Improv Exchange Podcast

Jason Marshall’s 2003 arrival in New York City signified the continuation of hard-swinging, forward-thinking baritone saxophone playing. With early encouragement to appreciate all types of music, Jason has developed a style that encompasses the whole of African-American music. A special interest is given to the amalgamation of soul, R and B, and funk with straight-ahead jazz. Years of dedication a...

Growing up in a musical family in Bucks County, PA, Ms. Henry immersed herself in the arts early on, singing in school and church, and studying cello and ballet. After graduating from the University of Miami with a degree in Communications and Theatre, she launched a successful acting career, appearing in national commercial roles and a series of voiceover assignments. However, she directed her st...

With a voice that can make you cry, laugh, or fall in love with her all over again, Sharon Marie and her band have quickly become a favorite in the realm of Los Angeles jazz musicians and performed in beautiful rooms around the country. She's performed on the same stage as jazz greats Nancy Wilson, Tony Bennett, and Chris Botti! If you're looking for a soulful jazz vocalist who harkens back to the...

Jeremy Pelt has become one of the preeminent young trumpeters within the world of jazz. Forging a bond with the Mingus Big Band very early on, as his career progressed, Pelt built upon these relationships and many others which eventually lead to collaborations with some of the genre's greatest masters. These projects include performances and recordings with Cliff Barbaro, Keter Betts, Bobby "Blue"...

As an acclaimed trombonist, composer, and producer, Delfeayo Marsalis has also dedicated his prolific career to music theatre and education. Along with the Marsalis family of musicians including his father Ellis, the artist was destined for a life in music. Marsalis has toured internationally with jazz legends such as Ray Charles, Art Blakey, Max Roach, Elvin Jones, and Slide Hampton, as well as l...

A native of eastern Pennsylvania, JD Walter’s past, present, and future has always embodied music. From church Boy choirs at the age of six to the American Boy choir school in Princeton to the University of North Texas on a vocal jazz scholarship, Walter has become a pioneer of improvisation and electronic innovations in the world of jazz. His recording career spans 20 years and his purist progres...

Hailing from the East Bay, Oddity is a sonic storyteller seeking refuge in the intersections of jazz, hip-hop, and neo-soul. With influences ranging from Billy Strayhorn to D'angelo, Oddity can be found wherever inspiration strikes - be it a tender touch on a warm Rhodes, a heavy dilla-style backbeat, or a bluesy trombone melody. Oddity’s story is one of resiliency and rebirth, of toeing the preci...

Known as one of the most eclectic trumpet players in New York City, Bailey is an in-demand musician and teaching artist on call for everything from traditional jazz to R&B and Pop, to classical. He became a member of The Buddy Rich Band while still in college, and his career has included long-running gigs with Ray Charles, master conguero and bandleader Ray Barretto, The Woody Herman Orchestra, an...

Nate Wooley was born in 1974 in Clatskanie, Oregon, a town of 2,000 people in the timber country of the Pacific Northwestern corner of the U.S. He began playing trumpet professionally with his father, a big band saxophonist, at the age of 13. His time in Oregon, a place of relative quiet and slow time reference, instilled in Nate a musical aesthetic that has informed all of his music-making for th...

SeaJun Kwon is a composer and bassist who focuses on exploring boundaries. His music draws from the jazz and avant-garde music traditions of Anthony Braxton and Henry Threadgill as well as contemporary classical composers György Ligeti, Tristan Murail, and Morton Feldman. Born and raised in Seoul, South Korea, Kwon graduated from Boston’s New England Conservatory and is currently based in Brooklyn...

Pianist and composer SATOKO FUJII, “an improviser of rumbling intensity and generous restraint” (Giovanni Russonello, New York Times), is one of the most original voices in jazz today. For more than 25 years, she has created a unique, personal music that spans many genres, blending jazz, contemporary classical, rock, and traditional Japanese music into an innovative synthesis instantly recognizabl...

Matthew Alec is a jazz and popular music saxophonist, founder and Executive Producer at  Cleveland Time Records , and bandleader for the high-energy jazz fusion group Matthew Alec and The Soul Electric. Nominated as “Cleveland’s Best Horn Player” by Cleveland Scene Magazine in 2009, Matthew has performed for over 20 years and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Music from Kent State University. He has to...

Born in Rovaniemi, a small town on the Arctic Circle in Northern Finland, fretted/fretless guitarist and oud player Jussi Reijonen is truly the product of a life lived transcending boundaries. Having grown up in Finnish Lapland, the Middle East and East Africa, and spending much of his adulthood in the United States, Jussi has lived a life soaking up the sounds, sights, scents and shades of Nordic...

As a native of Louisville, Kentucky, Marcus grew up with aspirations of becoming a pro football player, but his goals changed after having committed over 13 years of his young life to the U.S. Navy honorably. During this time, his love for jazz grew by listening and learning from the late Grover Washington, Jr., David Sanborn, Kirk Whalum, Najee, Dave Koz, the late saxophonists, Art Porter and Geo...

Jeff Denson has released 16 albums as a leader or co-leader and toured extensively throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe with both his own groups and others at some of the world’s most prestigious venues and festivals such as the Village Vanguard, Birdland, The Kennedy Center, JVC Jazz Festival Paris, Montreal Jazz Festival, Berlin Jazz Festival, and SFJazz to name a few. Jeff has worked with so...

Nicole Johänntgen, jazz saxophonist, composer, and coach, tours Europe-wide with her band "Henry" and her solo program. Her second solo album was released in June 2022 on her label "Selmabird Records". She has produced 20 albums to date and received numerous awards. Johänntgen also performs internationally as a guest soloist at the invitation of various bands and is given the artistic direction to...

For over fifteen years, John Yao has been honing his talents as a trombonist, a composer and arranger, and has cemented his place on the New York City jazz scene. Yao’s lyrical soloing and expressive round tone combined with his with a creative hunger for exploring the boundaries of harmony and rhythm in his compositions/arrangements has established him as a unique musical talent. Yao has released...

Jonas Timm is a Leipzig-based pianist, composer und improviser. He grew up in Berlin in within his parental background of Choir music. Trained in classical Piano and Voice starting in the age of 5, he discovered improvised music in his early teens and went to study Music in Leipzig with Grandmaster Richie Beirach, Albert Bover and Michael Wollny. Besides he learned from: Alexander von Schlippenbac...

Joel A. Martin is a Norwalk CT-based pianist, producer, composer, and arranger who has collaborated with, and/or written music for, Grammy® Award-winners Alan Menken, Kathleen Battle, Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, cellist Eugene Friesen of the Paul Winter Consort, and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Jaimoe of the Allman Brothers, among many luminaries. At age 17 Joel was the yo...

Alyn Shipton is a writer, publisher, broadcaster, and jazz double bassist. He has broadcast about jazz since 1989, and currently hosts BBC Radio 3’s long-running and much-loved programmed Jazz Record Requests. His biographies of Dizzy Gillespie (1999) and singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson (2013) both won Association for Record Sound Collections (ARSC) Awards for Excellence; and Nilsson also gained a...

The JuJu Exchange is a jazz-fusion group founded by three childhood friends from Chicago, each bringing their own unique stories and traits to the collective. Nico Segal (trumpeter and producer) is Grammy Awarded musician and producer who is a frequent Chance the Rapper collaborator and trumpet player in Chance’s band The Social Experiment. Julian Davis Reid (pianist and producer) is an artist-the...

Theon Cross is an award-winning tuba player and composer who not only redefines what can be done with his instrument but also transcends traditional genre conventions with his heady brew of low-end theory combined with strains of ‘jazz, dub, hip-hop, soca, grime, and other sounds from the Afro-Caribbean diaspora’. His new album, Intra-I (meaning ‘Within Self’) syntheses the diversity of his musica...

Tony Overwater is an award-winning bass player whose sound and unique way of playing have established him as a key player in the European music world. He is a remarkable solo performer and leader of his own projects but also a collaborative and attentive sideman. He is well known for his pioneering work in Arab music. In 1995 Tony Overwater went on tour with the Yuri Honing Trio through the Middle...

As a member of a musical family, Aleksi has been exposed to virtually all styles of music since birth,  from jazz to classical, folk to rock, and a half dozen other stops in between some of those genres. He’s listened to everyone from Jimi Hendrix to John Scofield, Derek Trucks to Wes Montgomery. His guitar speaks an authoritative language and yet, there is a relaxed feeling and an inbred admirati...

Emma Rawicz is an award-winning young saxophonist and composer, already making waves on the UK music scene. She has been described as a force to be reckoned with' (Jazzwise) and 'a fast-rising star' (London Jazz News). At the age of 20, she has already recorded her eagerly awaited debut album featuring Ant Law, made up entirely of her original compositions, the first single Voodoo was released in...