Straight No Chaser - A Jazz Show

Jim Hall, one of the leading jazz guitarists of the modern era, whose subtle technique, lyrical sound and introspective approach strongly influenced younger protégés such as Pat Metheny, Bill Frisell, and Julian Lage, died early yesterday at age 83, his wife said. Hall died in his sleep after a short illness at his Greenwich Village apartment in Manhattan, said Jane Hall, his wife of 48 years who...

2013 has been a wonderfully busy year for bassist Charnett Moffett. While he has been in demand since he left Juilliard to join the Wynton Marsalis Quintet at the age of 16, this year he was able to release two CDs of his own – the solo acoustic bass project The Bridge , and the family collaborative Spirit of Sound – while being an integral part of the Will Calhoun Trio (with the Living Colour dru...

Anyone who loves jazz has undergone an awakening to the power of the music as it is performed in before them at some point in their lives. For Radhika Philip it came about a decade ago, when she followed a yen for live music into the West Village club Smalls to see pianist Jason Lindner's trio. While she had a handful of jazz records at home, scattered classics by the usual suspects - Miles Davis,...

One of the first jazz groups I ever had the chance to really dig at college was Spyro Gyra.  Not as complex as Weather Report, not as overtly funky as Stanley Clarke, not as guitar driven as Jeff Beck, they stood as a solid middle of road instrumental group in the late Seventies, and one of my gateways to getting into jazz.  It’s forty years later, and the band continues to roll on, gaining and ke...

If age and experience set pianist Fred Hersch and guitarist Julian Lage apart, superior musicianship and mutual respect bind them together. On their live duet recording, Free Flying , Hersch, a seasoned player and composer recognized as one of the most creative jazz personalities of his generation, finds common ground with Lage, a preternaturally gifted player whose astonishing command of his inst...

One of the most riveting jazz performance experiences I have ever had came when watching singer René Marie a few years back. Her set was moving along quite well, but then she paused to tell about her musical upbringing, how she learned to appreciate a variety of styles listening to her parent’s record collection. What followed was an intense medley of Ravel’s “Bolero” and Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne”...

Podcast 391 is re-arranged and re-edited from BigO's posting this summer: These tracks come from a radio webcast featuring highlights from two concerts that were part of this year’s Luminato Festival. These concerts celebrated the career of Joni Mitchell and pre-empted her 70th birthday which will be in November. These shows are significant because they marked Joni’s first time on the stage since...

Listening to the music of Joni Mitchell in the late 1970’s was one of my gateways to enjoying jazz. The first Joni album I ever bought was Court and Spark , one of the first times she used a full band to flesh out her increasingly complex compositions. Included on that classic album was a cover of the song “Twisted”, which had been a hit for Lambert, Hendricks and Ross a decade before. I checked o...

"Jazz is supposed to be open, on the road to discovery. That's what Joni is talking about." – Wayne Shorter This week marks the 70 th birthday of one of my musical heroes (heroines?), Joni Mitchell. From   her folkie days in the late 1960’s, through her commercial success in the 1970’s and her decisions to turn away from the mainstream and delve into World Music and Jazz, Ms. Mitchell has always s...

Making a solo piano CD on ECM Records is asking for comparisons. That label features a catalogue of memorable solo piano recordings from the likes of Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, Stefano Bollani, Paul Bley and more recently Craig Taborn. The good news is that Aaron Parks’ new solo piano CD, Arborescence , deserves favorable comparison with these praised recordings. Parks, who hit the scene in a big...

Ah Halloween with all its sugary excess is upon us once again. Here in Western Massachusetts we’ve had two years in a row of tough weather around October 31 st , with a freak snow storm in 2011 and Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Tonight they are calling for rain, but I hope the little ghouls in the neighborhood brave the elements and come over to our house for treats. Either way Nancy and I will be sipp...

To say that singer Cassandra Wilson is “versatile” is to require a redefinition of the word. She effortlessly moves from the Great American Songbook to dusky blues to reimagined 21 st century pop tines with ease. She records with groups ranging from solo piano accompanists to string sections to a band playing acoustic instruments more usually found at a Mumford & Sons concert than in a jazz club....

Alexis Cuadrado is an artist in pursuit of lyricism, a lyricism that functions as a necessary contrast to the schizophrenic logic of a sick city and society; like the voice that prevails against chaos and injustice so as to make its message heard. - Melcion Mateu, author and literary critic This blog has examined the phenomenon of jazz musicians drawn to poetry a number of times over the past few...

Jazz has increasingly shown itself to be a universal musical art form. Events like International Jazz Day showcase artists from around the globe, with the music as the glue the holds together their combos and presentations. One cannot help but be optimistic about the global future, when the bandstand can accommodate performers from more than three dozen countries from Africa the Middle East to Asi...

Perhaps the hottest band on tour right now is an elite lineup of former members of one of jazz’s most influential bands, Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. The Messenger Legacy features bassist Reggie Workman, alto saxophonist Donald Harrison, trumpeter Brian Lynch, tenor saxophonist Billy Pierce, pianist Donald Brown, and drummer Ralph Peterson. Together they honor their former boss with an evening of...

As the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra begins its fall season, its opening program features two composers well-known to lovers of European Art Music, and one well-known to lovers of Modern Jazz.  Their program will feature Brahms’ Liebeslieder Waltzes and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, Eroica , but also pianist Brad Mehldau’s Variations for Piano and Orchestra on a Melancholy Theme for piano and chamber or...

The music of Joni Mitchell has intrigued jazz artists for years, reaching a creative and critical peak in 2007 with the release of Herbie Hancock’s River – The Joni Letters . That CD earned a Grammy for Album of the Year, an extremely rare feat for a jazz release.  Singer Tierney Sutton had been studying the Joni songbook well before the Hancock CD.  The singer had recorded album-length tributes t...

Noah Preminger was just a teenager when word of his saxophone skills was making the rounds in Southern New England. Then he was another in a line of wunderkind musicians from the West Hartford, Connecticut Hall High School Jazz Band, alumni of which include Brad Mehldau, Richie Barshay and Joel Frahm. Now Preminger is an experienced player, bandleader, and songwriter, and he has released his third...

Ah, autumn in New England. This coming weekend it’s time to eschew the country and leaf peeing and head into the city for the Berklee BeanTown Jazz Festival on Saturday, September 28, from noon to 6 p.m. on Columbus Avenue between Massachusetts Avenue and Burke Street in Boston’s South End. The outdoor performances are open to the public and free of charge and will include the likes of Meshell Nde...

Trumpeter Ralph Alessi seems to be everywhere these days. Over the summer, there was his collaboration with long-time bassist Drew Gess on Gress' CD The Sky Inside as well as his duo recording with pianist Fred Hersch, Only Many . September has seen two releases - one on ECM, the quartet CD called Baida ;  and another from the wildly improvisational collaborative called LARK. Add to that concert a...

Is there a musical world that David Krakauer has not yet conquered? The ace clarinetist easily moves between the worlds of classical music, the jazz avant-garde, klezmer music, and dozens of other genres including funk and hip-hop. A leading light of the Radical Jewish Music movement of the Downtown New York scene,  Krakauer must today be seen as one of a handful of musicians of the late 20 th cen...

One of the most enjoyable parts of these blogs and podcast is the opportunity to introduce music fans to an artist they may have overlooked or not yet appreciated. Podcast 376 , my conversation with trumpeter Carol Morgan fits that bill. Although she has released five CDs as a leader, she was just recently tabbed a “Rising Star” from Downbeat magazine.   Her latest CD, Retroactive , on the Blue Ba...

The short list of great music schools available for jazz students these days clearly must include the New England Conservatory. Their internationally renowned Jazz Studies and Contemporary Improvisation Departments not only educate in the classroom, but provide students a chance to interact with working musicians in residency programs and guest visits.  The 2013-14 is particularly stellar, bringin...

For thirty years, Mosaic Records has been reissuing, rereleasing and discovering jazz treasures. Even before that, co-founder (with Charlie Lourie) Michael Cuscuna had become a legend as a producer of jazz recordings for Atlantic and Blue Note, working on many of the legendary sessions that made those labels famous.   The latest Mosaic release of note is The Complete Sun Ship Session , which inclu...