Sep 22, 2026 12:26 PM
Hyde Park Jazz Fest on Chicago’s South Side to Present 20th Edition
The Hyde Park Jazz Festival will take place for the 20th time on the final weekend of September 2026. Beginning half…
Mary Halvorson remained busy during the pandemic year, releasing a new album with her group Code Girl, as well as with the trio Thumbscrew.
(Photo: James Wang)Since her debut on record about 15 years ago, guitarist and composer Mary Halvorson has stood out. A fierce experimentalist who’s consistently pushed the boundaries of her own sound, and that of avant-garde jazz, the Brooklyn-based Halvorson has become one of New York’s most sought-after and beloved musical voices.
This year was a significant one for Halvorson. Not only did she celebrate her 40th birthday, but she also released two fresh albums: October’s Artlessly Falling, her second Code Girl record, but first lyric and poetry-focused album; and July’s The Anthony Braxton Project with the trio Thumbscrew, a tribute to the legendary composer who inspired Halvorson to become a professional musician.
In November, DownBeat had the chance to chat with the guitarist about her weighty new releases, which nod to the her biggest influences, Trump-era politics and the lessons she’s learned during her latest turn around the sun.
The following has been edited for length and clarity.
With the political landscape in mind, I wanted to start by chatting about the song, “Last-Minute Smears,” on your newest Code Girl album, Artlessly Falling. Tell me a little bit about the process of writing that song?
I wrote that song in 2018, [during Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing]. I was so disgusted, but I couldn’t turn the TV off. I started writing down phrases that he said in my notebook. I just arranged his words into a poem form. Then, I thought to give the song a regretful quality that was entirely absent from his testimony. It’s a little snapshot of what was happening in the world with the #MeToo movement ramping up during the Trump Era.
It’s so weird, too, because the Supreme Court has come back into the spotlight in a really intense way between Ruth Bader Ginsburg dying and then Amy Coney Barrett’s appointment, and just [recently] Kavanaugh was back in the news amplifying Trump’s notions of election fraud. It almost gave the song, to me, a renewed sense of life.
A solo concert by saxophonist Joshua Redman will close the first night of the Hyde Park Jazz Festival on Sept. 26.
Sep 22, 2026 12:26 PM
The Hyde Park Jazz Festival will take place for the 20th time on the final weekend of September 2026. Beginning half…
“It was just that suddenly … I could hear it,” Ravi Coltrane said of an epiphany he experienced during his late teens regarding his father’s music. “And it was almost like a calling, like something saying, ‘Hey, man, come on. It’s time to get serious.’ And the first time you really tune in and dial in and focus like that, it can be very life-changing.”
Sep 22, 2026 1:39 PM
Editor’s Note: Tomorrow, Sept. 23, is the 100th anniversary of John Coltrane’s birth. In honor of the tenor and…
Camille Thurman took to the stage alongside bassist Kenny Davis and drummer Tommy Campbell for a rendition of Johnny Mercer’s “I’m An Old Cowhand” that recalled Rollins’ epochal 1957 trio outing Way Out West.
Oct 6, 2026 1:33 PM
As emcee Mark Ruffin noted at the commencement of an epic tribute to saxophonist Sonny Rollins at the Cathedral of Saint…
Kurt Elling, Katherine Russell and Emmet Cohen (host on the 2027 Jazz Cruise) share a laugh at sea.
Sep 8, 2026 11:52 AM
It began in 2001. A travel agent named Anita E. Berry had been booking clients on “partial” jazz cruises that took…
Sep 17, 2026 11:00 AM
The 2027 DownBeat College Guide is an invaluable resource for music students, especially jazz students, to find a school…
