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1 week ago | 
downbeat.com | Ashley Kahn
Interview, From the Magazine, Ethan Iverson By Ashley Kahn I Apr. 15, 2025 Between last Christmas and New Year’s Eve, Ethan Iverson performed as part of the 31st Umbria Jazz Winter festival in Orvieto, Italy, presenting “Simply Cinematic,” a set of movie themes he had creatively reimagined for the UJ big band led by alto saxophonist Manuele Morbidini, plus bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Kush Abadey.
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1 month ago | 
downbeat.com | Ashley Kahn
Interview, From the Magazine, Anat Cohen By Ashley Kahn I Mar. 25, 2025 Anat Cohen, in conversation, is disarmingly present and fully invested. One gets the feeling that in most interactions she rarely leaves much unexplored, no stone unturned: a characteristic that, unsurprisingly, carries through in her music.
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1 month ago | 
downbeat.com | Ashley Kahn
Interview, From the Magazine, Joel Ross By Ashley Kahn I Mar. 11, 2025 Joel Ross was touring Europe last summer with his group Good Vibes in support of his new Blue Note album, Nublues. On the same day of a performance at the North Sea Jazz Festival, he made time for a live Blindfold Test — his first — on the festival’s Central Park talk stage.
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2 months ago | 
downbeat.com | Ashley Kahn
News, From the Magazine, Immanuel Wilkins, Joel Ross, Gerald Clayton, Matt Brewer, Kendrick Scott By Ashley Kahn I Feb. 11, 2025 EastWest Studios, a state-of-the-art, multi-roomed recording facility on Sunset Boulevard in the heart of Hollywood, has a history that reaches back to the early 1960s and before. Back then it was known as United Western Recorders and hosted era-defining sessions by Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and the Beach Boys.
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Dec 2, 2024 | 
downbeat.com | Ashley Kahn
News, From the Magazine, Out of/Into By Ashley Kahn I Dec. 3, 2024 EastWest Studios is a state-of-the-art, multi-roomed recording facility on Sunset Boulevard in the heart of Hollywood with a history that reaches back to the early 1960s and before. Back then it was known as United Western Recorders and hosted era-defining sessions by Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, the Beach Boys and — befitting its location — recording The Flintstones theme.
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Sep 3, 2024 | 
downbeat.com | Ashley Kahn
Interview, From the Magazine, Charles Lloyd By Ashley Kahn I Sep. 4, 2024 “To get this honor at this late stage, I suppose I’m blessed. I just know that this is a sacred song, and I’m in service, and this is my humble offering to the planet. I play for the creator, and when it reaches me and he informs me and it can touch others, this recording …” Charles Lloyd, at the age of 86, speaks with humor and humility and in unbroken, elliptical runs.
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Aug 19, 2024 | 
downbeat.com | Ashley Kahn
By Ashley Kahn I Aug. 20, 2024 Newport Jazz Festival 2024 carried much promise, and it delivered: a diverse and very strong lineup – each act an exemplar of some stylistic corner — with the right amount of musical interconnectivity to give it a charge and to sell out all three days before the gates even opened. By that measure alone, the festival’s continuing vigor and relevancy proved itself, and even the weather helped out, with rain staying away almost all of the long weekend.
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Jun 10, 2024 | 
downbeat.com | Ashley Kahn
Live, From the Magazine, Cécile McLorin Salvant By Ashley Kahn I Jun. 11, 2024 Italy’s Umbria Jazz Winter is one of those rare annual festivals that not only coincides with a major holiday — climaxing on New Year’s Eve — but also presents its featured artists multiple times at various venues in the small, picturesque town of Orvieto during its five-day span.
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Jun 3, 2024 | 
downbeat.com | Ashley Kahn
Interview, From the Magazine, Don Was By Ashley Kahn I Jun. 4, 2024 Sitting with Don Was is a comfortable and unhurried exercise. He may seem slightly reserved at first, but ideas and insights pour with intensity once he’s in gear. He’s an easy laugh, too. In the closing weeks of last summer, in a modest Queens studio minutes after a recording session with pianist Nduduzo Makhathini, Was agreed to sit down for a sprawling interview.
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Jun 3, 2024 | 
downbeat.com | Ashley Kahn
By Ashley Kahn I Jun. 4, 2024 Editor’s Note: The following was an assignment that writer Ashley Kahn received not for DownBeat, but for another fine jazz magazine that is currently not publishing — one that had a monthly column that very closely resembled DownBeat’s Blindfold Test. It was never published, so we’ve decided to honor Albert “Tootie” Heath, who passed on April 3, by publishing it here.
