JAZZIZ Discovery

Anger can be a great motivator. That’s what trumpeter Rachel Spencer discovered while composing “Steamrolling,” a hard-driving post-bop number that appears on her debut album The Next Right Thing. However, the music doesn’t sound so much rageful as defiant and determined. Spencer’s track notes for the album shed some light. “‘Steamrolling’ is something I first […]

From Tori Kelly and Mac Ayres to Korean pansori-funk and South African neo-soul, this week’s most compelling videos show how far jazz language now travels. YouTube’s most persuasive jazz stories this week arrived in rooms designed to make musicians visible. NPR’s Tiny Desk and KEXP’s Seattle studio generated the biggest numbers, but the larger story […]

JAZZIZ Podcast Stanley Clarke: The Power of Intention From Miles Davis and Return to Forever to a new generation of musical explorers, Stanley Clarke reflects on courage, curiosity and why virtuosity must serve a greater purpose. By JAZZIZ Photos by Matt Lorentzen Stanley Clarke has spent more than half a century expanding our understanding of […]

The singular singer, songwriter and 2022 NEA Jazz Master transformed the sound of contemporary jazz by drawing blues, folk, country, soul and popular music into her unmistakable musical world. Cassandra Wilson, the Grammy Award-winning vocalist whose dark, resonant contralto and fearless approach to repertoire made her one of the most distinctive voices in modern jazz, […]

Dee Dee Bridgewater, Joshua Redman, Bill Frisell, Kurt Elling, Cory Henry, Nate Smith and more lead a citywide celebration of jazz, history and community, September 2–6. For five days over Labor Day weekend, Washington, D.C., will become one expansive jazz campus. The 22nd annual DC JazzFest opens Wednesday, September 2, and continues through Sunday, September […]