Interviews

In the Internet Age, we are continually surrounded by words. Statements inundate our every waking moment. But it is rare that the language carries weighty significance. Instead, we are often bombarded with a constant stream of self-serving and aggrandizing thoughts. No wonder our world is a mess. But even amongst the barrage, sometimes essentials can emerge.… Read more: Moving as One: A Conversation with Satoko Fujii and Myra Melford

Phil Haynes keeps pushing ahead, often in unexpected directions. Terra (Corner Store Jazz, 2026) is less a revolutionary setting than a natural development on some of his prior work. As an hour-long group improvisation between Haynes, guitarist Ben Monder, and tenor saxophonist Peyton Pleninger, record seems to be an outgrowth of the drummer’s duo project… Read more: Review: Phil Haynes’s ‘Terra’

We have barely caught our collective breaths. Only three months after trumpeter and composer Dave Douglas released his outstanding Four Freedoms (Greenleaf, 2026), he returns with a different group of musicians for Transcend (Greenleaf, 2026). Here, Douglas reunites his Gifts (Greenleaf, 2024) quartet, augmenting it with cellist Tomeka Reid to form a quintet. While Gifts… Read more: Review: Dave Douglas’s ‘Transcend’

Where do we go from here? Though we all exist on a linear timescale, humans have always wondered about the great beyond; about what happens at the end of what is seen and rationally foreseeable. While animals recognize death, current scientific research shows they do not ponder the afterlife as humans do. Part of the… Read more: Finding Through the Unknown: A Conversation with Willy Rodriguez

Shards (Red Hook, 2026) is the follow-up to Refract (Red Hook, 2023) by the trio of pianist Jason Moran, electronic musician BlankFor.ms (Tyler Gilmore), and drummer Marcus Gilmore. The predecessor was so novel, rather complex, and totally stunning. Shards finds the trio more at ease, in a comfort zone that makes the overall result more… Read more: Review: Jason Moran, BlankFor.ms and Marcus Gilmore’s ‘Shards’