The first issue of Musica Jazz International is now available in English language, with previews of columns and articles. The cover story, dossier, interviews, and two accompanying CDs

Ayers died on March 4 in New York. The warm sound of his instrument has fallen silent, leaving an empty void. He was eighty-four years old and had been battling a long illness. His notes, once rays of sunshine in the jazz-funk and soul firmament, now float like precious dust in an endless sunset. The music world is left devastated and suspended, waiting for a final note that will never come. His vibraphone spoke directly to the heart, and every chord he played was a fragment of melancholic light—a thrill we now miss like a lost heartbeat. Roy Ayers leaves behind a bittersweet void—a silence filled with memories in...

The recent death of the Brazilian pianist truly marks the end of an enchanted world: a true la-la land built in the perfect image and likeness of its ingenious creator

He disappears for a few minutes, then returns with a handful of scores filled with annotations. The writing is neat and complicated at first glance – and at second glance as well. With patient clarity, Towner points out passages of time articulated in irregular groupings, as if they were the logical consequence of a continuous musical discourse. “There’s a five-four that turns into five-eighths, goes back to two-four, then returns to odd eighths. See?” It sounds like an exercise for highly skilled solfeggio solvers, yet when he hums the melody beat by beat, everything suddenly feels simple, coherent, inevitable. The compositional compactness is evident, as is the awareness that...

Anyone considering Jack DeJohnette’s artistic career will immediately notice the sheer number of his collaborations, along with his prolific output as a leader and composer. No other drummer in the history of jazz has combined these two dimensions so decisively, in terms of both quantity and stylistic range. This is undoubtedly a result of his technical and stylistic approach, defined by maximum openness, curiosity, and flexibility. Yet the deeper reasons lie primarily in DeJohnette’s choices – choices rooted in omnivorous musical interests, a rare ability to inhabit each situation fully, and a desire to reach beyond the usual boundaries of the jazz audience, as we shall see. There is more,...