In 2017, I was invited a cover a myriad of events at the Red Bull Music Festival in New York City and Los Angeles. Along with interviewing the iconic music producer, Teddy Riley and legendary composer, Patrick Adams, I was called on to do a series of interviews and reviews to document the first Alice
Amirtha Kidambi is a composer, there’s no denying that at this point in time. But there was a time where this talented musician and intellectual had to break through gender stigmas and discouragement when it came to her studying composition as a young woman. She and I talked for nearly an hour, so this interview
The first time I learned about “new jazz” singer, Ms. Jeanne Lee, was in 2015. I was given the opportunity to research and write a piece for Bitch Media about African American Women composers. The piece was entitled, Black Women Composers to Discover (re-published in Bitch Media’s online outlet in March, 2018). The blurb from
New York-based composer and trumpet/flugelhorn extraordinaire, Stephanie Richards returns with a follow up album to her stunningly sparse, cyclically inspired (as Richards’ instruments were set up in a semi circle during recording sessions) 2018 album, Full Moon (Relative Pitch). The new collection of compositions is entitled Take the Neon Lights (Birdwatcher). A glaring difference between Full
I spoke with trumpeter, Stephanie Richards in April about her album, Fullmoon, which was released on Relative Pitch Records on May 18th. But of course, even more than I wanted to speak about her stunning, enigmatic, creative and expressive album, I wanted to talk about her womanhood. This interview was done before my debut interview
Jazz Icon and five decade long AACM collective member, Wadada Leo Smith has curated the second annual CREATE Festival which he founded in April 2017. The two-day, New Haven, CT based festival which will take place at Firehouse 12, will feature five separate ensembles over two evenings and include an exhibit of Smith’s Ankhrasmation Symbolic
I took a bit of a sabbatical from this column to think. I needed to take some time to figure out what I wanted to say, and what it is I wanted to portray as time goes on. There are so many women in the world who play jazz. Many of them have passed away,
I had an acute thought a number of times today: “I am busy writing about women in improvised music, I don’t need to give white nationalists air time in my mind.” In light … or in darkness of everything that is going on with the white nationalist marches, I really felt how important my work
There’s something I’ve always believed about maintaining one’s innocence, and there’s a benefit of maintaining a healthy level of aloofness that I’ve always cherished: when a dream comes to true, or when you work so hard towards something and you cannot see the outcome in sight, the manifestation of the your desired outcome is much
I became a listener of jazz composer, Geri Allen when the news of her passing broke in June 2017. Her name and face suddenly flooded mainstream media, music publications and social media timelines at a rate that made me realize that I had been missing out on listening to a staple in the free jazz
