Astor Piazzolla (center) leading his quintet, perhpas his best instrument. Oscar Lopez Ruiz, guitar; Hector Console, bass; Pablo Ziegler, piano; and Fernando Suárez Paz, violin. Argentine composer, musician, and bandleader Astor Piazzolla, the creator of New Tango, would have celebrated his 100th birthday this March 11. He died in 1992 at the age of 71. …
It’s been decades since jazz was led out of the Great Popular Music Paradise. And it still hurts. True, in that time it has also gained recognition in certain circles not just as a noble social product but also as a worthy aesthetic and intellectual interest. This has had obvious benefits — including university-level study …
Editor’s Letter: Rod Stewart Now Sings Jazz. Deal With It (JAZZIZ) Read More »
The city of Salta — the capital of Salta province in northwest Argentina — is about a thousand miles and a world apart from Buenos Aires, Argentina’s urbane, Europhile capital. Campo Santo is a small town about 37 miles north of Salta. In the 1930s, the town had no electricity. There was no radio, no …
On August 12, Pat Metheny turns 53. His face is now creased with the light lines of middle age, but he still has a broad, easy smile, a seemingly eternal tan, and his trademark tangle of wild hair. On this warm, late-spring afternoon in Manhattan, dressed in a long-sleeved T-shirt and cut-off jeans, he …
Pat Metheny settles not-so-softly into middle age (JAZZIZ) Read More »
Most jazz recordings are little more than souvenirs, true-color snapshots of moments in the music’s history and in artists’ careers. Michael Brecker’s Pilgrimage (Heads Up) is a different matter. Recorded over four days in August 2006, and mixed shortly after Brecker succumbed to leukemia on January 13, at the age of 57, Pilgrimage is the …
Testament: The Making of Michael Brecker’s Final Album (JAZZIZ) Read More »
Wesley Prince, bass; Oscar Moore, guitar and Nat King Cole, Club Zanzibar in New York, N.Y., ca. July 1946. Photo by William Gottlieb Nat King Cole was not the first, nor would he be the last, jazz artist whose success as pop singer nearly eclipsed his brilliance as an instrumentalist. Consider Louis Armstrong and, …
Nat King Cole: Pop Goes the (Jazz) Pianist (JAZZIZ) Read More »
The music of Nils Petter Molvær is the sound of paradox. It’s the sound of “Solid Ether,” a track from the Norwegian trumpeter, composer, and producer’s recently released CD, An American Compilation (Thirsty Ear). In fact, “Solid Ether” could serve as a manifesto on Molvær’s musical philosophy: delicate melodies floating over brutal, industrial rhythms; breathy, …
Nils Petter Molvær and the Music of Paradoxes (JAZZIZ) Read More »
JAZZIZ Magazine Editor’s Letter “Jazz is known all over the world as an American musical art form and that’s it. No America, no jazz,” said drummer and bandleader Art Blakey. “I’ve seen people try to connect it to other countries, for instance to Africa, but it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with Africa.” …
Hear the World. The Globalization of Jazz (JAZZIZ) Read More »