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Nicholas Payton: Exploring Sound through Textures, Letters and Numbers At 44 years old and with a grammy to his name, trumpeter Nicholas Payton already has near legendary status in the jazz world. Payton is also notorious for publishing outspoken and sometimes controversial intellectual pieces, like “On Why Jazz isn’t Cool Anymore” . I’ll stick to discussing Payton’s music here and maybe go into his ideas about music and society another time. An examination of Payton’s life and work reveal a man who places a great deal of importance in the honest expression of one’s own ideas and beliefs, be them creative or intellectual. Payton’s individuality is evident even on his earliest albums, however Payton has released a string of more conceptual albums in the past few years which I personally find especially interesting.   It is necessary to note at this point that Payton does far more than just play the trumpet. In addition to running his own label (Paytone Records), Payton...

    Maurice Brown: Musical Manifestations of Mood I remember first seeing Maurice Brown play in a live performance video I watched about two years ago. It might have been a charity event or a special Birthday performance, but for some reason there was an absurdly talented group of musicians sharing the stage (I’m talking Robert Glasper, Derrick Hodge, Chris Dave and a handful of others). Brown bore an eerie resemblance to Miles Davis when he stepped onto the stage and blasted off a trumpet solo clad in a long open coat, a wide brimmed hat and dark sunglasses (check out the picture of Davis on the cover of his Autobiography for an idea). Brown’s assertive playing and cool swagger impressed me, though I have to admit that I forgot all about him until I discovered his 2017 album The Mood several months later.  Full album stream of The Mood   Brown’s most recent album The Mood lives up to his consistently impressive discography. Brown is perhaps ...