Featured Jazz Articles
The Black Entrepreneurs of Early Jazz

by Karl Ackermann
Preamble: In 2020, I published A Map of Jazz: Crossroads of Music and Human Rights (WS Publishing), a book that looks at the culture of jazz on a timeline with cultures of the world. At more than 500 pages, the book is incomplete by necessity; there is no well-marked path, and the history is sometimes nebulous. However, as a map of events and the chronology of jazz music, it leads to unfamiliar places. The series Backstories dives deeper into people ...
Continue ReadingReykjavik Jazz Festival 2025

by Nenad Georgievski
Reykjavik Jazz Festival Harpa Concert Hall Reykjavik, IcelandAugust 26-31, 2025 Jazz festivals are rarely just stages and instruments. They are living, breathing ecosystems, a careful weaving together of artists, ideas, and audiences. Each performer brings a unique expression, and each set is curated with an ear for the festival's identity. Financial constraints may exist, but thoughtful curation is what gives a festival its soul. The Reykjavik Jazz Festival is no exception: it's a mosaic of ...
Continue ReadingGary Bartz Is Nobody's Jazz Musician

by Bridget A. Arnwine
Gary Bartz is nobody's jazz musician. What he has built and created as an artist with a career that spans six decades defies labels, especially ones that have storied racist connotations and otherwise derogatory origins like the word jazz. He is a composer of the finest order and as gifted as the most revered names in classical music. Defining his work as improvised music is too simple a term to fully capture the essence of what Bartz and jazz" musicians ...
Continue Reading2025 Detroit Jazz Festival: All Free, All Jazz

by Paul Rauch
2025 Detroit Jazz Festival Hart Plaza & Cadillac Square Detroit, MI August 28-September 1, 2025 There is a story Detroit Jazz Festival President and Artistic Director Chris Collins loves to tell about an intimate conversation he had with Gretchen Valade. Valade had rescued the festival from the brink of financial demise with a generous endowment, and wanted to be very clear with Collins about her intent and wishes for the event well into the future. ...
Continue ReadingRemembering Hermeto Pascoal: The Sorcerer's Spell

by Ian Patterson
Hermeto Pascoal, the one-of-a-kind Brazilian multi-instrumentalist and composer, has gone to the great gig in the sky. Known affectionately as Bruxo (Sorcerer), Pascoal passed away on September 13, 2025. He was 89. Few musicians have traversed as many styles of Brazilian music as Pascoal. His first commercial recording, in 1956, was with Clóvis Pereira--the renowned composer of folkloric, choral and orchestral works; Pascoal plays sanfona (button accordion) on two tracks. Over the next 65 years, Pascoal contributed to ...
Continue ReadingArturo O’Farrill: The Arts Belong to the People

by Steven Roby
The first thing you notice about Arturo O'Farrill is how completely he turns purpose into sound. Whether he's speaking about water, memory, or the way a room breathes during a concert, the GRAMMY-winning pianist and composer treats music as a living system--one that welcomes humor, fury, and community in equal measure. That sensibility powers his new project, Mundoagua: Celebrating Carla Bley (Zoho), and it animates his return to SFJAZZ Center, where he'll lead a charged, pan-American ensemble built for openness ...
Continue ReadingKahlil Childs and Jacob Hart: Two Young Stars Rise From Detroit

by Paul Rauch
The Detroit Jazz Festival is a huge draw. For fans, it is the largest free jazz event in the world, removing financial barriers and accommodating over 300,000 attendees over Labor Day weekend annually. Over four days, four stages present the best the jazz world has to offer and in the process, celebrates the great jazz history in Detroit by booking the best of the local scene and giving them ample time on the festival's main stages. A very unique aspect ...
Continue ReadingDominique Fils-Aimé: Jazz as Freedom, Healing, and Connection

by Steven Roby
Montreal vocalist--composer Dominique Fils-Aimé discusses music as essential as breath--something vital, grounding, and shared. In conversation, a few recurring themes emerge: freedom as the driving force of jazz, healing as the restorative power of music on the body, and connection--among people, across generations, and through history--as the quiet foundation that allows songs to travel. These ideas are not mere abstract concepts for her; they influence how she writes and constructs a live set--especially in intimate spaces like SFJAZZ's Joe Henderson ...
Continue ReadingKenneth Dahl Knudsen: Beyond 'Sound American' – Crafting a Nordic Jazz Identity

by Ieva Pakalniskyte
What does finding an authentic musical voice in a genre so deeply connected to history and geography mean? The answer for Danish double bassist, composer, and educator Kenneth Dahl Knudsen is to transcend limitation and let identity shape the sound. A restless presence on the European jazz scene, Knudsen has resisted the pressure to sound American" and instead draws from his Scandinavian roots, folk song, church music and rock energy, while taking influences from collaborators worldwide.
Continue ReadingDeconstructing Free Jazz

by Robert J. Lewis
In the continuously evolving history of artistic expression, certain movements emerge that challenge the very foundations of our aesthetic sensibilities. In the early and mid-20th century, Expressionism and free jazz were two audacious musics that not only broke all the rules but broke the spirit of many well-intentioned listeners. If the terms are not quite interchangeable, Expressionism and free jazz share a common genesis that goes back to the early 20th century with the introduction of the 12-tone ...
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