By Jim Benitez, WICN On Latin Jazz Now this Friday, May 22 at 7 pm, you’ll have the pleasure of enjoying Spanish Harlem Orchestra’s latest release, “SHO The Latin Jazz Project” in its entirety, as it will be released the same day. You don’t want to miss this! Read the full feature here.
By Stephen Mosher, BroadwayWorld Michael Olatuja just lost his job. Actually, he lost his job working as a bass player in the pit for the Broadway musical FROZEN when the city of New York shut down in order to flatten the curve. For a while, Mr. Olatuja was holding out hopes that his job awaited … Read More
By Nate Chinen, WBGO Bassist Michael Olatuja is an adopted New Yorker who was born in London, but his heart — certainly the heart of his musical project — resides in Lagos, Nigeria, where he grew up. Read the full feature here.
By Aipate “Pjanoo” by French-Malagasy composer and producer MATHIS (and his band Mathis Sound Orchestra) is an interesting mix of jazz and electronic music. It is taken from his new EP World Unity, a body of work that thematically underscores the importance of human connection. Listen to this feature here.
By Stephanie Jones, Downbeat On a chilly January night in New York City, drummer-composer Antonio Sánchez plays a full-body phrase. He hangs back in the measures before repeating it—a provocation. Alongside saxophonist and EWI artist Chase Baird, vocalist Thana Alexa stretches vowels around quarter-tones in extended moments of dissonance on the Blue Note stage. She … Read More
By Simon Rentner, NPR Vocalist and loop artist Thana Alexa and her husband, multiple Grammy award-winning drummer Antonio Sánchez, are no strangers to performing together around the world. Their original strategy of keeping their work and personal lives separate proved to be futile when she joined his band, Migration, in 2014. They had been forced … Read More
By Matt Micucci, JAZZIZ Elsa Nilsson Debuts New Group Via New Album: Just a few months after the release of Hindsight, flutist/composer Elsa Nilsson debuts a new group, South by North East (SXNE) with a digital-only album, for human beings, out May 15. Released in response to COVID-19, this is a five-piece improvised suite featuring … Read More
By Lee Megner, JazzTimes There’s something about jazz musicians from Chicago. A certain physicality mixed with intelligence, as well as a blend of earthiness and urbanity. Bassist Clark Sommers, best known for his tenure with Kurt Elling, fits that prototype of a Chicago jazz musician. Sitting in a café on the Celebrity Infinity during the … Read More
by Matt Micucci, Jazziz 10 Albums You Need to Know: May 2020
By Bill Milkowski, Downbeat After 37 years of living in the bucolic scenery of Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, a stone’s throw from the Deer Head Inn in Delaware Water Gap, Dave Liebman and his wife, oboist-composer Caris Visentin Liebman, moved back to the Big Apple, where the reedist with the prodigious output was born 73 years ago. … Read More
