Long Form are in-depth articles on fundamental themes and artists in jazz.
Written by our best contributors and accompanied by exclusive photos, they represent the heart of jazz music history.
After years of requests from university students and enthusiasts, they are now available and updated on this page.
Long Form
Ran Blake: a poet in black and white
Let’s start with a song: “Laura.” David Raksin composed the music for the film of the same name (released in Italy as Vertigine), and it came about in a unique way. It was 1944. Director Otto Preminger considered using Duke Ellington’s “Sophisticated Lady” as a leitmotif and asked Raksin, a renowned film composer, for his opinion. Raksin was categorical. In his opinion, the song had nothing to do with the plot of the film, which was a romantic noir about a detective investigating the death of a woman who ends up under a spell. Preminger replied that if Raksin had a better idea, he should bring it to him the next morning. The composer rolled up his sleeves and quickly wrote the theme, infusing it with the melancholy of his recent marital separation. Johnny Mercer later added lyrics that captured the film’s mysterious atmosphere: the feeling of recognizing a woman […]
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Roy Ayers: “Everybody Loves the Sunshine”
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...
The Indestructible Eddie Condon
They called him The Indestructible, and that’s how we’ll remember him: with that trademark sneering smile, croaky voice, his ever-present guitar slung over his shoulder, a bottle of gin never far from reach, and Gershwin’s “Liza” floating in the background.
Remembering Martial Solal
The great pianist recently died at the ripe old age of 97, but he wasn't retired for long: when he said "enough" to live performances, he was 92, and he continued to write music until the end. We remember him with an extensive examination of his formative years
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Sergio Mendes: Pretty World
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
Steve Lacy: Phase One
Ninety years after the birth and twenty years after the death of the great soprano, we look at the first, perhaps the least known, phase of his career, between the ages of twenty and thirty
In praise of impure jazz
A long essay offering many topics for reflection and discussion, accompanied by a selection of Robeto Polillo's magnificent photographs
Wes Montgomery as told by Ron Carter, Bill Frisell, Herbie Hancock, Mike Stern and Marcus Miller
The official release of a series of phantasmagoric live recordings by the great guitarist, and the words of some of his famous colleagues
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Illinois Jacquet: a Master of the Saxophone
It was his searing solos on the harmonies of Flying Home that made the Louisiana saxophonist (1922-2004) famous, but those solos also masked his considerable virtues as an improviser in the classical school of tenor saxophone.
Gato Barbieri: 1964, waiting for Paradiso
Andrea Polinelli, saxophonist, composer, teacher, researcher and translator, publishes for Artdigiland a rich monograph dedicated to Gato Barbieri, the result of more than five years of work (Gato Barbieri. A biography from Italy, between jazz, pop and cinema).