Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify. With two Juno Awards, five Juno nominations, and a host of other international awards, Metalwood is arguably Canada’s most decorated jazz ensemble. Between 1997 and 2003, their name became synonymous with groove-oriented electric jazz, winning the band devoted fans around the world. Taking their cue from the …
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify. Beginning his professional career with the Venezuela Symphony Orchestra, the top call New York trumpeter Raul Agraz has performed with Tito Puente, the Mingus Big Band and the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra. Percolating with a combination of Latin rhythms, boss nova, swinging big band arrangements, traditional Venezuelan …
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify. Saxophonist and composer Chris Cheek has come to feel at home in a variety of musical contexts, from the infectious grooves of Brooklyn Boogaloo Blowout to the challenging global music of Guillermo Klein. Much of his compositional style’s effectiveness stems from his love and use of …
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify. It’s no secret that the Branford Marsalis Quartet can be as freewheeling off the bandstand as in performance. The saxophonist and his ensemble, made up of pianist Joey Calderazzo, bassist Eric Revis and drummer Justin Faulkner, are each bold personalities with strong opinions, equally intense in …
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify. At a time when jazz bandleaders from across the musical and generational spectra regularly lament the difficulty of keeping a band together, it’s all the more remarkable that a supergroup like One For All has stuck it out for twenty years. But the impeccably swinging …
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify. For the past five years, 29-year-old trumpeter Marquis Hill has been invigorating the Chicago jazz scene with his sleek approach to modern jazz, which often incorporates elements of spoken word and hip-hop. JazzTimes magazine praised his trumpet playing by stating, “His articulation, precise but unlabored, calls …
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify. For 20 years, Guillermo Klein has been creating some of the most singular and exciting music for his highly adept 11-piece ensemble, Los Guachos. His compositional style has been evolving over the years, though always utilizing elements of jazz, folkloric music of his native Argentina, …
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify. Trinidad-born trumpeter Etienne Charles’ sixth full-length release, “San Jose Suite,” is an ambitious ten-part work exploring the histories, cultures and musical traditions of three Western settlements that share a name: San Jose, Costa Rica; San Jose, California; and Charles’ native St. Joseph, Trinidad, known as …
