JAZZIZ Discovery

It was during a tour stop in India with his band Snarky Puppy that guitarist Mark Lettieri first encountered sitar virtuoso Purbayan Chatterjee. Chatterjee sat in with the band, and Lettieri was absolutely gobsmacked. “I was totally blown away by his skill,” the guitarist says. “I’d never really heard sitar played like an electric guitar.” […]

What better way to open an album titled Spring than with a song by Antonio Carlos Jobim? Vocalist Tierney Sutton and pianist Tamir Hendelman do just that with their read of the Brazilian maestro’s “Double Rainbow” on their dozen-track ode to the season. The pair evokes the mood of a rainy day in the garden, […]

It seems almost as if the jazz gods were conspiring against Eli Howell. On the eve of the opening session for his debut album, lightning struck Troubadour Recording Studios at Michigan State University, where the trombonist earned both undergrad and master’s degrees. And, previously, he had developed focal dystonia, painful contractions of the facial muscles […]

Bass and vocal duos are something of a rarity in the jazz world. But when done smartly — think of Sheila Jordan with Harvie S — they can be a real treat, a display of high-wire musicality with no safe place to land. Vocalist Sylvie Noble and bassist Ursula Harrison are more than up to […]