Straight No Chaser - A Jazz Show

It's that time of year – the leaves are falling, the wind is picking up, and sweaters are coming out of the closet. Hallowe'en is upon us, and trick or treat will come on Wednesday of this week. Nancy and I have been cutting down on candy for ourselves, which means more for the costumed creatures who come to the door her in Western Massachusetts. It's also time for the semi-annual Spooky Song Titl...

Although he was born in Texas, Rudy Royston was raised and educated in Denver, Colorado, and it was there that he was mentored by trumpeter Ron Miles, and made a name for himself in the area's fertile jazz, gospel and alternative rock scenes. After supporting himself as a public school music teacher, Royston came east to study at the prestigious Rutgers University music programs, studying percussi...

I don't mind letting you know that Ben Allison is one of my favorite people in the jazz universe these days. He is a top notch composer, a first-call bassist, and an experienced producer with his own label, Sonic Camera. He maintains a busy schedule as an educator at the New School of Jazz and Contemporary Music, as he has for more than twenty years. A founder and former artistic director of the J...

Aaron Parks seems to be destined to be one of those pianists who chooses projects (or has projects choose him) that become great sessions or performances. Whether we listen to him with the bands led by Terence Blanchard or Kurt Rosenwinkel; as a member of James Farm with Joshua Redman, Matt Penman and Eric Harland; on his great quartet album Invisible Cinema; or playing classic trio or solo piano...

By her own admission, Luciana Souza records very slowly, with multiple years passing between her albums. We last spoke in 2012, when she had released two new CDs, The Book of Chet and a continuation of her collaborative series, Duos III . She is one of our finest singers, particularly in interpreting lyrics in both her native Portuguese and English. A lover of poetry, she has written lyrics from a...

It was almost ten years ago that I got the chance to spend some time talking with Randy Weston prior to an appearance at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. It was a delightful conversation, as Weston spoke candidly about his travels across Africa and the many great musicians with whom he had the pleasure to play piano. When Weston passed away last weekend at the ripe old age of 92, jazz l...

Few groups still working on the jazz scene can boast of the longevity of the Yellowjackets. Their first recording sessions were backing guitarist Robben Ford in 1977. Their first CD as a group was released in 1981, and 17 Grammy nominations (2 wins), 26 albums and almost 40 years later, they are still going strong. The cornerstone of the band remains its keyboard player Russell Ferrante, the sole...

The thought of  Steve Turre  inevitably conjures the image of a master of at least two instruments – the trombone, and sea shells (most notably the conch). It's the former that takes center stage on his latest release, The Very Thought of You (Smoke Sessions Records). A collection primarily of ballads, the CD allows Turre to put together a great band to showcase his abilities on the gentler side o...

The amazingly versatile Bob James has taken on – and succeeded admirably with – most of the jazz genres of the past fifty years. During that time, James recorded has free jazz ( Bold Conceptions ), arranged for and accompanied Sarah Vaughn, and then was a key participant in the jazz-soul fusion that was CTI Records. As a writer, producer, arranger, and finally, recording artist, he made a major co...

Before he was twelve years old, Davell Crawford had been crowned "the Piano Price of New Orleans," for his ability to seamlessly incorporate the sounds of the church, the streets and the New Orleans songbook. The godson of the iconic Roberta Flack and the grandson of the great vocalist/pianist/composer James "Sugar Boy" Crawford (of "Jock-A-Mo"  a.k.a "Iko Iko" fame), that heritage and his innate...

"Jazz is the ultimate common denominator of the American musical style." –Leonard Bernstein Today would have been the 100th birthday of Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990), a towering figure in American musical history. If he had only been the master of one area of music – the stage, the screen, the concert hall, television – his legend would have been assured. Instead, he mastered them all.  Much of hi...

Is Stevie Wonder the most covered popular artist in the jazz world? From the singers to the pianists, with a hefty number of Flutes, Saxes and Clarinets thrown in, it seems as if his tunes are the backbone of what we might call the New Standards. And why not? Not only are they well known, but almost always highly melodic, with insightful lyrics. Throw in that Stevie's been known to use some intere...

It's past the midpoint in summer in New England, so why not some summer themed music for what we can only hope will be 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 referred to the dog days as  diēs caniculārēs  and associated the hot weather with the star Sirius. They considered Sirius to be the "Dog St...

If summer begins with the Freihofer's Saratoga Jazz Festival and the Montreal Jazz Festival, then it reaches its apex with the Newport Jazz Festival. Year after year, for three days at Fort Adams State Park in lovely Newport, Rhode Island, three stages (and more!) are constantly filled with the best performers the world of jazz has to offer. This year is no exception. Artistic Director Christian M...

One of the most influential – and yet to my mind, underrated – jazz pianists of our time would have been 100 years old today. Hank Jones is constantly named by some of our finest jazz musicians as a key influence, and today in honor of the Centennial of his birth, you get an hour plus of his music. One of seven children, Jones was raised in a musical family. His mother Olivia Jones sang; his two o...

One of the highlights of the Freihofer's Saratoga Jazz Festival was the performance of singer José James, who led his band in Lean On Me: José James Celebrates Bill Withers . I suspect he will also bring the house down at the Newport Jazz Festival on Saturday August 4, when he'll be one of the headliners. Click here for more info on the Festival, brought to us by presenting sponsor Natixis Investm...

I'm a big fan of piano trios – the interplay between three rhythm instruments, the resulting melodies and dissonances, the way soloists weave within one another to create something greater than themselves. trioKAIT does all of that, and does it well - but this is a different kind of piano trio. The same has been said about the Bad Plus, E.S.T. and other groups that came before them, but the group...

I last spoke to bassist Brian Bromberg two years ago, when his first album in almost four years, Full Circle , marked a strong return to the scene.  Since then Brian has been busy on the touring front, as well as lending his talents to CDs from among others, his long-time collaborator Gary Meek (see Podcast 599). His latest CD, Thicker Than Water , is a throwback of sorts to his large ensemble CDs...

History may show that we are living in the golden age of the jazz archival release. During the past ten years, advances in technology, and the desire of a few dedicated individuals (think Zev Feldman at Resonance) have brought listeners "new" recordings from legends like Bill Evans, Grant Green, Wes Montgomery, Thelonious Monk, and especially John Coltrane and Miles Davis. The Erroll Garner Jazz P...

When I last spoke with Edward Simon, he was on the road with the SFJazz Collective, and was stopping near me in Amherst, Massachusetts. Simon, a native of Venezuela who has become a first call pianist and a bandleader in his own right, has gone on since then to be awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, and an NAACP Image Award for his Latin American Songbook .  His growth as a composer, performer and le...

When we talk about the top jazz drummers of the past fifty years, particularly in the area of jazz-funk and fusion, the short list of real greats has to include Mike Clark. Already a veteran jazz drummer by the time Herbie Hancock picked him for his immortal Headhunters band, Clark wrote the book on jazz-funk, and went on to play in almost all genres of jazz, blues and funk. His credits range from...

Summer can officially begin! The 2018 Freihofer's Saratoga Jazz Festival will take place on Saturday June 23rd and Sunday June 24th, 2018 at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in Saratoga Springs, NY. As always there is a stellar lineup, and this year a few scheduling changes have made the festival even more fan-friendly. For the first time in the Festival's 41-year history, performances will beg...

Riddle me this… What do these recordings all have in common, besides classic recording artists: "Boogie Chillun" by John Lee Hooker; "Back in the USA" by the MC5; "Mothership Connection" by Parliament; "Theme from Shaft" by Isaac Hayes; and "What's Goin' On" by Marvin Gaye. The answer? They were all recorded in United Sound Systems Recording Studios  Established in Detroit, Michigan in 1933 by Jim...

Flutist Jamie Baum has created one of the first truly exception jazz recordings of 2018 with the release of Bridges , performed by the Jamie Baum Septet +. A Guggenheim Fellow, Ms. Baum has deftly merged what we classify as "World Music" with jazz in a way that honors both genres. By taking sounds from the Jewish liturgical music of her childhood, and finding common ground with Muslim/Arabic and H...

It's a great joy for me to find recordings that I've not heard before. Maybe they are vintage, maybe brand new but from small labels or self-released. There are a number of blogs much better than mine in doing this kind of crate-digging, especially Marc Myers' JazzWax . Check it out now!  It took singer E.J. Decker's latest release - Bluer Than Velvet: The Prysock Project – to introduce me to the...