Category: Concert Reviews

Making improvised music in the Black American tradition means fixing your gaze firmly on the future while honoring the innovators of the past. 2024, with the centenaries of drummer Max Roach and pianist Bud Powell, has been a good year to do that. Yet while those two lions of bebop were deservedly celebrated for the way they redefined the language of their instruments, trombone master J.J. Johnson’s contributions have received less recognition—until now.

Trombonist John Fedchock is determined to see that his distinguished predecessor gets his flowers, and he’s put his money where his mouthpiece is on a Midwest tour that will bring him to Akron’s BLU Jazz+ and BOP STOP in support of his new Summit Records release Justifiably J.J.

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When Christopher Coles decides that it’s go time, he goes deep.

As a teacher, the Cleveland-born, Akron resident has teaching positions at both Oberlin Conservatory and the University of Akron. As a player, he seems to be on every bandstand, both as a leader and an essential sideman. And when Coles puts his pen to composition paper, he writes not just compelling tunes, but large-scale works, like his epic “Nine Lives” that was a triumph at last weekend’s Pittsburgh International Jazz Festival. with ambitions subjects. He’s got a new one that just might be his best.

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