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Pianist and composer Billy Childs draws on film noir soundtracks as inspiration for his latest albumPianist and composer Billy Childs talks with WBGO’s Lee Mergner about his new album ‘The Winds of Change,’ the influence of film noir and Keith Emerson, and his first jazz albums.
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Grammy nominations are always an imprecise barometer, contingent on too many factors to provide a clear view on any scene. Still, the 2021 jazz field,…
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Black lives matter. We hold this truth to be self-evident, and yet it needs to be said.Over the past two weeks, since the death of George Floyd at the…
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Has jazz ever sounded so varied and diverse?In this Checkout podcast, Nate Chinen — WBGO’s director of editorial content, and the author of Playing…
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Justin Brown — the drummer behind acclaimed, forward-thinking musicians like Thundercat, Flying Lotus, and Ambrose Akinmusire — is ready to make his own…
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The Blue Note All-Stars released their official debut, Our Point of View, not quite a month ago, and one key takeaway from the album was the enduring…
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Almost every era of jazz has its resident Blue Note crew: artists who embody the beating heart of that label’s sound.Think of the 1950s, and you might…
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Before Mary Halvorson became the critic's choice for jazz guitar, she was excelling as a biology student at Wesleyan University, until she met one…
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The tune was familiar yet unfamiliar, an iconic object seen through a funhouse prism. It was “El Manisero,” the bedrock Cuban standard, refurbished with…
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Earlier this year, trumpeter and composer Ambrose Akinmusire held a weeklong engagement at the Village Vanguard with his excellent working quartet,…