Available June 14.

It’s going to be a lot tougher for modern jazz instrumentalists to get recognition starting next year. The number of categories to be recognized at the 54th Annual GRAMMY Awards in 2012 will drop from 109 to 78. You can check out the Recording Academy’s press release for the reasons but here’s what is of [...]

Jazz For Japan is a benefit album recorded in two days by 25 of the top jazz musicians in the world benefiting the earthquake and tsunami victims in Japan. The recordings took place last week in Los Angeles at Capitol Studios in Hollywood. Legendary and Grammy nominated performers include: Kenny G, Christian McBride, Marcus Miller, [...]

The Roy Ayers Project is first and foremost a documentary, produced by digital media professionals, telling the life, music, and philosophy of the great Roy Ayers. It is also art, talented artists who use their gifts to express themselves through canvas, murals, and other mediums capturing the spirit of Roy Ayers. It is also performance, [...]

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 [...]

I’ve been researching contemporary jazz in the 80s and 90s and came across this great 1983 quote from Herbie Hancock: I don’t mind being classified as a jazz artist, but I do mind being restricted to being a jazz artist. My foundation has been in jazz, though I didn’t really start out that way. I [...]

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 [...]

The ContemporaryJazz.com Store will feature a number of different categories, from new releases to best of lists. It’s just starting out and there are two departments to shop from so far – new releases and the 1988 store. Items are purchased from Amazon.com, which this site is a member of its affiliate program. The new [...]

I apologize for the lack of new content for the last few months. In March, I pretty much dropped off the modern jazz map. I stopped updating the site, let ContemporaryJazz.com Radio go, and tweeted less frequently. I haven’t abandoned the site but there will be some changes in the future. I have plans for [...]