Discovering Jazz

This is a podcast of music for the winter holidays: Christmas, New Year’s, Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice, Hanukkah (or Chanukkah), Las Posadas, Mardi Gras, Lohri, Diwalis, Epiphany, etc. Most of it is jazz or pretty close to jazz. If you’re lookin

I explore some of the life and music of a few so-called ‘self-taught’ jazz musicians. None of them learned music in a ‘void’, any more than the formally trained musician is solely a product of the training. As well as hearing musi

Lots of music today and not too much talk. From my online downloads you’ll hear Joe Henderson, Leslie Odom Jr., Wolff Clark Dorsey, and Gilson Perenzetta & Mauro Senise. Canadian groups are Victoria’s Naden Band featuring Roy Styffe, Chel

Last week I explored some of the ‘edges’ of the jazz genre. This week I unintentionally do the same simply by going through tunes I’ve downloaded into my mediamonkey music list and put in the ‘jazz’ category. Some are defini

Louis Armstrong once said that if you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know. But I wonder what he thought about some of the music that was categorized as ‘jazz’ today, or some of the artists headlining recent jazz festivals. For a

I play selections from 9 of the top 10 albums on the October 26 JazzWeek chart, and talk a bit about them. Some great stuff!

This is the third episode where I play some top album’s on the current jazz charts as compiled by JazzWeek. I start out with Chick Corea playing Chopin, and describe how Chopin may have been a ‘forerunner’ of modern jazz. Other great ar

I’ve always loved charts. As a kid I’d wake up every Saturday morning and listen and write out CJCA Edmonton’s Top 93. So I’m delighted to be exploring the current Jazz Charts—-even if it is for albums rather than singles. T

Most of the jazz I play on this podcast tends to be the tried and true over the years. I’m changing that for the next four episodes and exploring the current jazz charts. These are albums on the playlists of U.S. jazz radio stations as listed throu

I found a list of the most recorded tunes, thanks to a website called Second Hand Songs. They’re almost all songs that jazz musicians like to play. In this podcast I examine the top 15 (not counting Christmas songs) and play you a version of 10 of

At a record store in Nanaimo B.C. called Fascinating Rhythm I bought about 19 78rpm records. I’ll play 13 of them for you that are jazz, r’nb’ or gospel. The jazz records I play are by Coleman Hawkins, Woody Herman, Nellie Lutcher, Haze

For much of the summer there have been no live in-person music due to Covid. A lot of artists started posting concerts online, and this week I play some recordings of these concerts. While the performers have generously made these recordings available to

Jelly Roll Morton claimed he invented jazz. Most other people claim he didn’t. But unlike some public figures who brag a lot, so many of the things he claimed he could do he actually did! And there’s no doubt that he did create a style of jazz, and was t

On this latest episode I play more records (78rpm’s and lp’s) and cd’s that I bought (or in one case picked up off the street) as I travelled around Vancouver Island. The jazz you’ll hear is by Benny Goodman, Lee Ritenour, Manhatt

I stayed home mostly. But I did travel a bit up island and bought some records (including some 78rpm jazz records) and cd’s. On this episode, to introduce you to September and the new season, I’ll play some of the best ones for you. The Lp&#8

Most of the time my the new episodes of my podcasts generate 300-400 hits. Not viral……but I’m happy with that. But there was one that never made it over 100 hits for some reason. It’s episode 33, part 2 of my programs talking abou

On this program I play most of the entire Blue Train album of 1957 by John Coltrane. Why? well, most of those tunes are so often called out in jazz jams, and John Coltrane is certainly a jazz ‘legend’. As well as the fact that this is conside

Since Toronto singer Micah Barnes has been doing a ‘virtual tour’ of his new album, I thought this would be a good time to re-post a podcast of an interview I did with him in 2017—-where he talked about some of his favourite jazz singer

Dipping really early into the archives—an episode from three years ago, where jazz saxophonist, guitarist, and singer, Sean Hully, from Peterborough, Ontario talked about how he learned to play and appreciate jazz. We’ll also take you through

Hi folks! I accidentally posted the wrong episode….and I repeated Episode 56 rather than 57. Sorry about that. But I’ve corrected it. So give a listen to Episode 57—from the archives. A great show! One more from the archives on Cuban ja

Another summer re-run of some of my best Discovering Jazz Programs. I think the whole 4 part series on Cuban Jazz is well worth listening to, with lots of information and great music. Part 2 includes Geraldo Rubalcaba with Ron Carter, Ray Barretto, early

This is a ‘re-run’ of one of my favourite and in terms of the information presented, probably one of my most ‘dense’ episodes. Afro-Cuban Jazz, while the musicians were exported from Havana, actually began in New York. I’ll

I just saw the list of jazz artists involved in this year’s Juno Awards for the best Canadian jazz albums of 2019, including the list of winners. I listened to some of each nominated record—and decided to play a track from some of them that r

I moved from Peterborough, Ontario to Victoria B.C. on May 1st, 2019, and was able to become a volunteer for the TD Victoria International Jazz Festival. If COVID19 hadn’t stopped it in its tracks, I would have been involved in this year’s fe

Five more jazz standards today….with a few different versions of each and some interesting stories. Hilights? I’d give the #1 highlight to Mitchell Ruff Trio’s version of Gypsy in My Soul. What an under-rated group! Vancouver’s Ka