JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 108th anniversary of the birth of Thelonious Monk.
Category: jazz
Throwback: Happy 80th Birthday, Donny Hathaway!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 80th anniversary of the birth of Donny Hathaway.
Throwback: Happy 99th Birthday, John Coltrane!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 99th anniversary of John Coltrane’s birth.
New Audio: Charles Mingus’ Tribute to Duke Ellington at Monterey Jazz Festival 1964
Charles Mingus was a towering giant of American music, known for his powerhouse sound and authoritative technique, irascible personality and most importantly, his original compositions, which featured a blend of jazz, European classic music, bebop, avant-garde, blues, gospel and more, a sound that he famously dubbed “Mingus Music.”
The legendary bassist and composer’s Sunday afternoon set at the seventh annual Monterey Jazz Festival in 1964 was met with breathless praise from the likes of the New York Herald, where legendary critic and Monterey Jazz Festival co-founder Ralph J. Gleason wrote, “Mingus erased the memory of any bass player in jazz” while the San Francisco Chronicle opened its review, “Monterey beyond to Charles Mingus this year. All the way.” Considering that year’s festival also featured sets from Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis that wasn’t an easy feat, y’all.
Initially released on Mingus’ own short-lived mail order Jazz Workshop label and out of print for more than 40 years, Mingus at Monterey captures the legend at the height of his creativity and musical prowess. Perhaps the most consistently requested reissue by Mingus fans across the world, Mingus at Monterey proved to be a sensation upon its sold-out limited edition run for Record Store Day 2025 earlier this year, ranking as Redeye Distribution’s top-selling Record Store Day release while reaching the Top 20 on Billboard‘s Traditional Jazz Albums and Jazz Albums charts, #82 on the overall Top Catalog Albums chart and #102 on the Independent Albums Chart.
Candid Records, in conjunction with Mingus’ Jazz Workshop, Inc. will celebrate the legend’s genius with the long-overdue and highly-anticipated reissue of Mingus at Monterey, which is slated for an October 10, 2025 release on CD, 2 LP vinyl and for the first time ever on all DSPs and streaming services.
The live album has been remastered by five-time Grammy Award-winning engineer Micheal Graves with vinyl mastering by renowned engineer Jeff Powell. The two LP vinyl set includes the album’s original gatefold jacket artwork, meticulously restored and reproduced.
The forthcoming wide release of Mingus at Monterey is heralded by a hard swinging, hard-charging rendition of the Billy Strayhorn-penned, Duke Ellington-performed jazz standard “Take the A Train,” that features some incredible solos from Charles McPherson (alto sax), Jaki Byard (piano), Lonnie Hilyer (trumpet), John Handy (tenor sax) and Dannie Richmond (drums) that’s performed as a medley dedicated to the legend’s musical hero, the equally legendary Duke Ellington.
Ellington was Mingus’ lodestar, the early influence, who showed the bassist and composer how music could simultaneously hold majesty, complexity and popular appeal. Mingus’ take on the classic, standard tune is deeply loving but in no means, straightforward. It seems to swing harder than the original, evoking the A train’s length run from 207th Street in Inwood to its final stop at Mott Avenue in Rockaway Beach — from its assorted characters and neighborhoods it passes through, to the pace of the train as it races between 125th Street and 59th Street. And while retaining the familiar melody, Mingus’ tribute to his hero is roomy enough to allow each member of the band to solo in a way that highlights their talents and sensibilities.
As Mingus said of the album at the time, “It’s taken me a long time to get to where I want musically. I just wish that I could give you that picture, that moment at Monterey along with this music. This is the sound that people heard at Monterey and the life of the music is there. That’s why I bring this record to the people. I give you the Monterey music as a token of love, as a memory.”
Live Concert Photography: Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage: Charlie Parker Jazz Festival Day 2: 8/23/25 feat. Branford Marsalis Quartet with Nicholas Payton, Bertha Hope Quartet, Georgia Heers and DJ Kultured Child
Live concert photography of Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage’s Charlie Parker Jazz Festival, Day 2 feat. Branford Marsalis Quartet, Nicholas Payton, Bertha Hope Quartet, Georgia Heers and DJ Kultured Child.
Throwback: Happy 121st Birthday, Count Basie!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 121st anniversary of the birth of Count Basie.
Throwback: Happy Belated 100th Birthday, Oscar Peterson!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms belatedly celebrates Oscar Peterson’s 100th birthday.
Throwback: R.I.P. Sheila Jordan
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the life and music of the legendary Sheila Jordan.
Live Concert Photography: Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage at Rumsey Playfield 8/2/25: Summer Dayes 2025 feat. Yussef Dayes Experience with FKJ, Venna and Salin
Live concert photography of Summer Dayes at SummerStage.
Throwback: R.I.P. Eddie Palmieri
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the life and music of the legendary Eddie Palmieri.
New Video: Kassa Overall Shares a Coltrane-like Take on Wu-Tang Clan’s “C.R.E.A.M. (Cash Rules Everything Around Me)”
Kassa Overall is an acclaimed Seattle-born and-based Grammy-nominated, Doris Duke Artist Award-winning, jazz drummer, emcee, vocalist and producer, who as a child drum prodigy taught himself to make beats on an MPC and ASR 10 he acquired at a Seattle Police Department auction. Over the course of his 20+ year career, Overall has firmly cemented a unique sound that sees him seamlessly blending jazz, hip-hop and avant-garde experimentation across six, critically applauded mixtapes and albums that actively pushed genre boundaries while being engaging and accessible.
His last effort, 2023’s ANIMALS explored the complexities of his identity as an artist and as a Black man in America, while featuring collaborations with an eclectic array of artists including Danny Brown, Lil B, Vijay Iyer and JOVM mainstay Nick Hakim.
Adding to a growing profile as a sought-after collaborator and one of contemporary jazz’s most exciting artists, Overall has toured and recorded with Geri Allen, Jon Batiste, Steve Coleman, Vijay Iyer, Terri Lynne Carrington and Gary Bartz. His production work can be heard on albums by the likes of Theo Croker, Arlo Lindsay and Danny Brown among others.
The acclaimed Seattle-born artist’s fourth album CREAM is slated for a September 12, 2025 release — both digitally and on vinyl — through Warp Records. The album reportedly sees Overall paying homage to the twin passions of his youth — hip-hop and jazz drums in the tradition of Elvin Jones. The eight-song album sees the acclaimed musician and producer transforming beloved, hip-hop classics by The Notorious B.I.G., Wu-Tang Clan, Dr. Dre, A Tribe Called Quest, Digable Planets and Juvenile into rhythmically adventurous, witty and sublime jazz-inspired standards.
“This album is almost a boomerang response to all my previous work. No edits, no overdubs no samples or drum machine,” Overall says. “Just a great group of musicians playing together. It just so happens that the compositional material we are drawing from is rap records I grew up on!”
Last month, I wrote about CREAM‘s first single, a breakneck 15/4 Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie-era bop-like arrangement of Digable Planets’ 1992 smash-hit “Rebirth of Slick,” that manages to pull out and restore the swing of the original sample, Art Blakey‘s “Stretching.”
CREAM‘s latest single “C.R.E.A.M. (Cash Rules Everything Around Me)” is a Giant Steps/Love Supreme-era Coltrane-like arrangement based on the classic, beloved 1993 Wu-Tang anthem that manages to dissolve the long-held boundary between spiritual jazz and golden age hip-hop. Remade in a minor blues in 3/4 time, Overall’s take on the song manages to pair spiritual jazz’s deep and thoughtful soulfulness and golden era hip-hop swagger in a way that’s hypnotic and remarkably cinematic.
“Their whole energy was an alternative to the get-the-money-shiny-suit mentality. For me, the original ‘C.R.E.A.M.’ was a commentary on ‘Get Money,’” Overall says of his love of Wu-Tang. “It was realism. It pointed out everyone’s scrambling and striving to get ahead, but it also nodded at something beyond that. You could transcend and even control the material world through a higher divine nature.”
Overall sees the transcendent message of Wu-Tang Clan, John Coltrane’s spiritual pursuit of music, and his own praxis as fundamentally connected. “I heard stories of ‘Trane’s band playing in clubs with eight people and they would be playing like their life depended on it, driven by the spirit and purpose of the music,” said the Seattle-based drummer. “People see us as entertainers, trying to be seen, trying to get money, but we are also trying to get to some deeper work.”
Overall just finished a run of the European festival circuit. He’ll be embarking on a lengthy Fall 2025 tour, playing clubs and festivals across North America, Japan and Europe. The tour includes a two-night stand at the Jazz Gallery. The full list of dates are below. Tickets and more can be found on his website, here.
Kassa Overall Live Dates
July 2025
11th – Siligo – Sardinia, IT
12th – Gaeta Jazz Festival – IT
13th – North Sea Jazz Festival – NL
17th – Gretchen – Berlin, DE
18th – Bari Jazz Festival – IT
19th – WROsound – Wroclaw, PL
September 2025
3rd – Solar Myth – Philadelphia, PA, USA
4th – Mannys – State College, PA, USA
5th – Otis Mountain Get Down – Elizabethtown, NY, USA
6th – De La Luz – Holyoke, MA, USA
8th – The Falcon – Marlboro, NY, USA
9th – Cafe 939 – Boston, MA, USA
10th – Jimmy’s Jazz & Blues Club – Portsmouth, NH, USA
12th – Jazz Gallery – New York, NY, USA
13th – Jazz Gallery – New York, NY, USA
14th – Keystone Korner – Baltimore, MD, USA
16th – Snug Harbor – Charlotte, NC, USA
17th – Missy Lane’s – Durham, NC, USA
18th – Missy Lane’s – Durham, NC, USA
October 2025
8th – Blue Note Tokyo – Tokyo, JP ***NEW***
9th – Blue Note Tokyo – Tokyo, JP ***NEW***
10th – Blue Note Tokyo – Tokyo, JP ***NEW***
23rd – Minaret – Los Angeles, CA, USA
25th – Earshot – Seattle, WA, USA
31st – JazzKlub – Frankfurt, DE
November 2025
3rd – Lower Third – London, UK ***NEW***
6th – Mladi Ladi Jazz – Prague, CZ
8th – Rockit – Groningen, NL
Throwback: Happy 124th Birthday, Louis Armstrong!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 124th anniversary of the birth of Louis Armstrong.
Throwback: Happy 80th Birthday, David Sanborn!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 80th anniversary of David Sanborn’s birth.
New Audio: Cochemea Shares Soulful and Timeless “Omeyocan”
Acclaimed multi-instrumentalist, arranger and composer Cochemea Gastelum comes from a long line on musicians on both sides of his lineage. Over the past 25 years, Gasteum has built a distinct and accomplished career as a soloist and arranger/composer, collaborating with an eclectic array of artists across a wide range of genres — from his lengthy stint with Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings to the likes of Kevin Morby, Run The Jewels, Jon Batiste, Amy Winehouse, The Roots, Archie Shepp, Mark Ronson, the legendary Quincy Jones and a lengthy list of others.
His previously released material has received praised from both critics and DJs. 2019’s All My Relations, the acclaimed multi-instrumentalist, arranger and composer’s critically applauded Daptone Records debut was a family reunion of sorts, uniting spirits, musicians and melodies across space and time. Leading a nonet, Gastelum and company employed drums, winds and vocals to create a deeply personal meditation on the interconnectedness of all things. Vol. 2: Baca Sewa expanded this exploration into the archives of family history, mythology and the cultural imagination.
Slated for a September 26, 2025 release through Daptone Records, Gastelum’s forthcoming effort, Vol. 3: Ancestros Futuros completes a triology while anchored in the cultural fabric that has nurtured him from the beginning. A Californian of Yaqui ancestry, Gastelum describes a central part of his work as “accessing ancestral memory that comes in different forms — sometimes when you visit a place, sometimes in dreams . . . it’s in our DNA.”
“For me it’s about seeking wholeness in these zones of fracture.” In fact, dreams play a vital role in his creative process., “A lot of melodies come to me through dreams,” he says. “I’ve kept a dream record for years, shaping the language into what I call dream scores.” One of these scores appears on the back over of Ancestros Futuros, reflecting the intuitive and layered nature of his work. This dream-guided approach carries into the album’s opening track, “Transmisíon del Soñar,” which serves as a “portal” between dimensions, echoing his connection with both the dream realm and the dynamic interplay of time and space.
His musical and spiritual synthesis is made possible through his deep reverence for the horn, and the music and traditions that precede him. Inspired by Eddie Harris, Yusef Lateef, Jim Pepper and Gary Bartz, Gastelum attempts to bride ancestral rhythmic traditions with forward-looking vision, to create a signature sound that’s both deeply rooted and expansive. With the new album, Gastelum continues to expand upon his work, effortlessly blending past, present and future into a ritual offering, in which memory, survival and imagination converge. The album’s material is also shaped by stories of survival and resistance.
The acclaimed multi-instrumentalist, arranger and producer gathered a core group of longtime collaborators, an octet featuring some of New York’s best percussionists and members of Daptone’s world famous rhythm section. Additionally, the album sees Gastelum collaborating with Daptone Records founder Gabriel Roth, a.k.a. Bosco Mann returning as producer and mixing engineer, recording the band live to 8-track analog tape.
Ancestros Futuros will feature the previously released album title track “Ancestros Futuros” and the album’s second and latest single “Omeyocan,” a soulful composition that seamlessly blends Miles Davis and early John Coltrane modal jazz-like melody with tribal drumming and group singing and chanting, which gives the track a a timeless, almost ancient air. You can almost envision being at a bonfire for an ancient ceremony to celebrate and please the gods.
“Omeyocan means ‘Place of Duality’ in Nahuatl. In Aztec cosmology, it’s considered the highest of the heavens—a place outside the temporal world where life and essence originate,” Gastelum explains. “Connected to dreams, birth, and the convergence of opposites, it’s linked to emergence and balance. The track mirrors this idea of duality and becoming, starting with a long, winding instrumental melody before shifting into heavy drums and group singing—moving from something inward to something collective.”