They are three fourths of The Empress, an all-female saxophone quartet, whose debut album Square One will be released 21 March via Cellar Music Group. (Due to her touring schedule, Baratz couldn’t make the call; this column plans to catch up with her ASAP.) Square One is rounded out by the rhythm section of pianist Steve Ash, bassist Joey Ranieri, and drummer Pete Van Nostrand. Links to pre-order Square One and the artists’ websites can be found at the end of this article.

“I just want to show that we can also play this very hardcore music,” Pureum Jin, the nexus for the formation of the Empress, explains in Square One’s liner notes. The obvious connotation: in straight-ahead jazz, it’s rare to find a four-woman saxophone line.

But the adjective ‘hardcore’ is arguably most interesting. For Jin, it opens a sort of Pandora’s box.

“There are a lot of great female players on the scene, but somehow, they’re still underrated,” Jin says. “That’s why I want to play with a very raw intensity, with skilful improvisation. To show the people that women can play. So, maybe it’s a little aggressive; it’s kind of hardcore for me.”

For her part, Lauren Sevian plays the bari, which skews masculine as far as jazz’s current representation goes.

“On one hand, I embrace these definitions, because that’s what we’ve been taught,” she says of Square One, recorded at the hallowed Van Gelder Studio. “On the other hand, I challenge all of those definitions. So, I think this group is a great representation of both filling and challenging that stereotype.”

Read on for more of Jin, Sevian, and Terakubo’s reflections on Square One, a burning program of originals (Michael Lutzeier’s ‘Instant Composure’ and ‘Reminiscing’) as well as standards like ‘But Not For Me’, ‘Stablemates’, and ‘Milestones’.

UK Jazz News: Where’d the name The Empress come from?

Pureum Jin: Lauren picked the name.

Lauren Sevian: I think we were brainstorming, actually, what would be a cool name for the group, the front line of the four female saxophonists. I was just thinking of strength and grace – those kinds of qualities.

PJ: I really like the name because I wanted something very intense, but not, like, a warrior thing. Something fresh is good for women.

Erena Terakubo: Literally yesterday, I translated what ’empress’ means. [Laughs]

UKJN: How did you four creatively gravitate to each other?

PJ: It’s all my connection. I’m sure all three girls already knew each other as well. 

But I met Lauren when I did an artist residency at the University of Virginia, when I was living there. I had a chance to invite her as a guest artist to play with me. Chelsea sat in with me at a gig I played in Charlottesville. And I think Erena and I moved to New York City at almost the same time.

ET: Pureum was running a jam session at the International House, a little space right next to the Manhattan School of Music.

PJ: It’s kind of a dorm, actually – a bunch of international students live there. But there’s a small area in the basement, where they have a piano and other music gear. So, we would sometimes play there, and I asked [Erena] to come in.

Erena was a really precious friend for me, because we play the same instrument, and we’re both from Asia. Again, we moved to New York at almost the same time. Besides Chelsea, we all went to MSM at different times. So, that’s how I met all of them, and I gathered them together because I thought it would be a really interesting, fun group.

UKJN: University aside, which schools of the saxophone would you say you all came from?

LS: As far as the baritone saxophone is concerned, I’ve listened to a lot of Pepper Adams, so I’m definitely coming from that type of sound. But as to what I’ve transcribed the most, it would have to be a toss up between Pepper Adams and Atlantic[-era] Coltrane.

UKJN: I love that era of Trane. So underrated.

LS: I really agree. [1964’s] Coltrane Sound is my all-time favourite Trane record. I mean, any Trane, right? But for me, there’s something really special about that era that I felt so connected to.

ET: Cannonball [Adderley], Charlie Parker, Sonny Stitt, and Phil Woods are who I transcribed the most.

PJ: I started to play jazz because of John Coltrane. When I first heard his music, I was really shocked – What was that? What was that? – because before that, I had just started playing saxophone in a classical [context]. I didn’t know much about jazz. But that’s how I started getting interested in it.

I also love all the alto giants: Charlie Parker, J-Mac. But my first love in jazz was Coltrane.

UKJN: How did you guys come to work with Steve, Joey, and Pete in the rhythm section?

LS: I had never played with Steve or Joey. Pete, I had known for several years and played with a little bit, but not a ton. But I felt like it was pretty seamless. I thought they were all excellent choices, and it was great making music with them.

ET: I can’t believe Joey is only 21, or something.

LS: An old soul.

UKJN: Can you talk about the standards you chose?

PJ: I mean, creating something fresh and new is a really important task and part of being a musician. But at the same time, I get a little tired of playing original compositions. I just want to play jazz, and I feel like a lot of jazz fans also feel the same way.

Recently, there’s been a lot of new creations: new songs, new music, new bands, blah, blah. I want to capture that raw intensity in jazz – relying on the improvisation skills of the individual players, while still focusing on the ensemble.

That’s why I chose to include classic, well-known tunes in the band, and I hope people like it as much as I do.

LS: The arrangements [by Michael Lutzeier] were extremely challenging, at least for me, especially as a bari player. I was trying to navigate some of these parts, thinking, Wow, these were written by a bari player, so I’d better get my act together.

But I had a great time. I felt really comfortable. I don’t know, everyone’s different – but if I’m at a session and I feel uneasy or nervous, that’s a very bad sign. But I felt comfortable with the studio; I felt comfortable with the sound; I felt comfortable with everyone that was on the project. So, for me, the vibe was way up.

And I think the product speaks for itself. Just listening to what I’ve heard so far, I’m so excited about it. It was a great couple of days.

The post Mondays with Morgan: Pureum Jin, Lauren Sevian, Erena Terakubo first appeared on UK Jazz News.

At this point, most serious jazz fans are familiar with Lil Hardin, and the impetus to elevate her as a musical figure beyond her husband, Louis Armstrong. Let’s drill deeper: as a pianist, when Hardin’s music is under your fingers, what jumps out?

That’s the first thing I asked Caili O’Doherty. “I think she really shines as a composer,” she replied. “I think a lot of people unfairly judged her piano playing; she had a lot of negative criticism [on that front].”

Did this mean she was a weak pianist? Absolutely not, O’Doherty says.

“I think what is reflected is that they didn’t give her a lot of opportunities to improvise. There aren’t a lot of [recorded examples] out there of her actually improvising, shining through the arrangements as a piano player. I think she really shows her lyricism, and how melodic she is, through her writing and compositions.”

From ‘Let’s Call it Love’ to ‘Happy Today, Sad Tomorrow’ and ‘Just For a Thrill’, O’Doherty and company, richly recorded, illuminate a jazz figure overshadowed by Pops for too long, even as she was instrumental in his evolution via her membership with cornetist and bandleader King Oliver.

Read on to learn how O’Doherty came to pay a full-album tribute to Hardin.

UKJN: What was your gateway to Lil’s music?

CO’D: I got into her through Louis Armstrong. I took a class at Queens College on the history of Armstrong, and her name kept coming up.

It wasn’t the first time I had heard of her – I had heard of her many times throughout my undergrad – but she never came up about her piano playing or anything. She was just always taught about in the context of Louis Armstrong’s group, the Hot Five.

[Louis Armstrong historian and author] Ricky Riccardi taught the class. He obviously included Lil in the conversation, although there wasn’t much dedicated to her; he was mainly talking about Louis Armstrong.

But he has since pointed me in the direction of tons of amazing content. I read her unpublished autobiography that they have at Queens College. He’s given me a bunch of interviews to listen to, where she talks about her early life: growing up playing in the church, and being raised by her grandmother.

When she started getting into jazz music, her mom in particular was terrified, because the shows were really late at night, and they were in speakeasies – environments that they didn’t want her in. They were very hesitant of her going out and gigging and stuff.

UKJN: What happened next?

CO’D: Learning about her in class, I became more and more curious. I went into the Louis Armstrong Archives at Queens College, and started digging through some of the charts – and I found a bunch of charts in her handwriting. I was like, Did she write these tunes?

As I dug deeper and researched her and her tunes more, I realized a lot of people actually recorded them – Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin. So, I just fell in love with her compositions.

UKJN: Are there any other Lil Hardin tribute albums out there? I’m not aware of any.

CO’D: I don’t think I’ve seen one, yeah. But since I started this project [highlighting Hardin’s music in performance and on record] in 2018, I’ve played around with it – and now, colleagues have started to play some of her music, which has been really cool.

I did an album release show at the Stanford Jazz Festival [in California], and the trumpeter Andrea Motis was on the project. After we finished, I was so amazed by her music; I had never heard of her. So then, she started including Lil Hardin’s music in her shows.

I’ve worked with different people, and they’ve been exposed to her music and are starting to cover it. I know [vocalist and composer] Thana Alexa covered ‘Clip Joint’, and reached out to me about that. So, through the project, people have started to play her music. That’s the goal, for more people to learn about her music. 

UKJN: How did you choose these Hardin tunes?

CO’D: I wanted to [highlight] a wide variety of her career. So, I chose some more popular tunes, like ‘Struttin’ With Some Barbecue’ and ‘Just For a Thrill’, [the latter of which was] made famous by Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles.

But I wanted to pay homage to tunes that people had never heard of, like ‘Let’s Call it Love’, ‘Let’s Get Happy Together’, and the title track, ‘Bluer Than Blue’. I wanted to dig into her lesser-known charts that people hadn’t been exposed to before.

UKJN: What do you have coming up?

CO’D: My next project is called Suite for Gearoidin. It’s a 13-part suite that I wrote with my quartet for my mom. Instrumental, very original music.

Some of the pieces are very short. They carry through seamlessly without a lot of pauses. There are not a lot of starts and ends; they just kind of trickle into each other. We recorded that last April, and it will come out in 2026.

UKJN: What inspired you to pay homage to your mom?

CO’D: My mom had a really long battle with cancer, and she passed away last May. Toward the end of her life, I wanted to create something for her that was hopeful and uplifting, something that could be a soundtrack for all the things that she was navigating.

Through the process, I found that a lot of people can relate to that. Music, for me, is very healing and therapeutic and calming. It allows me to express what I feel.

In performing the body of work, even now that my mom passed away, I think a lot of people resonate with using music as a tool for healing or dealing with something that life throws at you that is overwhelming.

The post Mondays with Morgan: Caili O’Doherty – new album ‘Bluer Than Blue’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Riccardi won his second golden gramophone at the 2025 Grammys, for Best Liner Notes for King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band’s Centennial, released 30 August 2025 via Archeophone Records. Links to purchase both can be found at the end of this article.

Ricky Riccardi’s first two books. 2011’s What a Wonderful World: The Magic of Louis Armstrong’s Later Years, and 2020’s Heart Full of Rhythm: The Big Band Years of Louis Armstrong, did a tremendous amount to buoy Satchmo in the modern consciousness, beyond tired jazz-history beats and attendant, caked-over conceptions.

It follows that Armstrong’s mentor and role model, Joe “King” Oliver, would receive similar treatment – not only via Archeophone, who tastefully restored the previously murky sound – but in Riccardi’s trusted hands.

“Yes, the music is important. This music is 100-plus years old. It’s Louis Armstrong’s first recordings. It’s the end of this polyphonic era of New Orleans jazz before Oliver starts going. It’s more kind of arranged big band sounds,” Riccardi says. “The music tells its own story.”

“But within my notes,” he adds, “I wanted to tell the human being story.” And that’s where I wanted to begin, interviewing Riccardi: asking about him.

UK Jazz News: You and your wife, Margaret, recently celebrated the 21st anniversary of your first date. How would you describe the role she and the kids play behind the scenes?

Ricky Riccardi: What can I say? My family is everything. They’re the driving force behind everything I do; from taking liner notes, to gigs and lectures, to running over to libraries and teaching. I do it because I love it, and it’s the passion. But it helps pay the bills, helps quality of life, and [my family] is just always on my mind.

Margaret and I had our first double date on January 30, 2004. Then, we had a one-on-one date on the 31st, and we knew we’d be married. It sounds corny, but it’s true.

Then, our third date: that’s when I famously told her that I was going to write a book about Louis Armstrong, because we were at that stage of talking about career goals. She was talking about getting a degree in chemistry, and how she could be working at a lab as soon as she graduated from college, and making $50k a year on opening day. And she’s like, “Well, what about you?” 

I was getting my master’s in Jazz History and Research at Rutgers at the time, so I told her my goal was to write a book about Louis Armstrong. She sat up: “Wow, that’s so exciting!” And I had to calm her down immediately and say, “It’s not going to make money. I’m not in the jazz history world for money. This is just what I want to do.”

I graduated with that degree in May 2005, and we got married that June. For four years, the only gig I could find was as a full-time house painter, working for my father. So, she was the rock during those years.

She did work in a lab for a year, then she transitioned to teaching high school, which she’s been doing for 17 years. But the whole time, man – I started this blog in 2007; I hired an agent in 2006. My first book [What a Wonderful World] – it must have gotten rejected 30 times.

By year three or four, I was still painting houses. I could see she was getting nervous. My parents were getting nervous. But there was some weird thing in me that knew this was important, and that it was different.

UKJN: How so?

RR: Nobody had written about Armstrong’s later years. I was meeting people; I was interviewing the musicians who knew him. I was going up to the Armstrong archives, listening to Louis’s tapes. I said, Man, this is something. I just have to stick with it.

I’ll tell you one more quick Margaret story: in the middle of all the house painting, I started this blog. This was before the whole social media boom. It was discovered by a man in New Orleans, John Pult. He was booking people to come down to Satchmo SummerFest in New Orleans, to give lectures. He was looking for somebody young, who hadn’t been there before.

He found my blog, and he called [the indispensable jazz historian and archivist] Dan Morgenstern. Dan said, “Oh, yeah: book Ricky. He’s got things that even I don’t have.”

So, that was my coming out party. John booked me for three days, just showing Armstrong videos from my personal collection. Day one, there were maybe 25, 30 people in the room. Day two, the room was almost full. And the front row was a murderer’s row: George Avakian, Dan Morgenstern, Gary Giddens.

Day three: the word had spread. Now, the room was standing room, and I actually got a standing ovation at the end. Margaret ran out of the room crying hysterically, calling my parents on the phone to let them know.

So, it was like, This feels like something! And I swear to god: two days later, I was painting houses again. So, just for dealing with me all those years, she’s a saint.

UKJN: But something had to give.

RR: It did start falling like dominoes.

I got the book deal about a month after that. We had our first kid in April 2009, and then I got the Armstrong House job in October 2009. That first book came out in 2011 – actually, the day my second daughter, Melody, was born. I always make the joke that the book took much longer to conceive – har, har. But I had basically been working on that book since the moment I heard Louis Armstrong’s music.

I had my dream job, dream wife, two kids: everything was kind of cool. And I never really intended to write another book. That was the book I envisioned. I pulled it off. I was happy.

Then, people started asking: “What are you going to write about? What are you going to write about?” So, I came up with this idea that people were sleeping on Armstrong’s middle years. So, I wrote Heart Full of Rhythm: [The Big Band Years of Louis Armstrong]; I got that idea in 2016, and it came out in September 2020.

My editor said, “Hey, do you want to finish the trilogy?” in November 2020. And I’ll never forget, my oldest daughter Ella’s response was, “No. You just wrote a book. We already lost you for a few years. We’re going to lose you again.”

UKJN: That’s heavy.

RR: That was a killer.

A lot of times, people ask me how I juggle all this stuff. And the truth is, I really don’t think about it. Every day, I wake up: What’s on the agenda? I have a job, so I have to clock in my time. But then I teach, and then I have to write books; that’s nights and weekends, and stuff like that.

At the time I wrote Heart Full of Rhythm, I was working a four-day schedule, so at least I had a three-day weekend, but I didn’t want the kids to see me glued to the laptop all time, always doing research.

Putting them to bed at eight o’clock, then writing till 11 o’clock, going to sleep, waking up at four o’clock, writing on the bus, coming home, playing with the kids: it was a lot. So, I felt like those last two books had eaten up about eight years of my life, on top of everything else.

The big change came in 2020, when the pandemic hit, and I transitioned to working from home. I was in Queens physically maybe once or twice a week, so that gave me a lot more time with Margaret and the kids. Everybody picked up something during the pandemic; I started cooking, and became the house chef.

So, I’ve done my best to balance it all, to be there for everybody at all times. It’s exhausting – I can’t deny it – but it’s incredibly fulfilling. I can say I spent my whole day cataloguing Louis Armstrong’s tapes, and getting paid for it. Then, when the clock ran out, my wife and kids came home. I made dinner, we watched TV, we had laughs.

Then, they went to bed, and I worked on a chapter, and made some startling breakthrough in Armstrong scholarship. Then I fell asleep to a Yankee game. I cannot complain about any aspect of it.

UKJN: Armstrong altered the trajectory of your life. Beyond his world-quaking music and cultural import, something essential about his personality must have hooked you.

RR: For me, the simple answer is joy. That’s what got me when I was 15. I didn’t know why it was important. I didn’t know the historical background. It just made me feel good. Thirty years later: I put on his music, I listen to an interview, I watch him on TV, I put on a concert. Whatever it is, he always makes me feel good.

Especially writing this last book, The Early Years: my god, what he had to live through. That he survived is a miracle. I did not have that kind of upbringing, as an Italian from the Jersey Shore; everything’s good over here.

But there was something about just looking at him – like, man. This guy could have turned dark at any moment. He had his moments of rage, like when racism got him down…

UKJN: And nobody would have blamed him.

RR: Exactly. But there was something about him, internally; he would take a look around, take a breath, sometimes take a drag – whatever he needed to get through the day.

And he’d just say, I am going to put something positive out in the world. I’m not going to waste this energy complaining, or sulking, or protesting; I’m just going to be me. And, if you don’t like it: tough. If you do like it: well, thank you. I’m my own audience. That hooked me early on. This guy knew who he was; he knew his value, and you couldn’t change his mind.

UKJN: Armstrong had to make hard-ass decisions left and right. In his younger years, he could have easily been killed. One thing I really appreciate about your work is that you swerve around any sense of historical inevitability.

RR: I’ll say it right off the bat: Stomp Off, Let’s Go is the book I did not want to write. Because – and this is going back early on – all we really had was Louis’s autobiography [1954’s Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans]. Some other authors had tried to contextualise New Orleans. I was just like, Well, what am I going to do? Just rehash the same old stories?

And there was this mythology – some people would say self-mythology – where Armstrong was this rags-to-riches, kind of clichéd Dickensian story. The barefoot kid in the coal cart becomes the towering genius of 20th century music. I’m just like, There’s more to it than that.

In the last six or seven years, these different sources started coming up. [New Orleans’] Tulane University put up all these oral histories with basically every New Orleans musician who was alive in the ‘50s and ‘60s.

So, I had the voices of people who heard young Louis Armstrong – people who said, “He blew wrong. He blew false.”

Then, I had people also in New Orleans: when they were played records from the 1920s, like Armstrong’s vaunted ‘Cornet Chop Suey’, they said, “Oh, he got those ideas from [early jazz cornetist] Buddy Petit.” Well, Buddy Petit never recorded. I’m like, That’s an interesting clue.

So, now I’m listening to all these oral histories, looking for references to Buddy Petit, and on and on and on. And all of a sudden, I realised: Yeah, Louis Armstrong doesn’t come from out of nowhere.

I think when jazz history is taught, and professors have maybe one class to deal with the first 25 years, it’s easy to say, “Yeah, you know, 20th century music was kind of stiff, ragtime and march music, and then Louis Armstrong came and taught the world how to swing.” It’s neat, and pat, and you can move on to ‘West End Blues’, and modern ears can say, Oh, I hear it, and we move on to Charlie Parker.

But for me, this was more like building blocks: Who’s the first person Louis hears? Well, he remembered hearing [cornetist and early jazz architect] Buddy Bolden. I don’t know how much it sunk in, but let’s quote him on it.

[Trumpeter] Bunk Johnson was with the Black Eagle Band playing the ‘Funky Ball’, four or five doors down from Armstrong’s residence in 1911. Alright, so we have a 10-year-old Armstrong hearing Bunk Johnson. Armstrong remembers delivering coal in Storyville; here’s Joe “King” Oliver.

Then, Armstrong buys a phonograph, and he’s listening to [Italian opera singer] Enrico Caruso. He goes on the riverboats and learns the arrangements of Paul Whiteman. He’s doing more comedy; he’s playing the slide whistle; he’s starting to sing more. And by the end of the book, when you get to ‘West End Blues’, and all that stuff, it sets the rest of it in motion.

But it is by no means a story of just a straight shot, or just a born genius, or just destiny. This guy worked at his craft, and it was a miracle. He survived bullets literally whizzing past his head, police literally beating him, with billy clubs. His mother getting arrested multiple times. His sister getting arrested.

He got out of that world, and showed up to Chicago with all this musical knowledge and experience, and he was only 21 years old.

This thing happened very slowly, but also in a very calculated manner. We’re kind of still dealing with the repercussions. But I think this book kind of serves as the instruction manual of how exactly it happened.

The post Mondays with Morgan: Ricky Riccardi first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Last year, longtime Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (JLCO) saxophonist, flautist, clarinettist and arranger Ted Nash — a member since 1999 — revealed he was leaving the ensemble; Alexa Tarantino has recently been announced as his successor.

Tarantino will be touring with the JLCO into late June, with dates at the Barbican Centre in mid-March. Links to her website, to Jazz at Lincoln Center’s, and to the tour dates, are at the end of this article.

“If you could tell 10-year-old Alexa that she would end up being a full-time member of the band,” says a 32-year-old Alexa, “she would not believe you.” Which isn’t self-flattery; to the saxophone phenom, it’s a testament to the efficacy of jazz education, and arts programming.

“Jazz at Lincoln Center, and Wynton Marsalis, were some of my first inspirations in this field,” Tarantino relates. “So, it’s super important to me to continue that trajectory of accessibility to the music, and to education — and, of course, representation.” (Notably, Tarantino is the first woman to become a permanent JLCO member since 1991, when it became an official department of Lincoln Center.)

Keep reading for a full interview with Tarantino about this prestigious leap forward.

UK Jazz News: There’s a sense of gravity to the seat that Ted vacated. How would you explain that to somebody not entrenched in the jazz world?

Alexa Tarantino: If there was a sports analogy: it’s like playing for one of the top teams in the league. I always think of us as a basketball or football team, or something. It feels kind of like when you see players get recruited for a team — although, I suppose, in sports, people don’t hold 10 years as long.

In the music world — not necessarily as specific as the jazz world — if you look at the New York Phil or something like that, it feels like a crossover into a new generation of the band and the organization. A kind of passing of the torch.

UKJN: How would you describe Ted’s importance?

AT: Ted represents so much in music. He represents the quintessential saxophonist and woodwind doubler, but with the ability to balance his own sound and approach with all the eras and styles and bands that have come before.

He’s had such an incredible career as a sideperson. He played with Thad Jones and Mel Lewis, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Gerry Mulligan — so many other people. He’s got these amazing influences, and, of course, his family influences him as well [as his uncle was a fellow saxophonist of the same name, Ted Nash, and his father is the trombonist Dick Nash].

But he has this incredible gift, in a very unique voice — in terms of his writing, his small group, the projects he has released with various themes that touch on integral aspects of humanity and the world.

So, he’s the total package of an artist who has been able to have a successful, thriving, healthy career — not to mention his work as an educator, too. He does everything so well. He seems to be the only person I know who is always himself, and he can bring that into every aspect he’s working in.

UKJN: How do you apply your personal voice to an institution like the JLCO?

AT: I have absolutely been influenced by Ted, and [JLCO alto saxophonist] Sherman [Irby] — and all the members of the section, and those were there before.

You know, I remember when I first heard the band. The section was Joe Temperley, Walter Blanding, Sherman, Ted, and Victor Goines. So, it’s been amazing to become a part of that tradition.

I’ve also had influences outside of the band, and the saxophone world. The touring that I did with Cécile [McLorin Salvant], and then a little bit with Artemis, and then with my own quartet. Or, say, the DIVA Jazz Orchestra; Arturo [O’Farrill]’s band; Darcy [James Argue]’s.

There are so many amazing people out there today who really helped me figure things out musically, and career-wise. To bring that in is really special. And to feel supported in the band, and in the organization — to be like, Yeah, this is an opportunity to express myself within this framework. That’s really special.

UKJN: In a DownBeat feature this month, you say, “The challenge is to help people see beyond a single snapshot of the band from 15 to 25 years ago, to realize what it’s grown into and what it’s doing to connect with audiences around the world.” What has that evolution looked like, specifically?

AT: Well, I believe the JLCO is the only full-time jazz orchestra in the country. I don’t know if that’s technically correct — but I’m pretty sure it is, in terms of being a salaried orchestra in the United States.

So, that alone shows how much growth there can be in the country, for recognizing the importance of the art form and what it does for our communities, and for our kids — and for each other, in terms of bringing people together.

In the past, maybe there were opinions about whether the Jazz at Lincoln Center way was the right way — or different camps of people within the scene, vying for certain things. But, in my opinion: if anybody is succeeding, then we’re all succeeding.

First of all: Jazz at Lincoln Center, as an organization, is so invested in giving more opportunities to musicians, via many education and touring programs they put out across the country and world.

One of their main missions is to create communities for people to play — and the orchestra is a representation of that, in the sense that we go out and we teach; we’re doing as much outreach as we can while we’re on the road.

But then, it’s an example of: We could have more of these around the country. Our jazz education framework is, I would say, thriving in the U.S. — with things like Essentially Ellington, and many amazing jazz departments, and summer jazz programs, started by people all over the country.

UKJN: As 2025 kicks into gear, what are you excited about regarding the JLCO?

AT: A lot of things, actually. We’re heading to Europe in March, for about a month. We’ll be in London, doing some of Wynton’s larger works. We’re doing some residencies in London, Brussels, and Vienna, with symphony orchestras in those cities.

I’m very excited for the closing of our season in June or July; we’re going to do a concert of the best of the JLCO. Original works and arrangements from the members of the band over the years.

UKJN: Which larger works by Wynton?

AT: We’re going to do a piece that we’ve frequently toured called The Jungle, for JLCO and orchestra; that’s the one I’m most familiar with. But I know the orchestra has also toured and performed other pieces of his, like Swing Symphony and All Rise.

He’s super prolific in that respect, and has been an inspiration to me. Because, last year, I ended up getting commissioned to write my first piece for symphony orchestra. I was pretty shell-shocked when I got the offer — but I accepted it, and it was an amazing learning curve and lesson.

Having had the experience to really sit inside the orchestra — and dissect Wynton’s writing for orchestra — was very, very helpful.

UKJN: How would you describe the learning curve between jazz and classical orchestras?

AT: So, I was commissioned to write an original piece of 10 minutes or so — and I think I had about six months from the start, to the performance date. Which really means less, because you need time for editing and copying and printing and all that stuff, and then rehearsal before the performance date. So, I would say, maybe four or five months.

And it was very challenging. It felt like a huge life moment when I submitted the piece. But, basically, I took a jazz composition approach to it — which is all that I knew. 

I had hoped to take a lot of lessons, and read a lot of books, and all that stuff. But between touring and teaching and traveling, all at the same time: it’s not l could cancel everything for four months, and just live in a cave.

So, I wrote out a lead sheet of a tune that was speaking to me, and decided to orchestrate it in three variations; it became a theme-and-variations-style piece. And I gave several members of the orchestra written solos, so that they were really rooted in blues and expressive sounds on their instruments, to make the piece feel human and conversational.

I basically tied together each of the major variations with those individual solo moments. We ended up with a waltz, and a flute solo going into a fanfare, and some brass moments going into a sort of percussion roll-off, going into a cello ballad, solo, and chorale.

So, it was challenging, for sure — but it really did break the boundaries in my mind that even I had set in terms of classical composition, orchestral composition, and jazz performance and composition. At the end of the day, I was like, Wow. It really came together.

And I think the musicians had a really great time — because at the end of the day, it’s stylistic differences, but we’re all dealing with the same 12 notes.

UKJN: Any other projects you’ve got coming up?

AT: I have a new quartet record that should be out this summer. It’s going to be on Blue Engine Records, which is the label at Jazz at Lincoln Center. A bunch of original music, a couple of arrangements, different instruments, great bands. We’ll be at Dizzy’s Club, and then we’ll be at Jimmy’s Jazz & Blues Club in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

UKJN: Who’s in your quartet these days?

AT: [Pianist] Steven Feifke, [bassist[ Philip Norris, [drummer] Mark Whitfield, Jr. I’m super excited about my special guest that I probably shouldn’t spoil at this time, because I’m still finalizing everything.

But, I wrote a handful of pieces. There are some grooves in there; I kind of just wanted to get up there, and swing — let it rip, honestly. Everybody brought their fire to it. It was a really great session, and I’m hoping that after a few years off from releasing my own records, that the audiences will enjoy it.

The post Mondays with Morgan: Alexa Tarantino first appeared on UK Jazz News.

The duo’s debut album, Speaking in Tongues, will be released 28 February via Adhyâropa Records. A preview track, ‘Saturn,’ can be heard via the link at the end of this article, alongside links to both artists’ websites.

Upon hearing the fleet, atmospheric, forward-thinking Speaking in Tongues, my first impulse was: People who don’t care about jazz will like this record. Turns out Rachel Eckroth was right there with me.

“It’s tricky, because there is jazz involved, but it’s not necessarily a jazz record. I have some fears about it,” she admits. “But when I did my [2021] album called The Garden, it was a similar world. It wasn’t really jazz, and it went well. So, I don’t know.”

If they’re being honest, a DownBeat review is on their minds. “I know they just gave Aaron Parks’ last record [2024’s Little Big III] two stars or something,” John Hadfield notes. “So, it’s like, What are we supposed to do here?”

“I try to not think about it too much,” Hadfield continues. “I hope it’s well received. We had a blast making it. So, what else can you do, really?”

Eckroth and Hadfield did what they could do: make compelling music together, which may ensnare listeners far afield from the jazz racket.

With the release of Speaking in Tongues a month away, read on for Eckroth and Hadfield’s analysis of the record. Although every song title slouches toward the celestial (‘Blood Moon,’ ‘Andromeda’) or religiously esoteric (the title track), the greatest magic lies in the alchemic interplay between old acquaintances turned deep collaborators.

UK Jazz News: You two met in the ‘90s, then reconnected in 2022 and realised you had a shared musical language. What was that musical language?

Rachel Eckroth: The way we hear phrasing and rhythms is really similar. We went to school together; I don’t know if that really matters, but maybe we listened to the same kind of music growing up.

John Hadfield: It was easy to play together. For example, one of the tunes on the record, ‘Jeanne D’arc’: there’s a head, but it was improvised in the studio. Musically, we felt connected, and could predict what the other person was going to do, and work together.

RE: That’s the dream. That’s what you want from musicians, always. I don’t know if you always get that when you put a full band together.

UKJN: Any particular music you’ve found you’re both steeped in?

RE: I’m not going to speak for John, but he’s really percussion oriented. John, a lot of your listening has been more world music, percussion-based, than mine has been in my life.

But I really love groove, and I really love all black music. So, a lot of my experience early on was from listening to pop and R&B, and playing in those kinds of bands when I was young. Groove and rhythm are kind of the foundation for me, from the start.

JH: Maybe the thing that makes it interesting is not our shared language. It’s the circles that don’t overlap – and then, when we come together, we have other genres and influences affecting our previously shared knowledge.

‘Jeanne D’arc’ is also a prime example of that, because the tune is based off of a North African, Moroccan groove, initially.

UKJN: Rachel, what was your approach on the synth-nerdery front?

RE: We were originally going to do drums and acoustic piano, make it simple, so that we could tour.

But we just started going, “Oh, maybe this would be nice if we had a little Mellotron pad underneath,” and, “We need a melody for this section,” that I was just playing chords in. It was just a natural building of a record.

Live, we obviously can’t do all that’s recorded, because there’s not enough of me; I have two hands. So, John brings a sample pad, and he can trigger some of the loops he created. I’ve also been using another sample pad, the Roland SP-404. I created some drones inside, so I can add full texture underneath.

Our original idea was bass-free, and some of the songs are very much that. But then, in some of the songs, I’ll add a low end on a synth.

When we tour, I’ll probably just bring the sample pad with drones, and just play piano or Rhodes. We did one in Colorado with a saxophone player, John Gunther, and we have a gig coming up where Donny McCaslin is going to do it.

https://youtu.be/vkJ4nCspeUo?si=tP1jt1NTuXYgQztl

UKJN: How did you approach your sounds on Speaking in Tongues?

JH: I used some things I normally use: fan drums, and some weird stacked metal things that people have made for me.

When we went to Athens, Greece, to record it, the whole concept was very mobile. We had done this tour in Europe, all on the train, and we were going for a minimal setup.

My setup is actually not so huge. It’s basically been the drumset with percussion, and I play some hand drums – the frame drum, specifically. On a couple of tracks, I play the kalimba. On ‘Andromeda,’ we processed it with some pedals.

RE: I don’t know if I have an approach to sound more than I have a sound. My tone is my tone on piano. I mean, all pianos are different, but I think I’ll always sound like me.

Texturally, with all the synths and stuff, I just like filling out the space with beauty. Per track, it’s like, I need something fluffy here, or something more string-sounding, or piercing. All these little pieces fit together, and it’s all more instinctual at the moment than anything.

The post Mondays with Morgan: Rachel Eckroth and John Hadfield – new album ‘Speaking in Tongues’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Marriner appeared as Johnny Cash’s drummer, W.S. Holland, in the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, which was released in the UK on 17 January. A link to his website can be found at the end of this article.

I met Douglas Marriner through his sometime role as drummer in Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks, who painstakingly recreate 1920s and ‘30s jazz, often at their regular Birdland gig.

Despite his role as Johnny Cash’s drummer in a Hollywood flick about Bob Dylan, I wouldn’t immediately associate him with Dylan, or Cash, or the American folk tradition at all. Neither would he, I learned while speaking with him.

“I didn’t know much about Dylan before I did this film, really,” Marriner tells UK Jazz News. It was the same with Cash. But Marriner’s committed performance in A Complete Unknown rendered any non-history with the source material moot: even as he relatively blended into the background, he clearly did his homework.

This fastidiousness partly comes from Marriner’s background: his grandfather was the legendary conductor and violinist Sir Neville Marriner, who was also the music conductor and supervisor for the monumental 1984 film Amadeus.

“As somebody who knows Amadeus so well as part of my childhood,” Marriner says, “I could see the parallel so clearly, in the respect and the ethos of the way the film was made. That was really comforting to see.”

Below, Marriner further draws out the Amadeus connection, and tells fascinating stories about his time on the set of A Complete Unknown.

UK Jazz News: Have you seen A Complete Unknown yet?

Douglas Marriner: I actually only got to see the film last week, for the first time. 

UKJN: What’d you think?

DM: I was really struck by it. I mean, obviously, I only got to see the scenes that I was in for those days in May. You only get to see one piece of the jigsaw, so it was really beautiful to witness how the whole thing came together.

You know, you see a few of the constituent parts. You see the potential for something really great, but you have no idea how it’s all going to be framed, how it’s all going to make sense together. To finally see that completion was a very gratifying experience.

UKJN: Have you been in movies or on movie soundtracks before?

DM: I’ve done some on-screen work with Vince Giordano, and that was on Feud: Capote vs. The Swans, which came out last year, with Tom Hollander as Truman Capote.

That was my first time working on screen, and this [A Complete Unknown opportunity] was actually through the same music contractor, Sandra Park.

Firstly, there’s the clear Amadeus link, and that was made apparent to me when I was speaking to Ed Norton on set. He was mentored by Miloš Forman, and Miloš was one of the minds behind Amadeus in the first place.

Ed also mentioned that [A Complete Unknown director] James Mangold was similarly mentored by Miloš Forman. So, there’s a real lineage in their approaches.

Obviously, Timmy is Bob, but the main character really is the music. They’ve put the music as the primary attraction. It’s a very generous thing for the director to invite a new audience into these songs. These songs are going to be friends to the audience forever, should they so wish.

UKJN: Have you ever played retro country music in any capacity?

DM: No. I think [I got the part] because I do a lot of vintage drumming work with Vince’s band and with Terry Waldo’s band.

There’s quite a small group of people who are known as specialists in that world, so I think that’s how I was approached to do this particular role. Not a lot of people necessarily have a deep understanding of the history of how these things were done.

It was interesting to try and play like W.S. Holland. Adopting some of the mannerisms was my own personal study. It was difficult, because W.S. Holland’s nickname was ‘Fluke’, and he was then known as the ‘Father of the Drums’. So, there are two opposing elements of legacy to contend with.

He also played the drums right-handed, but set the drums up left-handed – so I had to basically play everything with the hands right-handed, but with the feet the wrong way around. So, that was quite a challenge, to basically learn half of the drumming in reverse, just for that role. That was fun on a practical level to wrestle with.

UKJN: I wasn’t aware of Holland. Is this a figure in the Cash universe that fans talk about?

DM: Yeah. So, Holland was Cash’s drummer, and a member of the Tennessee Three. It was interesting watching Walk the Line, the Johnny Cash biopic, which was done by the same director, James Mangold.

Obviously, Joaquin Phoenix was in the original, and that was a very unique and captivating performance. But in my research, I saw how those performances were done, and they had a very sweaty and animated and almost exaggerated performance style on the drums for that particular movie.

Amongst the people who were playing in Johnny Cash’s band for this film, we agreed not to do that. We wanted to have a more stoic kind of presence on stage, which was, I think, closer to how the Tennessee Three played with Johnny Cash.

There was an unruffled element to the execution of their playing that we wanted to capture in the live scenes, so we studied their mannerisms, their playing style, their gait, and their technique. Hopefully, that came through a little bit more on this project.

UKJN: Take our readers into the Newport recreation.

DM: We shot those scenes over and over again from different camera angles. There was thoroughness in making sure that we got everything in the can, that everything was shot from every possible angle.

The other really important thing was that all the music was recorded first.

When Miloš Forman and [film producer and music exec] Saul Zaentz approached my granddad, Sir Neville Marriner, about the idea of making a film version of the play Amadeus, my granddad’s terms were, “We’re not doing any Hollywood cuts or edits. We’re not messing with Mozart’s music. We’re putting that as the prime feature, and we’re going to honour that legacy without interfering.”

I think it was one of the first times that they had recorded the music first (with the orchestra that my grandfather founded and conducted on the film, The Academy of St Martin in the Fields), and shot the filming to the music. It was never really done that way around, and they followed that model again here with A Complete Unknown.

The music was a mixture of some pre-recorded and some live elements. So, it was a very respectful treatment of the music by everybody involved.

UKJN: What was your impression of Edward Norton? His performance as Pete Seeger was one of the most impressive parts of the film, for me.

DM: Ed Norton was impressive to talk to. He comes across as uniquely competent in so many different fields. He was talking to us about jazz, because we were playing at the side of the stage while waiting to go on. He is such a universal artist in his understanding of his roles and what he does.

He also has worked with jazz musicians. He directed and acted in [2019’s] Motherless Brooklyn, on which he worked with Wynton Marsalis and many other New York jazz musicians. So, we talked about some of those commonalities as well. He really knows his stuff.

Timmy was really in the role – sort of method – all the way through. But I did give him a little drum lesson, when he was sitting at the drums between takes. We had a nice chat about Lyme Regis, which is a seaside town in Dorset where he shot [2023’s] Wonka.

But the minute I saw him in the costume, with the makeup, with the prosthetic nose on, and then heard him sing and play – I realised, Oh, yeah. This is as good as I hoped it was going to be.

The post Mondays with Morgan: Douglas Marriner on role in ‘A Complete Unknown’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Aside from Smart and Daversa, Some Days are Better features high-profile soloists in singer Norma Winstone; saxophonists Chris Potter and Evan Parker; trumpeters Brian Lynch, Ingrid Jensen, Etienne Charles, and James Copus; and pianist Shelly Berg.

The album will be released on 31 January via Greenleaf Music, in conjunction with Song for Someone: The Musical Life of Kenny Wheeler, a biography by Smart and fellow trumpeter Brian Shaw, out 1 February via Equinox Books. Links to purchase the album, and to Smart and Daversa’s websites, can be found at the end of this article.

Yes: among heads, Kenny Wheeler is unbelievably renowned, in both the post-bop and free realms. But head-dom can easily lead to pigeonholing, especially since the Canadian great staked his claim in the UK jazz scene from the ‘50s until his death in 2014.

“This isn’t someone who was only a really good UK jazz musician,” Nick Smart tells UK Jazz News. He cites the estimable contributors to his and Brian Shaw’s biography of Wheeler: the likes of Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette, Chris Potter, Maria Schneider, Ingrid Jensen, Vince Mendoza, Steve Coleman, Aaron Parks.

“Kenny Wheeler is an absolutely global, huge figure,” he continues. “This project isn’t about fandom; it’s about legacy. And a legacy is most meaningful when it transcends the mere musical content that the person leaves behind, and becomes a fundamentally human story. And Kenny’s story is one of such triumph over adversity.”

All of that is detailed in the book. For now, dive into the impetus behind, and execution of, this attendant musical tribute, which arrives following what would be Wheeler’s 95th birthday: 14 January.

UK Jazz News: What are your histories with Kenny Wheeler and/or his music?

Nick Smart: Did you meet Kenny, John?

John Daversa: I never did. For me, he’s one of those people that you meet through the music; that’s my relationship with him. When it’s someone who you’re very close to, and you’re very intimate, and you’ve never met this person, it’s such an interesting relationship. Like a Charlie Parker or a Wolfgang Mozart.

Nick Smart: I was ever so close to Kenny in about the last 15 years of his life. He meant a lot to me, as a mentor, a close friend and a kind of surrogate musical grandfather. Professionally, I helped manage the last stages of his career, when his son [Mark] and I looked after the last few bookings he had, and things like that.

While he was still alive, I secured the archive of his manuscripts to come into the Royal Academy’s Museum Collections, and I also started writing his biography with Brian Shaw.

When he was in the care home at the end of his life, he knew that we were writing this biography, and was pleased about it. He was typically a little bemused that anyone would be interested in his story, but he was pleased it was us doing it, and we had the full family support. I still remain close with the family.

JD: Kenny Wheeler is an original. He’s an original voice as a writer and improviser. It just so happens that he plays the trumpet, you know.

[Discovering him], I recognised how much I value originality, musically. The way that he played, he was searching for something – nobody knows what! In the writing, it was this passionate search as well, taking us to new territory, an environment that would hold a space for new improvising.

UKJN: Did you get all the interviews you needed before he passed?

NS: Yes, I did a whole bunch with him in 2010, actually before I even knew we were going to write the book. I just had this feeling that there were a lot of stories that needed capturing.

Naïvely, I didn’t know how many interviews he had already done, and how accessible they were. I subsequently found out that there were some really wonderful, substantial interviews from the peak of his career, but I still got a lot of hugely useful stuff straight from the horse’s mouth, as it were.

The biography is a story of his journey, and his personality, and how entwined it is with the music he made.

UKJN: How so?

NS: This legacy project that John and I have completed really captures the most interesting bit of that story, which is related to your question.

Kenny was very shy, and full of self-doubt, and self-deprecating. But paradoxically, he also had this kind of inner strength that can’t come from a place of reticence, but the humility bordering on self-doubt was absolutely real for him.

As a result, he was a late starter in his bandleading career. If we think of people who’ve begun their solo careers later in life, I don’t think there are many as late as Kenny. He was 38 when he recorded his first record as a leader, but even that one [Windmill Tilter] was for somebody else’s band. His first true record as a leader was at the age of 43.

This period is about him really finding himself, and it’s through the combination of straight-ahead jazz playing, his love for free improvisation, and then the commercial brass studio playing that he was doing.

So, the music that John and I have recorded with Frost and the Academy is from the very first period of his jazz orchestra, where he’s really bringing those elements together – and his life kind of embodies those three elements.

UKJN: With the premise of the project solidified, how did you begin to build the album?

JD: Nick and Dave Holland came to guest [at the Frost School] in January 2018, and they did Long Suite 2005, from his 75th birthday. That was our first immersion together into a project like that. We started talking about how we had to do something else together, and collaborate. Then, I found out that Nick was doing all of this work with the Kenny Wheeler estate, and Wheeler’s music, and we started to think, Could we collaborate on this? How wonderful would it be for our students to collaborate on a project like this, on a large scale? So, it just unfolded from there.

The post Mondays with Morgan: Nick Smart and John Daversa first appeared on UK Jazz News.

The album features alto saxophonists Alex Graham and Jovan Quallo; tenor saxophonists Jeff Coffin, Don Aliquo, and Joel Frahm; tenor and alto saxophonist Kevin Shinskie; and Middagh and Jimmy Bowland on baritone saxophone.

The Ryan Middagh Orchestra comprises trumpeters Steve Patrick, Tyler Jaeger, Jeff Bailey, and Olivia Achcet; bass trombonists Martin McCain and Liam Barron; guitarist Lindsey Miller; pianist Pat Coil; bassist Jake Jezioro; and drummer Marc Widenhofer. Vocalist Jenna McLean appears on ‘Waiter, Make Mine Blues.‘ Links to purchase the album, and to Middagh’s website, can be found at the end of this article.

For some time, Ryan Middagh happily plugged away as a performer and arranger in the Nashville jazz scene. This naturally led him to Jeff Coffin, the brilliant saxophonist, composer and arranger, and member of Dave Matthews Band.

Coffin, as it happens, laid the law on him.

“He was like, ‘It’s time to start a band. You’ve arranged all these charts for me for years. You’re arranging for a lot of other people, and doing a lot of commissions. So, it’s time to start your own band,’” Middagh relates. “He kind of put the hammer down on it.”

Find out how that transpired below.

UK Jazz News: Jeff Coffin’s music introduced me to your world. What should those unaware know about the Nashville jazz scene?

Ryan Middagh: The Nashville jazz scene is ever growing. It’s constantly becoming more active, more inclusive, more diverse. Honestly, it’s like a big umbrella – a family, with a bunch of different styles of jazz.

You have some of the really straight-ahead cats in town. But then you have people like Jeff, who reach into all different corners of the jazz world, and the music world [in general].

I mean, it’s Music City. There are a ton of musicians here. I know the reputation is country music, but we have all sorts of music here. Especially being a big band leader, I’m very fortunate that I have such excellent and awesome musicians to work with.

Mine is one of about six active big bands on the scene right now, and a lot of them are writer-centric. Some are more community-centric, or organisationally focussed. But lots of people are out there playing shows, and people are going to the shows, which is awesome. We just sold out my last concert at the Nashville Jazz Workshop. More and more people are getting into it.

It’s a really good community, and I think Jeff is a great example of someone who has vitalised that community through a bunch of different avenues. But a lot of people are making it happen.

UKJN: What’s it like in such a niche, localised community? Any competitiveness?

RM: It’s not competitive. When I think of the other bandleaders in town, we’re all using a similar pool of musicians, and it’s a very supportive community. We all just want to make this music.

UKJN: Any young lions on the scene you’re particularly excited about?

RM: So many of them. There’s a former student of mine, David Rodgers: he’s now the artistic and executive director of the Nashville Jazz Workshop. He’s a brilliant piano player, and a really wonderful musician, arranger, and bandleader.

There’s a gentleman who I just hired on our jazz faculty here, a bass player named Rob Linton. He’s out playing with a ton of folks, touring. He is really something, and I’m excited to see what he does.

I’m Director of Jazz Studies at Vanderbilt University, so I see these young lions coming through all the time. Within my programme, I’m seeing all these cats who are 17, 18 years old, who are playing at an incredible level.

The short answer is: there are too many on the list. Because people are constantly moving to Nashville, whether it’s a young lion or some of the more established folks.

I think of people like [trombonist] Bob McChesney, who moved here from LA. Or [saxophonist] Joel Frahm, who moved from New York down here, but has since moved to Texas.

And then, people coming fresh out of college: people who go to NEC, or some of the New York schools, they just come here right after graduation and try to make it work.

UKJN: The tradition displayed on Tenor Madness dates back to the Four Brothers and beyond. Talk about elevating and highlighting the tenor saxophone. Have you ever done anything conceptual like this?

RM: No. As far as recording my own stuff, I’m kind of late to the game. I’ve really been a supporter of other people’s music, especially as an arranger. I’ve probably been arranging for Jeff Coffin for about 17 years now, doing a lot of his big band work – I’m still working on a lot of that.

This is only my second big band album, and my third album, total. We just have so many great saxophone players here in Nashville; that’s what I really wanted to highlight.

A lot of [the compositions on the album] are collaborative endeavours. ‘Wired’ is a piece by our lead alto saxophonist, Alex Graham. I arranged it for him for a specific conference. It goes back to our community-centric aspect.

Jeff plays lead tenor in the band, and that was [reflected] in the way that I wrote. What’s cool about the saxophone players featured on this album is that they all have a completely different approach to the instrument. I think of the tenor battle between Jeff and Don Aliquo: completely different approaches. Or the tenor battle between Jeff and Joel Frahm.

Being able to feature their unique musical voices, within the structure of a big band, was just a lot of fun to put together.

The post Mondays with Morgan: Ryan Middagh – new album ‘Tenor Madness’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Crossing Paths features saxophonist Chris Potter, trombonist Steve Davis, bassist John Patitucci, and drummer Adam Cruz, as well as great Brazilian artists Edu Lobo and Joyce Moreno, guitarist Chico Pinheiro, percussionist Rogério Boccato, and vocalist Maucha Adnet. They are joined by classical flautist Shelley Brown.

Links to purchase Crossing Paths, and to Rosnes’s website, can be found at the end of this article.

Renee Rosnes has extensive history with Brazilian music, and its relationship with jazz follows suit. But an album-length, jazz-forward immersion in that tradition didn’t come immediately; Rosnes herself has been eyeing it her whole career, which stretches back to the 1980s. 

Of curating Crossing Paths, she says, “I did go with my intuition, but I was also looking for a balance of emotions and tempos and types of songs. I was looking for a set of music that would have an arc and a story to itself.”

Read on for a full interview with Rosnes.

UK Jazz News: What made now the right time to jump into Brazilian music with both feet?

Renee Rosnes: This has been a project I’ve been ruminating on for many decades and I felt that now was the right time to make it happen. My last recording was Kinds of Love [2021] – also on the Smoke Sessions label – and the repertoire was entirely original. In fact, my last three albums have featured mostly my material. Composing is, and has been a huge part of my life.

For this album, I was ready to embark on recording some meaningful Brazilian music – really dive into the realm and enjoy creating new arrangements. I’ve been listening to the genre for so long and loving so many of the artists and composers, from Antonio Carlos Jobim, to Chico Buarque, to Sérgio Mendes and Milton Nascimento, and many more.

Every time I listen to Brazilian music, my creative juices start flowing. I’m so attracted to the music and feel that it lives in my heart. Perhaps I lived in Brazil in a previous life!

UKJN: Describe narrowing down your Brazilian repertoire to the length of an album.

RR: It was very difficult. There are many composers I would’ve like to have included but there is only so much time. With the great legends Edu Lobo and Joyce Moreno on board, some of the songs were easily decided. Of course, I was thrilled that each of them agreed to be a part of the recording. It didn’t make sense to record just one Edu song, and I was honored that he sang two of his masterpieces: the iconic “Pra Dizer Adeus” and “Casa Forte.” 

There is such an unending supply of great repertoire, I could see making several albums in the Brazilian music genre. There’s just so much repertoire that I truly love.

UKJN: Tell me more about the importance of Joyce and Edu.

RR: I met Joyce in New York City during the early 1990’s but discovered her music when I was still a teenager living in my hometown of Vancouver, Canada. I love the sumptuous sound of her voice and I love her as a person. She’s a great, inspiring woman. 

In 1998, she invited me to record on her album, Astronauta: Songs of Elis, which was a tribute to the legendary vocalist Elis Regina. Being a huge fan of Elis’ music, I was ecstatic about joining her. Now, some 26 years later, on Crossing Paths, Joyce sings her original ballad “Essa Mulher,” which was also featured on Astronauta. It is such a beautiful song that I wanted to document it again on my album.

Regarding Edu, I recorded his composition “Upa Neguinho” on my Blue Note recording Ancestors back in 1996. Edu heard this rendition and, believe it or not, messaged me through Instagram, expressing that “nobody recorded it like you did, and I will be ever grateful.” I was so amazed by his reaching out and will treasure his words forever.

Edu has written so many glorious songs over the years: a lifetime of music. I would have been happy to have made an entire album of Lobo compositions.

UKJN: What made these American musicians ideal to navigate these musical traditions?

RR: I had never worked with the Brazilian guitarist Chico Pinheiro before, but had heard his music. I knew he was not only a wonderful player but also a formidable composer. With John Patitucci’s recommendation, I knew that he was right for the date.

The first time we played together was in the studio, and one of the first pieces we delved into was Egberto Gismonti’s “Frevo.” I felt there was an immediate musical connection. As a person, Chico felt like a new friend you meet, that you feel you’ve known forever. 

John Patitucci and I have been friends for many years. He’s not only a great lover of Brazilian music but also very knowledgeable about the different grooves and song forms. He has the ability to go anywhere in the music, which makes playing with him incredibly freeing.

I had also never worked with Adam Cruz before, although I was familiar with his playing. I really admired his creativity, and the empathetic way he contributed to an ensemble. I felt that the chemistry would work very well between us all, and it did.

Brazilian percussionist Rogério Boccato has a really creative mind and a buoyant groove. He’s the kind of musician that brings joy to any context. I first played with Rogério with a band that the saxophonist Jimmy Greene put together many years ago, and was honored to have him join me on this recording.

UKJN: What of Chris Potter, Steve Davis, Shelley Brown, and Maucha Adnet?

RR: Chris Potter and I have a long history together; he’s been featured on many of my albums. Not only is he a complete virtuoso, he also has brilliant interpretive skills and was my first choice. 

Steve Davis is a major trombone player with such a round, warm tone. His sound added just the right timbre. You often hear the trombone utilized in Brazilian music. For instance, I love the playing of the late Raul de Souza, who you hear on many recordings. I knew before I even began arranging the music that I wanted the trombone, and Steve fit the bill just perfectly.

Shelley Brown is one of my oldest friends. We were roommates at the University of Toronto, where we were both students in the classical performance program. She went on to a career in classical music in Toronto where she’s currently a member of the National Ballet Orchestra and the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra. She is a virtuoso who understands the feeling of this music deeply.

Vocalist Maucha Adnet and I have been friends for many years, and I admire her musicianship and ability to get to the essence of a song. She is featured singing two Antônio Carlos Jobim songs: “Canta Canta Mais” and “Caminhos Cruzados”, which translates to “Crossing Paths.” Maucha worked with Jobim for 10 years in his Banda Nova, so she really learned that music directly from the master himself. The whole recording session was a joy and the music had so much spirit to it. I think we all knew something very special was happening.

The post Mondays with Morgan: Renee Rosnes – new album ‘Crossing Paths’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Links to purchase Full Cream, and to Ward’s website, can be found at the end of this article.

While you listen to Greg Ward, Leo Genovese, Matt Stevens, and Ziv Ravitz’s collaborative album, think of a playroom — musically speaking.

At Clubhouse Recording Studio in the mountains of Rhinebeck, Hudson Valley, New York, the jazz veterans “didn’t have to worry about trying to get back home, and then coming back,” Ward remembers. “We could relax, and sort of settle in.”

This laid-back, exploratory attitude led to Stevens flying from guitar to guitar, and from pedal to pedal — and Genovese on a keyboard instrument you may not expect. And the connection between Ward and Ravitz is a story all its own.

Read it, and the other ins and outs of Full Cream, below.

UK Jazz News: Linda Oh was a huge connector and nexus for you guys...

Greg Ward: I’ve been working with Linda since 2012, I believe. She first called me for her [2019] octet project, Aventurine. That was an amazing thing to work on with her, but because it has eight people — and eight very busy people — it didn’t work [as a consistent unit] very much.

Probably sometime in 2015, I started to work with her quartet in different variations of that ensemble, and then I started touring with her in 2017, with that group. I think I was subbing for [saxophonist] Ben Wendel at the time.

So, I’ve been working with that version of the group since 2017 — and then the pandemic happened, and Linda was one of the first people I worked with, getting back on the road in October of 2021.

At this time, she had recently had a baby, and this version of the quartet was going to be her and [husband and collaborator, pianist Fabian Almazan]. And a drummer I hadn’t heard of at the time: Ziv Ravitz.

They were going to be doing this wild transit across Europe involving Fabian’s mom and the baby. I was pretty much traveling alone with Ziv, and immediately, we hit it off. We connected and really enjoyed playing together. We found out that we had a lot in common, and developed an instant rapport.

UK Jazz News: How did that connection with Ziv develop as the tour progressed?

GW: We knew that we wanted to do something together, and after that tour, we started brainstorming about what we could do. He had done a bunch of duo records recently, like with [guitarist and vocalist] Lionel Loueke.

[The thought came up] that we should do another duo record. He was like, “Well, why don’t we bring somebody else into it?” And I was thinking about [guitarist] Matt Stevens, who was also in that 2017 version of the quartet that went on tour throughout Europe with Linda. Closer to the session, it grew from there — and we added Leo.

UKJN: I love Aventurine. Maybe my favorite Oh. I ranked and reviewed it for JazzTimes. What do you remember about those sessions?

GW: I just remember being excited about, number one, playing with a string quartet. And playing Linda’s music, anyway. She called me because she got one of those Jazz Gallery composer-in-residence commissions.

That’s what I think she was writing this music for — or maybe she had written something, and this was an opportunity for her to further explore this ensemble. It originally featured the Sirius String Quartet, with [Dallas, Texas, pianist] Sam Harris and Ted Poor [of Andrew Bird fame] on drums.

I believe it was one of the last recording sessions at the Avatar [known as such from 1996 to 2017], before Berklee bought it and turned it back into the Power Station [as founded in 1977].

It was rather nerve wracking to be all separate and isolated — everything to a click, having to perform this very complex music. But it came together, and I’m very happy with that recording.

UKJN: “Argo” is a monster.

GW: That’s the more heavy metal joint on the record. We had tried a few variations in a slower tempo, but we just kept amping it up. Then, I had an idea: I’m going to start off the piece like this! And I did my best impersonation of a Colin Stetson saxophone moment.

When we were together, we just kept pushing each other, pushing each other, until we reached the goal. There were lots of moments like that.

UKJN: Can you talk about Genovese on the Hammond B-3?

GW: I was really surprised: it was there at the studio, and Leo was like, “I’m gonna play this.” I wasn’t thinking about that instrument in this context, but I was open.

What he did throughout the tracks he played organ on, I think was just a really cool use of that instrument. He pulled a lot of wild, uncharacteristic sounds out of the organ. So, I’ll give it to Leo: he surprised me, and pushed us in some other directions.

UKJN: How do your originals on Full Cream — “Argo,” “Good Morning Zebras!,” the title track — reflect your evolution as a composer?

GW: Argo is a suburb of Chicago, on the southwest side. My whole family is from there. When I graduated from college, I moved into my grandparents’ house, in their basement, for about five years. It was an experience being on the southwest side with all the characters that make up that community.

That piece encompasses all the different things that have inspired me. If you’ve heard any of my records, by [my projects like] Fitted Shards, Gaps and Spaces, or Rogue Parade, they have heavier, or rock, elements. That’s been a constant in my compositional taste.

I grew up playing in the African American church with my father, who was a B-3 player. That has a strong element, and mix of things, from the church.

There are things [on the album] that are inspired by my experience with avant-garde playing, via the AACM and other musicians from the South Side and North Side of Chicago — more free playing. So, that’s a blend of those two things — with the music communities in New York and elsewhere.

UKJN: Where do you want to go from here, creatively?

GW: I’m at a moment where I’m trying to figure that out.

Last spring, I started a trio where I sing with electronics and effects on my voice, along with playing saxophone. That’s with guitarist Matt Gold, and a drummer here in Chicago named Quin Kirchner. I’ve written a bunch of music for that. I would love to record this.

Also, I’m always composing — for myself, not for specific projects. But I have some larger ensemble pieces that I would like to complete — something for a large vocal choir, maybe an orchestral thing. I just want to really get these scores done, and ready to be performed if the opportunity arises.

Then, of course, I want to take this Full Cream quartet on the road. That’s something we’re trying to do. We’re trying to figure it out with everybody’s schedule, and hopefully we’ll do something in the fall of ‘25.

The post Mondays with Morgan: Greg Ward – new album ‘Full Cream’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.