If you ever find yourself in New York City on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, take a walk down 8th Ave from Columbus Circle, and stop in to Guantanamera, a Cuban restaurant featuring one of the baddest bands in New York, The Pedrito Martinez Group. Pedrito is one of the world’s pre-eminent congueros and batá […]

Rudresh Mahanthappa is one of the most innovative and forward-thinking musicians of today. Perhaps best-known for his collaborations with Vijay Iyer and more recently with Jack DeJohnnette, Mahanthappa has been recognized with a Guggenheim Fellowship, a New York Foundation of the Arts Fellowship, and various prestigious commissions. On top of this, he was named alto […]

In March, I was fortunate to be one of two dozen musicians under the age of twenty-five attending Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead Residency Program at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. Betty Carter’s band has long been known as a finishing school for young jazz musicians, particularly rhythm section players. Active since 1955, Carter is […]

The 2012-13 Asper series began this September with a tribute to Dizzy Gillespie. The band was fantastic, and made up mostly of people who have been to Winnipeg before—Marcus Printup on trumpet, Gary Smulyan on baritone saxophone, Ed Simon on piano, and Winnipeg’s own Steve Kirby on the bass. The drummer was the only newcomer: […]

The Bad Plus are one of the most important jazz groups of the past decade. Over the last eleven years, they have developed and re-developed a distinctive piano trio sound that draws influence from the entire jazz canon, as well as contemporary classical music, and modern rock and pop groups. Some of the artists they […]