ARTIST-OF-THE-MONTH 2025
August 2025 - Dinah Washing
Artist Biography
by Richard S. Ginell
Dinah Washington was at once one of the most beloved and controversial singers of the mid-20th century -- beloved to her fans, devotees, and fellow singers; controversial to critics who still accuse her of selling out her art to commerce and bad taste. Her principal sin, apparently, was to cultivate a distinctive vocal style that was at home in all kinds of music, be it R&B, blues, jazz, middle of the road pop -- and she probably would have made a fine gospel or country singer had she the time. Hers was a gritty, salty, high-pitched voice, marked by absolute clarity of diction and clipped, bluesy phrasing. Washington's personal life was turbulent, with seven marriages behind her, and her interpretations showed it, for she displayed a tough, totally unsentimental, yet still gripping hold on the universal subject of lost love. She has had a huge influence on R&B and jazz singers who have followed in her wake, notably Nancy Wilson, Esther Phillips, and Diane Schuur, and her music is abundantly available nowadays via the huge seven-volume series The Complete Dinah Washington on Mercury.
July 2025 - Esther Phillips
One of the premiere R&B vocalists of the 1950s through the 1980s, 'Little Esther' Phillips possessed both great talent and even greater demons. When she was an adolescent, her parents divorced, and she was forced to divide her time between her father in Houston and her mother in the Watts area of Los Angeles. Although she was brought up singing in church, she was hesitant to enter a talent contest at a local blues club, but her sister insisted and Esther complied. The young dynamo wowed the club owner, bluesman Johnny Otis, and he immediately signed her to his roster of performers. Esther would record on Otis's record label, and perform in his revue. Otis gave her the moniker 'Little Esther' that would follow her throughout her career.
Esther Phillips' voice had a unique nasal sound that delighted audiences with its distinct phrasing and exacting diction. She scored many R&B hits in the early 1950s, but soon became disillusioned with Johnny Otis, finally walking out when he refused her request for a salary increase. Through the remainder of the decade, Esther recorded for various record companies without success. She returned to Houston to live with her father at this time, and to deal with the greatest challenge in her young life -- her drug dependency. Apparently, the stress of life on the road with hardened blues performers, and her insecurities had led her to indulge in heroin as an escape.
After rebounding from her dark days, Esther worked small nightclubs in the southwest, and was spotted by rising star Kenny Rogers, who loved her sound. He arranged a recording contract for her, and she released a hit country and western album. She dropped the adjective 'Little' from her name then. Soon after she signed with Atlantic records and released a series of records with only modest success. They dropped her in 1967, and her drug dependency deepened.
After a stint in a rehab hospital, Atlantic re-signed Esther, and soon released a live album consider to be among her best. The label attempted to squeeze Esther into a pop singer mold, but she wasn't comfortable in the role, so again they cut her free from her contract. In 1971 jazz maestro Creed Taylor signed her to his Kudu label, and this is where Esther's best work can be found. Soon she was singing in high-profile venues along with big-name talent, and international jazz festivals. In 1975, she scored her biggest hit single since her early days with Johnny Otis with the early disco track 'What A Difference A Day Makes,' a remake of a Dinah Washington standard.
Soon restless, Esther left Kudu records for another label in 1977, but was never able to duplicate her success. Depression and insecurity again hounded her and she again turned to heroin, and this time alcohol. She released a few records on small independent labels with little success or notice. The years of addiction had taken a huge toll on 'Little Esther' Phillips and she succumbed to liver and kidney failure in Los Angeles in August of 1984.
- IMDb Mini Biography By: mikhail080@cs.com
May 2025 - Alexa Tarantino
Having toured the world playing alto, soprano and tenor saxophones; clarinet and bass clarinet; and flute, alto flute and piccolo with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (JLCO) — let it be known on social media that he was “passing the torch” to Alexa Tarantino.
If only because openings for JLCO’s 15 permanent positions appear about as frequently as sub-freezing days on the equator, this would be a newsworthy event, as was this season’s hiring of 25-year-old saxophonist Abdias Armenteros, who’d frequently filled in for Walter Blanding in recent years. But the announcement stood out for a much more consequential reason: Tarantino, 32, is the first woman to become a permanent orchestra (JLCO) member since it became an official department of Lincoln Center in 1991.
Ted Nash - Downbeat Magazine, Oct. 23, 2024
https://downbeat.com/news/detail/changing-of-the-guard-at-lincoln-center-jazz-orchestra
April 2025 - Alice Coltrane
composer, pianist and harpist
The Palm Springs Women’s Jazz Festival honored composer, pianist and harpist Alice Coltrane (1937-2007) with its 2021 Jazz Master Award, presented to Michelle Coltrane, daughter of Alice and John Coltrane.
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“The breathtaking music of Alice Coltrane has the power to stop listeners in their tracks and guide them to another realm of consciousness. With gentle plucks of a harpsichord, she whisks listeners away on a musical journey punctuated by the haunting key chords and deep bass notes of her Wurlitzer organ, as a steady accompaniment of strings and percussion flow in and out of her densely packed symphonic scores.” Colony Little, Artnews, 2/7/2025
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Serene and soft-spoken, the late Alice Coltrane carried a regal disposition—a sphingine, ethereal air that infused her music and foreshadowed her repute as a true spiritual leader. Widowed in 1967 at the age of 29, she emerged from the shadow of one of jazz’s greatest impresarios to forge her own formidable legacies in music and devout practice. She didn’t achieve the dazzling celebrity that her husband did, but it didn’t matter. For her, there was a far more important calling than fame.
Jazz musician, composer, devotional leader, and muse to her husband, John Coltrane—one of the greatest musicians in American history—Alice Coltrane is once again being drawn into the light, this time in Alice Coltrane: Monument Eternal, a new exhibition at The Hammer Museum at UCLA that aims to both spotlight and contextualize a woman who, through very different tools—the piano, the harp, and meditation—melded the melodious and the mystic.
“I think of her as one of the spearheads of when we think of free jazz, or spiritual jazz,” says Erin Christovale, the cofounder of the global experimental film program Black Radical Imagination, who curated the show with the blessing of the Coltrane estate. “She really is just such a unique figure in that world. And she’s a woman, and a Black woman. So all of those things felt really important to me.”
The best part of the exhibition is undoubtedly Coltrane’s music. As you wander through the galleries, it follows you everywhere. Her jazzy bhajans, transcendental hymns, and Sanskrit mantras dive-bomb in and out of one another, a playful game of musical tag. The exhibition has an almost bespoke feel, rousing a quiet elegance that evokes a sacred space. While it aims to allow us to know Coltrane better, she clearly had other ideas, wanting the focus to be on our own communions—with music, with nature, with god, and with each other. Even in a showcase like this, she remains a slightly distant and enigmatic cipher, her music a mix of urgent, soothing, intersecting rhythms that asks us to draw our own conclusions, make our own judgments. Which is, of course, how it should be. After all, isn’t that what great jazz does?
wmagazine,by Michael Callahan, Feb. 12, 2025
Alice Coltrane: Monument Eternal
On view Feb. 9, 2025 through May 4, 2025. The Hammer Museum,
10899 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles; 310-443-7000,
https://hammer.ucla.edu/exhibitions/2025/alice-coltrane-monument-eternal
Who Was Alice Coltrane? A New Exhibition Honors an Icon
https://www.artnews.com/art-news/artists/who-was-alice-coltrane-jazz-musician-why-so-important-1234731847/
The John & Alice Coltrane Home
https://thecoltranehome.org/alice-coltrane/
https://thecoltranehome.org/alice-coltrane-documentary/
Composer: Alice Coltrane (1937-2007)
https://www.musicbywomen.org/composer/alice-coltrane/
5 Mnutes That Will Make You Love Alice Coltrane
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/07/arts/music/alice-coltrane-jazz-music.html
Universal Consciousness: The Spiritual Awakening of Alice Coltrane
https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2016/05/universal-consciousness
On Alice Coltrane
https://granta.com/on-alice-coltrane/
Alice Coltrane: Artist Muse and Sonic Healer
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/07/arts/design/alice-coltrane-hammer-museum.html
January 2025 - SOMI
Her last studio album Petite Afrique (Sony 2017) was written as a song cycle about the African immigrant experience in the midst of Harlem’s gentrification in New York City and won the 2018 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Jazz Album. Petite Afrique is the highly anticipated follow-up to Somi's major label debut The Lagos Music Salon (Sony 2014) which was inspired by an 18-month creative sabbatical in Lagos, Nigeria and features special guests Angelique Kidjo and Common landed at #1 on US Jazz charts. Both albums were nominated for ECHO Awards in Germany for Best International Jazz Vocalist.
Closely mentored by the legendary trumpet player Hugh Masekela, Somi’s live performance was described by JazzTimes magazine as “the earthy gutsiness of Nina Simone blended with the vocal beauty of Dianne Reeves,” while Billboard exclaims that she’s “all elegance and awe… utterly captivating.”
Recently venturing into theater, Somi was named a 2019
Sundance Theater Fellow for her original musical about the great South African singer and activist Miriam Makeba. The premiere production was shut down days before opening due to COVID-19.
Somi is a Soros Equality Fellow, a USA Doris Duke Fellow, a TED Senior Fellow, an inaugural Association of Performing Arts Presenters Fellow, a former Artist-in-Residence at Park Avenue Armory, UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance, The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation and Baryshnikov Arts Center. She is also the founder of Salon Africana, a boutique arts agency and record label that celebrates the very best of contemporary African artists working in the music and literary arts. Also celebrated for her activism, Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon asked Somi to perform at the United Nations’ General Assembly in commemoration of the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. She was also invited to perform at Carnegie Hall alongside Hugh Masekela, Dave Matthews, and Vusi Mahlesela in celebration of South African democracy.
Somi and her band continue to perform at international venues and stages around the world. In her heart of hearts, she is an East African Midwestern girl who loves family, poetry, and freedom.