Mondo Jazz

A Belgian vocalist that turns the Great American Songbook inside out, young Austrian creative minds, female guitar experimentalists, an all female ensemble and the band that brings the Allman Brothers spirit to Rahsaan Roland Kirk town... To find out more, I guess you'll have to click on the player and find out for yourself! Happy listening! The detailed playlist is available at https://spinitron....

It's time to get back to the new releases menu and its delicious assortment of modern jazz infused with timeless Miles Davis aromas, forward looking fare marked by traces of Tim Berne, as well as gargantuan ensembles for good measure. Bon appetit! The playlist features Daniel Bingert [pictured], Antoine Pierre, Nubya Garcia, Rudresh Mahanthappa, In Common: Walter Smith III, Matt Stevens, Tommaso G...

In this final installment of our exploration of today's French jazz scene, a number of projects that illustrate how beautifully French musicians blend their many influences, from troubadour music of the middle-ages to pop songs of the '60s and '70s, and interests, from Greek mythology to the M-Base collective. The playlist features Manu Codjia, Geraldine Laurent, Christophe Marguet, Camille Bertau...

As we continue our journey in today's French jazz scene we look at how it has been influenced by the many musical traditions that enrich the French society, in particular those from North Africa and the Middle-East courtesy of Yacine Boularès, Ibrahim Maalouf, Naïssam Jalal, Smadj and Sophie Alour with Mohamed Abozekry and Wassim Halal). To add the range of this episode. The urban influence of hip...

Here's more jazz from the scene by the Seine, featuring the lyricism of Emile Parisien, Vincent Courtois, the rhythmic hypnosis of The Recyclers and Benoît Delbecq, the sketches of Miles by Airelle Besson and Médéric Collignon, the urban vibes of Antoine Berjeaut and Guillaume Perret and much more. Happy listening! The playlist features Edward Perraud, Barthelemy - Lazro - Margues - Tchamitchian,...

Historically, the French scene has played a vital role in the world of jazz, so let's celebrate Bastille day and pay tribute to the French way of Jazz, exploring in particular the work of a captivating crop of contemporary French musicians who have developed a very original way to blend their love for jazz with multitude of other interests and influences. The playlist includes: Aldo Romano, Louis...

This week we have a wide-ranging palette, as well go from the maelstroms of Andrew D'Angelo's DNA Orchestra and Raoul Björkenheim's Interstellar Coltrane, to the subtleties of Mara Rosenbloom, Nathalie Darche and João Lencastre's Communion 3, through the fertile collaborations between the indie darlings Deerhoof with Wadada Leo Smith, or Nubya Garcia and Joe Armon-Jones while savoring the exciting...

This week we pay tribute to the late Ennio Morricone the way we often do, through renditions of his memorable soundtracks performed by contemporary creative jazz artists like John Zorn, Bill Frisell, Marco Cappelli, Guano Padano, and Oddjob. We then check out some great new releases that cross borders, stylistic definitions and generations. The playlist also features: Jeff Cosgrove, John Medeski,...

The fusion of different musical cultures and genres is at the heart of this edition of Mondo Jazz, where the works of Frank Zappa are given the solo piano treatment by Dave Hartl, Mats Öberg and Stefano Bollani, where a Kansas City expat in Paris, trumpeter Hermon Mehari, explores both his Eritrean roots and his urban inclinations, where the global music of Ajoyo finds its matches in the Mathis So...

Spectacular debut releases by Vanessa Perica, Immanuel Wilkins and Micah Thomas; international and inter-generational collaborations between Marcin Wasilewski and Joe Lovano, and among Juhani Aaltonen, Jonas Kullhammar, Christian Meaas Svendsen, Ilmari Heikinheimo; three bands lead by Michael Wolff, Steven Cardenas and Dave Glasser revolving around the thick and catchy pulse of Ben Allison's bass...

The second part of this week's new and upcoming release special brings new gems by Angel Bat Dawid, Caleb Dolister, old gems in new bottles courtesy of Gary Bartz & Maisha and of Jorja Smith diving into the Blue Note catalogue for a neo-classic St. Germain, some family love by the Granellis and the electro-acoustic experimentations of Enrico Rava, Matthew Herbert and Giovanni Guidi. The playlist f...

It has been more or less a month since our last episode devoted to new and upcoming releases, so it's time to catch up as so much great music has been coming out, some of it to raise funds for worthy causes. So sit back, put your headphones on and enjoy the latest by Joshua Redman, Brad Mehldau, Michael Thomas, Marie Kruttli, Pericopes+1, Ernesto Cervini and more. The playlist features Joshua Redm...

As our series dedicated to the amazing music that has come out of the struggle for the advancement of African-Americans come to an end, we focus on tunes inspired by the march on Selma, or dedicated to the many victims of racially motivated brutality. Listen to this deep set featuring old masters like Grant Green, Blue Mitchell, current giants like Dr. Lonnie Smith, Jason Moran and Wynton Marsalis...

As Martin Luther King put it in the opening address to the 1964 Berlin Jazz Festival, "When life itself offers no order and meaning, the musician creates an order and meaning from the sounds of the earth which flow through his instrument." And so, with that in mind, we continue our exploration of socially engaged jazz in search of order and meaning in the complicated phase we're living, looking at...

In the second part of this special dedicated to jazz and civil rights we look into music inspired by the bloody events that marked the advancement of the civil rights movement and by the victims of ongoing brutality. The playlist included tunes which incorporate the words or the cadence of Martin Luther King, are introduced by Jesse Jackson or celebrate Malcolm X, as well as songs that were played...

Music often distills the truth in ways that make it hard to ignore. The history of jazz is intertwined with the struggle for the advancement of the African-American society that birthed it. Many of its masterpieces were inspired by events that marked the civil rights movement, which, in turn, drew inspiration from them. Let's look back at the amazing body of music that has come out of the African-...

In the first part of the show we focused on jazz inspired by the of music composed by James Barry for 007 flicks. Here we switch our attention to other great soundtrack composers like Lalo Schifrin or Quincy Jones, and other movie characters like Sherlock Holmes, Ms. Marple, Nero Wolfe or Dirty Harry. And we look into why Charlie Parker became Charlie Chan. We wrap things up with the daughter of t...

For a reason or another, movies about detectives, secret agents or spies have gone mano a mano with jazz, and so this week we'll feature jazz inspired by adventurous characters. In this first segment, the focus is on James Bond and how anyone from Louis Armstrong and Count Basie to Bill Frisell, Dave Douglas and Steven Bernstein, among others, have played with John Barry's compositions just like J...

All good things come to an end, so here we are with the last part of our celebration of Stevie Wonder's 70th birthday in the key of jazz. In this final installment tributes by Geri Allen, Stephane Belmondo and Sylvain Luc, Urbie Green, Max Ionata and Dado Moroni, Abbey Lincoln, Steve Khan, the New West Guitar Group with Gretchen Parlato, Joshua Redman the SFJAZZ Collective, and Grover Washington,...

After a dive in renditions from the '70s during parts 1, here we mix things up with a combination of contemporary stunners, like the unique take of Alicia Hall Moran on "Signed, Sealed, Delivered" or the incandescent rendition of "Too High" by Chris Hunter, with classics like Roland Kirk's version of "Ma Cherie Amour" or Toots Thielemans'"You've Got It Bad Girl". The cherry on the cake: Stevie's o...

Stevie Wonder has often infused his performances with compelling renditions of jazz standards like Miles' "All Blues" or Coltrane's "Giant Steps". In return, countless jazz musicians have looked at his Songbook and found in his compositions fertile grounds for their own explorations. In the second part of our "Stevie @70 special" we cherry-picked tributes to his genius by the likes of Ran Blake, C...

Stevie Wonder has more entries in the "Real Book" than any other pop musician, The Beatles included. It is not surprising therefore that his Songbook has been mined by hundreds of jazz musicians, including Sonny Rollins, Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, Dexter Gordon and Herbie Hancock. To mark his 70th birthday we feature some of the best jazz renditions of his compositions. In this segment we f...

Second part of this week's review of new and upcoming releases with the great return of master arranger Pablo Ablanedo, the new single by Swedish saxophonist and flutist Otis Sandsjö, two new projects by the prolific oud and guitar player Gordon Grdina, and saxophones in solo, duo, trio and quartet settings. Happy listening! The playlist features Otis Sandsjö, Enzo Favata, Orchestra Nazionale dell...

This week we go through another delicious stash of new and upcoming releases, many of them launched on Bandcamp on 1 May for the 'waived fee' events the website is promoting every first Friday of the month to support musicians in the time of Covid19. The cherry on the stash? The much anticipated first single, sung by Nick Cave, from Hal Willner's last production, "Angelheaded Hipster: The Songs of...

Here's is the second part of this week's exploration of new and upcoming releases, focusing on the new works of drummers Chad Taylor, with his trio and in the duo with James Brandon Lewis and Matt Wilson, the global jazz of the cult band Aka Moon and South African pianist Nduduzo Makhathini... and some obliquely intriguing offerings by pianist Roberto Negro, the Onyx Collective and saxophonist Rud...