Straight No Chaser - A Jazz Show

"Just call Nathan; it's locked." – Lionel Richie He could only be talking about Nathan East, the man who is credited on more than 2,000 albums and several Grammy-winning songs including "Get Lucky," "Footloose" and "Change the World." Perhaps the most in-demand sideman in jazz and pop today, his career has gone from being a 16-year-old touring with Barry White 's Love Unlimited Orchestra to Grammy...

Pete McCann is the kind of jazz musician with whose name you might not be familiar, but you almost surely have heard him onstage or on record. The New York jazz scene is deep with players, and while Pete doesn't necessarily hang out in Gotham anymore, he sure seems to get his share of gigs and calls, including those from Kenny Wheeler, Dave Liebman, Lee Konitz, Patti Austin, Bobby Previte, Brian B...

2015 marks the 80th anniversary of Benny Goodman's famous Palomar concert that started the “Swing Era,” and Israeli-American clarinetist Oran Etkin commemorates the event by bringing together a crack quartet, including Steve Nelson (vibes), Matt Wilson (drums), and Sullivan Fortner (piano) for a creative homage to the groundbreaking quartet of Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Teddy Wilson and Gene K...

December will make the centennial celebration of the birth of Francis Albert Sinatra – Ol’ Blue Eyes, the Chairman of the Board. Perhaps the most iconic male singer – if not of all genders – of the jazz age, Sinatra made his mark on American culture by excelling as a recording artist, performer and movie actor. From his days as the teen idol who made the bobbysoxers swoon with the Harry James Big...

It's 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 referred to the dog days as diēs caniculārēs and associated the hot weather with the star Sirius. They considered Sirius to be the "Dog Star" because it is the brightest star in the con...

Last year the venerable Newport Jazz Festival shook off a few cobwebs and let the jazz world know that it was not going to rest on its laurels. The Festival added a third day to the mix and brought more up and coming, avant-garde and student groups to the stages than ever. 2015 promises to be more of the same. Friday has big names like Snarky Puppy and Christian McBride, but also ensembles that wi...

Some significant jazz artists have had tragically short careers. Charlie Parker was gone at the age of 34; Billie Holiday at 44. Lee Morgan has been mentioned a number of times recently on this blog as someone who died far too young – 34 years old – but his fifteen years were so jam-packed with classic sides as a leader and sideman that it hardly seems so.   Gary McFarland, a significant force in...

Three months ago I featured a tribute to trumpeter Lee Morgan on the occasion of t he 50 th anniversary of a number of his finest releases as a bandleader and sideman. A native of Philadelphia, Morgan loaned his trumpet talents to classic albums like John Coltrane’s Blue Train , Art Blakey and the Jazz Messenger’s Moanin’ , and Johnny Griffin’s A Blowing Session . He backed artists like Wayne Shor...

The release of Some Places Are Forever Afternoon (11 Places for Richard Hugo) by composer-keyboardist-arranger Wayne Horvitz gives us another opportunity to appreciate the length and breadth with which jazz composition continues to grow and mature. Commissioned with funding from the Shifting Foundation, the CD is a suite of 11 pieces based on a different poem by Richard Hugo. The instrumentation c...

We haven’t had a good jazz super-group in a couple of years now.   The last time I could really put that tag on a group was the Five Peace Band, led by pianist Chick Corea and guitar legend John McLaughlin, who formed their first group together since playing with Miles Davis decades earlier. They added Kenny Garrett on saxophone, Christian McBride on bass, and Vinnie Colaiuta on drums for a terrif...

“Prolific” would be an understatement to describe the recorded output of saxophone player Ivo Perelman. Over the past 30 months, Ivo has released at least ten CDs under his own name on the Leo Records Label, most of them fascinating avant-garde improvisations on the tenor sax.   His output almost came to a sudden halt last year when he began to experience pain and bleeding from his mouth. He disco...

If it's the start of summer, then it must be time for the Summer Jazz Festival season to begin in earnest, and for me that means the Freihofer's Saratoga Jazz Festival at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center June 27-28.   This year's festival keeps with prior year's thematic goals of presenting both marquee names and the up-and-coming stars of tomorrow, jazz next to classic R&B and blues. "The Hang...

A conversation with Bob Belden can often come across much the same way as his music – “unrelenting, unforgiving, taking no prisoners.” At least that’s how Belden describes the sounds he and his group Animation played on their recent visit to Iran. That auspicious trip – two years in the planning – came in mid-February, and marked the first American musician to play Iran since the country's 1979 re...

The great jazz tradition of family members – and brothers, in particular - continues this month with the release of the new CD from Ralph and Dr. Dave Lalama, the Lalama Brothers, The Crepuscule Variations (Or Songs Our Parents Gave Us) . The brothers had released a fine CD entitled Erie Avenue a few years back, but this time have made the recording a true family affair. The recordings are all due...

When the write the history of popular music composers of the late 20 th century, only a handful of names will appear repeatedly. Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Lennon & McCartney, and Laura Nyro will surely be there. Cases can be made for Smokey Robinson and Randy Newman, and perhaps Tom Waits. And in my humble opinion, above them all, there is Stevie Wonder. In one very complete package yo...

In November 2011, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization ( UNESCO ) officially designated April 30 as International Jazz Day in order to highlight jazz and its diplomatic role of uniting people in all corners of the globe. International Jazz Day is chaired and led by Irina Bokova, UNESCO Director General, and legendary jazz pianist and composer Herbie Hancock, who ser...

1965 was in many ways just another busy year in the life of Lee Morgan. He had established himself as a major talent in the late Fifties, lending his trumpet talents to classic albums like John Coltrane’s Blue Train , Art Blakey and the Jazz Messenger’s Moanin’ , and Johnny Griffin’s A Blowing Session .   He began the Sixties appearing on Wayne Shorter’s initial release, backed by the Miles Davis...

"The Orphic Machine is the poem: a severed head with face turned away that sings." -- Allen Grossman Beauty can often be found in unexpected places. On his new album, Orphic Machine , clarinetist/composer Ben Goldberg creates some of   his most beautiful, lyrical – and oddly accessible -   music to date. Interestingly, though the lyrics are by poet Allen Grossman , they come not from his poems, bu...

Way back in Podcast 175 I introduced my audience to Sachal Vasandani, a singer, songwriter and musician of elegance and style. Three albums later the last name is gone, and there is a new label,   but that wonderful voice remains.  Now going simply by Sachal, his latest CD is entitled Slow Motion Miracles , and it takes Sachal new and different places musically. Gone is the traditional jazz sound...

Jazz only has a few great crooners these days, and few are blessed with the soul of Allan Harris. He has been described by the Miami Herald as an artist blessed with, “the warmth of Tony Bennett, the bite and rhythmic sense of Sinatra, and the sly elegance of Nat ‘King’ Cole,” and his ten recordings as a leader showcase the wide variety of tunes he can interpret. His lives shows in New York have m...

Today marks the 66 th anniversary of the birth of Gil Scott-Heron, one of the most influential recording artists of the late 20 th century. Between 1970 and 1976, often collaborating with keyboardist/flautist Brian Jackson, Scott-Heron merged R&B, jazz and the spoken word in a manner that predated hip-hop and laid the foundations upon which later performers, most notably Kanye West, would build. S...

As Jazz stretches itself a number of different directions, one of the most intriguing is the integration of electronica into the jazz repertoire and sound. No greater statement as to how this can be effective exists than the work of Donny McCaslin, and his longtime bandmates Jason Lindner (keyboards), Tim Lefebvre (bass), and Mark Guiliana (percussion).   In what other band is the bass player call...

The Spring is truly the season of spiritual awakengin and celebration. Holy week for those of the Christian faith is underway, and the first night of Passover, the Jewish festival of freedom, begins Friday evening, just as Good Friday observences end. The festival of Vaisaki, celebrated by Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs is on April 14. Theravada, the New Year festival for Theravada Buddhists, is cele...

  “ My music is the spiritual expression of what I am — my faith, my knowledge, my being…when you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people, to help humanity free itself from its hang-ups…I want to speak to their souls.” — John Coltrane    I was cautiously optimistic when I heard that a documentary about John Coltrane was being greenlighted for thea...