jazz

The tenth Big Ears Music Festival would have been a landmark for 21st century music even with a lineup half as large, even without some of its biggest-drawing stars of jazz and indie folk. That an event this radically eclectic and this demanding in its curation could survive and thrive over more than a decade suggests something encouraging about our highly distracted and fractured 2020s culture. In Episode 242 of The String, I take a field trip to Knoxville, TN to share the story of the Big Ears idea, my impressions of some outstanding performances, and the voices of important creators who span the roots/jazz bridge – bassist and broadcaster Christian McBride, banjo innovator Béla Fleck, throwback country singer Sierra Ferrell, folk song collector and interpreter Jake Xerxes Fussell, and ambient jazz bandleader Rich Ruth.

Violinist Jenny Scheinman was newly in New York, a twentysomething breaking into the jazz scene when she got her first big ask – to play a fourteen-show…

Jazzmania is the annual fund-raising gala for the Nashville Jazz Workshop, the irreplacable educational non-profit and performance venue supporting jazz…

One of the hardest things to describe in music is what makes a melody excellent. It’s a bit like design; success is supposed to be somewhat self-evident.…

The world of roots music has been made wider and deeper through the contributions of some key instrumentalists who’ve drawn heavily on jazz to create a…

Songwriter Eric Brace, founder of the band Last Train Home and Nashville’s Red Beet Records, has a pedigree of pure Americana. But if you scour his…

20-time Grammy Award award winner Pat Metheny and his stellar Unity Group featuring Chris Potter (sax), Antonio Sanchez (dr), Ben Williams (b), and Giulio…

WMOT will once again be front and center at Murfreesboro's Main Street’s JazzFest. JazzFest is more than just a concert, it’s an event! We'll be giving…