Jazz88

Maurice Jacox is a living legend. He's lived his life on stages around the world and nowadays the Twin Cities is blessed to see him all over town. On November 28 Maurice will be leading his group "We Still R" through a concert at the Dakota. In the conversation with Jazz88's Sean McPherson Jacox discusses how he ended up playing with We Still R, his love of the Cuban people and more.

Drummer, bandleader and writer Brandon Commodore is no stranger to stages all across the world in his work with Stokley, The New Power Generation and more. But for Brandon's own musical development, no stage looms as large as the Dakota. This Monday he and his group NRG will grace the stage and Commodore has a lot to be excited about.

Jose James (Sr.) talks to Patty Peterson about playing the music of Grover Washington Jr's Winelight Album at Crooners on Nov 17

Jazz88’s Peter Solomon spoke with trumpeter and composer Russ Johnson, who has described his own music as "too in for the out crowd and too out for the in crowd." He is performing Saturday November 18th at Jazz Central with drummer Abinnet Berhanu, Bryan Nichols, piano and Ted Olsen, bass. Johnson has performed with iconic musicians like Joe Lovano, Lee Konitz, Steve Swallow, and Bill Frisell. He...

Franklin STEAM Middle School's Michael "Mr. B" Bratsch has been building an incredible learning experience for the students at Franklin, and is excited to present a new project coming to MPS Voices called The R&B: Read & Believe Podcast. Mr. B talks with MPS Voices Executive Producer Manny Hill about how the idea for the podcast came about, the hard work the Franklin students have put in, and what...

Jazz88’s Peter Solomon speaks with Dr. Maya Sullivan about her work as Dean of Students at Metro State University and about Graduate Programs Preview Day, taking place November 14th from 5 – 7 PM.

Jazz88's Peter Solomon caught up with Mary Ann Sullivan whose band Mary Ann and the Money Makers will be featured in a Jazzclectic Concert Sunday at Mall of America.

Harold López-Nussa is already out on the road and is ready to visit the Cedar Cultural Center on Wednesday November 15 for his debut performance at that venue. López-Nussa's new release is his first for Blue Note and it's garnering lots of acclaim for good reason; it's a reflection on his experiences, both joyous and melancholy, of leaving Cuba and moving with his family to France. Harold took som...

Jazz88’s Peter Solomon spoke with David Radames Toro, Stage Director for Minnesota Opera’s production of Cruzar La Cara De La Luna, a mariachi opera showing at the Ordway through November 12th. (Attached photo by Dan Norman)

Jazz88’s Peter Solomon spoke with Sgt. Rick Denneson of the West Hennepin County Police Department about Crash Responder Safety Week, November 13 – 17. Sgt. Denneson says that the week was not just created to raise awareness about the safety of crash responders, but to encourage the driving public to consider their own safety in potentially hazardous driving situations. (Attached image from Oregon...

Nabaté Isles connected with Jazz88 in advance of his show this Sunday at Crooners. The show is titled "Jazz's Influence on Hip-Hop". Isles was quick to point out how his upbringing in NYC in the golden era of hip-hop involved his artistry and his understanding of music in general. Nabaté also shared the information on the distinguished group of players and guests that he'll have with him on Sunday...

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...