Danilo Perez: Comprovisation and Jazz Globalization
by Eugene Holley, Jr.
58-year-old pianist, composer, bandleader and educator Danilo Perez has played a lot of music from the world and around the world, from the time he played in Dizzy Gillespie’s United Nation Orchestra in the late ’80s to his historic run as a member of Wayne Shorter’s quartet from 2001 to 2023 with drummer Brian Blade and John Patitucci. His 12 albums as a leader include the music of Thelonious Monk, Cuban clave and Brazilian baiao rhythms and folkloric musical genres from his native Panama.
Danilo comes to Smoke with a quicksilver triad consisting of John on bass and longtime collaborator Adam Cruz on drums, who recorded with Danilo on several of his recordings including…Till Then (Verve, 2003), Live at the Jazz Showcase (ArtistShare, 2005), Providencia (Mack Avenue, 2010) and Panama 500 (Mack Avenue, 2014). The trio will be performing new material for a forthcoming album that will feature Danilo’s experiments in odd-meter claves, interpretations of Latin American standards, Stevie Wonder’s “Overjoyed” and two tributes to Dizzy Gillespie and Shorter. This live date pairs Adam with the language John and Danilo created with Shorter.
“Adam and I have had a long relationship since the ’90s,” Danilo says. “Adam and [bassist] Ben Street were my longstanding trio, and we developed a language that I think Adam managed really well: that bilingual expertise, where he could cross over from jazz to the Pan-African roots of this music. Adam brings a perspective of the Caribbean Pan-African language, which is what I'm made out of. I wanted to [merge] that language with the other language that I have developed with Patitucci; the zero gravity experience we developed over the years through the Wayne Shorter Quartet … This is pure magic.”
To read more, visit https://mags.hothousejazzmagazine.com/5853afc8ce.html#page/6.
Emily King: Music Born of Heart and Soul
by Raul da Gama
Some people come to music from a cerebral place. They sit at a piano or pick up their chosen instrument, and the right notes seem to fall in line—a song emerges, crafted almost mechanically. That is not Emily King. Truth be told, Emily feels music with every fiber of her being—body, mind and soul. It's this all-encompassing connection to sound and emotion that makes her one of the most extraordinary R&B singer-songwriters of our time. She has elevated the genre in ways few others have, and even the skeptics—those who might shy away from acknowledging her artistry—cannot deny there is something undeniably special about Emily’s music.
Emily was born into a tapestry of musical brilliance. Her parents, Marion Cowings and Kim Kalesti, are prodigiously gifted vocalists, their artistry often likened to the legendary jazz duo Jackie and Roy. As the younger child of this remarkable pairing, Emily was steeped in the rhythms of music from the start. Her brother, AC Lincoln, is an equally talented artist—a tap dancer, songwriter, and vocalist—who forged a musical bond with his sister early on. Recently, Lincoln penned a song for Emily titled “Medal,” which has garnered wide acclaim across digital platforms. The track’s stunning ostinato and rippling jazzy rhythms resonate deeply, and its emotional core digs into the raw and uneasy truths that pierce the heart.
To read more, visit https://mags.hothousejazzmagazine.com/5853afc8ce.html#page/8.
Stacey Kent: A Jersey Girl with a Global Compass
by Chrys L. Roney
In a jazz world where some singers need a wall of sound just to hold your attention, Stacey Kent does the opposite—she dials it all the way down. No fireworks. No vocal gymnastics. Just clear, conversational phrasing that somehow says more by doing less.
But don’t get it twisted: behind that understated delivery is an artist with deep roots, major co-signs and a global career that’s anything but small-scale.
Born in South Orange, New Jersey, Kent didn’t grow up in a jazz dynasty. No club circuit pedigree. No big family name. What she did have was an early obsession with stories, lyrics and languages. She studied comparative literature at Sarah Lawrence College—a solid literary foundation that shows up in how she treats a lyric: like something to be unwrapped, not just performed.
She didn’t start out thinking she'd be a jazz singer. But after college, she moved to the UK and enrolled at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama. That’s where everything started to click. That’s also where she met saxophonist Jim Tomlinson—her future husband and long-time musical partner. Between the two of them, they crafted a sound that blends jazz, bossa nova, chanson and American standards without feeling like a sampler platter. It’s cohesive. It’s international. And it’s unmistakably Stacey.
To read more, visit https://mags.hothousejazzmagazine.com/5853afc8ce.html#page/12.
Black to the Future: Roscoe Mitchell and the Liberation of Sound
by Raul da Gama
For decades, African American artists have protested tirelessly against the limits imposed by the term “jazz”. While the label has become a convenient shorthand for an extraordinary genre of music, its origins are steeped in a Eurocentric framework that fails to capture the visceral, vibrant rhythms birthed from Black creative expression. In truth, this art form is more faithfully understood as Indigenous Black American Music. The same applies to all artistic forms that emerge from the boundless wellspring of Black creativity—be it poetry, painting, drama, or any other discipline.
At the forefront of this reclamation stands Roscoe Mitchell: a towering composer, multi-instrumentalist and sonic visionary whose life’s work exemplifies a categorical refusal to be confined. For Mitchell, sound itself becomes a way to reframe the Black experience while also challenging the very frameworks that define the continuum of American music.
To read more, visit https://mags.hothousejazzmagazine.com/5853afc8ce.html#page/16.
Grace Jones: Statuesque, Iconic, and Timeless
by Raul da Gama
The legendary British-born, Jamaican-based producer Chris Blackwell (with Graeme Goodall as his initial partner) not only knew how to spend a 2000 pound stipend from his mother, but had an eye for the supremely-gifted and highly visible Jamaican artists for his newly-minted Island Records. Among his first signings for Island were Bob Marley and Grace Jones. Bob was riding the crest of the reggae wave - making it move to the beat of his own "riddim."
Grace always seems to be taller than almost any proverbial wave that would rise in Jamaica and crash in Britain. Even sitting on an interviewer’s couch, which she literally takes over as she drapes herself upon it. She is a celebrated supermodel, an actress, singer, a revolutionary presence, and is larger than life in each of the roles she plays.
Life? That began in Spanish Town, Jamaica, where Grace was born to Marjorie (née Williams) and Robert Jones, a local politician and Apostolic clergyman. “I grew up living in a bubble,” she says, gesticulating with both hands to the British ITV host Jonathan Ross, suggesting how small a space her life once occupied. Growing up in Jamaica, “…there was nothing except church and school which was in church and school which was church,” she continues, explaining the need to break on through to another side. That was not long in coming. Grace was always a singer, and being a striking presence, she naturally gravitated to the stage.
To read more, visit https://mags.hothousejazzmagazine.com/5853afc8ce.html#page/34.
From Afrocentric Roots to Android Futures: The Evolution of Janelle Monáe
by Raul da Gama
Somewhere in Janelle Monáe’s orbit, there’s a wall of accolades that reads like a mosaic of artistic triumphs. Among them: a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Children’s and Family Emmy Award, the ASCAP Vanguard Award, and Billboard Women in Music’s Trailblazer of the Year honor. Even more impressively, Monáe boasts ten GRAMMY nominations, including one for Album of the Year at the 66th Annual GRAMMY Awards for her groundbreaking 2023 project, The Age of Pleasure (Wondaland/Bad Boy/Atlantic).
But beyond the trophies, Monáe—the actress, songwriter, rapper, and cultural icon—might be even more proud of how her art has transcended boundaries. From her Afrocentric origins to the Afrofuturist universe of Cindi Mayweather, she has expanded not only her creative reach but also the representation of Black women in music, film, and speculative art. In her conceptual work, she becomes Mayweather: a crested android messiah confronting belonging, alienation, identity, and power in a world few artists dare to imagine—let alone embody.
To read more, visit https://mags.hothousejazzmagazine.com/5853afc8ce.html#page/36.
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