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Cécile McLorin Salvant performs at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival on May 3. (Photo: Adam McCullough) Salvant Tops 2019 DownBeat Critics Poll Singer-songwriter Cécile McLorin Salvant is among the artists who topped multiple categories in the 2019 DownBeat International Critcs Poll, winning Jazz Artist of the Year and Female Vocalist of the Year. She has generated tremendous… More »   HEADLINES
Tacuma and The Last Poets Move Beyond the Nation’s Combative Moment Jamaaladeen Tacuma, the electric bassist best known for his years with Ornette Coleman’s Prime Time, has independently produced a convention-defying album that’s both… More » Jenny Scheinman on Risk, Adventure and Starting a New Band with Allison Miller Jenny Scheinman admits she’s led a charmed life, as far as her music career goes. The violinist is unlike a number of contemporary jazz musicians in that she never studied music… More » Andrew Cyrille’s Deftly Calibrated Drumming Showcased at Vision Festival Free-jazz percussionist Andrew Cyrille introduced tenor player Edward “Kidd” Jordan from behind the kit at Brooklyn’s Roulette on June 11, the opening night of the 2019… More » Premiere: Hear a Tune From Eliane Elias’ Upcoming Album, ‘Love Stories’ Pinging among jazz, Brazilian and classical music, Eliane Elias has been stitching personalized details into recordings since the mid-1980s. Last year’s Music From The Man Of… More » 
REVIEWS // EDITORS’ PICKS
 BY Ed Enright
Mike Clark, Indigo Blue: Live At The Iridium
(Ropeadope)
Drummer Mike Clark, whose work with Herbie Hancock and The Headhunters in the 1970s expertly straddled the jazz-funk divide and generated enough aural excitement to influence multiple generations of players, indulges his straightahead side on this live… More »  BY Bobby Reed
BT ALC Big Band, The Search For Peace
(Ropeadope)
Co-led by trombonist Brian Thomas and trumpeter Alex Lee-Clark, the 19-piece BT ALC Big Band succeeds in funking up one of the most storied traditions in jazz. The Boston-based big band’s fourth album, The Search For Peace, reflects an artistic debt to funk… More »  BY Bobby Reed
Dock In Absolute, Unlikely
(CAM Jazz)
A quirky name, an unusual home base and an aesthetic centered on deep melodicism are all factors that make Dock In Absolute an intriguing band. On its sophomore album, Unlikely, the Luxembourg-based trio—Jean-Philippe Koch (piano), David Kintziger… More »  BY J.D. Considine
Sylvie Courvoisier/Mark Feldman, Time Gone Out
(Intakt)
On the face of it, a piano and violin duo seems less like a jazz project than something from the classical realm, and if you’re listening for the traditional tropes of mainstream jazz—blue notes, swung eighths, regularly recurring chord changes—you… More »  BY Dave Cantor
Nature Work, Nature Work
(Sunnyside)
In Chicago, Sun Ra compositions rank as repertoire with chimerical improv being the lingua franca. Ample evidence comes on the quartet recording by Nature Work, helmed by the city’s Greg Ward on alto saxophone and Jason Stein on bass clarinet.… More »  BY Dave Cantor
Elephant9, Psychedelic Backfire I/II
(Rune Grammofon)
Jammy Oslo-bred fusion trio Elephant9, now more than a decade into life, offers up a pair of live recordings on Psychedelic Backfire I and II that seethe with aggression and recline with tranquility. Revisiting its recorded past in a live setting at… More »  BY Dave Cantor
Marlene Rosenberg, MLK Convergence
(Origin)
If you don’t know bassist Marlene Rosenberg from her work with Paul Wertico or Ed Thigpen, OK. But she’s gigged with a virtual murderers’ row of players and had Makaya McCraven in her group before most folks had heard the drummer’s name. Origin… More »  BY J.D. Considine
Michael Winograd, Kosher Style
(OU People)
There was a time, back in the 1960s, when klezmer was considered not just retro but actually dead, and those who played it were not practitioners but revivalists. Clarinetist Michael Winograd grew up in that era, but plays like a skeptic—listening to him,… More »  BY Bobby Reed
The Hot Sardines, Welcome Home, Bon Voyage
(Eleven)
If one had never heard the music of The Hot Sardines but had seen a recent photo of the octet onstage, it would be easy to assume that vocalist and co-leader Elizabeth Bougerol’s washboard is the most unusual aspect of the band’s instrumentation. But that…
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