Mary Halvorson’s Code Girl is an exercise in stepping out of one’s comfort zone. Halvorson has made a name for herself in NYC’s dense jazz scene with stunning licks, but with Code Girl she’s written lyrics, which differentiates the project from her mostly instrumental output. She worked with vocalist Amirtha Kidambi, trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, bassist Michael Formanek, and drummer Tomas Fujiwara to record the project. Over two nights this week, Halvorson recreated the magi

The GroundUP Music Festival is around the corner! We’re getting all sorts of excited imagining three days on the beach with some insanely talented musicians. While we’re pretty stoked to see the entire roster, there are a good handful that we’re especially making it a point not to miss. Check it out below along with videos of each performer. John Medeski’s Mad Skillet why: Medeski is a mad scientist on the keys, and if the Hawaiian shirt he’s wearing in the video below is any

Photos by Jati Lindsay The central theme of this year’s NYC Winter Jazzfest was social justice, something that can be done a better job of in this country to say the very least. Throughout the festival’s many, many performances, artists would either opt into the conversation or choose to speak through their music, but as we gear up for a Trump presidency, there was no escaping the prompt. If you believe strongly in things like peace and equality, it’s probably a tough time fo

The new year is among us! Happy 2017 everybody, and may your year be full of joy. As most people get back to reality following the holiday season, jazz fans in NYC get an extra week of celebration, as the New York City Winter Jazzfest takes place starting on Thursday, with a concert by Shabaka & the Ancestors along with Pharoah Sanders and Shabaka & the Ancestors. The bill pairs together a couple of great tenor saxophone players who play in the realm of spiritual jazz. The le

Asia Society will premier a jazz powerhouse this month in the form of Rez Abbasi’s Unfiltered Universe, who will be “exploring Carnatic classical music from Southern India through the idiom of jazz.” The shows take place Thursday-Friday, December 15-16, 2016 at 8:00pm, and the band is comprised of Rez Abbasi (guitar), Vijay Iyer (piano), Rudresh Mahanthappa (saxophone), Johannes Weidenmueller (bass), Dan Weiss (drums), and Elizabeth Means (cello). We recently chatted with Abb

To celebrate his 75th birthday, Chick Corea is currently the resident at New York City’s Blue Note Jazz Club. Of course, a regular stint of shows wouldn’t be enough for such a prominent musician, so he has assembled a number of different groups to hold court each week. This week was Origin II. The Origin band first played at Blue Note in the 90s, and Chick Corea felt the need to go back to the progressive acoustic sound of those sessions with a new cast of musicians in 2016.

The NYC Winter Jazzfest has announced their 2017 lineup to include legends, contemporary greats, and rising stars all together. Over the course of five nights, 14 different stages will host programming spearheaded by Brice Rosenbloom, one of the masterminds behind le Poisson Rouge’s bookings. Let’s get a preview of the action in… The opening concert takes place on Thursday January 5, when Pharoah Sanders headlines le Poisson Rouge. After catching a couple of Sanders’ shows th

via Nels Cline’s Facebook The Newport Jazz Festival has a deep history, and you can feel it as you walk through the Rhode Island music festival. The event started in 1954 with performances by the likes of Dizzy Gillespie and Billie Holiday. Miles Davis performed there the next year. So when you watch sets by rising stars like Kamasi Washington, Christian Scott, or Donny McCaslin, you can sense that they’re just as happy to be there as you are. That vibe transcends into every

Photo by Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times This week, a super-trio of John Scofield, Brad Mehldau and Mark Guiliana have come together to perform five nights of shows at the legendary Blue Note jazz club in Greenwich Village. Playing together in this configuration for the first time, the trio dove deep into each other’s compositions, expanding the song’s structures to the brim and beyond. The night began with “Wake Up,” a composition by Brad Mehldau that say Guiliana segue

This very well may be the best headline I have to try and downsize all year. The legendary Herbie Hancock has been working with Terrace Martin on some new music, which we know through simply following the Kendrick Lamar associate on Instagram, but it looks like their project is getting closer to seeing the light of day. On August 11th, Herbie and Terrace will join forces alongside guitarist Lionel Loueke, drummer Trevor Lawrence Jr., and bassist James Genus to create an excit

Taylor McFerrin is still touring in support of 2014’s Early Riser, an album that came out almost two years ago. However, the itch to play new material was evident last night as he and drummer Marcus Gilmore plays a mostly improvised set that saw special guests joining the duo for some jazzy electro-soul. The set began with McFerrin addressing the Rough Trade patrons, saying that he and Marcus rarely have a chance to hang out anymore, and that they’d be improvising a lot becau

Snarky Puppy brought an incredible vibe to York College in Jamaica, Queens. The only NYC stop of their current tour in support of the recent (and awesome) Culcha Vulcha saw a crowd of young and old music enthusiasts alike getting wild to the band’s proggy jazz fusion sound. The night began with a few new ones off that record, “Tarova” and “Semente” before diving into some old tunes. The band’s huge sound and presence had the crowd screaming and head-bobbin’ in a way that felt

The stage was set up more or less how Bill Evans Trio would have been 50 years ago: grand piano on the left, bass in the middle, drums on the right. There were probably a number of room in the city set up a very similar way last night, but nothing sounded like GoGo Penguin did. That’s a guarantee, because while the band looks like a traditional jazz trio, their compositions have more in common with their fellow brits like Bonobo, Burial, or James Blake. It’s all equating to s

The Avishai Cohen Quartet played music from their most recent LP Into The Silence at New York City’s Jazz Standard last night. The supper club was treated to modal jazz tunes that are mindfully abstract in composition, but beautifully communicated via the Quartet. ECM released the record in February of this year, amidst the heart of winter’s cold, a fitting time for such an attentive project. Cohen, who was born in Tel-Aviv, is younger than maybe your average Jazz Standard ba

Image via Tempo Music Pics Amidst a renaissance of spiritual jazz, Pharoah Sanders brought his tenor saxophone to the legendary Birdland jazz club in New York City to play a mix of expected classics and passionate surprises. Over the course of two sets on Wednesday night, Sanders and his quartet showcased the top-tier musicianship that has garnered such acclaim for the past five decades. Both sets ran about 90 minutes, with the first one utilizing classics like “Thembi” and C

Revive Music’s artists do classic genres with a modern twist. Last night, the Revive Big Band, led by composer and trumpet player Igmar Thomas, played couple sets at Ginny’s Supper Club, located in the Red Rooster in Harlem. The restaurant/club is one of the premier dining-concert experiences out there, with both components truly executed properly without compromising one another. The venue was buzzing with excitement. Thomas, who we first caught sitting in with Kamasi Washin

Image via @qbertplaya on Instagram Kamasi Washington scheduled multiple shows during New York City’s CMJ conference, as most artists do. Night one saw the saxophone player bring extended improv sessions to his headlining slot at the BRIC Jazzfest, and night two was along the same lines. This time at Greenwich Village’s home to the avant garde, Le Poisson Rouge. Occupying the slot before Kamasi Washington is no easy task, but Mark Guiliana’s Beat Music held their own. Best kno

Kamasi Washington featuring Terrance Martin #BRICjazzfest #brooklyn A photo posted by Philipp Walzer (@pwalzer) on Oct 15, 2015 at 11:19pm PDT The first annual BRIC Jazz Festival kicked into high gear last night with a headlining performance by Kamasi Washington and a number of other top-notch acts. New York’s Ben Williams was leading a band called Sound Effect when we walked into what was called the “Stoop”: a gallery with giant stairs for people to sit on. The quintet was k

Following a phenomenal week at Burning Man, I made my way to San Francisco to spend the week with my dear friend and check out the West Coast.  I was elated to find that Mexican acoustic guitar duo, Rodrigo y Gabriela were playing one of the Bay Area’s most beautiful venues, The Masonic. The concert started promptly and Rodrigo y Gabriela wasted no time.  In just a few minutes I saw a side of the acoustic guitar I’d never seen.  Watching the two strum and drum simultaneously

Boiler Room hosted their first ever Jazz broadcast the other night at New York City’s Le Poisson Rouge, a phenomenal venue that is always hosting boundary-pushing shows. The show was billed as Supreme Sonacy, which is the name of a new compilation released by Revive Music in conjunction with the legendary Blue Note Records. Boiler Room, LPR, Revive, Blue Note…the night had all the makings to be a unique musical experience, and it totally delivered. The night played out like t