Trombonist Melissa Gardiner graduated with a bachelor’s degree from The University of Michigan where she studied jazz with Dennis Wilson and classical music with David Jackson. She then went on to earn her master’s degree in jazz performance from The Juilliard School of Music under Steve Turre. Gardiner is presently the trombone instructor at Le Moyne College and Cornell … [Read more...]
Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah (Featuring Vic Mensa) – “Freedom is a Word”
Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah is constantly treading the line between innovative and revolutionary. Whether you like him or not, aTunde Adjuah is one of the only neojazzmen going where no one has gone before. Exhibit A, 2017 gave birth to the trumpeter’s Centennial Trilogy, a triple album, which brought him attention not only from all the usual suspects but also from Rolling … [Read more...]
Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah – ‘Centennial Trilogy: Diaspora’
Diaspora, the second album of trumpeter Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah's Centennial Trilogy of albums he's releasing this year, is softer than its predecessor, Ruler Rebel. It's warmer, more somber, more spacey a collection of songs, as if these songs and the extra time between notes, a less is more approach here, is meant to depict the actual African Diaspora, a dispersal of … [Read more...]
Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah – ‘Ruler Rebel’
Since time perpetually moves forward, all movement is technically forward movement. Everything is a form of progression. Experience gives texture to signature, though the elements of signature -- those attributes that define the outward expression of persona -- remain fundamentally intact because the everlasting battle of nature versus nurture will always end up in some sort of … [Read more...]