Will Layman

Bethesda

Contributing Writer at PopMatters

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Articles

Jim Snidero Interprets Charlie Parker on Fascinating New LP » PopMatters

2 weeks ago | popmatters.com | Will Layman

Bird Feathers Savant If you were an alto saxophonist any time after 1940, the question was not whether Charlie Parker was inside your sounds, but how and what you did with that influence. Bird changed how people played jazz on every instrument, but in playing his instrument, it was tough to avoid comparisons to the master.
Tim Berne's 'Yikes, Too' Creates Adventure and Magic " PopMatters

1 month ago | popmatters.com | Will Layman

Yikes, Too Out of Your Head / Screwgun Alto saxophonist and composer Tim Berne has been a vital and ubiquitous figure in “downtown” New York creative music for more than 40 years. He arrived in the city to study with Julius Hemphill, a hero and key influence. Berne’s music, made in solo projects, collaborative bands, and as a side player across all those years, has always reflected a combination of R&B feeling, out-jazz freedoms, and careful compositional detail.
Jazz Pianist Caili O'Doherty Reclaims Lil Hardin Armstrong " PopMatters

2 months ago | popmatters.com | Will Layman

Bluer Than Blue: Celebrating the Life of Lil Hardin Armstrong Outside in Music Pianist Caili O’Doherty has been recording as a leader since 2015, just two years after she graduated from the Berklee College of Music. Teaching and touring the world followed, but she may have just come into her own in the last several years. Since 2018, she has been developing a musical and educational project around celebrating the life of Lil Hardin Armstrong.
Jazz Singer Michael Mayo Flies Through His Stunning Voice

Jan 28, 2025 | popmatters.com | Will Layman

Fly Mack Avenue The young vocalist Michael Mayo has a malleable, nimble instrument that presents many possibilities. Growing up in Los Angeles, his dad sang and played saxophone with bands you love, and his mom sang harmonies professionally. But he was also educated in jazz at the New England Conservatory and the Monk (now Hancock) Institute. Would he become a jazz singer or try his hand at popular music?
The 18 Best Jazz Albums of 2024

Dec 9, 2024 | popmatters.com | Will Layman

This was another year of riches in jazz and creative music, with barriers between the tradition and the avant-garde melting away. A thriving global scene of brilliant musicians playing “mainstream” post-bop is out there, of course, but it is not retro or at war with newer structures and bolder flavors.
JazzMatters Summer 2024 Best New Jazz

Aug 12, 2024 | popmatters.com | Will Layman

New Moon in the Evil AgeCuneiformEnsemble Volcanic Ash: To March Is To LoveCuneiformI have lived in the Washington DC area for 42 years, an area hardly thought of as a hub of creative music. We are next door to Baltimore, which has a scene, and within striking distance of a weekend in New York, which still packs more jazz into one city than any other. But Washington DC is, in fact, cooking. I don’t write often enough about the musicians who live just minutes from my house.
Young Jazz Trumpeter Summer Camargo Is Grateful for Good Times

Jul 30, 2024 | popmatters.com | Will Layman

To Whom I LoveBlue EngineJazz may not be “cool” to teenagers anymore, and being a trumpet-obsessed high school student in the 21st century may evoke the phrase “band geek” rather than seeming like a path to the hippest parties in New York City. But don’t tell that to Summer Camargo, who currently holds the trumpet chair in the Saturday Night Live band and is the youngest person ever to join that most sought-after gig.
Flutist Jamie Baum Works with Poetry and Dynamic Voice

Jun 4, 2024 | popmatters.com | Will Layman

What Times Are TheseSunnysideFlutist and composer Jamie Baum has been writing for and recording with a septet or “Septet+” for 25 years. She has used this band to cover all kinds of music — a proper trait of the 21st-century strain of jazz that mixes structure with freedoms, forms of music from around the world, and a thousand other inputs. What Times are These takes her latest version of the expanded septet and adds singers and spoken word elements.
Bassist Stephan Crump Conjures an Optimistic Flow on Slow Water

May 30, 2024 | popmatters.com | Will Layman

Slow WaterPapillon SoundsThere has been plenty of dialog recently among jazz critics and artists about the music losing its feeling, soul, and connection to audiences because it has become too academic or too focused on technique.
Melissa Aldana and Lage Lund Evoke Wayne Shorter on New LP

May 28, 2024 | popmatters.com | Will Layman

Echoes of the Inner ProphetBlue NoteTenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana won the Thelonious Monk jazz competition in 2013, not long after coming to the United States to study at Berklee from her native Chile. Sitting on the panel of judges was Wayne Shorter, one of the greatest living composers and music conceptualists. In the intervening decade, Aldana has blossomed in ways that Shorter would admire.