More on our series on “weird-assed trios”… Tenor saxophonist Jonathan Lindhorst and guitarist Ryan Butler went down to the Village Vanguard in New York five years ago to catch a Paul Motian Trio show, and got to meet with Motian Trio members Bill Frisell and Joe Lovano afterwards. The wholeRead More

Lenny White, drummer with fusion-rock pioneers Return to Forever, joins us to discuss a handful of key tracks from across his career.

Lenny White’s life away from Return to Forever, a band he’s played with off and on since the early 1970s, has remained as hectic as it is varied.

A stylistic tour de force, this self-titled trio effort manages to take in many of jazz music’s most notable influences, even tosses in a dash of Pacific island flavor, but it never falls into the rote imitative traps of so many of today’s more traditionalist recordings. You May Also Like:Read More

Remember last month when I said I have more examples of weird-assed trios coming up? Here’s another one. Inspired by the long running Ray Anderson-led BassDrumBone trio, Brainkiller has Brian Allen manning the trombone and Hernan Hecht on drums, but substitutes the bass for keyboards and effects by Jacob Koller.Read More

Out of Atlanta comes a large band of a very different kind: a ten-piece group that is built on the idea of combining afrobeat and klezmer music. Though they are more of a local outfit, they’ve gotten the attention and praise of musical tastemakers all over America and even acrossRead More

Find out which Headhunters track Bill Summers describes as “nasty,” then go inside the sessions as they completely reimagine a Herbie Hancock classic.

The music of Wadada Leo Smith, no matter the setting, is spiritual, mesmerizing, purposeful and often dense. We found out back toward the end of ’09 just how dense his music can be You May Also Like: Wadada Leo Smith – Najwa (2017) Wadada Leo Smith and Orange Wave ElectricRead More

by Mark Saleski I’m not one to quote Wikipedia, but this time around it makes perfect sense: “Smooth jazz is a sub-genre of jazz which is heavily influenced by R&B, funk, rock, and pop music styles (separately, or, in any combination).” This is an interesting definition because it highlights theRead More

by Mark Saleski Some people really have the wrong idea about jazz. They think that most of it falls into two very broad categories: traditional, where guys in suits play an introductory theme before taking turns soloing over the developed chord changes; and avant-garde, also known as “cats-on-piano” jazz, whereRead More