Straight No Chaser - A Jazz Show

This is the Christmas jazz mix I am giving on CD to members of my band AXIS and other friends this season. No Smooth Jazz, no modern masters - just the classic jazz sound form the best Christmas Jazz albums of the past. For more on some of the albums these tunes are sourced form, be sure to check out Marc Myers' JazzWax blog and his Christmas Hall of Fame selections.  Enjoy nearly 80 uninterrupted...

As I do every year, this Podcast is "A Few of My Favorite Things" form 2019. It is not intended on being a Top Ten list - I do that for the Jazz Journalist Association - but rather a grouping of recordings that got repeat play in my house, making me take notice over the many recordings I receive.  This year, I had the pleasure of hearing the following stellar albums: NEW THINGS FROM OLD FRIENDS Br...

Over the past four decades, composer, improviser and percussionist Adam Rudolph has been hailed as "a pioneer in world music" by the New York Times and "a master percussionist" by Downbeats magazine. He has released more than 30 recordings under his own name featuring his groundbreaking compositions and tradition-bridging percussion work. Rudolph composes for his ensembles Moving Pictures, Hu Vibr...

A few years back I watched the documentary Dreaming of a Jewish Christmas , which told the story of the Jewish songwriters who have written the soundtrack to Christmas celebrations for almost a century. Some of the most famous songs of the Yuletide season, from "The Christmas Song" and "White Christmas" to "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" were all composed a...

If you are looking to find some new music for celebrating the Yuletide, please allow me to provide you with a cross-section of new or recent releases that will help make your spirits bright. Podcast 715 is nearly an hour of music from the following artists and albums, many of which may have flown beneath your radar as you look for new tunes: Dave Koz with Jonathan Butler - "It's Beginning to Look...

For past Thanksgivings, I've just posted two songs that set the mood for me - George Benson's "Giblet Gravy" on the night before, to help  out those cooking a festive meal, and Diana Krall's version of "Count Your Blessings (Instead of Sheep)". The latter, an Irving Berlin masterpiece, is often played for Christmas, but to me it sums up all that the day should be about - sharing with others as we...

One of the reasons I continue to record this music and tour every year is that the holidays are a reminder for all of us about the things that matter. It's a time when we seem more capable of living our best lives. It's easy to get off course during the rest of the year, especially the way the world is these days with all of its antagonism and intolerance. The holidays help bring us back to center...

An in-demand sidewoman on the jazz scenes of both New York City and her native Nuremberg, Germany, drummer Mareike Wiening asserts her talents as composer, player and bandleader on  Metropolis Paradise , her first full-length CD and debut on Dave Douglas' Greenleaf Music label. Ms. Wiening's latest outing features her steady bassist Johannes Felscher, outstanding Toronto-born guitarist Alex Goodma...

It was only a matter of time before Randy Brecker and Ada Rovatti made a record together. Married for almost twenty years, they have played together in the Brecker Brothers Reunion Band and other projects, but it has taken years for them to play together in a project devoted to Ada's work. Brecker Plays Rovatti: Sacred Bond is the result, and it includes not only the legendary trumpter Brecker and...

Forty plus years into their recording and performing career, Spyro Gyra still finds new ways to surprise a listener. Having been a formative band in the fusion scene and then again in the sound that became associated with their time at GRP Records, the band could have every reason to rest on their laurels. However, the past few decades have found the band moving deeper into World Music ( A Foreign...

On November 1 and 2, the jazz world will celebrate 50 years of the monumentally influential ECM Records, rightfully called "one of the defining sound-worlds of the past half-century of recorded music" by the  New Yorker . Founded by producer Manfred Eicher in Munich in 1969 and still under his artistic leadership, ECM Records has released some of the definitive jazz recordings of the past half cen...

Resonance Records has lead an archival revolution over the past decade, digging up long lost or previously unknown recordings from the likes of Bill Evans, Wes Montgomery and Stan Getz. But Zev Feldman and George Klaban's largest, and perhaps most important project is just about to be released. Released in partnership with the Nat King Cole estate, Resonance Records'   Hittin' The Ramp: The Early...

The Dream Thief is the first ECM release by pianist Shai Maestro as a leader, and it presents the Israeli pianist fronting the latest incarnation of his uncommonly interactive, atmospherically expansive trio. The group now features new drummer Ofri Nehemya, a fellow Israeli, and its bassist from the start, Jorge Roeder, a native of Peru. Beyond the trio, the album also includes several searching s...

Fifty years ago today, Led Zeppelin released their second album as a group, appropriately enough entitled Led Zeppelin II.  Recorded earlier in 1969, it was released just 10 months after their eponymous debut album. The band's first number one album, it also contained their biggest hit single, "Whole Lotta Love", a transmogrification of Willie Dixon's "You Need Love", the Small Faces "You Need Lov...

I crossed another name off my "I gotta talk to this guy/girl" list this month when I finally had a chance to have a conversation with guitarist Dave Stryker. I first came to admire Dave's tasty playing during his tenure with Jack McDuff, and then with Stanley Turrentine during the Eighties. Since then he has carved out a spot for himself as a top player, both as a leader (more than an album a year...

Today marks the centennial of the birth of perhaps the most influential drummer - if not the most influential band leader - of the second half of the 20th century. I speak of Art Blakey.  His career spanned all of modern jazz, from learning in the big bands of Fletcher Henderson and Billy Eckstine to cutting contests with Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk. After a conversion to I...

Jazz and theatre as art forms have not intersected that often. One thinks of The Connection , a play form the 1950's featuring music from Freddie Redd and performances onstage by Redd and a young Jackie McLean as one outstanding exception. More recently, Sideman and Blue Paradise dealt with jazz and musicians, but without original music. In his new play ( A)loft Modulation,  playwright Jaymes Jors...

For years Peter Eldridge has remained at the forefront of both the singer-songwriter and jazz realms as a vocalist, pianist, composer, and arranger. Head of the Manhattan School of Music's jazz voice department for eighteen years, he is now Professor of Voice at Berklee College of Music in Boston. Peter and iconic jazz pianist and composer Kenny Werner have joined forces on Somewhere, a collection...

Wallace Roney has been a significant force on the scene ever since he emerged at Ali's Alley at the age of sixteen with Philly Joe Jones. Roney has been featured on impressive work with McCoy Tyner, Dizzy Gillespie, Elvin Jones, Chick Corea, and Ornette Coleman. As a member of the Tony Williams Quintet, Wallace took on the responsibility of infusing the band with his fire and innovativeness and wo...

Living in the Northeast US, it is easy to forget that there is a big, wonderful world of jazz musicians outside the orbit of New York, Boston and the DC area. Prime example – drummer/composer Jay Lawrence, a resident of Utah who put out a CD recently that went under my radar. Thankfully, Sonic Paragon  has come to the top of a large pile of releases, and the rewards are many. Begin with a murders'...

This coming weekend, August 25-27, the Red Sea Jazz Festival in Eilat, Israel, will host the semifinals and finals of the first Michael Brecker International Saxophone Competition. Eight selected aspiring talented musicians will arrive in Eilat to participate in the semi-final round on the morning of the second day of the festival. Only three will continue to the final round performance to be held...

In Podcast 665 in February, Ashley Kahn joined me to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the recording of Miles Davis' In A Silent Way . Considered the start of Miles' "Electric Period", the album was a progenitor of fusion, jazz-rock and ambient music. Our conversation then shifted to the making of Bitches Brew , the highly divisive and innovative double album he would record 6 months later.  Hav...

It's past the midpoint in summer in New England, so why not some summer themed music for these lazy, hot days? Today is August 16th, the feast day of Saint Roch, the patron saint of Dogs, so why not celebrate the "Dog Days"? The Romans associated the hot weather with the star Sirius. They considered Sirius to be the "Dog Star" because it is the brightest star in the constellation Canis Major (Larg...