Jazz88

The celebrated Twin Cities vocalist Kathleen Johnson is back onstage this weekend at the Capri Theater this weekend for Blue Gardenia. The show features three singers, Johnson, Thomasina Petrus and Patricia Lacy. The trio is navigating the songbooks of Etta James, Billie Holiday and Phyllis Hyman. Kathleen Johnson took the time to visit Jazz88 and discuss her connections to Etta James and her exci...

Alonzo King Lines Ballet will perform an original work called "Deep River," blending music from Jewish and African American spiritual traditions with a score by pianist, composer, and MacArthur fellow Jason Moran and vocals by Grammy-award winning singer Lisa Fischer. The work also incorporates compositions by Pharoah Sanders, Maurice Ravel, and James Weldon Johnson. The performance will take plac...

LA Buckner and his Big HomiE project are preparing for another big show at the Dakota. This week he'll be bringing a special Halloween friendly program to the stage. When he visited Jazz88 he talked about this show and his recent experience playing with Big HomiE on stages that require different levels of restraint in regards to volume.

Payments on federal student loans resumed in October after a 3-year pause. More than 800,000 people in the state of Minnesota have federal student loan debt. That debt, combined with state and private loans, according to the Minnesota Office of Higher Education, has made the median loan for student borrowers in Minnesota nearly $24,000. Jazz88’s Peter Solomon spoke with Kim Miller, financial couns...

Who wants to be a DJ? A few students at Southwest High School in Minneapolis certainly want to. MPS Voices Producer DJ DIME talks with Dean Mark Robinson of Southwest High about a new after school program that teaches students how to be a DJ, and how the idea came about.

Dez, Rokkstar Savage and Glo visited the studios of Jazz88 to announce an exciting development for their podcast, 4theKulture. The 4theKulture podcast is presented by the Kulture Klub Collaborative. Glorius L. Martin, aka Glo, has been helping the team produce the podcast. And starting next week, you can hear the 4theKulture podcast on MPS Voices. Listen to hear more about this exciting new collab...

Jazz88's Peter Solomon speaks with Amy Schendel and Mary Larew from the St. Paul Conservatory of Music about "Music Across Minnesota" and other musical outreach programs.

Jazz88 Morning Show host Peter Solomon had the opportunity to sit down with Andy Mannix, Minneapolis Policing Reporter for the Star Tribune, about a "Curious Minnesota" feature on the murder of journalist Walter Liggett and the gangster accused of the crime, Isadore “Kid Cann” Blumenfeld. Blumenfeld was a Jewish immigrant who became extremely rich and influential in the Twin Cities during the proh...

No Man’s String Band, Gentlemen’s Anti-Temperance League, Luke Warm and the Cool Hands and Way Back Yard. These are four Twin Cities acoustic bands, but playing distinctly different styles. The show is Saturday October 28 at the Hook and Ladder in Minneapolis. Nic Hentges of the No Man’s String Band curated the show. When he talked to Phil Nusbaum, Nic addressed the history of the No Man’s String...

Vic Volare is preparing to throw his Monster Mash Birthday Bash on Halloween night over at the Granada Theater in Uptown Minneapolis. In regards to throwing a night of swinging music, this is not Volare's first rodeo. Vic Volare was at the epicenter of the swing dancing renaissance of the mid-90s here in the Twin Cities and has parlayed that into a career as an in-demand swingin' bandleader. Volar...

When you see a performance by the Boom Island String Quartet, you expect music from unusual sources and frequently, the presentation is thematic. That is certainly the case on Saturday, October 28 when the quartet plays its Hallowe’en show, 3pm at the Metronome in Saint Paul. Alexandria Mueller leads the group. In her conversation with Phil Nusbaum, she first addressed the group’s history.

Craig Taborn was raised in the Twin Cities but set his sights on the East Coast early in his professional career. After cementing his status as a top-flight straight-ahead jazz player in the 1990s, Taborn has become one of the most inventive and forward thinking musicians in any genre. Although he is well-known for his work on synthesizers, Taborn will be performing a largely solo "bespoke" concer...

The Riverside Quartet features original music. The drummer, Nicholas Peterson, leads the group, and composes a lot of the group’s repertoire. When he talked to Phil Nusbaum ahead of the group's jazz Central Studios show next Thursday night, Nicholas addressed why the Riverside Quartet features its originals.

During some downtime in Atlanta Fantastic Negrito was doing a little genealogical digging when he started to follow a trail to his seventh generation grandparents. It turns out that in Virginia in the 1750s his grandparents, a White Scottish indentured female servant and an enslaved African man fell in love and started a family. This discovery prompted an outpouring of creativity from Fantastic Ne...

Leslie Vincent visited the studios of Jazz88 to perform a haunting ukulele version of her song "Bury Her Down" and chat up her upcoming performance at Granada Theater on Saturday October 21.

Back in 2017 Jazz88's Bobby Vandell connected with drum legend David Garibaldi for a long interview covering many aspects of Garibaldi's legendary career going back to the earliest years of Tower of Power. Jazz88 will continue to share portions of this interview throughout the coming months. Enjoy this portion of the conversation, focusing on Garibaldi's formative years.

Roy Hargrove was born October 16, 1969. In his too-short life (Hargrove died in 2018) he became an icon; sharing stages with musicians from across genres, winning Grammys and penning songs with will live on. Minnesota-based trumpet player Omar Abdulkarim had occasion to share stages and conversations with Hargrove during Abdulkarim's time living in New York. Omar was nice enough to visit our studi...

Skarlett Woods, Brainerd singer-songwriter celebrates her new CD, Letters To The West, next Saturday night at Ginkgo’s in Saint Paul. In her writing, Skarlett turns her attention to intimacy as well as big societal issues. When she talked about her work with Phil Nusbaum, Skarlett first talked about one of her romantic songs.

Billy McLaughlin and Simple Gifts celebrate songs of Neil Young, in Harvest at the Parkway Theater in Minneapolis, 7PM on Sunday October 22. The show reimagines songs from Neil Young’s harvest and Harvest Moon albums. Phil Nusbaum got together with Karen Paurus, Amy Courts and Carin Vagle to talk about the production. When Phil asked about the appeal of presenting Neil Young’s songs.

When Raycurt a.k.a. Fiddla plays for brunch, he often calls it Bach for Breakfast. But it’s really a lot more than that, as at the Harriet Brasserie, Sunday October 15 from 11 till 1:30. The music often reflects a wide range of Raycurt’s musical experiences. When Raycurt spoke with Phil Nusbaum, Raycurt first addressed how he started.

Stablemates is a Twin Cities Piano Trio. The group plays at the Metronome in Saint Paul, Thursday October 12 at 7:00 PM. When Phil Nusbaum met up with the trio, it was running through some repertoire.

Stokley is an internationally acclaimed R&B star, both as a solo act and with his 20+ year career with Mint Condition. Hailing from the Twin Cities, Stokley can keep a low profile in town and he doesn't perform in town too often. But when he does. . .it's an EVENT. This Saturday Stokley is playing at the Uptown Theater alongside Jordan Johnston, Bakarii and LA Buckner and Big Homie. This week Stok...

Peter Solomon spoke with Gary Hines, music director for the Grammy-winning Twin Cities ensemble Sounds of Blackness about their participation in a program called “Behind the Curtain: Ever After in Concert” The story is a developing musical, an extension of the Cinderella Story and incorporates historical figures like The Brothers Grimm and Leonardo Da Vinci. Performances are Friday, October 6th an...

Scott Keever issues his second CD of original guitar music at Celtic Junction in Saint Paul Saturday night October 21. There will be an opening set by guitarist Phil Heywood. Scott has interests in many world music styles, but one of his strongest groundings is the work of fellow Minnesota Leo Kotke. In a conversation with Phil Nusbaum, Scott explains his feeling for the Kotke style.

Joan Hutton plays in many musical settings. We’ve known Joan through her work in the Ancia Saxophone Quartet for example, playing modern classical music. But she’s also a noted jazz musician with a growing catalog of original work representing varied jazz styles. When Joan sat down with Phil Nusbaum, she talked about her jazz funk side.