Bobby Reed

Jazz educators frequently tell students that the ability to play numerous styles can be essential to making a living as a musician. A case in point is the band Lake Street Dive, which was founded in 2004 by four students at Boston’s New…

As a recent issue of DownBeat went to press, the United States was facing frightening trends in terms of COVID-19 positivity rates. Many educational institutions were gleaning information from their fall 2020 experiences to help them…

For more than 30 years, the independent label Arbors Records has put artistic concerns ahead of budgetary ones. Based in Clearwater, Florida, Arbors is run by Rachel Domber, who cofounded the label with her husband, Mat, who passed away in…

For jazz students enrolled in fall classes at The New School in New York City, the “new normal” during the pandemic meant that all instructional activity took place online. To help students get the maximum benefit from their…

All musicians have seen their activities dramatically reduced during the coronavirus pandemic, but a core group of players associated with the Posi-Tone label has remained remarkably busy during the crisis. Between August and December,…

For the beloved quartet’s 25th album, Yellowjackets decided to go big—as in, really big. The vibrant, robust Jackets XL (Mack Avenue) is a collaboration with one of the finest large ensembles in the world, the WDR Big Band, based in…

Being a music educator during the pandemic requires a deep commitment to public health. Teachers who conduct in-person instruction have dual responsibilities: They should help students develop their musical chops while also following…

Musicians who are selected to judge a jazz competition often face an extremely difficult, painstaking task. But, according to vibraphonist Stefon Harris, that was not the case for the adjudicators of the inaugural edition of Count…

A conversation with Pat Metheny is similar to one of his shows: Some parts seem carefully constructed, while others are loose, improvisational flights. But the thematic undercurrent is one of sturdy, satisfying logic. DownBeat reached…

You can’t keep a hard-working bluesman down. Despite the pandemic-related lockdown, blues-rock superstar Joe Bonamassa has remained busy in recent months, releasing two albums and doing work for the nonprofit organization he co-founded,…

What Does on-campus instruction look like and feel like during the pandemic? As students across the nation headed back to campus for the fall semester, DownBeat decided to check in with one renowned institution to see how things were…

For vinyl collectors, the day after Thanksgiving traditionally has been a time to rush to a local independent retailer for the Record Store Day Black Friday shopping event. Collectors’ shopping strategies undoubtedly will be different…

If one were looking for an album to illustrate an aesthetic shared by several musicians who appear on DownBeat’s “25 For The Future” list, an ideal candidate would be drummer and producer Makaya McCraven’s 2018 gem, Universal…

Considering the environment in which he was raised, it’s not terribly surprising that Jimmy Macbride was creating rhythms as early as age 3. His mother, a visual artist, and his father, who was a composer, noticed the precocious…

Now that many educators have made it through months of online music instruction during a global pandemic, some are starting to ask themselves, “Which techniques are working well, and what do we need to tweak as we look ahead to the…

For many years now, young, gifted players have been asking themselves, “Why should I go earn a degree in music?” Given the tuition costs of many institutions, and the abundance of private music instructors, it is a legitimate question.…

Kahil El’Zabar and David Murray have been exchanging spiritual energy for more than 40 years. When they met in 1975 in Chicago, El’Zabar was a percussionist and vocalist deeply involved with the Association for the Advancement of…

Nicole Zuraitis is accustomed to playing some of the finest rooms in New York, including Birdland and the 55 Bar. Before the coronavirus pandemic struck, the Grammy-nominated singer and pianist had planned to have an album-release show at…