All About Jazz Monthly Update | December 2002

All About Jazz interviews 2 of my favorite pianists:

• Uri Caine - who discusses jazz and growing up in his hometown of Philadelphia.  Some of my favorite of his works are those reinterpreting Mahler: Urlicht/Primal Light (which, incidentally, I was introduced to by my college roomate and new-found blogger, John-Paul Pagano) and the 2-cd live performance of the same.  He's done similar to selected works of Wagner, Bach and Schumann.  That being said, his more straight ahead jazz work, such as Blue Wail, and his recent Brazilian cd, Rio (recorded on the streets of Rio with local musicians) are also fantastic. 
• Matthew Shipp - who talks about his latest role as producer and curator of the Thirsty Ear Blue Series, which focuses on the directions jazz is taking today, most recently focusing on the combination of turntablism and jazz thats emerged in the past few years in the works of folks like DJ Logic, and DJ Spooky.  There's a great impromptu discussion between Shipp and DJ Spooky in the Spring 2002 edition of Signal to Noise.  It's available online, but you should buy a subscription to support an unbelievably good music magazine!