Ludovico Granvassu's Garden of Jazzy Delights 2023

by Ludovico Granvassu
January 3, 2024

If it is true that, like The Police once put it, “when the world is going down you make the best of what's still around," then throughout 2023 jazz fans were better off than most other social groups. In a year in which everyday news brought ever more inconceivable disappointments, jazz musicians, labels, festivals and venues ...

Stephanie McKay

Lisa Marie Simmons

Lisa Marie Simmons is a multi-disciplinary storyteller raised in Boulder Co. based in Italy. She is a singer/songwriter (Ropeadope Records), essayist (Huffington Post, Boston Globe, Family Stories Project, Kweli Literary Journal), and published poet

Take Five with Ariel Bart

by AAJ Staff
March 25, 2022

Meet Ariel Bart Ariel Bart is a harmonica player and composer born in Israel in 1998 and currently based in Berlin. Her debut album, In Between, was released in May 2021 on Ropeadope. In the album, Ariel presents a unique approach to the harmonica and her composed melodies, which are inspired by the European jazz tradition ...

Did Mark Murphy Believe in UFOS?

By Tony Adamo

Label: Ropeadope Records
Released: 2020
Track listing: Did Mark Murphy Believe In UFOS?

Angel Bop Comes To Earth

By Tony Adamo

Label: Ropeadope Records
Released: 2020
Track listing: Angel Bop Comes To Earth

Tony Adamo: Did Mark Murphy Believe in UFOS?

by Nicholas F. Mondello
January 21, 2020

The interrogative title of this fine track shares an interesting insight, as well as its supposition. Whether the late singer literally did buy into UFOs--a la Sun Ra who saw “space as the place"--or he didn't is irrelevant. What is key is the fact that Mark Murphy has had a definitive and lasting impact on jazz ...

Kirpal Gordon And Benny Gottwald Review Tony Adamo's Was Out Jazz Zone Mad on Ropeadope Records

June 10, 2019

Kirpal Gordon, adjunct associate professor of writing studies at Hofstra University, and Benny Gottwald, composer, arranger who works with spoken word artists, discuss Tony Adamo's Was Out Jazz Zone Mad. Gordon's prose poetry, fiction, journalism, alternate lyrics to the Great American Songbook and book/music reviews have been widely published. In 2011 he formed Giant Steps Press, ...

Tony Adamo: Was Out Jazz Zone Mad

by Nicholas F. Mondello
January 27, 2019

The translation of “Adam" from Hebrew--from which the surname Adamo springs--means from the “ground" or “soil." It also derives from the Hebrew word for red, a la “red clay." Perhaps that is why any work from Tony Adamo is rare earth--gritty, and flaming crimson. Was Out Jazz Zone Mad Adamo's latest, his first for Ropeadope, is ...

Tony Adamo: Was Out Jazz Zone Mad

by Chris M. Slawecki
January 15, 2019

Some African cultures preserved their history not by the written but by the spoken word, kept by oral cultural historians known as griots. On Was Out Jazz Zone Mad, vocalist Tony Adamo aspires to serve in this same role, as a verbal historian of both official and unofficial African-American jazz and blues culture. This type of ...