2024 NW Acoustic Jazz Ensemble of the Year

“I was telling Joe [Doria] at the bar over there,” started Alex Chadsey, leader of Duende Libre, “that we’ve been at it nine years and counting.” On behalf of the jazz ensemble, he expressed immense gratitude for being able to continue their project for so long.

And it is quite a project: a heady amalgam of Brazilian, Cuban, and West African influences that reaches way, way back to the primordial origins of jazz as an art form. Take their most recent work, 2020’s The Dance She Spoke, winner of 2020’s NW Recording of the Year, which cited the music of Hamana in Guinea, as well as Wassaulou and Khasso in Mali, as direct influences. It’s not the work of tourists; it’s from the hands of musicians who have each apprenticed in these disparate traditions of music, who then aim to carry on that music in a contemporary setting.

Clearly, they’ve succeeded in their task, but, in congratulating the other nominees, Chadsey broadened the definition. “Just being an artist is a success,” he said. “That’s a win.”

https://www.earshot.org/2025-04-34th-annual-golden-ear-awards/