Straight No Chaser - A Jazz Show

Those who think that jazz-rock fusion is gone should think again. If you listen to Naked Truth’s latest CD, Avian Thug , you would think it never left. Naked Truth is a quartet composed of Lorenzo Feliciati (bass), Graham Haynes (trumpet), Roy Powell (keyboard, organ and synthesizers) and Pat Mastelotto (drums and percussion). All four augment their instruments with electronics and effects, and Fe...

I’ve been planning this podcast since the Fall, when I spoke with trumpeter Randy Brecker about his latest CD, RandyPop ! That CD was a reimagining by Randy of just a few of the many rock, soul and funk tunes that he had been called upon to play on over the course of his career. That got me thinking of how many jazz musicians had been called upon by popular musicians for their recordings, going ba...

Since winning the “Triple Crown” of Jazz Vocal Competitions – Montreux Jazz Festival, Thelonious Monk International Jazz Vocal Competition and Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition – Cyrille Aimee has been working hard at carving out a special place for her talents in the music world. While she plays and has recorded with her traditional jazz backing group, the Surreal Band, her recor...

Multi-instrumentalists are not unusual on the bandstand or in the studio these days. Reed players switch off from clarinet to saxophone, string players move between multi-stringed instruments from around the world. What IS unusual is Mark Weinstein’s multi-instrumental tale. By the age of 14, when he started to play trombone in Erasmus Hall High School, he also tried clarinet and drums. Playing hi...

For those of you who are fans of seminal fusion groups like Weather Report and Steps Ahead, the drumming of Peter Erskine is well ingrained in your musical memory. Erskine moved away from that louder, more frenetic music years ago, becoming a more accomplished jazz drummer, and then beginning a career in film scores, education and musical application development as his interests in music in genera...

Four years ago I posted a review of The Wee Trio ’s Ashes to Ashes – A David Bowie Intraspective , and had these comments: Rock Star/actor David Bowie turned 65 earlier this week. One of the great musical chameleons of our time – perhaps only Miles Davis tried more musical styles and guises during his career – he’s unfortunately something of a recluse these days, producing little new work. He’s le...

Yesterday I posted a brief obituary of pianist Paul Bley, who passed away on January 3, 2016. For a musician, a written memorial seems empty. Therefore, here is Podcast 514, nearly an hour of the music of Bley, in varying combos, including a number of solo performances. A first listen to these selections, which admittedly are chosen and programmed somewhat at random, might lead a listener to think...

The newspapers and internet are swarming with critics “Best of 2015” lists right about now, but here at Straight No Chaser we once again take a slightly different approach. I am grateful to get the chance to listen to a great number of jazz-related releases during the course of the year, and rather than attempt to say what is “best” using some sort of rating system (A Christgau grade, perhaps?), I...

Here's an hour plus of uninterrupted jazz, our present to you, intended to get you through that last minute shopping, tree trimming, gift wrapping, and egg nog guzzling. I've mixed in a few of this year's newest Christmas Jazz releases to give you something different, plus a number of old favorites.  Hopefully you have been able to enjoy the Holiday season. Here's hoping Santy is good to you, and...

Jazz re-issues and compilations of Christmas tunes are a wonderful way to get nostalgic. So for this Holiday themed Podcast, why not turn back the clock to the 1940's and 1950's - maybe even further - and enjoy some vintage cheer I assembled from a variety of wonderful sources. Is it just me, or do you find that the brass is brassier, the crooning sweeter, and yes, the cheese factor considerable o...

In Podcast 491 we took on the question "What Makes Frank Sinatra Great?".  Go to my conversation with Anna Harwell Celenza, as we discuss the various aspects of Sinatra’s career to determine just why he has remained a major cultural figure today, December 12th is the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Francis Albert Sinatra, the pride of Hoboken, New Jersey. Louis Armstrong and Bing Crosby...

Guitarist Mike Moreo's clean, uncluttered sound s prominently displayed on Lotus , his new CD on Kendrick Scott's World Culture Music. The CD reunites Mike with longtime friends and collaborators Aaron Parks (piano), Doug Weiss (bass) and Eric Harland (drums). For all his talent, Lotus id not a "guitar hero" album, but rather a set of top-notch songs played na straightforward and stirring manner....

Reknown jazz drummer Matt Wilson brings us on a joyful and adventurous romp through holiday music with his celebrated Christmas Tree-O during their 16 Days of Christmas North American Tour beginning November 30, 2015.  You've never really heard “ You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch” or “ The Chipmunk Song” until you have heard them served-up with Christmas Tree-O's elfin sense of humor and dazzling musi...

"Billy Strayhorn was my right arm, my left arm, all the eyes in the back of my head, my brain waves in his head, and his in mine.” – Duke Ellington This week marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of William Thomas “Billy” Strayhorn, one of the greatest jazz composers of all-time. Podcast 5__ celebrates the life and works of the man called by man names - "Strays", Swee' Pea","Weely" – and rememb...

The worlds of classical music and jazz lost a leading light earlier this year when Gunther Schuller passed away at the age of 89. Since the Pulitzer­-winning composer would have celebrated his 90th birthday on November 22, it seems appropriate that two of Boston’s leading musical ensembles—the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP)   and Odyssey Opera— will unite onstage for a special concert hono...

This is my 500th podcast. When I started this project as a creative outlet more than ten years ago, I never thought that it would go on so long, and become such an important part of my identity. Thanks to the many generous and welcoming people in the world of jazz, I have gained access to music, gone places I never thought I would go, and met people that I never dreamed I would meet, The podcast i...

One of the more exciting fresh voices I’ve had the fortune to listen to this year comes from a 22 year old singer-pianist named Ariel Popock. Based currently in North Carolina, she is a graduate of the University of Miami's Frost School of Music and a double-award winner at the Essentially Ellington Competition at Lincoln Center - Outstanding Pianist and the Ella Fitzgerald Outstanding Vocalist Aw...

The passing of Phil Woods last month is still being felt in the jazz world. One of Woods’ protégées, alto saxophonist Jim Snidero, will take a moment to honor his long-time mentor and friends this Thursday with a concert called “ One for Phil” at the Smoke Jazz and Supper Club in New York City . Snidero’s band – Snidero on Alto Saxophone; Alex Sipiagin on Trumpet; Andy LaVerne on Piano; Ugonna Oke...

“Part of our human consciousness constantly searches and yearns for the divine, unspeakably beautiful, eternal, In my world, I call this place Everblue.” - Yelena Eckemoff I have enjoyed the piano-based jazz albums of Yelena Eckemoff for a number of years now. The Moscow-born pianist was a child prodigy, and had been classically trained at the finest Moscow schools. Her teachers included Anna Pavl...

It may be hard for many of us who learned about Jazz from the recordings of Michael and Randy Brecker to accept that Michael is gone, and that Randy will turn 70 years old in November. He must have a recent taste for nostalgia, as he reassembled many of his jazz buddies for a Brecker Brothers Band Reunion CD/DVD set in 2013, and now goes back to his days as a first-call studio “cat“ who could play...

Had it not been for an assassin’s bullet on December 8, 1980, John Winston Ono Lennon would have turned 75 years old today. Given that we lost him at the age of 40, it gives one pause to think about how much great music we might have received over the years from his genius. It’s easy to argue that Lennon’s memorable work came in a spectacularly creative period of writing and recording that began w...

When I spoke with Bob Belden this spring, I had no idea that it would be the last conversation I would ever have with him. Oe tht he would have with a jazz writer. The outspoken Belden had just returned from a trip to Iran with his band Animation, the first American performer to play there since the Islamic revolution in the late Seventies. He had wrapped work on two new CDs, and performed in a we...

When we list the great piano players of the last fifty years, for some reason Monty Alexander seems too often to be forgotten. In a career spanning five decades, Alexander has built a reputation exploring and bridging the worlds of American jazz, popular song, and the music of his native Jamaica, finding in each a sincere spirit of musical expression. In the process, he has performed and recorded...

The Berklee Beantown Jazz Festival—Boston's biggest block party—takes place from 12:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., on Columbus Avenue between Massachusetts Avenue and Burke Street in Boston's South End. The outdoor performances, which have drawn as many as 80,000 music fans, are open to the public free of charge. Check here for updates and a full schedule of events. This year’s festival theme is Jazz: the...

Since the launch of Playboy magazine in 1953, two elements have been remarkably consistent: the first is the celebration of the world’s most beautiful & desirable women and the second is its involvement with music.  If we are to believe Hugh Hefner, the Playboy experience was never to have been just about sex—it was about lifestyle. And music—particularly the finest jazz, a personal passion of fou...