Christian McBride never strays too far from his bass, not even when he’s offstage. Not when he’s producing an international jazz festival, or running an intensive workshop, or broadcasting a radio show.

His bass informs just about every aspect of his professional life. “The primary role of a bass player is…

If you ask Michael League, founder, chief composer and cat-herder of the 19-member jazz-funk-rock-world juggernaut known as Snarky Puppy, to recall the largest crowds for which the group has ever played, he answers immediately.

“As a headliner? About 6,000 at the Royal Albert Hall, 2019,” he said via Zoom from…

For someone named Guitarist of the Year in the 2022 DownBeat Readers Poll, Pat Metheny has a complicated relationship with his instrument.

“I don’t necessarily think of myself as a guitar player,” he said in a September Zoom call from his hotel room in Baltimore, where he was playing to overflow crowds at…

The world of Hammond B-3 jazz organ will now be measured in terms of pre- and post-Joey DeFrancesco. The influential keyboardist and multi-instrumentalist died on Aug. 25 at age 51 from a massive heart attack.

His passing gave DownBeat readers one last opportunity to honor him as Organist of the Year.

A…