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…
Edu Ribeiro (left), Reuben Rogers, Helio Alves and Romero Lubambo collaborate for AT PLAY.
(Photo: Courtesy of Artists)The legacy of recorded music in Brazil—jazz and otherwise—is such a monumental contribution to the world that attempting to encompass all the ideas it’s expressed on a single disc is just about impossible.
That didn’t stop guitarist Romero Lubambo, pianist Helio Alves, bassist Reuben Rogers and drummer Edu Ribeiro from giving it a shot on AT PLAY, the ensemble’s nine-song collaboration that mixes originals and covers by folks like Caetano Veloso and Dori Caymmi.
“Pro Romero”—the tune below, which is part of the disc, which was released Aug. 14 on the Broken Symmetries imprint—comes from pianist Debora Gurgel’s book.
“Debora is a fantastic piano player and composer from São Paulo. I’ve known her music for a long time, but was very pleasantly surprised when she told me that she wrote a song for me,” Lubambo said in an email to DownBeat. “We had an opportunity to get together in São Paulo, and she showed me the song and we played it together. ... She perfectly combined Brazilian music, jazz and classical music in one song.”
That combination has poured out of the country for decades and given the world everything from Bossa Nova explorations to the more recent Brazil-related releases on the Jazz Is Dead label. DB
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.”
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Editor’s Note: Tomorrow, Sept. 23, is the 100th anniversary of John Coltrane’s birth. In honor of the tenor and…
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It began in 2001. A travel agent named Anita E. Berry had been booking clients on “partial” jazz cruises that took…
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The 2027 DownBeat College Guide is an invaluable resource for music students, especially jazz students, to find a school…
