Jazz United: A Podcast From WBGO Nate Chinen

“The tune is just an excuse to bring out the you . That’s why I became a jazz musician.”

So many of us are more than ready to put 2020 into the rearview.

With each year’s new slate of Grammy nominations, there comes a wave of armchair analysis . Which artists have the momentum this year? Who got unjustly overlooked? How many more awards can overdog Chick Corea win before they retire his jersey and call it a day?

Until this year, the term “force majeure” was a necessary safeguard in a business contract, but a truly rare occurrence.

Fifty years ago, Herbie Hancock formed a sextet on the vanguard of electroacoustic music. We remember it now as Mwandishi, after the title of its debut album — the first of three studio releases in as many years, during a run that has largely been overshadowed in the scope of Hancock’s career. Wedged between the curvilinear post-bop of the 1960s and the strutting jazz-funk of Head Hunters , Mwandishi embodied a distinct alignment of time and space, a moment unlikely to be replicated.

The musical community absorbed some devastating news this week, when Keith Jarrett revealed that he may never return to public performance.