JAZZIZ Conversations

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JAZZIZ Travel: Sara Serpa Nov 24, 2021

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Sara Serpa is a singer/composer/improviser who, through her practice and performance, explores the use of the voice as an instrument. She was born in Lisbon, Portugal, and moved to New York in 2008, where she resides to this day, and where she creates ethereal music drawing from a broad variety of inspirations, including literature, film and visual arts, as well as history and nature. Her new album, Intimate Strangers, documents her collaborative and multi-media performance with Nigerian author Emmanuel Iduma, commissioned by John Zorn.

Much of it revolves around Iduma's stories and stories of others that he collected in his book, A Stranger's Pose, and deals with such themes as migration and displacement. It also continues a narrative that Serpa began in 2020 with Recognition: Music For a Silent Film. While that album grappled with the legacy of Portuguese colonialism in Africa via her own family's history, Intimate Strangers gazes back at colonial powers from the vantage point of Africa itself.

JAZZIZ Travel: Henry Cole Nov 17, 2021

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Puerto Rican master drummer/composer/arranger Henry Cole is known for his versatility and groove. Over the years, he has performed with many of the greats, from Miguel Zenón to Gary Burton and beyond. During this time of intense activity, he also developed his own idiosyncratic "mestizo sound," which synthesizes African, Indigeound and European influences in a contemporary jazz setting.

This sound, also developed via a mixture of personal experiences within a wide range of styles and genres, reflects the eclectic of his Puerto Rican heritage. It is showcased on his upcoming bold and life-affirming work, Buscando la Vida, the music of which came from a profoundly personal place and was inspired by dramatic events in his recent history. The record features his dynamic ensemble, Villa Locura, augmented by the renowned Metropole Orkest and special guests.

JAZZIZ Travel: Amir ElSaffar Nov 10, 2021

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Trumpeter/vocalist/composer Amir ElSaffar is a Chicago native of Iraqi-American heritage. A visionary musician with a prominent background in classical music and jazz, ElSaffar is also a purveyor of old, endangered Arabic music. He is particularly fond of the Iraqi maqam, which he performs actively as a vocalist and santur player, and has integrated in his eclectic and idiosyncratic artistic vision.

His new album, The Other Shore, was released earlier this year via Outhere and marks a further evolution for his Rivers of Sound ensemble, which has grown to become a 17-piece all-star lineup featuring instruments of various cultures and backgrounds. Yet, As ElSaffar explains via an official statement: "I'm less interested in the surface intermingling of cultures and more fascinated by the sonic possibilities in this unique combination of instruments from around the world."

JAZZIZ Travel: Adam Bałdych Nov 03, 2021

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Adam Bałdych is a Polish violin master who works within a wide range of settings and genres, and who is particularly known for leading a jazz violin renaissance in European jazz in later years. Yet, no matter the project, he is driven by one fundamental goal: to make music that communicates, able to enter people's lives and stay with them.

His new album Poetry is a landmark project featuring his quintet and the great trumpeter/flugelhornist Paolo Fresu. It marks a further step in Bałdych's journey, away from mere virtuosity and towards a kind of authentic individual expression that feels more natural. Much of its music was written during the pandemic and is dedicated to his wife and his young son, who was born in 2020.

JAZZIZ Travel: Anna Gréta Oct 27, 2021

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Icelandic-born, Sweden-based singer/songwriter/pianist Anna Gréta was born in music (her father is acclaimed jazz saxophonist Sigurður Flosason) and has performed with some of the great Nordic jazz musicians of today. On October 29, she will release her debut album, Nightjar in the Northern Sky, via ACT Music.

The record emerged from a period of two years and was partly influenced by the isolation of the global pandemic. It includes twelve original compositions, shaped by tinges of the familiar sonic Nordic surrealism, nature and Anna Gréta's own process of self-discovery. As an official press release puts it, "with each of the tracks on this album, she creates self-contained worlds that are part of a bigger picture, light-footed, relaxed, reduced, concentrated. And a remarkably multilayered, immersive and beautiful experience."

JAZZIZ Travel: Moor Mother Oct 20, 2021

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Camae Ayewa, a.k.a Moor Mother, is not only a musician but a poet, visual artist and prominent thinker. Having established her reputation as a force to be reckoned with in creative music everywhere, particularly with her debut album Fetish Bones from 2016, she has continued to share her thoughts in a variety of music and multimedia projects.

Her latest album, Black Encyclopedia of the Air, is a collaboration with soundscape artist/producer Olof Melander and despite tackling such difficult themes as injustice, the erasure of African identity and a future without the stains of colonialism, she has described it as her most accessible album yet. As with all other Moor Mother releases, Black Encyclopedia of the Air also features a multitude of guest artists, instruments and voices, which together with a wide-ranging palette of influences and energy evoking the free jazz tradition is aptly described via an official press release as "a time traveler's guide to the modern world."

JAZZIZ Travel: Hiromi Oct 13, 2021

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Virtuoso pianist/composer Hiromi's new album, Silver Lining Suite, is a blend of classical composition and jazz invention. It is also her collaboration with violinist Tatsuo Nishie, concertmaster of the New Japan Philharmonic. The origins of this collaboration can be traced back to the pianist's Save Live Music series of concerts and livestreams, which took place at Blue Note Tokyo during the pandemic. It was Nishie who assembled the string quartet for this project.

Silver Lining Suite, out now on Telarc, is a soundtrack representing the emotional toll of the pandemic. It takes listeners on an emotional journey, from the isolation and uncertainty of its early days to the fortitude and optimism that carried Hiromi and so many others through these trying times. "[The pandemic] was weird, worrying and uncertain in the beginning, full of negative emotions," she says via a press release. "I tried to find something positive I could do under this situation."

JAZZIZ Travel: Ches Smith and Daniel Brevil Oct 06, 2021

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Drummer Ches Smith and percussionist Daniel Brevil join us on this new episode of JAZZIZ Travel to talk about their collaboration on the new album, Path of Seven Colors, out now on Pyroclastic Records. This eight-track collection melds Haitian Voudou and contemporary jazz, and is performed by the We All Break ensemble, the brainchild of Ches Smith.

The origins of We All Break can be traced back to 2013 and since then, the group has expanded into a stellar and multicultural quartet, with Smith and Brevil alongside pianist Matt Mitchell, saxophonist Miguel Zenón, rising-star bassist Nick Dunston, vocalist Sirene Dantor Rene, and Markus Schwartz and Fanfan Jean-Guy Rene.

JAZZIZ Travel: Daniel Garcia Sep 29, 2021

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Via de la Plata is an ancient commercial and pilgrimage path that crosses the West of Spain from North to South. It represents the country's main artery and allowed Spain to come together for the first time, bringing together people of different cultures, from Celtic and Nordic to Mediterranean and African, and from the Americas also. An awareness and passion for this melting pot of cultures inform the latest project by Daniel Garcia, Via de la Plata, released on September 24 via Act Music.

This new record finds the pianist/composer/arranger digging deep into his heritage and the music of his country. It is also a culmination of his investigation of the link between jazz and flamenco, which was partly inspired by his Berklee School of Music teacher and mentor, Danilo Pérez. Via de la Plata is performed with a core trio and special guests, including Ibrahim Maalouf, Gerardo Núñez and Anat Cohen.

JAZZIZ Travel: Patrick Shiroishi Sep 22, 2021

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Los Angeles-based saxophonist/composer Patrick Shirioshi's previous LP, 2020's Descension, heavily focused on the experience of being inside a Japanese-American concentration camp. By doing so, he revisited one of the darkest pages in American history that is not talked about as often as it should. His new album, Hidemi, is a solo multilayered woodwind journey that is more on the personal experience of his grandfather, who appears on its cover, after getting out.

Due out on October 29 via American Dream, Shirioshi's forthcoming full-length is not only a fascinating work of expressive, creative avant-garde music and improvisation. Through it, the multi-instrumentalist consciously aims to represent the Japanese-American experience past and present, acknowledging music as a means for communication and activism.

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