Phillip Lutz

New York

Contributor at DOWN BEAT

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Articles

Dan Tepfer House Concert Gives Insights into His Writing Process

2 weeks ago | downbeat.com | Phillip Lutz

Live, Dan Tepfer, Ben Wendel By Phillip Lutz I Jun. 10, 2025 On the night of May 16, Dan Tepfer found himself working on the 68th floor of an apartment tower directly across the street from Carnegie Hall. The job was a house concert, for which the pianist had revived a duo with an old friend, saxophonist Ben Wendel.
What makes the Philadelphia sound in jazz different?

1 month ago | inquirer.com | Phillip Lutz

What is the Philly sound in jazz? There is no one answer, but part of one lies in Philadelphia drummers’ singular sense of sonic misdirection. That, in any case, is the conclusion of Johnathan Blake, a Philly-born-and-raised drumming powerhouse and, as the son of the late violinist John Blake, a scion of the city’s jazz royalty. “I think there’s this element of the Philly sound where you think we’re in a hurry to get somewhere, but we’re not,” he said.
Branford Marsalis Explores Keith Jarrett

1 month ago | downbeat.com | Phillip Lutz

Interview, From the Magazine, Branford Marsalis Quartet By Phillip Lutz I May. 20, 2025 Branford Marsalis was on the road again. Coffee cup in hand, the saxophonist — sporting a gray hoodie and a look of resignation — was waking up to a Zoom screen on a late-winter morning in yet another town: Ann Arbor, Michigan, the latest stop on a rolling tour that this year alone will take him to at least 24 states, seven countries and the District of Columbia.
Charleston, Hersch & a Shared Song Cycle

2 months ago | downbeat.com | Phillip Lutz

News, From the Magazine, Rondi Charleston, Fred Hersch By Phillip Lutz I Apr. 29, 2025 Projects produced during the pandemic are hardly in short supply. But few are as pointed, or as poignant, as Suspended In Time–A Song Cycle, a sequence of seven songs with words by Rondi Charleston and music by Fred Hersch.
Javon Jackson to Pay Tribute to Nikki Giovanni April 8 at Village Vanguard

2 months ago | downbeat.com | Phillip Lutz

By Phillip Lutz I Apr. 8, 2025 On Tuesday, April 8, tenor saxophonist Javon Jackson will bring to the Village Vanguard a tribute to his late performing partner, poet Nikki Giovanni. For the Vanguard, it will recall a bygone era when the club, and many other spots throughout Greenwich Village, regularly served as venues where poets and jazz musicians mixed.
Vijay Iyer, Wadada Leo Smith United by Values on ‘Defiant Life’

Apr 1, 2025 | downbeat.com | Phillip Lutz

News, Vijay Iyer, Wadada Leo Smith By I Apr. 1, 2025 On March 20, the night before the release of Defiant Life, the new Vijay Iyer-Wadada Leo Smith duo album from ECM, the label was throwing what their invitation termed a “private listening party” at Bang & Olufsen, the high-end electronics store on Madison Avenue in New York. Fully nine years had elapsed since the duo’s first release, A Cosmic Rhythm With Each Stroke.
Kidambi-Curated Event Delivers Message of Resistance

Feb 25, 2025 | downbeat.com | Phillip Lutz

By Phillip Lutz I Feb. 25, 2025 In Brooklyn’s tight-knit community of socially committed musical improvisers, Amirtha Kidambi is a particularly compelling voice. As a singer and soldier in the fight against injustice, she has collaborated closely with such stalwarts of the movement as Muhal Richard Abrams and William Parker. Her own protest group, Elder Ones, has won acclaim.
Revered French Pianist Martial Solal Dies at 97

Dec 16, 2024 | downbeat.com | Phillip Lutz

By Phillip Lutz I Dec. 17, 2024 Martial Solal, whose irrepressible wit and incomparable wizardry at the piano captivated and confounded listeners for 70 years — and who made an indelible mark in the world of film, having composed a suitably breathtaking score for director Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 debut, Breathless — died Dec. 12 at the age of 97.
Miguel Zenón’s ‘Golden City’ Resonates Deeply at Miller Theatre

Nov 26, 2024 | downbeat.com | Phillip Lutz

By Phillip Lutz I Nov. 26, 2024 Art and activism have historically met through the medium of jazz. But rarely have those meetings yielded works that plumbed the depths of social despair with more emotional and intellectual complexity than Golden City, alto saxophonist Miguel Zenón’s disquieting disquisition on displacement in San Francisco.
John McLaughlin - Hall of Fame

Nov 7, 2024 | downbeat.com | Phillip Lutz

Interview, From the Magazine, John McLaughlin By Phillip Lutz I Nov. 7, 2024 In the aftermath of World War II, the deprivations felt throughout the United Kingdom were particularly acute in John McLaughlin’s native Kirk Sandall, a tiny village in the north of England where a munitions factory that had dominated the local economy was struggling to reorient itself in peacetime. But to the 5-year-old McLaughlin, all that mattered little.