Armenian-born, US-resident Tigran Hamasyan is a pianist and composer of rare distinction. With his latest album, The Call Within, Hamasyan has made his strongest artistic statement yet. Selwyn Harris caught up with him to find out more
Featuring outstanding new albums from Django Bates & Norrbotten Big Band, Fini Bearman, James Beckwith, RYMDEN, Harold López-Nussa, The Christian McBride Big Band and Ulf Wakenius
Grammy award-winning composer and orchestra leader Maria Schneider is one of the cultural world’s most outspoken critics against the tech giants and one of jazz’s strongest advocates for musicians’ rights. So, as ‘Big Data’ plays an ever-increasing, and ever more troubling, role in musical spaces, her new album Data Lords has arrived at exactly the right time. Stuart Nicholson finds Schneider as angry and as determined to act as ever
As Radiohead’s seismic album Kid A celebrates its 20th anniversary on 2 October, leading UK jazz pianist Rick Simpson releases his own improv-heavy take on one of the Oxford band’s most dramatic and epoch defining recordings
London’s famous 606 Club has come up with an innovative solution to the problem of live performance in lockdown. Rosie Hanley met the team to find out more
Featuring new releases from Nubya Garcia, Pasquale Grasso, Tigran Hamasyan, Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, and Somi
Upcoming Edinburgh singer-composer Georgia Cécile almost became a lawyer, but fortunately for jazz, the lure of music proved too strong, and she is about to record her all-originals debut album. Peter Quinn talks to her about carrying on a family tradition
Coming to prominence while a just teenager, and still only in his 30s, American jazz trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire has already won a lifetime’s worth of awards and accolades. With the release of a superb new Blue Note album On The Tender Spot Of Every Calloused Moment – a powerful expression of the contemporary black experience – his profile is surely set to soar still higher. Kevin Le Gendre talks to this most literary of musicians about his love of language and desire to pause and reflect in...
Outstanding new albums and reissues from Rudresh Mahanthappa, Zara McFarlane, William Parker, Maria Schneider and Nat King Cole
From shoebox bass drums, playing with cotton buds and livestreamed collaborations, Christine Hannigan discovers how a new generation of musicians are using tech, innovation and determination to survive and thrive in lockdown
