Author's posts
New Music Monday for October 31, 2022
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify After receiving four Grammy nominations for his highly successful series of recordings that “Latinized” the music of John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Joe Henderson, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock and Horace Silver, trombonist Conrad Herwig turns his attention to the legendary Charles Mingus. As an homage to the influential …
New Music Monday for October 24th, 2022
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify While Kurt Vonnegut undoubtedly found his true calling as an author, he once speculated about another potential career. “What I would really like to have been, given a perfect world, is a jazz pianist.” On the occasion of the great satirist’s 100th birthday, the pianist and composer …
New Music Monday for October 17, 2022
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify Saxophonist/composer Bobby Watson draws inspiration from the rich jazz heritage of his Kansas City hometown on his spirited new album, “Back Home in Kansas City.” Watson grew up in K.C., leaving to study at the University of Miami and then spending a quarter century making his name …
New Music Monday for October 10, 2022
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify The incredible journey of Alex Acuna has seen the renowned percussionist travel from his small rural hometown in Peru to being a first-call session drummer in the country’s capital of Lima, then touring the U.S. with mambo king Perez Prado, gigging in Las Vegas with Elvis Presley …
New Music Monday for October 3, 2022
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify Steve Turre was passed the jazz torch early in his career by some of the music’s greatest masters—Art Blakey, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Woody Shaw and Ray Charles, among others. In recent years he’s kindled the same flame in a younger crop of musicians. On his new album, …
New Music Monday for September 26, 2022
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and SpotifyDrummer, activist and educator Terri Lyne Carrington has published a groundbreaking new lead sheet book of 101 jazz compositions written exclusively by women, from Mary Lou Williams and Alice Coltrane to Esperanza Spalding and Maria Schneider and beyond. A companion album, “New Standards Vol. 1,” is the …
New Music Monday for September 19, 2022
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and SpotifySince arriving in the U.S. from Cuba in 1999, Dafnis Prieto has honed his forward-looking musical vision across a range of styles and formats. In the process, he has become equally known for his composing and arranging brilliance and electrifying drumming, comfortably exploring a wide spectrum of …
New Music Monday for September 12, 2022
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify Chris Cortez is a busy man. The number of jobs he performs suggests the presence of more people. Guitarist, composer, vocalist, bandleader, arranger, producer, engineer, label head, entrepreneur, and community leader, to name a few. In 2015 he paused his Houston-based Blue Bamboo record label to return …