Congratulations to Cécile McLorin Salvant, Fred Hersch, Joey DeFrancesco and Kurt Elling, all winners of this year’s Downbeat Critics Poll!

• Cécile McLorin Salvant — Winner: Jazz Artist, Female Vocalist
• Fred Hersch Trio — Winner: Jazz Group
• Joey DeFrancesco — Winner: Organ, Beyond Album
• Kurt Elling — Winner: Male Vocalist

And a big shoutout to all our published nominees!

• Jazz Artist — Fred Hersch, Charles Lloyd, Chick Corea
• Jazz Album of the Year — Cécile McLorin Salvant, Fred Hersch, Charles Lloyd, Catherine Russell
• Jazz Group — Charles Lloyd and The Marvels
• Trumpet — Wynton Marsalis
• Soprano Saxophone — Ravi Coltrane
• Tenor Saxophone — Charles Lloyd, Melissa Aldana, Pharaoh Sanders
• Piano — Fred Hersch, Chick Corea, Bill Charlap
• Keyboard — Chick Corea, Eddie Palmieri
• Guitar — Pat Metheny
• Electric Bass — Meshell Ndegeocello
• Drums — Roy Haynes
• Female Vocalist — Dee Dee Bridgewater, Lizz Wright, Catherine Russell
• Male Vocalist — Bobby McFerrin
• Composer — Chick Corea, Wynton Marsalis
• Arranger — Wynton Marsalis
• Blues Artist — Marcia Ball
• Blues Album — Elvin Bishop, Chicago Plays The Stones
• Rising Star Piano — Christian Sands

Read the Complete Results here

Congratulations to Béla Fleck and Sam Bush on their nomination in the category of Instrumental Recording Of The Year. “Sunrise”, a tribute to John Duffey, was released on June 22, 2018 on Smithsonian Folkways Records. A 2019 win would make Fleck a seven-time IBMA award winner!

Read The Complete Announcement Here

Béla Fleck on TKA

Abigail Jones for Vanity Fair — The musicians [of Artemis] offer proof of the innovation and leadership coming from an unprecedented number of women in the field, a snapshot of the freshest faces of 21st-century jazz: women instrumentalists who have sizzle right now….Those assembled here are among the most in-demand jazz musicians in the business.

Artemis features Renee Rosnes as music director and pianist, Cécile McLorin Salvant as vocalist, Anat Cohen on Clarinet, Ingrid Jensen on Trumpet, Melissa Aldana on saxophone, Noriko Ueda on bass, and Allison Miller on drums.

In Rosnes’ own words: I’m hoping for a future when people don’t look at it like a novelty act, and people will laugh at articles like this and wonder, ‘Can you imagine? They had to write like that about women in jazz?’ Imagine that.

Read the Full Article Here

Artemis on TKA

Jazz meets the Gullah culture of the Carolina coast in the exuberant music of Ranky Tanky, which has come a long way in a few short years. The band, a five-piece, just released its second album, Good Time — an aptly titled clutch of songs that proudly show their roots, evoking a Lowcountry blend of deep spirituals, West African folk songs, rustic country, and creolized soul.

As with Ranky Tanky’s self-titled debut album, which was released to high acclaim in 2017, Good Time puts Quiana Parler’s commanding voice front and center, to strong effect. But this is a group that also touts its supporting players: the rubbery groove of drummer Quentin Baxter and bassist Kevin Hamilton, the smart trumpet work of Charlton Singleton. And this album draws a bit more focus on Clay Ross, both as a guitarist and a singer.

Read The Full Article Here

Listen to Good Time on Spotify

Ranky Tanky on TKA

Queen Sugar is Ava DuVernay’s new television series on the OWN network. DuVernay, a fan of Ndegeocello’s critically acclaimed 2000 album, “Bitter,” approached her about working together, and the two came up with a sound for the show through a series of conversations about color.

Ndegeocello will play for four nights at the Blue Note — July 25 through July 28 — performing music from her latest album, Ventriloquism, as well as music from a collaborative project inspired by the writing of James Baldwin.

“It’s just a vehicle for people to come together and talk,” she said. “It just allows people to create space — not ranting and raving, but we can sit with each other and use ritual to deal with these questions and discomfort.”

Read The Full Article Here

Meshell Ndegeocello on TKA

On July 15, 2019, the Rolling Stones kicked off their ‘No Filter’ tour through the southern United States with a sold-out show at Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans. The legendary rock band invited some rising local talent to join them on stage: The Soul Rebels and Dumpstaphunk.

Watch The Soul Rebels sit in with Dumpstaphunk for a Dr. John Tribute

The Soul Rebels on TKA

Over a four decade career, Memphis-born Dee Dee Bridgewater has earned three Grammy awards including Best Jazz Vocal Album and her double-Grammy winning tribute album to Ella Fitzgerald. She’s performed with such jazz greats as Max Roach and Dizzie Gillespie. On the New York stage, she received a “Best Actress” Lawrence Olivier nomination for her lead role as Billy Holiday, and won a Tony Award as Glinda in The Wiz.

Read the Official 2019 Inductee Announcement

Dee Dee Bridgewater on TKA

Hank Shteamer for Rolling Stone – “It’s self-explanatory,” Wynton Marsalis says, pointing toward the papers in front of him. “Basically, if you look at what I wrote, that says everything you need to know.”

The trumpeter had entered only about 30 seconds before, walking into a small conference room at the New York offices of Jazz at Lincoln Center. Impeccably dressed in a gray suit, he leaned in for a quick hug by way of a greeting. If Marsalis seemed a tad impatient, he had a point: The document he’d prepped did in fact speak for itself.

It was a two-page list of essential jazz recordings, containing 50 entries. Marsalis had assembled his choices in conjunction with new biopic Bolden, out Friday, which tells the story of Buddy Bolden, the legendary unrecorded first hero of New Orleans jazz, and which Marsalis both executive-produced and contributed music to. Preparing for his meeting with Rolling Stone, he went deep, listing not simply artists and titles, but also characteristics explaining why he’d picked each one: “Insightful integration of the blues with disparate elements,” “Making a horn sound exactly like someone singing” and so on. Marsalis made it clear that his list was an inventory of “recordings” rather than albums, since so many of the early masterpieces of jazz arrived before the LP era.

Read full article on Rolling Stone

Wynton Marsalis on TKA

Nate Chinen for NPR – Two eminent avant-garde elders, a chameleonic vocal improviser, and a pioneering community organizer and presenter will make up the 2020 class of NEA Jazz Masters, according to an announcement this morning by the National Endowment for the Arts.

The four incoming inductees — saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell, bassist Reggie Workman, vocalist Bobby McFerrin, and jazz advocate Dorthaan Kirk — will officially be recognized next April 2, during a tribute concert and ceremony at the SFJAZZ Center in San Francisco.

The youngest, and most famous, member of the incoming class is McFerrin, 69, a 10-time Grammy winning singer. He is the rare NEA Jazz Master to have had a No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, with the reggae-inflected a cappella tune “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” in 1988. But McFerrin’s career has defied categorization, encompassing improvised duets with pianist Chick Corea; reimagined spirituals with spirityouall; and conducting the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.

Read full article on NPR

Bobby McFerrin on TKA

Will Layman– Tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana won the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition in 2013 (focused that year on the saxophone) at the age of 24. She had graduated from the Berklee College of Music four years earlier, and as a teenager in Santiago, Chile she had already earned an invitation from pianist Danilo Perez to perform at the Panama Jazz Festival. Which is to say, she did not come out of nowhere. Indeed, in 1991, her dad, Marcos Aldana, had been a semi-finalist in the Monk competition (with first place going to Joshua Redman, second nabbed by Eric Alexander, and third shared by Chris Potter and Tim Warfield—whoa!).

However, as the first South American and the first woman to win the competition (and, still, the only woman to win in a category other than vocalist), Aldana experienced some push back in the community. “Who is this little girl?” was the tone in some circles. And even when Aldana recorded in a trio format without piano or guitar, matched with the incredible drummer Francisco Mela, there was some doubt.

But there can’t be much doubt anymore, with Aldana not only playing with power and confidence as a leader of her own bands but also reacting with class as she was placed in a tricky position. In her wake, reviewers and writers (myself included) have paid more attention to saxophonists such as Caroline Davis, Roxy Coss, Tia Fuller, Anna Weber, and Maria Grand. Visions is her first recording of its kind: with a larger band and a more conceptual in approach, refracting her art through her view of painter Frido Kahlo, who shares Aldana’s heritage as a Latina and her position as a woman in a male-dominated art world. It’s also Aldana’s most subtle and wonderful recording, using four brilliant young musicians (all men, if you’re keeping score) to round her music: rising star Joel Ross on vibes, Sam Harris on piano, bassist Pablo Menares, and drummer Tommy Crane. She composed all the tunes but two.

Read Full Article on PopMatters

Melissa Aldana on TKA