Keeping the Roots Growing: A Conversation with Kassa Overall

Here is a fun exercise for a reader’s consideration. Consider these two quotes: “[It is] just a bunch of notes thrown together without melody or soul—hardly what I’d call music” and “[It’s] not music… [it] doesn’t require musicianship….” What genre of music are they referring to? Here is a hint- the music grew organically through […]

Hanging in the Clouds: A Conversation with Rob Mazurek and Chad Taylor on Chicago Underground Duo

There is a particular power in the creation that comes out of long-term artistic relationships. While there is an excitement in the novelty of working with new collaborators, often it is within the comfort of the familiar that artists are most able to expand and conquer new realms. It is within this space with a […]

Flying to a New Land: Patrick Patterson and Steve Scipio Preview Cymande at the 2025 Newport Jazz Festival

Of the world’s roughly eleven thousand bird species, there is something particularly special about the dove family. Dating back to at least the Miocene epoch, twenty-three to twenty-five million years ago, across its history, the dove has developed a unique status as a symbolic creature. Many of these connections first emerged in the Biblical story […]

Enchanted: Marcus Gilmore on Honoring Roy Haynes at Newport and Journeying to the New

In making sense of the story of jazz, historians often craft a narrative that neatly divides into different generations and schools of thought. Revolutions in composition, improvisation, rhythm, and instrumentation each producing a distinctly novel area of music. While this perspective has some truth to it, the dividing lines between each era are often far […]