Interviews

Over the last several years, Tigran Hamasyan has emerged as a visionary artists working at the intersection of jazz, progressive rock, electronic music, and Armenian traditional music. The crossover pianist and composer’s Manifeste (Naïve, 2026) is an adventurous fourteen-track sonic statement that infuses the spiritual traditions of his Armenian homeland into contemporary jazz. Recorded between 2023 and… Read more: Review: Tigran Hamasyan’s ‘Manifeste’

The first law of thermodynamics states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but instead, it must be transformed from one form to another. One could posit a similar theory to apply to technological development. A great amount of literature has been produced expressing concern regarding the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the… Read more: Considering the Composer’s Black Box: A Conversation with Ted Gordon

The eponymous Take A.M.E. is the debut from a trio co-led by three artists based in New York City – alto saxophonist Atsushi Ouchi, drummer Marc Copell, and bassist and longtime protégée of Buster Williams, Everett Boyd. Copell and Boyd play across jazz, blues, R&B, funk, and world-beat music. Blues fans may know them as integral long-running members of… Read more: Review: ‘Take A.M.E.’

Julian Lage is unafraid to switch gears. While the guitarist has held together his trio with bassist Jorge Roeder and drummer Dave King, over the last four years, recently he’s been branching out. First, there was the Joe Henry-produced Speak to Me (Blue Note, 2024) with keyboardists Patrick Warren and Kris Davis, and saxophonist Levon Henry. Last year, Lage toured with Joe… Read more: Review: Julian Lage Quartet’s ‘Scenes from Above’

When one thinks of the great artistic cataloging of North American bird paintings, John James Audubon’s name often first comes to mind. That connection makes sense given that his best-known work, the multi-volume The Birds of America (1827-1838), featured four hundred and thirty-five paintings covering four hundred and eighty-nine species. Painting that many birds was… Read more: Echoes of Chickadee Valley: A Conversation with Christopher Hoffman on ‘Rex’