Straight No Chaser - A Jazz Show

Here's Part Two of my conversation with Chris Crenshaw, a top trombonist and one of the many fascinating musicians who make up the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. In this Podcast, Chris, talks about more recent releases on Blue Engine Records from the JLCO archives, including their take on Duke Ellington's Black, Brown and Beige and Handful of Keys , a collection of tunes featuring guest piano p...

Blue Engine Records, the label operated by Jazz at Lincoln Center, continues to release more exciting music for us to enjoy. Reaching into their rich archives of performances form the past four years, they have recently released two albums that feature one of their top trombonists, Christopher Crenshaw. The Fifties: A Prism was a highlight of the 2017-2018 season. A suite written in six parts by C...

If we were not living through the nightmare of COVID-19, promoter Danny Melnick of Absolutely Live Entertainment would be busy with jazz shows across the world, and would be gearing up for presenting the Freihofer's Saratoga Jazz Festival.  But these are strange days indeed, and Danny finds that all of his hard work has gone for naught. At least for the foreseeable future, there will be no live mu...

We've lost another giant. Lee Konitz, the alto sax player whose career spanned from bebop in the clubs of Broadway to the present has passed away from COVID-19 related issues. he was 92. One of the players introduced to me by my father, Konitz found a way to do it all during his 70 odd years in jazz. He helped invent improvisational jazz with Lenny Tristano and Wayne Marsh. He pioneered "Cool Jazz...

A lengthy conversation with Wolfgang Muthspiel has been a long overdue podcast to prepare for my listeners. The Austrian born guitarist, composer and record label owner has been among the most dynamic guitarists of recent years, and has made some shining albums for ECM. His latest release, Angular Blues , is a return to the trio format, following two acclaimed quintet releases. Wolfgang once again...

Wallace Roney, one of the top trumpet players in the world today, died this week from complications from COVID-19. He was 59.  Roney was one of the "Young Lions" that invigorated straight ahead jazz in the 1990's. Chosen by Miles Davis as his heir apparent, he was a close friend and collaborator with Miles from 1985 until Davis' death in 1991.  He spent time with Art Blakey and Tony Williams, and...

Felipe Salles lives a few towns away from me in Western Massachusetts, but his latest album tackles a subject that concerns people from all over the Western hemisphere. The New Immigrant Experience , written and conducted by Salles with the 18-piece Interconnections Ensemble, is a powerful new multimedia work inspired by the lives of "Dreamers," the almost seven hundred thousand individuals curren...

I liked Lakecia Benjamin's first two CDs. They were fun - funky and swinging. But they were not that memorable. I love her new CD. Pursuance: The Coltranes , pays homage to two of the greatest musical innovators of the 20th century, John and Alice Coltrane. That's some pretty tough company to put yourself near, given the married couple are among the greatest improvisers and creators of spiritual j...

The works of William Shakespeare and the jazz world have had a limited connection. Sure, Duke Ellington released Such Sweet Thunder , a twelve-part suite based on Shakespeare's work in 1957, and Dame Cleo Laine recorded the moving Shakespeare and All that Jazz with her husband Sir John Dankworth in 1964. There is a somewhat obscure but very interesting album from singer Maxine Sullivan entitled Su...

Trumpeter Jason Palmer has been near the top of my list of people to feature on Straight No Chaser for several years now. As a sideman working with Mark Turner and Noah Preminger, he made huge contributions to some of their top recordings, and last week he dropped his fourteenth album as a bandleader. The Concert: 12 Musings for Isabella is a live recording made possible by Jimmy Katz's Giant Step...

A common thread runs through the next few podcasts that will appear on Straight No Chaser. Each has a talented jazz composer and performer who found creative inspiration from sources other than music itself. In the next few days you will hear conversations with Jason Palmer, whose latest album was inspired by works of art stolen from the Isabella Gardner Museum 30 years ago. You can also hear from...

Today is the 90th birthday of our greatest living composer of Broadway musicals, Stephen Sondheim. His career has spanned the past sixty odd Broadway seasons, during which he wrote or co-wrote many of the most important, influential and successful shows in history. He collaborated on two classics as lyricist – first with Leonard Bernstein ( West Side Story – 1957) and then Jule Styne ( Gypsy – 195...

Bria Skonberg has been one of the most exciting new artists of the past few years, combining a deep love of "hot jazz" with a desire to expand her sphere of knowledge. The latest result of this search is Nothing Never Happens , produced by Grammy-winner Eli Wolf.   While Bria's singing and trumpet solos are clearly the center of attention, this is very much a "band album." Ma. Skonberg's working b...

Lynne Arriale is one of today's leading practitioners of the art of the piano trio. One of our most melodic performers, she has released 15 albums as a leader, of which 75% are trio recordings. Her latest, Chimes of Freedom , continues the collaboration with bassist Jasper Somson that began on the fine 2018 release Give Us These Days . To round out the group, Ms. Arriale wisely chose drummer E.J....

McCoy Tyner, the pianist who anchored the John Coltrane Quartet from 1960 to 1965, passed away at his home in Philadelphia last week. He was 81. Tyner became one of the most important and influential piano players of the second half of the twentieth century, primarily due to his work with Coltrane. He played with great physicality, as well as a keen sense of harmony. Arguably, without Tyner's left...

"It has been said that a Scotchman has not seen the world until he has seen Edinburgh; and I think that I may say that an American has not seen the United States until he has seen Mardi Gras in New Orleans." - Mark Twain Today is Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras day. I'm in New England, a long way from the festivities in body, but I'm with them in spirit. And nothing gets me going like a good hour plus of...

Now that Dayna Stephens seems fully recovered from the life-threatening illness (focal segmental glomerulosclerosis) that limited his touring for years, it's a pleasure to see him getting the chance to make the recordings he has dreamed of making. His latest CD, Liberty , is his first full-scale trio session, bringing back two of his longest tenured sidemen, bassist Ben Street and drummer Eric Har...

Lyle Mays played an important role in my jazz education. For people looking for innovative music in the Seventies, the music of the Pat Metheny Group, co-founded by Metheny and Mays, was a revalation. From the soaring sound of their self-titled "White Album" on ECM through their evolution as a band - and they WERE a band - that mixed electric jazz, rock, world and folk influences into a sound unli...

Some consider Valentine's Day a "Hallmark Holiday" designed to extract money for cards, flowers and chocolate. Others consider it a day to celebrate the glory of love,  Either way, you probably are aware of the day, like it or not.  In the Straight No Chaser effort to make Valentine's Day a bit easier for our loyal listeners, here is the annual Valentine's Day Mix. Scan through the archives by sea...

The first truly memorable release of 2020 comes out on ECM tomorrow when Here Be Dragons   drops.  The third album by Israeli saxophonist Oded Tzur and his quartet, it is a melodic and sometimes transcendent album, contemplative with a shimmering beauty that belies the intensity that lies just below the surface. Oded's international group features fellow Israeli Nitai Hershkovits on piano, Greek b...

Since winning the Thelonius Monk International Jazz Bass Competition in 2009, Ben Williams has been one of the brightest young stars in the jazz firmament. He has released two albums of his own ( State of Art and Coming of Age ), and recorded with Stefon Harris, Steve Wilson, and especially Pat Metheny. He anchored the rhythm section of the Unity Band with Antonio Sanchez, and won a Grammy for the...

Anyone who listens to this podcast on a regular basis knows that I am a huge fan of the Allman Brothers Band. For me, this rock and blues band incorporates jazz elements into their music better than any other, all without the need for adding top session players (Steely Dan) or a horn section (Blood, Sweat & Tears, Chicago).  They were as influenced by Miles Davis and John Coltrane as they were Bob...

The passing of Jimmy Heath this past weekend at the age of 93 means that we have not just lost a great sax player and composer, but that one of the few living links to the birth of modern jazz is gone. Nicknamed "Little Bird" because of his technical abilities that recalled those of Charlie Parker, Heath played in big bands in the late Forties and early Fifties, both his own (where he hired John C...

Jazz at Lincoln Center has spent much of the past three years aggresively attempting to expand their reach in the world of jazz. While it is already the home of one of the finest collection of musicians on the planet, via it's label Blue Engine Records there have  been new studio and live recordings as well as archival recordings from Jazz at Lincoln Center's performance history that date back to...

More than thirty years after the Rolling Stones' Mobile Recording Studio recorded the show at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London, fans of the late, great Buddy Rich are finally getting a chance to hear Just in Time; The Final Recording . Rich is leading a big band composed of many of the leading lights of his final touring group: Matt Harris on piano; Rob Amster on double bass; Trumpets including...