni
Johnathan Blake is among the most authoritative drummers on today's international jazz scene. His playing embodies the energy, sophistication and restless curiosity of contemporary New York jazz, shaped through collaborations with artists such as Kenny Barron, Bill Frisell, Dr. Lonnie Smith and Tom Harrell. At the helm of a quintet of remarkable depth and sensitivity, Blake combines technical command, compositional vision and collective interplay with striking naturalness. We met him during the European tour presenting My Life Matters ...
Continue ReadingDavid Ambrosio Honors The Spirit of the '60s With Civil Disobedience
by John Chacona
Social activism and jazz have a long mutual history that arguably reached an apex with the resistance music of the '60s. On record, that music found a home at labels such as Impulse! and ESP-Disk. At the same time, artists in the Blue Note Records stable were assembling a body of work that was inspired by the social and political upheavals of the decade. For a number of reasons, this music has remained somewhat obscure despite its high quality and ...
Continue ReadingAtlantic Road Trip: Three Voices, One Journey
by Mark McKergow
Atlantic Road Trip comprises Paul Towndrow (saxophones, flutes and whistles), Miro Herak (vibraphone) and Chad McCullough (trumpet, flugelhorn and synthesizers). Their debut album ONE (Calligram Records, 2023) appeared in late 2023 to a chorus of international appreciation for its intercontinental folk and traditional influences, combining echoes of Scotland, Slovakia and the United States into an exciting musical whole. A second album, Watch As The Echo Falls (Calligram Records, 2026), has been launched with a tour of Czechia and Slovakia.
Continue ReadingDida Pelled: Sultry Swing, Blissful Blues
by R.J. DeLuke
Jazz and blues have different feels and styles. There's plenty of room for an artist to explore possibilities therein, bringing along influences and preferences, creating a distinctive strain that leaves a delectable impression. An artist with her own compelling style exists in Brooklyn in the person of Dida Pelled, a guitarist, songwriter, and educator whose breezy but sophisticated playing and singing began enrapturing fans in the Big Apple and continues to capture devotees all over the world.
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