jazz: Last News

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The checkout lines for Record Store Day might move more swiftly than usual this year, due to the likely numbers of customers who will be buying one exclusive album and one exclusive alone — Taylor Swift’s “Folklore: The Long Pond Sessions,” the most massively coveted item RSD has seen or ever might see. And listen, we’ll be picking it up, too… if supplies last. (The title has been pressed in quantities of 75,000 for the U.S. and 115,000 for the world — about four times as many as any previous RSD title. Will those be enough to last on shelves for even a day? We’ll find out.) But slow down, Swifties. There are 300 other new releases where that one came from, and this is a chance to indulge some other retail-therapy whims or make some new discoveries. Yes, there are hundreds of middle-aged guys outside in line behind you who weren’t motivated to get up quite so early, and why should they be the only ones who get to enjoy newly minted LPs from the Cure, Arooj Aftab, Nas, Orville Peck, Charlie Parker or the Pixies on a Saturday night? There’s more to life than hoarding Taylor Swift, and it is hoarding absolutely everything that has a “limited edition” sticker slapped on it, with no prejudice as to the genre, level of obscurity or how long the artist has been dead.

Voice Notes by Yazmin Lacey plays like you're skipping stations on an old radio set. Jazz, neo-soul, dub, and electronic sounds filter across the airwaves while London-born Lacey acts like the DJ, following you from song to song with stories shared like an old friend over dinner. It is an album that catches me off guard every time I return to it as a new favorite song emerges.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Recent Academy Award winner Ke Huy Quan and actor-producer Sandra Oh will be honored at the second annual Gold House Gala in May. Quan will be honored with the Leading Man Award, while Oh will receive the SeeHer Award. The event, taking place at the Jerry Moss Plaza at the Music Center in Downtown Los Angeles, is a celebration of AAPI excellence and heritage, honoring the most impactful Asians on the company’s A100 list. Other award recipients include Netflix’s chief content officer Bela Bajaria, author and trans rights activist Geena Rocero and Vanity Fair’s editor-in-chief Radhika Jones.

Puma Blue is the alias of Jacob Allen, a London-born artist who now lives in Atlanta. For the past half decade or so he has created a lane of jazz-inflected late night comfort music. Across early EPs Swum Baby and 2018's Blood Loss, his music has been a nook to clamber into, shutting the rest of the world out as you enter.

Jane Seymour is proving age is just a number, showing off her incredible figure on the red carpet in a tight black dress on Tuesday. The former Bond girl appeared at the 2023 AMC Networks Upfront event located at the Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York. Seymour, 72, stars and executive produces in the mystery thriller "Harry Wild" for the network.

The Walking Dead cast is back together again!

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The LA Phil has announced the full summer season for Hollywood Bowl’s sister venue across the gorge, the Ford, with a typically eclectic and cross-cultural lineup that includes Mac DeMarco, Lucinda Williams, Jorge Drexler, the Milk Carton Kids, Darren Criss, Arooj Aftab, Meredith Monk, José James, a kids’ show by the Bob Baker Marionette Theater, a dance project from Serpentwithfeet and many more attractions. The smaller-sized amphitheater is one of the most prized venues for musicians to play in Los Angeles, although the Phil’s emphasis in its four months of annual shows there is far less on commercial acts than in maintaining intriguing blend of all possible arts, with jazz, Americana and Latin and global music definitely getting a leg up on pop in the programming.

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Jay-Z has shared a new remix of his 2009 track ‘Empire State Of Mind’ featuring Gil Scott-Heron, and debuted it at his first live performance in four years.The rapper unveiled the remix at an event sponsored by the Louis Vuitton Foundation and Tiffany & Co in Paris on Friday (April 14). It was his first onstage appearance since 2019.‘New York (Concept De Paris)’ sees Jay-Z take his hit single ‘Empire State Of Mind’ and mash it up with Gil Scott-Heron’s ‘New York Is Killing Me’.It takes verses from the original track and combines them with the latter’s 2011 cult favourite, creating a new homage to the American city.

Ahmad Jamal, the pianist and band leader who helped pioneer the influential style that would come to be called cool jazz, died Sunday of prostate cancer at his home in Ashley Falls, Mass. He was 92.

A.D. Amorosi Ahmad Jamal, one of the most elegant, eloquent and influential pianists and composers in modern jazz, died on Sunday, his wife, Laura Hess-Hey, and his daughter, Sumayah Jamal, told the Washington Pst. The pianist was 92 and died in Ashley Falls, MA, after a battle with prostate cancer. Renowned for his economical and deliberate style, Jamal – born Frederick Russell Jones in Pittsburgh on July 2, 1930 – was an inspiration to jazz giants such as McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock, Bill Charlap and Miles Davis. The latter famously recorded Jamal’s composition “New Rhumba” for his 1957 album “Miles Ahead.” In his 1989 autobiography, “Miles,” Davis stated that the pianist “knocked me out with his concept of space, his lightness of touch, his understatement, and the way he phrases notes and chords and passages.” Davis is also renowned for saying, “All my inspiration comes from Ahmad Jamal.”

Ahmad Jamal, the jazz pianist best known for his arrangement of "Poinciana," has died at 92. News of his passing was first confirmed to The Washington Post by Jamal's wife, Laura Hess-Hey, on Sunday. His daughter, Sumayah Jamal, later confirmed to the New York Times that the cause of death was prostate cancer.

Miles Davis, passed away at his home in Ashley Falls, Massachusetts yesterday (April 16). The cause of death was prostate cancer, his daughter Sumayah Jamal told the New York Times.The late musician – known for his sparse, less-is-more playing style – received a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Jazz Master award, and picked up a Lifetime Achievement Grammy for his contributions to music history.Jamal labelled jazz “American classical music”, and said that he liked to honour what he described as the spaces in the music.He began his seven-decade career in the genre as a teenager during the bebop era.However, Jamal’s musical style quickly evolved and became influential.

David Bowie’s ‘Let’s Dance’ at 40: Producer Nile Rodgers and Engineer Bob Clearmountain on the Making of the Singer’s First Superstar Album “Bowie had this wonderful saying,” Nile Rodgers recalls. “He’d say, ‘Nile, darling, it’s all the same, but different.’” It’s a remarkably simple way of summing up a musical career that has become the go-to reference for artists who are continually changing and challenging themselves. And one of the biggest in his long string of shocking sound-and-vision pivots is the one that brought him true superstardom and his first platinum album: “Let’s Dance,” which was released 40 years ago today. Rodgers, who spoke with Variety about the album in 2018, was already a multiplatinum hitmaker via his work with Chic and Diana Ross. But “Let’s Dance,” which he co-produced with Bowie, was the album that vaulted him into the mainstream — and within a year he’d be helming Madonna’s smash breakthrough album, “Like a Virgin,” and overhauling Duran Duran’s original muddled mix of “The Reflex” into a global smash single.

Trying to keep up with this week’s new music? Every Friday, we collect new albums available on streaming services on one page.

Universal Music’s Decca Records has signed Damian Lewis of being-an-actor fame so that he can release an album of “rootsy, rock and jazz-tinged songs” that, we are told, reveal “a deep love of music and a deep need to communicate”.Apparently that album, called ‘Mission Creep’ and out on 16 Jun, is in part inspired by the time when, shortly after leaving school, Lewis busked his way around Europe. Though the idea to actually make a record came about much more recently during lockdown.Says the man himself: “I suddenly had a lot to say.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large NFL Network’s “NFL 360” and NBC’s coverage of the XXIV Olympic Winter Games led the nomination pack, at ten each, for this year’s 44th annual Sports Emmy Awards. The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences announced the nominees for the ceremony, which takes place at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall on Monday, May 22. Previously announced: Bryant Gumbel will receive the lifetime achievement award for his role in sports journalism.  “Today we honor these esteemed nominees and celebrate those who bring the thrill of competitive sports into our lives on a daily basis,” said Adam Sharp, president & CEO, NATAS. “We are excited by the extraordinary quality of this year’s submissions and equally excited by the opportunity to honor this year’s Lifetime Achievement honoree, Bryant Gumbel, celebrating his more than five decades of sports broadcasting excellence.” 

The Los Angeles Lakers did their job in today’s game, beating the Utah Jazz 128-117. But they needed a loss by the Golden State Warriors to avoid falling into the NBA’s play-in tournament.

Jon Burlingame The newly created Pacific Jazz Orchestra made its first public appearance on Saturday at Hollywood’s United Recording studio, making what may be the final recording in that legendary Sunset Blvd. room where so many great tunes originated over the past 65 years. That likelihood lent a bittersweet tone to an otherwise joyous occasion. Artistic director Chris Walden conducted a half-hour of music with the 40-piece orchestra and announced plans for its initial 2023-24 season before a crowd of Oscar, Grammy and Emmy winners that included Diane Warren, David Foster, Katharine McPhee, Charles Fox and Mark Isham. “It’s not a symphony orchestra, but it’s also not just a big band,” Walden told Variety in an interview before the show. “It’s a hybrid ensemble with instrumentation that allows us to explore the boundaries of jazz and create collaborations with a wide range of guest artists.”

The stars of the Wicked movies are enjoying a fun night on the town together!

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor David Zaslav went office-furniture shopping when he moved into the executive building on the Warner Bros. lot last year. The new CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery had Jack L. Warner’s large dark-wood desk pulled out of storage for his use. He also found a leather legal pad holder once clutched by another of his predecessors at the storied studio: Steven J. Ross. Zaslav wanted these totems in his sunken workspace overlooking Olive Avenue in Burbank to show the formidable legacy, in business and in popular culture, he has inherited. “I wanted them to remind me that we need to show as much courage now in leading this business as the Warner brothers did in launching it one hundred years ago,” Zaslav says. As the studio marks the centen- nial of its incorporation as Warner Bros. Pictures Inc. (the official date is April 4, 1923), the company has never been more focused on using the wealth of intellectual property assets, the production expertise and the global distribution muscle built up over the past 100 years to power its second century. The vast Warner Bros. movie and TV library is the foundation of WB Discovery’s empire-building ambition to transition from traditional cable to direct-to-consumer streaming.