March — Madness, Hare, Sousa, the Little Women, Fredric, Ides of . . . whatever you associate March with, JJA members march on to the swinging beat of their own drums, as per the moves they report making to start spring 2026! The year’s new slate of JJA Jazz Heroes will be announced soon — you’ve seen the nominees for Book Awards (in time to read them before voting)? — and we’re gearing up for Jazz Appreciation Month/International Jazz Day activities (especially in Chicago, this year’s concert host). We welcome new members — Jason Miles, helping to grow jazz and our presence in Latin Europe; Sherry Mitchell, photographer extraordinaire and literacy advocate in the Midwest U.S.; and Valerie Vaccaro, adding to our growing base in the Garden State. We look forward to their updates for sharing with the JJA community, and beyond!
And here’s what some of the rest of us are up to:
Matty Bannond reported from concerts by drummer Mark Guiliana and saxophonist Sarah Hanahan during the past month. Both were published in All About Jazz. He also interviewed guitarist Remi Harris for UK Jazz News and launched a monthly Substack publication called Lyrical Bridge. In March, he is interviewing bassist Russell Hall for The New York City Jazz Record and will write about saxophonist Melissa Aldana’s upcoming concert at the Philharmonie in Cologne.
Doug Hall, on his monthly podcast Talk About Jazz with Doug Hall, has interviewed Ray Seol, a Berklee College of Music associate professor, jazz composer and recent Fulbright recipient. On Doug’s 2nd monthly podcast, The Jazz Journey with Doug Hall, his guest was Seth Abramson, Grammy-winning producer and musician appointed as The Gilmore’s Director of Jazz Awards in August 2022. Seth oversees the Larry J. Bell Jazz Artist Awards and advises on programming for the biennial festival.
David Haney, of Cadence magazine, announced Cadence’s migration to a new service that will feature weekly and sometimes daily releases of articles and reviews in a free email service plus the option to upgrade and receive the quarterly editions, past issues, audio, video and educational features. Details to follow this month at cadencejazzworld.com. Haney is also finishing a two-part documentary on the great stalagpipe organ, the world‘s largest instrument. World premiere on YouTube March 15 at 7pm ET.
Karla Harris will be in Tullahoma, TN, at the South Jackson PAC on Int’l Jazz Day for the second consecutive year, helping the town celebrate and discover the sounds of jazz and its impact on our culture. (She’s also a JJA Jazz Hero from 2025!)
Alice Hill made her debut in Women In Jazz Media Magazine with an article about Sacha Boutros’ International Jazz Day event in Paris. Alice’s review of Xhosa Cole at Cafe Oto was published in the March print issue of Jazzwise, while on the magazine’s website she reviewed the Filomena Campus Quartet at the Vortex. Alice has just launched a “Song of the Week” on her radio show Jazz in the New Age on Jazz Funk Soul Radio.
Sanford Josephson interviewed vocalist Stella Cole and alto saxophonist Langston Hughes II in February’s Jersey Jazz Magazine. He will also be teaching an online course on Jazz Giants and Rising Stars for Rutgers’ Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, March 5-April 9. The Jazz Giants are Nat King Cole (special guest John Pizzarelli), Lou Donaldson (special guest Champian Fulton), Dinah Washington, and David Sanborn. Rising Stars are pianist Holly Bean, trumpeter Kal Ferretti, vocalist Clara Campbell, and trumpeter Nathaniel Williford.
Howard Mandel reviewed bassist Corcoran Holt’s Freedom of Art for DownBeat, and published a sardonic post titled “War for Laughs” on his Substack, Mandel’s Media Diet.
Bill Milkowski‘s recent sets of liner notes for Paul McCandless, Tom Teasley, Mike Catalano and Roberto Magris have pushed him over the 1,000 mark in his long career as a freelance music journalist. His first set of liner notes came in 1984 for Bill Barron’s Variations in Blue on the Muse label. Meanwhile, his upcoming book on drummer Mike Clark, God Make Me Funky, will be published by Backbeat Books.
Neil Tesser‘s liner notes appear on the newly released album Frenetic Domain, a jazz/classical hybrid from jazz saxophonist Shaw Maxwell featuring classical saxophonist Chika Inoue. He is also collaborating on a large-scale timeline of Chicago jazz that will be unveiled at the Jazz Institute of Chicago‘s annual gala at the end of May.
