Straight No Chaser - A Jazz Show

For my money, the greatest four days of the jazz year come every Labor Day weekend, and the People of Detroit roll out the red carpet and put on a blowout jazz festival that rivals any in the world this year will be no exception with a killer lineup to keep you running from stage to stage to stage…. Podcast 373 gives you just a taste of what the music might sound like, with an hour plus of music f...

Ego is never an issue for James Zollar. Acknowledged as a “first call” trumpeter, he is more than happy to be known for his stints playing as a sideman with the Count Basie Orchestra, the Duke Ellington Band, Tony Bennett, Marty Ehrlich, clarinetist Don Byron, Latin jazz percussionist Mongo Santamaria, and Wynton Marsalis’ Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. A fierce straight ahead player, his tone...

The loss of Cedar Walton at the age of 79 earlier this week makes celebrating Wayne Shorter’s 80 th birthday today all the more important. We are losing more of the pioneers who made jazz what it is today every day, so we should savor the music and presence of someone of Wayne’s stature while we can. Thankfully Shorter is alive and well and working, playing with a top quartet and writing new mater...

" I hear in Luke Celenza a young gifted jazz musician who has the right inquisitive attitude and true potential to become one of the key players in the scene. He brings to the table a fresh sound and an uncommon restrained maturity in his music which I am sure will keep on delighting us for many years to come. ”- Michel Camilo Those looking for the next wave of talented jazz musicians need not loo...

CD releases by Steve Swallow as a bandleader are few and far between. While he is constantly in demand as a sideman, with steady gigs on the bandstand with the likes of Gary Burton and Carla Bley, only 2 albums in the last 15 years can truly be called his as a frontman.  That’s part of what makes Into the Woodwork , a quintet recording released on his WATT imprint via ECM, so welcome. The terrific...

Perhaps no musician in recent memory has dominated the critics’ and fans’ polls for excellence in their instruments s much as Gary Smulyan. Downbeat , Jazztimes , and the Jazz Journalist Awards have all given him top honors in the category of baritone saxophone numerous times over the past two decades.  Always in demand in big bands and large ensembles, he is also a strong bandleader in his own ri...

Dave Douglas’ Greenleaf Music label continues to provide some of the most interesting contemporary jazz music being recorded today. The second release on the label for Matt Ulery’s quintet Loom is no exception. Wake an Echo features the same rhythm section as his critically praised 2012 double-CD By a Little Light - pianist Rob Clearfield, drummer Jon Deitemyer, and Ulery on double bass - joined b...

Since its beginning in 1954, the Newport Jazz Festival has delivered line-ups that have both showcased jazz history and predicted it, while the city of Newport has lent the festival an unparalleled home steeped in history and culture. When you throw in fans that really are more of a community than an audience, you have much more than just a series of concerts of a weekend. The Festival left the fr...

Podcast 362 was a profile of educator/musician Ira Wiggins, so it seems appropriate that this Podcast features a student/musician. Drummer Alex Snydman graduated from Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, just a stone’s throw from where this humble writer lives. I became familiar with his name on the local scene, and was pleased to see that he had moved to Los Angeles to pursue his Masters...

Just a year ago I previewed a new music festival, Yidstock! in Podcast 285 . A year later the festival is back, bigger and better. From July 18-21, 2013  at the National Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, MA  there will be live performances, music-related films, lectures, exhibits and other events that will culminate in two days of concerts featuring some of the top names in klezmer and Yiddish music...

Had he not met a tragic end in a domestic dispute in 1972, Lee Morgan would be celebrating his 75 th birthday today.  A peer of the many great musicians who came to prominence with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers in the late 1950’s, Morgan was a major voice on the trumpet, and wrote and recorded Hard Bop tunes as well as anyone, with several of his tunes now standards. A Philadelphia native, Morgan c...

America’s college campuses increasingly include students filling Jazz Studies programs. There are  dedicated schools well-known for producing jazz musicians – from Boston’s New England Conservatory and Berklee School of Music to Los Angeles’ Thelonious Monk Institute – but increasingly the most sought after places are mainstream schools with top programs. These range from traditional “heavies” lik...

Jamie Saft is likely the hardest working musician in the jazz avant-garde today. With no fewer than half a dozen working bands, plus recurring gigs with the likes of long-time collaborator and friend John Zorn, Saft is never at a loss for something new and exciting into which he can throw his many talents. Now living in the Catskills area of New York, he enjoys a beautiful new studio, Potterville,...

I can’t be alone in missing the experience of holding a phonograph record jacket in my hand, reading the detailed liner notes and enjoying the photos and other material those artists and their labels routinely put out before the digital era swept it all away. A number of jazz labels in particular were in the forefront of graphic design when it came to album jackets – I think of Blue Note and Impul...

In today’s jazz world, Terence Blanchard stands with only a few other musicians as a master of performance, recording, education, and composition. His desire to stretch himself artistically has resulted in dozens of Broadway, television and film scores, large scale suites, and now, an opera. On June 15th, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and Jazz St. Louis combined forces to premiere Blanchard’s first...

Jason Miles was coming of age in New York during the late 1960’s, and he and his friends haunted the concert halls and clubs of the day to catch now-legendary performers. One magic evening he recalled was the night they caught Sly & the Family Stone opening for the Jimi Hendrix Experience. I checked his memory to make sure – May 10, 1968 at the Fillmore East. Not a bad bill! Miles was mesmerized b...

The summer jazz festival season kicks off on a high note with the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal, which begins its 34 th run from June 28 th to July 7 th . Besides presenting a series of top notch ticketed concerts, the Festival prides itself on sharing the wealth – one of their themes this year is “10 stages, 300 concerts, 3000 artists – all free.” The Festival itself will be dedicate...

I f we are closing in on the last weekend in June, then it’s time for Summer Jazz Festivals to kick into gear.  Podcast 356 is a preview of the Freihofer’s Saratoga Jazz Festival in Saratoga Springs, New York, held this year on June 29-30 th . A following podcast will focus on the Montreal Jazz Festival, which starts on June 27 and runs through the beginning of July. The Main Stage Line-up for Sat...

Some musicians kill time on the road playing video games or checking out local color. Ken Hatfield kills time before gigs reading. Often Hatfield tries to relate the material he is reading to his music, seeking internal rhythms, interesting themes or using a book as a jumping off point for creativity. Earlier this year he fulfilled one of his fondest wishes by releasing For Langston , a song cycle...

For decades, the United States and Cuba have shared a complex relationship. While there have been many business, travel and diplomatic restrictions between the two countries, U.S. citizens have gravitated to Cuba's tropical culture - taking in the country's sights, sounds and cuisines. From a musical standpoint, in addition to the Buena Vista Social Club phenomenon and the enduring legacy of Los V...

It may be hard to believe, but despite the fact that Bob James and David Sanborn have one of the best-selling jazz albums of the last thirty years in Double Vision , they have never toured together. That album spent more than a year on the Billboard charts, and won them each a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Fusion Performance . When they hit the stag at The Town Hall in New York City they kicked off a...

As a fledgling bass player, I stand in awe at the talent of Marcus Miller. Not only does he have the lightning speed tha only a handful of players bring to the instrument, but he adds to that ability the unerring sense of when to play fast, when to lay back, and how to choose just the right note in any situation. Had he merely been the core of some of Miles Davis' last great recordings, including...

It was four years back that I caught George Benson onstage in Saratoga, New York performing "An Unforgettable Tribute to Nat King Cole." Benson brought along his usual backing band, but also added a small orchestra to supply the necessary string power that the ballads needed. The result was tremendously entertaining. Benson is a natural performer, and his selection of Cole standards was impeccable...

Wadada Leo Smith’s four CD, 4 ½ hour opus Ten Freedom Summers is more than an outstanding work of jazz. Rather, it has to be viewed as a major artistic statement about African-American history, and compared favorably with jazz works like Duke Ellington’s Black, Brown, & Beige and Wynton Marsalis’ Blood on the Fields ; operas like Anthony Davis’ X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X and Adrienne Danri...

When you are asked to think of the “typical ECM artist”, you could do worse than think of Tomasz Stanko. The Polish-born veteran trumpeter has a distinctive, sometimes mournful sound from his horn that has been called “ sophisticated dread” by a well-known critic. His music retreats from the requirement of chord changes and traditional melodies, relying on extended solos over textural foundations....