JAZZIZ Conversations

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JAZZIZ Travel: Julieta Eugenio Mar 23, 2022

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From a small Argentinian port town to the vibrant club scene of New York City, saxophonist/composer Julieta Eugenio's journey has been fascinating and it has led her to finally release her debut album as a leader, Jump. The album musically explores and promotes the idea of taking leaps forward to explore new situations and accept new ideas. Recorded and completed in the midst of the pandemic, it finds her leading a chordless trio with bassist Matt Dwonszyk and drummer Jonathan Barber and in addition to her crystalline and confident phrasing, it showcases her compositional prowess. Its program is, in fact, made up almost entirely of original compositions, plus two well-chosen standards: Ted Grouya and Edmund Aderson's "Flamingo," and Carl Sigman and Sidney Keith Russell's "Crazy He Calls Me."

JAZZIZ Travel: Sigurd Hole Feb 23, 2022

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Sigurd Hole is one of the most in-demand bassists of today's Norwegian jazz and creative music scene. His new album, Roraima, documents a live performance that took place between lockdown in Oslo in October 2020. The work, commissioned by Oslo World, reflects on themes of solidarity and ecological vulnerability. By referring to the northernmost region of Brazil, Hole draws attention to one of the work's primary sources of inspiration: the creation myth of the Yanomami people. And aside from featuring a lineup of fine Norwegian musicians, Roraima also makes prominent use of field recordings of Amazon biophony by U.S. soundscape ecologist Bernie Krause.

JAZZIZ Travel: Júlio Resende Feb 16, 2022

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Júlio Resende is an internationally acclaimed pianist/composer and a downright music ambassador of his native Portugal. Among his most ambitious and visionary projects is the development of an idiosyncratic blend of the sounds and emotions of fado, arguably the most characteristic music of Portugal, with the invention and vocabulary of jazz. Fado Jazz is the appropriate title of his forthcoming quartet outing as a leader, where he showcases said vision. The project also points new directions for European jazz at large and marks Resende's debut full-length for top European jazz label ACT Music.

JAZZIZ Travel: Alex "Apolo" Ayala Feb 09, 2022

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Alex "Apolo" Ayala is one of the most in-demand bassists in the contemporary Latin music and jazz scene of New York City. His latest album, Bámbula, is available now on Truth Revolution Records. On it, he marries modern jazz ideas with Afro-Puerto Rican styles via a set of seven original compositions and one reimagination. He particularly offers his own vision of the bomba, Puerto Rico's oldest and purest music, with an over 400-year history. Through it, he celebrates his ancestors and Afro-Puerto Rican culture, ruminates on identity and race, and pays tribute to his late mother and grandmother.

JAZZIZ Travel: Miriam Elhajli Feb 02, 2022

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Miriam Elhajli is a New York-based composer/improviser/folklorist whose work is influenced by the rich musical tradition of her Venezuelan, Moroccan and North American heritage. Her anticipated second album, The Uncertainty of Signs, features a wide cast of players performing on instruments of various cultures and traditions. The record will be released on February 22 via Numina and finds her searching for the metaphysics of song, exploring the surreal and the symbolic. "This record is my llanto," explains Elhajli via a press release, "my call out to the heavens. The music emerges from a deep longing for a promised return home, to a distant memory that is only communed with when in the flight of song - must those who live in exile belong solely to the spheres?"

JAZZIZ Travel: Miguel Espinoza Jan 26, 2022

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Award-winning virtuoso flamenco guitarist/composer Miguel Espinoza gracefully balances tradition and innovation, blending flamenco with jazz, classical and subtle world music on his latest album with his Miguel Espinoza Flamenco Fusion, Veneta. Available now, Veneta is mostly made up of new original material, capitalizing on sophisticated rhythmic elements that are emotional, natural and organic. The group's unusual instrumentation, held together with soulful "duende," is a multitude of international and traditional influences, featuring Espinoza's guitar alongside Dianne Betkowski on cello, Lynn Baker on sax, Randy Hoepker on bass, Andy Skellenger on Indian tabla and Spanish Cajon, with Mario Moreno on timbales, congas, and bongo.

JAZZIZ Travel: Christiane Karam Jan 12, 2022

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Vocalist/composer Christiane Karam will release Nar, her first album in nine years, on January 28. A tribute to the lives tragically lost in the 2020 explosion at the Port of Beirut, her birthplace, the record is intended to be a joyous and uplifting tribute to the resilience, connection and triumph of the human spirit in the face of adversity. Nar is also a meeting of cultures, including folk music from different regions of the Middle East and the Balkans with contemporary jazz. Its 13 tracks, originals or reimagined traditional material, span different languages and take on common themes shared amongst humanity, such as love, grief, belonging, overcoming and starting anew.

JAZZIZ Travel: Malcolm Jiyane Dec 15, 2021

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Malcolm Jiyane is a revered figure of the contemporary South African jazz scene. He's a successful painter as well as a musician. A generous sideman and bandleader, Jiyane plays multiple instruments. He was an integral part of SPAZA's most recent release, UPRIZE!, where he played piano. On his new debut album as a leader, he showcases his chops on the trombone.

UMDALI is out now on the Mushroom Hour Half Hour. Its music meditates on the concept of creation. It draws on spirituality. It also pays tribute to a history of mentors, including Johnny Mekoa, founder of the Music Academy of Gauteng, which Jiyane attended from a young age. And with UMDALI, Jiyane continues to stretch our idea of what it means to improvise within the context of jazz.

JAZZIZ Travel: Hedvig Mollestad Dec 08, 2021

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Norwegian guitarist/composer Hedvig Mollestad has fronted her own acclaimed power-trio with bassist Ellen Brekken and drummer Ivar Loe Bjørnstad for the best part of this decade. Her new album, however, finds her performing her sweeping brand of progressive jazz-rock with a loosely-configured sextet. Documenting a performance from 2018, Tempest Revisited was conceived as a hymn to her birthplace of Alesund, Norway, and takes cues from the weather and the natural world at large. It was unveiled for the anniversary of the opening of Parken, a cultural house in Alesund. (A new album by her trio, Ding Dong. You're Dead was also released earlier this year.)

JAZZIZ Travel: Elena Maque Dec 01, 2021

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Vocalist/composer/saxophonist Elena Maque was born in St. Petersburg, Russia. She is a university-trained musician, who spent years honing her craft and wowing audiences throughout Russia, Europe and the United States, where she currently resides. She is highly regarded for her ability to cross-pollinate with funk and pop. Her new album, Feel Again, reveals an even wider range of influences with its Latin tinges and bossa nova vibes, via a program of three invigorating covers and six original compositions. Feel Again is also the result of a collaboration with Los Angeles-based acclaimed keyboardist Scott Kinsey.

JAZZIZ Travel is a new podcast series hosted by JAZZIZ online editor Matt Micucci that explores jazz and creative music in all four corners of the globe. In this series, you will hear conversations with artists and people talking about the significance of jazz as an art form, the influence of folk music traditions of different cultures and backgrounds, or simply sharing their thoughts, ideas and insight on their multicultural projects.

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