Henry Threadgill hasn’t fomented the kind of jazz revolution that Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, or Ornette Coleman did. Nor is he regarded as the fountainhead of a movement like pianist Muhal Richard Abrams, the founding ...

Nearly 35 years into a recording career that began with the self-titled Dire Straits album, singer-songwriter-guitarist-produ- cer Knopfler holds as steady on his course as such older baby-boom peers as Van Morrison, Eric Clapton, and ...

Outside Europe, Giya Kancheli is likely familiar only to classical music followers of conductor Dennis Russel Davies, the Kronos Quartet, violist Kim Kashkashian, and Latvian violinist Gidon Kremer. But closer to his birthplace in Tblisi, ...

Like many great drummers, Scott Amendola puts his percussion at the service of the music first, in support of his fellow players second, and in the spotlight third. The Bay Area-based Amendola, known for his ...

Given Gyan Riley’s pedigree and past collaborations, no one should expect him to pick up a classical nylon-string guitar and emulate Andrés Segovia. The 33-year-old son of new-music icon and minimalism innovator Terry Riley (In ...

In the 1960s, the term “energy music” was sometimes used as an alternative description of “free jazz.” In the following decade, it could be applied to the approach of the most intense jazz- rock groups. ...

During his long tenure in David Ware’s quartet, Matthew Shipp forged an oceanic, hurricane-force piano sound as personal and authoritative as that of McCoy Tyner, Cecil Taylor, or any other thunderous post-bop and free-jazz pianist ...

That a jazz quartet with only one member under the age of 70 can sound thoroughly modern says a lot about the ageless creativity of its members: Eighty-three- year-old alto saxophonist Lee Konitz, who played ...

Known primarily as a jazz-fusion innovator, guitarist Frisell imparts his unique palette of timbres, textures, and colors to a chamber setting with his 858 Quartet (Jenny Scheinman, violin; Eyvind Kang, viola; Hank Roberts, cello), founded ...

Pianist Marilyn Crispell attracted an initial following with a full-fisted attack, dense tone clusters, and bold dissonances inspired by Cecil Taylor, later refining her style during a ten-year stint with Anthony Braxton. She brought her ...

It doesn’t always begin in the hive, with reeds buzzing in swarms like hornets riling up one another before jetting into wide-open spaces upon discovery of an exit. But it usually gets there at some ...

If the prolific Satoko Fujii had an audience proportionate to her growing critical acclaim, the Japanese composer/ pianist might rival Esperanza Spalding as a popular jazz phenomenon. But Watershed’s prickly textures and dissonances signal that ...

Late in his career, Andre Agassi sometimes found himself playing younger pros who modeled their tennis styles after his. Chick Corea, now 70, found out what that was like at the 2010 Umbria Jazz Festival, ...

While all too many of San Francisco’s rising jazz stars succumb to New York City’s magnetic pull, Canadian-born trumpeter Darren Johnston feels the call of Chicago. During past visits to the Windy City, Johnston bonded ...

Perhaps more than any other jazz musician today, Steven Bernstein recovers the element of fun that withered in the stiff- suited renaissance at the close of the 20th century. On MTO Plays Sly, the master ...