Over the years, I’ve written about my admiration for Quincy Jones on a personal level.…
Spring 2021
Publisher's Letter
Prelude
Donald Harrison first met Biggie Smalls on a stoop in the Fort Greene section of……...
Decades before Public Enemy and NWA, Archie Shepp was electrifying audiences with his gritty urban……...
Gil Scott-Heron Small Talk at 125th and Lenox (Flying Dutchman), 1970 On his debut recording, Gil……...
When A Tribe Called Quest emerged in the early 1990s, the band was at the……...
Drummer-producer Karriem Riggins is equally versed in jazz and hip-hop. But he feels most at home……...
Contempo
Having recently received his Master’s in Jazz Piano Performance from Manhattan School of Music, David……...
Blu Notes
Donald Harrison first met Biggie Smalls on a stoop in the Fort Greene section of……...
Magazine Features
Back around the turn of the 21st century, commentators trying to situate the hip-hop movement……...
Jazz and hip-hop are dialects of the same language. Put them together and the conversation……...
When I catch up with Kassa Overall on the final day of 2020, he’s holed up……...
What was it like for a devoted jazz aspirant from Gen Y or Gen Z……...
Auditions
The Dave Brubeck Quartet Time Outtakes: Previously Unreleased Takes From the Original 1959 Sessions (Brubeck……...
The lovely, twilight-moody Elina Duni/Rob Luft album Lost Ships is a wanderer — in spirit,……...
At 96, drummer Tino Contreras is finally basking in the glow of accolades long overdue……...
Pianist Cameron Graves, who gained notoriety as a central member of Kamasi Washington’s West Coast……...
Saxophonist Bobby Zankel first convened this Philadelphia-based big band almost 20 years ago, and here……...
While it can often seem like the piano-trio format is all wrung-out, very occasionally a……...
Given their compatible sensibilities and friendship of several years, a recording by Archie Shepp and……...
Space is the place many of us probably would have liked to have gone to……...
Some singers grab you as much — maybe more — through their music than their……...
This uniformly satisfying two-CD set, recorded at Manhattan’s famed nightclub in February 2019, showcases saxophonist……...
In the history of jazz harp — from Casper Reardon and Adele Girard to Dorothy……...
One session yielding two completely different records from the same music: That was the plan……...
Coda
Geoff Wilkinson may not have been the first producer to combine jazz and hip-hop, but……...