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Casey Benjamin is a Grammy Award winning multi-instrumentalist. He is prolific as both a sideman and bandleader. In addition, he has recently worked with artists such as Kris Bowers, Robert Glasper, Derrick Hodge, Lupe Fiasco, Mark Adams, Melvin Gibbs, and Stefon Harris. Benjamin recently spoke with an iRock Jazz interviewer …

Grammy Award-winning Jazz bassist Ben Williams is a forward-thinking musician who crosses easily between straight-ahead, funk, and gospel-influenced jazz. A native of Washington, D.C., Williams graduated from the Duke Ellington School of Music before studying with renowned bassist Rodney Whitaker while earning a B.A. in jazz studies at Michigan State …

DIANNE REEVES is among the pre-eminent jazz vocalists in the world. In her first studio album in five years, Reeves delivers what is destined to become a soul-jazz classic. The album, Beautiful Life, also marks a new relationship with Concord Records —which is not entirely new: Reeves was featured in …

Pianist Kris Bowers is one of the newest and brightest lights on the jazz landscape. Schooled in jazz and classical music, raised amid the rap and hip-hop of the 1990s, inspired by the cinematic power of the great film composers of recent decades, Bowers’ sound – though rooted in traditional …

Jazz vocalist and DC-native Akua Allrich has proven herself to be a musician of extraordinary talent and crowd-moving passion. With finesse and charisma, this vocalist, composer and teacher, has successfully etched out a place for her unique musical expression, electrifying audiences in and around the nation’s capital with sold-out performances. …

What do you call a musical gumbo that recalls the ancestral strut and joie de vivre of the New Orleans’ Tremé, the drama and ecstasy of the church’s wailing floor, and the suited-up sophistication of jazz threaded with the party funk of Parliament? What do you name sounds that hail …

On March 11, trumpeter and composer Ambrose Akinmusire will return with the release of “the imagined savior is far easier to paint”, an impressive and expansive new album that broadens the palette of his quintet with the addition of guitarist Charles Altura, the OSSO String Quartet, and vocalists Becca Stevens, …

Ruth (Producer) and Stephen Hendel (Co-Conceiver/Producer) Ruth’s Broadway credits include: Death of Salesman (Tony®), Clybourne Park (Tony®), FELA! (with Stephen), American Idiot (with Stephen), Driving Miss Daisy, In The Heights (Associate), Red (Tony®), A View from the Bridge, Hamlet, Mary Stuart, All My Sons, 33 Variations, Passing Strange, Legally Blonde, …

Siân Pottok’s Bio: Siân is Welsh, Arabian Horse is Slovak . My parents gave me the chance to travel in my childhood , which certainly contributes to the continuing need a change of scenery , to discover other horizons , to immerse myself in foreign cultures. I love the eclectic …

Ramsey Lewis has enjoyed an incredible career of more than 50 years in jazz. From his early days, he has maintained strong ties with the people and culture of Chicago. In this recent exclusive interview with iRock Jazz, Ramsey Lewis looks back on his early days as a musician and …

At the age of four Jamar was enrolled in a music school in his hometown of Philadelphia where he studied piano and began to compose. His first piano recital featured his own compositions!  While a freshman at Temple University, Jamar co-wrote and produced the song, Dear God, for the Grammy …

Cécile McLorin Salvant was born and raised in Miami, Florida of a French mother and a Haitian father. She started classical piano studies at 5, and began singing in the Miami Choral Society at 8. Early on, she developed an interest in classical voice, began studying with private instructors, and later …