Straight No Chaser - A Jazz Show

Lisa Sokolov does not approach a song like most jazz singers. For her, singing is both an art of listening and making sound, of reaching deep inside a song and wringing out of it levels of meaning that she along can find. Her approach is more avant-garde than middle of the road, and her performances are often fascinating displays of vocal improvisation. When she sings, she is, as she says in this...

He's the big man with the big baritone horn in the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, and Roger Lewis took a few minutes to talk with me last week as he recovered from a busy New Orleans Heritage Festival. The DDBB hits the road this week for yet another busy summer, celebrating 30 years of grooving together. They will be here in Western Massachusetts on May 21 at the Iron Horse Music Hall. Lewis is a living...

When I learned of "The Cat Who Went to Heaven", my curiosity was piqued (OK, OK, here's where you make the joke about what curiosity did to the cat). Nancy Harrow, who had briefly made a name for herself in the late fifities and early sixties as a jazz singer, has reinvented herself by writing jazz "song cycles" for the past ten years based on a variety of literary sources. She's set works by Nath...

Keyboard player Marco Benevento is a logical candidate for "hardest working man in jazz". He performs solo; in a duo on organ with his long-time friend drummer Joe Russo; in a trio currently on tour; and numerous other formats. He recently played the New Orleans Jazz Festival and gigged across the city with the Benevento/Russo Duo, Garage A Trois (featuring Stanton Moore) and has been fronting an...

Jazz musicians have never hesitated to record their versions of songs by the Beatles, but a careful check shows that the vast majority of the songs chosen were written primarily by McCartney, despite being credited to Lennon-McCartney. Clearly there is a preference for the more classic melodies and sounds that Paul took the lead on, rather than the more intricate and sometimes obtuse songs that Jo...

Fusion reigns as Jeff Beck releases a live CD and DVD of his intimate performances at Ronnie Scott's jazz club in London. Check out some rare Beck recordings with Stanley Clarke and Nigel Kennedy, and a track from Beck's recent double-bill concerts with Eric Clapton.

Jazz artists sing the songs of Tom Waits, with an emphasis on the Southside Johnny CD "Grapefruit Moon".

Podcast 140 presents an all-to-brief overview of some of the music that made Prestige Records an iconic label - recordings by Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Thelonious Monk and Shirley Scott.

Defined in Wikipedia : The terms "Mardi Gras" (mär`dē grä) and Mardi Gras season in English, refer to events of the Carnival celebrations, ending on the day before Ash Wednesday. From the French term "Mardi Gras" (literally "Fat Tuesday"), the term has come to mean the whole period of activity related to those events, beyond just the single day, often called Mardi Gras Day or Fat Tuesday or Shrove...

A tribute to the arranger extraordinaire Claus Ogerman, with songs by Michael Brecker, Diana Krall, Joao and Astrud Gilberto, Danilo Perez and others.

Jazz does Motown to celebrate its 50th birthday - Houston Person, Boogaloo Joe Jones, Walter Beasley, David Matthews, and more!

Barack Obama is the 44th President of the United States, and I've got a podcast that mixes Barack's speeches with music as pulled togther by DJ Green Lantern, and then put together with jazz from Donald Byrd, Art Blakey, Hank Mobley, Cyro Baptista and Jimmy Smith. Hail to the Chief!

Some of my favorite music released in 2008 - includes tracks from notable releases from Patricia Barber, McCoy Tyner, James Carter, Melody Gardot, George Duke and Dianne Reeves.

Ten tracks from the Ten Best Christmas Jazz CDs of All-Time as chosen by yours truly. Have a Merry Christmas!

Celebrating the Jewish solstice holiday of Hanukkah, with songs by the Klezmatics, Lynette Washington, Paul Shapiro, Dave Koz and Kenny Ellis.

Get some Satisfaction with a jazz tribute to Rolling Stones' guitarist Keith Richards on his 65th Birthday - songs by John Scofield, Cal Tjader, Jaqui Naylor and Herbie Mann, among others.

A look at new CDs of Christmas Jazz for 2008 - including Spyro Gyra, Al jarreau, Tony Bennett and Bela Fleck.

Have you heard of Kate Reid? Anna Marie Flechero ? Toni Jannotta?  Well here they are, with three other female singers worth discovering.

Podcast 126 features singers putting lyrics to jazz instrumentals - seelctions include tracks by Karrin Allyson, Eddie Jefferson, Cassandra Wilson and Jon Hendricks.

Podcast 125 is a sale to Leonard Bernstein on the 90th anniversary of his birth. Hear songs from "West Side Story", "On the Town" and "Candide" performed by artists like Oscar Peterson, Bill Charlap and Dave Brubeck.

A great book - the story of Miles Davis and John Coltrane and their collaboration together in the late 1950's - deserves a podcast, featuring "Airegin", "Dr. Jackle", "Flamenco Sketches" and a live "So What" from their final tour.

Sorry for the delay - my microphones have been giving me trouble, so I've decided to go ahead and publish the music only for a while.   This one is a belated birthday shout out to the late great Thelonius Monk!

A look at the Duke Ellington classic song "Caravan", with versions by the Duke himself, Fred Hersch, Hiromi, Marilyn Scott, Cassandra Wilson and James Carter.

A set of songs about August, featuring Mark Prince, Brad Melhdau, Dexter Gordon and Lyle Mays.

A tribute to Joni Mitchell's music as covered by jazz artists, including tracks from Herbie Hancock, Sonya Kitchell, Don Sebesky. Brad Mehldau and Karrin Allyson.