.Dan Emerson

Donny McCaslin plays in many different jazz clubs and other venues all over the world. But Kuumbwa Jazz Center...is the place that inspired him...

ator for a jazz musician, it might look a lot like the Santa Cruz scene Donny McCaslin grew up in, circa 1980s. There was a percolating, local jazz marketplace in those days, with steady gigs for musicians...

It was a half-century ago, but 70-year old trumpeter Michael Ray still vividly recalls his first encounter with the Sun Ra  Arkestra, as a teenager attending an outdoor music festival in suburban Philadelphia. “The first thing I noticed was all the musicians had suitcases filled with sheet music.”