contemporary jazz

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    Us3 Lies, Cheats, and Steals in October

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    Hip hop/jazz collective Us3 returns with their eighth studio recording, Lie, Cheat & Steal next month. The first of the 13 tracks, “Ghost,” leans on the jazz side, telling a story of abuse and revenge. It’s the first of the messages relating to the theme of the title. Leader Geoff Wilkinson explains  “I’ve become increasingly disillusioned by the…

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    Today’s Jazz Stars Interpret Disney Classics

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    Ever imagine The Bad Plus doing music from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast? How about Joshua Redman doing a cover of “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” from Toy Story? Those notable artists are among the dozen contributing to the forthcoming compilation Disney Jazz Volume 1: Everybody Wants to Be a Cat. The title of…

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    Torcuato Mariano Debut (1994)

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    From 1993-1994, I produced a newsletter to promote the late night “new music program” for KBIA-FM. Following is an article I wrote for one of the newsletters: Rarely do debut solo albums come to the station as solid as Torcuato Mariano’s Paradise Station (Windham Hill). From the start, it’s evident that the guitarist knows how…

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    New Dimensions from Urban Elements

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    Urban Elements is a quintet of musicians from Sweden and Chile. I sampled this release simply based on the name of the group and was impressed. This is what contemporary jazz is about! Amazon.com Widgets

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    Contemporary Jazz: How I Got Into It, Part 3

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    This is the third part of a three-part series reminiscing on how I got started with contemporary jazz 20 years ago and highlights since. Part one is here; part two here. Eventually, I graduated from the University of Missouri but still stayed on as a volunteer announcer for KBIA for some time. I think at…