MOTHER’S DAY SPECIAL: MOTHERS IN JAZZ

Singer Dee Dee Bridgewater walks in with considerable credentials, but this documentary related to her album ‘Red Earth’ trumps them all: Red Earth is a Malian journey that merges and melts all borders. While world-beat listeners will recognize the grooves, this is Bridgewater's first time bringing her own experiences as an African-American woman back to the motherland. It results in a fusion of feeling, visions, and music.

Annual trade fair, exhibition, and festival jazzahead! is one of the international jazz community’s most important events. Hosted in Bremen, Germany, jazzahead! brings together musicians, bookers, agents, organizers, jazz experts, and music enthusiasts at the world’s largest jazz event. In 2024, jazzahead! paid special attention to the jazz scene of the Netherlands and invited over forty jazz acts to perform over the course of three days. Among the ensembles presenting themselves at jazzahead! 2024 is Dutch saxophonist-composer Tineke Postma’s Aria Group. Postma stands out as a key figure in the dynamic Dutch jazz scene, renowned for her extensive collaborations with American jazz legends such as pianist Herbie Hancock, drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, and bassist esperanza spalding. Wayne Shorter, the late saxophonist, endorsed Postma as his successor for his later symphonic and operatic works, including ‘Opera Iphigenia’, ‘Gaia’, and ‘Orbits’, which she debuted in June 2023. Postma’s album 'ARIA' introduces bold, original compositions with guitarist Ben Monder. Howard Mandel of Downbeat Magazine praised the album for its originality and depth, noting its appeal for repeated listens. The lineup includes Tineke Postma (alto and soprano saxophone), David Doružka (guitar), Robert Landfermann (double bass), and Tristan Renfrow (drums).

There’s no question about it: with a Grammy for Best Latin Jazz Album for her recording ‘Made In Brazil’, seven previous Grammy nominations, four ‘Gold Disc Awards’, and three ‘Best Vocal Album Awards’ in Japan, Eliane Elias has taken her place in the pantheon of music giants. In her projects, Elias wears many hats: she serves as producer, composer, lyricist, arranger, pianist, and vocalist. In this concert broadcast, recorded live at the Philharmonie in Munich, Elias shows her distinctive and immediately recognizable musical style, which blends her Brazilian samba roots and her sensuous, alluring voice with her impressive instrumental bebop, jazz, classical, and compositional skills. She is an artist beyond category, and in this concert she performs with Jay Randall Anderson (bass) and Adam Nussbaum (drums).