October 31, 2024
Tony Levin: Profiles in Education
The legendary bassist on his school-band experiences, his greatest teachers and how his mustache led to the end of his tuba career. Plus: Inside Levin’s BEAT touring rig
Category: Artist Interviews
October 25, 2024
Jazz Brain / Classical Brain: A Survey
Terence Blanchard. Credit: Cedric Angeles. Terence Blanchard, Ethan Iverson, Aaron Diehl, Helen Sung, Natalie Tenenbaum and other luminaries talk about the issues surrounding the jazz/classical divide—from technique and theory to conservatory culture and diversity. “I didn’t know you were allowed to play the piano like that.” So recalls the acclaimed jazz pianist and composer […]
October 11, 2024
PRISM Quartet’s Matthew Levy: Profiles in Education
Credit: Willa Rohrer. The director of the groundbreaking saxophone ensemble reflects on the teachers who changed his life, his own career as an educator, his Selmer horns and more. Matthew Levy didn’t pick up the saxophone with the intention of pursuing a career in classical music. Growing up in the Germantown section of Philadelphia, Levy […]
October 10, 2024
Bobby Sanabria’s Secrets of the Clave
One of Latin jazz’s greatest bandleaders offers tips for unlocking the foundation of Afro-Caribbean music. Many musicians who play “Latin jazz” or other styles born out of the Afro-Caribbean/Latin American experience grew up with those styles and internalized their rhythms—particularly the core five-stroke pattern known as the clave. They didn’t just learn the music, they […]
October 1, 2024
Inspired by Inspiration: Tyler S. Grant’s ‘In Your Wildest Dreams’
The acclaimed composer goes inside the making of his new Project Imagine commission. For many composers, the title of a work is often an afterthought. But in the case of Tyler S. Grant’s In Your Wildest Dreams, those four words led the way. “I knew I had a title so I had something to latch […]
September 26, 2024
Carli Kennedy’s Singer-Songwriter Secrets
The Nashville-based Music & Arts instructor, who performs with her sister in the acclaimed classical-country duo Twin Kennedy, reveals her tricks of the songwriting trade.
Doug Woolverton’s Modern Blues Mastery
One of contemporary blues’ premier horn players on transcribing guitarists, controlling his sound with effects pedals, and using open space like B.B. King. The first time that trumpeter Doug Woolverton played with guitarist Warren Haynes, at a gig by Haynes’ Southern jam band Gov’t Mule, he participated in a kind of trial by fire. Haynes, […]
September 18, 2024
Music & Arts Rock Road Show 2024: The Wrap-Up
Buck Johnson rocks Birmingham, Ala., in June. This year, summer started with a bang thanks to a new live event series from Music & Arts, Gibson and D’Addario. Rock Road Show 2024 kicked off in June and traveled throughout the Southeastern United States, thrilling music fans and inspiring musicians to pick up and commit to […]
August 26, 2024
Andrew Kasab’s Fingerstyle Foundation
The harp-guitar master and Music & Arts instructor unpacks key concepts for players looking to lose the flatpick.
August 19, 2024
10 Things We Learned About Donnie Marple
Lee Brice’s go-to drummer on Nashville, Neil Peart, Dave Weckl and the record-setting Stagecoach crowd that nearly made him cry. In many ways, Donnie Marple is the perfect drummer for the current state of country music, when old-school honky-tonk fare has given way to explosive, genre-spanning music built for sold-out amphitheaters. He’s been influenced not […]