Will Layman
- Contributing Writer, PopMatters
- Director of Marketing and Communications, Washington Episcopal School
Bethesda
NJ-bred former lawyer, now: teacher, communications specialist, musician, writer, jazz critic. Dad. Glint in eye.
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Articles by Will Layman
Matthew Shipp and William Parker Discover Structure in Freedom
The Whole System Of Tao Forms Pianist Matthew Shipp and bassist William Parker have played together for over 40 years, dating back to before Shipp recommended Parker join him in the legendary tenor saxophonist David S. Ware Quartet. During a time when jazz seemed more interested in looking to its tradition than blazing new trails, the band demonstrated that a daring combination of free improvisation and structure was commercially viable, at least somewhat.
Superb Jazz Flautist Elena Pinderhughes Debuts as a Leader
I Hope You Feel It Too Fluture Elena Pinderhughes is the most formidable and exciting jazz artist to emerge on the flute in a generation. Her mature debut as a leader might have been an event, but it sounds more like a mood. The buzz for this incredible improviser has been building for more than a decade. In 2016, she was named the top “Rising Star” flautist in a Downbeat poll, two full years after she played with no less a band than Herbie Hancock, Joshua Redman, and Esperanza Spalding.
Trombonist Ryan Keberle Discusses His Music by an MPB Pioneer
Here Is Donato! Alternate Side Ryan Keberle is a virtuoso trombonist with a huge stylistic range. He is a jazz composer and improviser, but also a master interpreter of styles beyond mainstream jazz. Reverso, an international chamber ensemble he co-founded, transforms European classical music. His band Catharsis includes vocalist/guitarist Camilla Meza.
James Brandon Lewis Brilliantly Interprets Antonín Dvořák
Tenor saxophonist and composer James Brandon Lewis is one of the most productive musicians in creative music. His quartet, with a traditional piano, bass, and drums rhythm section, releases an album almost every year, and he has two standout guest releases with the Messthetics, a DC-based punk jazz trio featuring guitarist Anthony Pirog. Lewis’ most idiosyncratic and daring band, however, has been his Red Lily group.
Meshell Ndegeocello Offers Superb Soulful Duets of Classics
Meshell Ndegeocello’s new album of soulful, inventive duets, Synonym, is among her most intriguing and pleasing. The bassist, singer, and songwriter covers 15 songs here, but she works considerable magic on them all.
Jazz Pianist David Virelles Meets the Elders in Trio Imagination
Trio Imagination are a newly minted band that adds Cuban-born pianist David Virelles to the rhythm section for Trio 3: alto saxophonist Oliver Lake (now retired), bassist Reggie Workman, and drummer Andrew Cyrille. Virelles was one of several pianists who had collaborated with that group, and the new ensemble’s debut, Creative Inspirations, is a fine outing that elevates everyone’s game. This encounter ought to work well.
Branford Marsalis and Dianne Reeves Pay Tribute to Coltrane
Dedicated to You Blue Note We tend to think of Wynton Marsalis as a jazz classicist, a musician dedicated to performing and recording the music of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and others—focused on keeping the jazz tradition alive for new generations of players and listeners, as well as composing new material within that tradition. His brother Branford Marsalis, originally a member of Wynton’s quintet who famously left to play in Sting’s first solo project, is considered the family rebel.
John Hollenbeck’s Singular Voice Animates’ Peace and Justice’
Peace and Justice Flexatronic Fans of the drummer, composer, and arranger John Hollenbeck are having a great 2026. His most recent recording with the synth-sax-voice quartet George is a complex celebration of groove, texture, and audacity. Peace and Justice is Hollenbeck at his other extreme: working with the 17-piece Hot Club Jazz Orchestra (Lisbon, Portugal) on complexly interlocking arrangements that defy genre or cliché.
Drummer Matt Wilson’s Good Trouble Fight Power with Love
Love Is the Whole Thing, We Are Only Pieces Palmetto Matt Wilson is a jazz drummer of uncommon clarity and playfulness. Those descriptions apply to his playing and his focus as a bandleader. At the kit, Wilson dances and dallies but also drives the band with propulsive swing. As a leader, he puts together and directs groups that are simultaneously about something and utterly entertaining. These balances are rarely achieved with the grace that Wilson never lacks.
Gretchen Parlato Spins Jazz and Soul Into a Charmed Thing
In a world that features billion-dollar pop divas (you know their names) and incredibly creative and technically dazzling jazz musicians (you have never heard the names of all but a tiny few), singer-songwriter Gretchen Parlato sits in a delicious middle at a mysterious intersection of contemporary soul and jazz. Her music is easy on the ears but also intimate and sophisticated. Her voice is immediately recognizable and distinctive, a slightly nasal curl of attitude, intimacy, and vulnerability.
Henry Threadgill and Zooid Evoke Old and New Jazz Elements
The astonishing career of composer, saxophonist, and flautist Henry Threadgill seems as strong and distinctive as ever in 2026. Just weeks ago, he released his first recording on Nonesuch Records with co-leaders Vijay Iyer and Dafnis Prieto (both MacArthur Fellows), and now his longstanding band Zooid has put out Cut You Where You Was on the independent label Pi Recordings, which was created in significant part to keep Threadgill‘s music in our ears.
Henry Threadgill’s Trio Creates Brilliant Art Jazz
This trio of alto saxophonist and flautist Henry Threadgill, pianist Vijay Iyer, and drummer Dafnis Prieto has been an occasional working band for 15 years. However, they make their debut with this crisp and still adventurous album. Each member is a distinctive composer and listener, making Fifteen a recording of sympathy and design.
The Jazz Organ Trio Lives on Thanks to Larry Goldings et al.
Organ trios aren’t as common as they once were. With the keyboardist handling the bass duties from the Hammond’s bass pedals and a guitarist or tenor saxophonist providing melodic help on top of a grooving drummer, these bands once turned bars into real music halls. Today, bars are alive with the sound of ESPN, alas, perhaps. This organ trio of guitarist Peter Bernstein, organist Larry Goldings, and drummer Bill Stewart, however, don’t generally play funky blues workouts.
Linda May Han Oh and Melissa Aldana Play Bebop and Beyond
Beneath Lifted Skies Biophilia The duet project of tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana and bassist Linda May Han Oh makes an ideal case for how jazz has changed significantly over the last 30 years while still showing its perennial strengths.
Mary Halvorson and Ambrose Akinmusire Connect to Jazz History
Slo-Mo Neon Luminate Hoverings Nonesuch Guitarist Mary Halvorson and trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire have been playing together for some time, both recording for prestigious Nonesuch Records. They are neighbors in the creative music community of New York City. After practicing together as a duet, they have finally performed and recorded in this format, resulting in the new Slo-Mo Neon Luminate Hoverings. Both Akinmusire and Halvorson have developed into jazz impressionists.
DOMi & JD Beck Create a Brilliant, Jazzy Genre Mash-up
The duo DOMi & JD Beck are jazz’s most “Gen Z” brand. Virtuosic and omnivorous, they positively blow minds. Is it “jazz” at all? Keyboardist DOMi (Domi Louna, born Domitille Degalle in France) and drummer JD Beck (from the Dallas, Texas area) record for Blue Note, and their first album featured guest performers Herbie Hancock, guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel, and bassist Thundercat.
Jazz Pianist Nduduzo Makhathini Mixes Yearning with a Modern Sound
The Myth We Choose Blue Note Nduduzo Makhathini has a wonderful touch and sound at the piano. As a South African artist, he inherits a grand tradition of cross-pollination between American jazz and the music of his own culture. Beyond the obvious associations (Abdullah Ibrahim and McCoy Tyner, for example), you can hear concrete echoes of Keith Jarrett and Brad Mehldau.
Tyshawn Sorey Triumphantly Renews a 1968 Jazz Classic by Max Roach
The latest music from drummer and composer Tyshawn Sorey is an extended performance of more than 90 minutes, recorded at the conclusion of a four-night engagement at The Jazz Gallery in New York City. It is a significant reinvention of the Max Roach album Members, Don’t Git Weary from 1968. It is heavy, and it is a blast of imagination and excitement.
Guitarist Miles Okazaki Expands His Sound with ‘Boomtown’
Miles Okazaki is not the jazz guitarist who captures the wide open spaces of the United States with his sweeping vision, amazing technique, and knack for melody, right? That’s another guy… what’s his name again? Except that Miles Okazaki most certainly is that jazz guitarist, but with a slant. I will always be a Pat Metheny fan, to be clear, but there is a ton of room out west for the sound of American improvised music to rush your heart and thrill you.
Vocalist Gabrielle Cavassa Molds Moody Jazz Atmosphere
Jazz fans know the vocalist Gabrielle Cavassa from her work with saxophonist Joshua Redman on his 2023 album Where Are We, his first for the legendary Blue Note label, as well as his first to feature a singer. On that album and on the road with Redman, Cavassa found fresh ways to approach standards like “Stars Fell on Alabama” and “Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans” and pop songs by Jimmy Webb and Sufjan Stevens.
Jazz Trumpeter Dave Douglas Discusses His Latest Music
I am a frenetic guy. I don’t nap much, and I prefer my days to be packed with projects, friends, and work. That’s why I was in the Knoxville Airport at 5:00 am on the Monday after the Big Ears Festival had ended. I wanted to get home to start my day after hearing so much great music — including seeing trumpeter Dave Douglas with his latest band playing refractions of the music of Duke Ellington, as well as Douglas playing in a reunion of John Zorn’s first Masada Quartet.
Jon Irabagon and Quartet Brilliantly Go in Every Direction
Saturday's Child Irabagast Saxophonist Jon Irabagon is the kind of modern jazz musician who makes hash of boundaries, categories, and debates about “the tradition” being at odds with the vanguard. He is a Juilliard-trained virtuoso with mastery of the jazz tradition dating back a century, and a musician who regularly runs roughshod over the so-called rules.
John Pizzarelli Discusses His Tribute to Tony Bennett
Dear Mr. Bennett Green Hill Music Guitarist and singer John Pizzarelli has been working professionally for about 45 years and has recorded over 30 albums as a leader. Pizzarelli‘s preferred format is with a trio, in the style of Nat King Cole: his swing-styled seven-string guitar, piano, and upright bass — and his casual but confident vocals.
Melissa Aldana Presents Ideal Latin American Balladry
Tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana is from Santiago, Chile, where she grew up as the daughter of a professional saxophone player. She started playing at age six, met the Panamanian jazz pianist Danilo Perez when she was 18, and later studied at Berklee College of Music. It almost seems like a jazz fairy tale: she was in New York City studying with the legendary George Coleman in 2009 and was the first woman to win the Thelonious Monk Jazz Competition for saxophone in 2013. She was 26.
Aaron Parks Looks Back and Points Forward with Gorgeous LP » PopMatters
Pianist Aaron Parks can present as one of jazz’s dual personalities: a bandleader who creates slippery new jazz that fuses indie rock, hip-hop, and crisp modern jazz (for example, on his Blue Note debut album Invisible Cinema, or on his recent albums with the band Little Big) and a more traditional jazz pianist in a lyrical, post-bebop mold. If you buy into that paradigm, then his new album, By All Means, falls into the second bucket.
Patricia Brennan Creates Otherworldly Jazz » PopMatters
Of the Near and Far Pyroclastic Patricia Brennan is a master composer and improviser on mallet percussion, and her last album, Breaking Stretch, was a high-arcing highlight of 2024 in jazz. The follow-up, Of the Near and Far, is also one of the best and most exciting albums of this year in creative music.
Webber/Morris Big Band Expand the Possibilities of a Big Band07 » PopMatters
Unseparate Out of Your Head A so-called “big band” in jazz has a particular definition. Usually it means 17 or more musicians: four trumpets, three or four trombones, four or five saxophones, plus a rhythm section of piano, bass, drums, and maybe a guitar. By the 1930s, “big band” music had evolved into a distinct and extremely popular style.
Carmen Staaf's New LP Takes on Williams and Monk " PopMatters
Pianist Carmen Staaf came galloping onto the jazz scene through her work with drummer Allison Miller in their Science Fair (2018) and in a set of duets, Nearness (2022). If you are playing a percussion instrument (which the piano is, after all) and keeping up with Allison Miller, you are exceptional. Staaf‘s new album is both an interesting thinkpiece and a lovely jazz recording.
Jazz Saxophonist Jon Irabagon Is a Magician and Shapeshifter » PopMatters
Someone to Someone Irabbagast Saxophonist Jon Irabagon is a magician and shapeshifter, a composer whose imagination goes from lyrical grace to controlled chaos and back again. As often as not, his sonic creations are capable of existing in both states simultaneously. His newest recording, with a quartet he calls PlainsPeak for its grounding in the Chicagoland Midwest, is Someone to Someone.
Henry Threadgill Extends His Compositional Daring Into Intimacy » PopMatters
The musical art of composer Henry Threadgill has taken many forms over the course of more than half a century. When he emerged as a darting, era-spanning alto saxophonist with the trio AIR in 1971, Threadgill was already defying expectations, playing in the post-bebop “free style” of that loft jazz era, but also covering ragtime songs along the way.
Jazz Trio Fieldwork's 'Thereupon' Is Buoyant and Open " PopMatters
This version of Fieldwork is the trio of pianist Vijay Iyer (the only remaining player from the band’s 2002 debut), alto saxophonist Steve Lehman, and drummer Tyshawn Sorey. The group last released an album in 2008, and since then, each musician has become a vital leader and composer in the creative music scene. Accolades include: MacArthur Fellowships for both Iyer and Sorey, a Guggenheim Fellowship for Lehman, and a Pulitzer Prize in music for Sorey.
Stephen Philip Harvey's Vocabulary of Jazz Composition Is Vast " PopMatters
Multiversal: Live at Bop Stop Hidden Cinema Stephen Philip Harvey is not a typical jazz musician — and for many reasons. One reason is that he is primarily a composer and arranger, rather than a virtuoso soloist and improviser, who writes mainly because that is what jazz musicians are expected to do. Most importantly, Harvey is the kind of composer whose output is consistently fresh and inventive, without necessarily being self-consciously cutting-edge.
Dave Douglas' 'Alloy' Shows Incredible Confidence and Focus " PopMatters
Alloy Greenleaf Trumpeter and bandleader Dave Douglas creates (and curates through his independent label, Greenleaf) lots of music, but when you hear it, you know it is his. He is drawn to constructing bands as new sonic explorations, and there is a searching quality to his composing. He writes memorable themes that, as often as not, carry a tinge of melancholy, even when they hop or swing.
Bassist Linda May Han Oh's New LP Is Full of Sonic Jewels " PopMatters
Strange Heavens Pi Trio recordings by jazz groups don’t often feature a trumpet accompanied only by bass and drums. The chord-less (no piano or guitar, that is) saxophone trio has a long history, but the format of Strange Heavens, the new album from bassist Linda May Han Oh, is rare. Chet Baker recorded with such a trio in the 1960s.
José James Explores Disco Through a Creative Jazz Mindset » PopMatters
1978: Revenge of the Dragon Rainbow Blonde Jazz singer José James has just released 1978: Revenge of the Dragon, his 13th studio recording in a career that has swung dramatically from relatively “straight ahead” jazz (his third Blue Note album was a tribute to Billie Holiday) to groove-based music, including a recent tribute to a different singer: Erykah Badu. It is his second consecutive recording, based at least in part on the music made in the year of his birth.
Jim Snidero Interprets Charlie Parker on Fascinating New LP » PopMatters
Bird Feathers Savant If you were an alto saxophonist any time after 1940, the question was not whether Charlie Parker was inside your sounds, but how and what you did with that influence. Bird changed how people played jazz on every instrument, but in playing his instrument, it was tough to avoid comparisons to the master.
Tim Berne's 'Yikes, Too' Creates Adventure and Magic " PopMatters
Yikes, Too Out of Your Head / Screwgun Alto saxophonist and composer Tim Berne has been a vital and ubiquitous figure in “downtown” New York creative music for more than 40 years. He arrived in the city to study with Julius Hemphill, a hero and key influence. Berne’s music, made in solo projects, collaborative bands, and as a side player across all those years, has always reflected a combination of R&B feeling, out-jazz freedoms, and careful compositional detail.
Jazz Pianist Caili O'Doherty Reclaims Lil Hardin Armstrong " PopMatters
Bluer Than Blue: Celebrating the Life of Lil Hardin Armstrong Outside in Music Pianist Caili O’Doherty has been recording as a leader since 2015, just two years after she graduated from the Berklee College of Music. Teaching and touring the world followed, but she may have just come into her own in the last several years. Since 2018, she has been developing a musical and educational project around celebrating the life of Lil Hardin Armstrong.
Jazz Singer Michael Mayo Flies Through His Stunning Voice
Fly Mack Avenue The young vocalist Michael Mayo has a malleable, nimble instrument that presents many possibilities. Growing up in Los Angeles, his dad sang and played saxophone with bands you love, and his mom sang harmonies professionally. But he was also educated in jazz at the New England Conservatory and the Monk (now Hancock) Institute. Would he become a jazz singer or try his hand at popular music?
The 18 Best Jazz Albums of 2024
This was another year of riches in jazz and creative music, with barriers between the tradition and the avant-garde melting away. A thriving global scene of brilliant musicians playing “mainstream” post-bop is out there, of course, but it is not retro or at war with newer structures and bolder flavors.
JazzMatters Summer 2024 Best New Jazz
New Moon in the Evil Age Cuneiform Ensemble Volcanic Ash: To March Is To Love Cuneiform I have lived in the Washington DC area for 42 years, an area hardly thought of as a hub of creative music. We are next door to Baltimore, which has a scene, and within striking distance of a weekend in New York, which still packs more jazz into one city than any other. But Washington DC is, in fact, cooking. I don’t write often enough about the musicians who live just minutes from my house.
Young Jazz Trumpeter Summer Camargo Is Grateful for Good Times
To Whom I Love Blue Engine Jazz may not be “cool” to teenagers anymore, and being a trumpet-obsessed high school student in the 21st century may evoke the phrase “band geek” rather than seeming like a path to the hippest parties in New York City. But don’t tell that to Summer Camargo, who currently holds the trumpet chair in the Saturday Night Live band and is the youngest person ever to join that most sought-after gig.
Flutist Jamie Baum Works with Poetry and Dynamic Voice
What Times Are These Sunnyside Flutist and composer Jamie Baum has been writing for and recording with a septet or “Septet+” for 25 years. She has used this band to cover all kinds of music — a proper trait of the 21st-century strain of jazz that mixes structure with freedoms, forms of music from around the world, and a thousand other inputs. What Times are These takes her latest version of the expanded septet and adds singers and spoken word elements.
Bassist Stephan Crump Conjures an Optimistic Flow on Slow Water
Slow Water Papillon Sounds There has been plenty of dialog recently among jazz critics and artists about the music losing its feeling, soul, and connection to audiences because it has become too academic or too focused on technique.
Melissa Aldana and Lage Lund Evoke Wayne Shorter on New LP
Echoes of the Inner Prophet Blue Note Tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana won the Thelonious Monk jazz competition in 2013, not long after coming to the United States to study at Berklee from her native Chile. Sitting on the panel of judges was Wayne Shorter, one of the greatest living composers and music conceptualists. In the intervening decade, Aldana has blossomed in ways that Shorter would admire.
JazzMatters: The Best Jazz of March-May 2024
I have written often about the soulful crossover music of the 1960s and 1970s, where jazz renewed itself in the waters of R&B and rock. Hard bop, the music associated with bands like the Jazz Messengers, was already a mixture of bebop and some earthier genres (jump blues and gospel, at least). So stirring in some Ray Charles was natural.
Fay Victor Jazz Vocalist Sings the Music of Herbie Nichols
Life Is Funny That Way Tao Forms Like every powerful jazz artist, the vocalist and composer Fay Victor had to learn the music, work out on standards, and develop her craft. Particularly for women who built their art in the shadow of Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Abbey Lincoln, and Betty Carter, jazz singing can be a trap — it would seem to provide fewer ways to break new ground.
Review of Dave Douglas album "Gifts"
The prolific trumpeter and composer Dave Douglas craves interesting collaborative creativity. Though he has led many working bands that lasted for years, his recent work has been highlighted by projects that dare him to write new music for novel musical encounters. Gifts is a spectacular success.
JazzMatters: The Best New Jazz of Winter 2024
Another winter, another Grammy Awards show. If you love jazz, the problem with the Grammys is not that the members of the Recording Academy don’t appreciate jazz — after all, the Best New Artist (all categories) last year was the jazz singer Samara Joy. The problem is that the Academy doesn’t know how to categorize the music intelligently.
James Brandon Lewis Sounds Singular on 'Transfiguration'
The sound of a musician is their signature and their center. In American music, you aren’t much until you have one of your own, and it’s abundantly clear that tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis owns an instantly recognizable sound that is blossoming into one of the most commanding forces in creative music. Lewis’ new album features his quartet, including Aruan Ortiz on piano, Brad Jones (from the Jazz Passengers) on bass, and drummer Chad Taylor, a frequent collaborator beyond this group.
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