Although Ambrose Akinmusire’s latest Blue Note effort, the imagined savior is far easier to paint, is primarily an instrumental release (save for a few songs with guest vocalists), the ...

This is FRESH AIR. Our jazz critic Kevin Whitehead has a review of trumpet player Ambrose Akinmusire's new album with his longtime quartet. Akinmusire is from the Bay Area. He broke out in jazz over a ...

Ambrose Akinmusire was in the eighth grade, a budding trumpeter in Oakland, Calif., when he made his first excursion to a jazz club. Through a radio contest, he'd won tickets to the local mainstay, ...

Ambrose Akinmusire remembers how his curiosity used to get him in trouble. Growing up in North Oakland, he couldn’t walk by his grandmother’s piano without putting his small hands on the keys. His ...

Lately, the trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire been getting the kind of good press that doesn't always do musicians favors. It raises expectations awfully high. When the Heart Emerges Glistening, Akinmusire ...

The lauded trumpeter was attending eighth grade in Oakland when he saw a certain pillar of the avant-garde play live. Some 25 years later, the... Ambrose Akinmusire was in the eighth grade, a budding ...

The Bay Area trumpet player broke out in jazz over a decade ago. A new album by his quartet, on the tender spot of every calloused moment, shows just how pretty Akinmusire can play. This is FRESH AIR.