Improv Exchange Podcast

Brian Scarborough is a top-call trombonist, improviser, composer, and educator in the greater Kansas City area. As a musician, Brian is regularly booked as both a bandleader for his quintet and a sideman for many local and touring bands of various sizes, in jazz and other genres. Moreover, Brian is a veteran musician of musical theatre, having performed for more than 50 productions in the greater Kansas City area. Internationally, Brian has performed in the European circuit in jazz, classical, and chamber music idioms. Brian has received critical acclaim as a soloist from international competitions including the J.J. Johnson Jazz Trombone Competition, the ATW Jazz Trombone Competition, and the Gilberto Gagliardi Tenor Trombone Competition, amongst others. Brian maintains a studio of private students and is equally passionate about creating new and interesting educational resources. Additionally, Brian is regularly on the faculty for various jazz camps and presents masterclasses widely.

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Lawrence Fields, born and bred in St. Louis, has earned a spot at the forefront of young jazz pianists, thanks to his blending of vintage ideals with a contemporary mindset. For the last five years, in 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, and 2019, Downbeat Magazine has placed him close to the top of the keyboardist category in their “Rising Stars” critics poll. Fields showcase his dynamic blend of composition and playing in his trio and quartet, and his music is currently being featured internationally. His debut album featuring his trio and solo playing, “To the Surface”, was released to critical acclaim on February 2, 2024.

Veteran saxophone icon Joe Lovano – with his unerring ear for youthful talent – has become one of the pianist’s biggest fans. Fields is a member of several bands led or co-led by Lovano: his Classic Quartet (originally featuring Lewis Nash and George Mraz in the rhythm section); the Sax Supreme Quartet (with Chris Potter); and his Sound Prints quintet with trumpeter Dave Douglas. The Wall Street Journal praised Fields’ “elegant, probing” solos with Sound Prints, while The New York Times noted that he is “integral to the band’s plunging, changeable style.” A modern-minded bandleader from the younger generation also relies on Fields, as he mans the piano and keyboards for the Christian Scott Group. Referencing his role on acoustic and electric pianos in the trumpeter’s band, NextBop said: “Fields remains a constant lyrical presence on the keys – innovative, expressive, supportive, able to soar like a bird in his solos. He never fails to impress.”

Fields has collaborated with Christian Scott on several albums — including co-writing and co-producing 3 songs on the Grammy-nominated The Emancipation Procrastination (Ropeadope, 2017), as part of his work on Christian’s Centennial Trilogy with releases Diaspora and Ruler Rebel. He features prominently in the piano and keyboard chairs on Christian’s Grammy-nominated live recording Axiom (2020), as well as the Grammy-nominated Ancestral Recall (2019), and the Stretch Music (Ropeadope, 2015) and Christian Scott Atunde Adjuah (Concord, 2012) albums.

With Lovano and Douglas, the pianist features on Sound Prints’ two critically-acclaimed studio releases: Other Worlds (2021), and Scandal (2018, Greanleaf) — selected by The Guardian as their #1 jazz album of 2018, as well as one of Rolling Stone’s top 20 jazz albums of the year. Fields also plays on the live album Sound Prints: Live at Monterey Jazz Festival (Blue Note, 2015), which featured two brand-new compositions written for the ensemble by the legendary Wayne Shorter. He appears on the album Marsalis Music Honors Alvin Batiste (2007) alongside Branford Marsalis, Herlin Riley and Russell Malone, as well as on drummer Terri Lyne Carrington’s More to Say (a 2009 disc for which he served as a pianist, keyboardist, and composer-producer). Fields also appears on releases by drummer Jeff “Tain” Watts, bassist Yasushi Nakamura, vibraphonist Warren Wolf, and saxophonists Jaleel Shaw and Steve Slagle. The pianist has been a member of the Watts band, as well as that of trumpeter Nicholas Payton. In addition to performing onstage with the likes of Payton, Watts, Marsalis, and Carrington, Fields has appeared with star bassist Christian McBride, drummer Nate Smith, trombonist Delfeayo Marsalis, trumpeter Takuya Kuroda, and bassist Robert Hurst, among others.

Lawrence's playing is also featured on Christopher North's score for the new Sam Pollard documentary "Max Roach: The Drum Also Waltzes", which premiered in Fall 2023 on PBS' American Masters television series.

Born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Greenville, NC, contemporary jazz vocalist Christie N. Dashiell honed her skills at Howard University and later at the Manhattan School of Music. Ms. Dashiell’s trajectory includes performances with Howard’s premiere vocal jazz ensemble, Afro Blue. She has also performed at the Kennedy Center as a participant in the 2010 Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead program; at the Lincoln Theater in Washington, D.C.; and, as a part of Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Jazz for Young People program. She is the recipient of DownBeat magazine’s Best College Graduate Jazz Vocalist and Outstanding Soloist awards in the jazz vocal category. Most recently, Ms. Dashiell appeared on season three of NBC’s The Sing-Off, as a member of Afro Blue. She can be heard on several nationally released recordings including John Blake’s Motherless Child, The Jolley Brothers’ memoirs Between Brothers, and as a Kennedy Center Discovery Artist on NPR’s JazzSet hosted by Dee Dee Bridgewater. She has since performed in concert with Esperanza Spalding, Fred Hammond, Smokey Robinson, Geri Allen, and Allan Harris.

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Lois Deloatch is a songwriter and vocalist known for her powerful contralto voice and distinctive blend of jazz, soul, blues, folk, and spirituals.  Her original compositions and interpretations of classic tunes resonate with purity and emotion, simultaneously intellectual and passionate. Shaped by and reflective of her early life as the seventh of ten children raised in a rural southern town, Lois’s music expresses cultural richness and timeless truths.

She has appeared in concerts throughout the United States and internationally, written and lectured on music, arts, and culture, and co-hosted a radio show. She has produced five recordings as a leader:  Roots: Jazz/Blues/Spirituals,  Closure, Holy Night, Sunrise, and Hymn to Freedom: Homage to Oscar Peterson, which garnered international accolades including selection as one of the Top 10 CDs of 2008 by JazzTimes Magazine’s Owen Cordle.

Lois has shared the stage with legendary musicians such as pianists, Willie Pickens, Ellis Marsalis, Ernest Turner, and Chip Crawford; drummer Ed Thigpen; trumpeter Arturo Sandoval and saxophonist Branford Marsalis as well as emerging jazz luminaries. 

Vinnie Sperrazza is a Brooklyn-based jazz drummer, composer, bandleader, author, and educator noted for his versatility and commitment to new music. Born in Utica, NY, Sperrazza moved to Brooklyn after completing his studies at William Paterson University, where he was mentored by pianist James Williams. He leads the groups Vinnie Sperrazza Trio, featuring Ethan Iverson and Michael Formanek, whose first album was released in March 2023, and Vinnie Sperrazza Apocryphal, with a new album coming later in 2023, featuring Loren Stillman, Brandon Seabrook, and Eivind Opsvik.

He is part of several collectives, including Ember, with Caleb Curtis and Noah Garabedian with a new album out August 2023, the Choir Invisible, with Chris Tordini and Charlotte Greve, and Landline, featuring Chet Doxas, Jacob Sacks, and Zack Lober. Additionally, he is a member of Matt Bauder’s Hearing Things, the Hank Roberts Sextet, Michael Formanek’s Drome Trio, and many other NYC-based groups. He tours regularly with the Mark Morris Music Ensemble, led by Ethan Iverson, playing Iverson’s scores and arrangements.

Also a committed writer, Sperrazza’s Substack entitled Chronicles has been active since October 2022 and features over 40 in-depth articles focused on the history of jazz and jazz drumming, with deep dives on well-known and lesser-known figures including Pete LaRoca, Ralph Peterson, and Phillip Wilson, among many others. An experienced clinician, Sperrazza’s teaching emphasizes fundamentals and awareness, principles upon which he’s built his musical life.

Shai Jaschek is an Israeli-born guitarist, composer, and music educator in New York City. After first picking up the guitar at 10 years old, Shai has since dedicated his life to music,
playing and performing constantly.

Before establishing himself in NYC, Shai completed his Bachelor’s in Arts from Israel’s top jazz performance programs, such as “The Jazz Institute” at the “Rimon School of Music”, and the “Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance”. During this time, Shai sought the opportunity to seek mentorship from world-renowned musicians, such as trumpeter Avishai Cohen, saxophonist Eli Degibri, and composer Yoni Rechter. As their mentee, Shai developed his unique voice as a composer and improviser.

During his Bachelor’s, he played in different musical groups, such as The Haifa Big Band, and The Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, and became an in-demand guitarist in the Israeli music scene. These experiences led Shai to start his band, play his original compositions, and perform in clubs and festivals both in Israel and abroad.

Driven by his passion for jazz music, Shai relocated from Israel to NYC to pursue his music graduate studies and to be a part of the local jazz scene in the city. In 2021, Shai was granted a Master’s in music from Queens College, an institution with internationally acclaimed musicians, such as Antonio Hart, Mike Moreno, David Berkman, and Michael Mossman. After setting foot in NYC, Shai has been performing as a sideman in different bands and as a leader. His debut album, First Fall, was released in October 2023 and features his original compositions.

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Award-winning vocalist, composer, and educator Kavita Shah’s latest album, Cape Verdean Blues, is the culmination of a diasporic quest to find a spiritual home. The carefully curated album of traditional Cape Verdean music is also a tribute to the charismatic and unapologetically individual artist Cesária Évora, and a love letter to her breathtaking archipelago and its welcoming people. On Cape Verdean Blues, Shah’s ethnographic research on the island of
São Vicente, and her bold self-possession have enabled her to achieve a rare feat: creating a world music album that feels like home.

At the heart of the 12-song album is “sodade,” an idiomatic word that doesn’t have a strict English
definition, but connotes a melancholy sense of transience that permeates Cape Verde, its music, and its free-spirited island population. “In this paradise in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, I found a sense of home that has eluded me for
much of my 37 years,” Shah says. She continues: “When I look back, I realize that upon hearing Cesária’s voice nearly a decade ago, she was summoning me down a path I must continue walking in search of sodade.”

Shah is a global citizen and cultural interlocutor whose work involves deep engagement with the jazz tradition, while also addressing and advancing its global sensibilities. She is a lifelong New Yorker of Indian origin hailed for possessing an “amazing dexterity for musical languages” (NPR). Shah speaks 9 languages—she is fluent in Spanish, Portuguese, and French—and incorporates ethnographic research into original music.

She has researched traditional music practices in Brazil, West Africa, East Africa, Turkey, and India. To support her work, Shah has earned grants from the Jerome Foundation, Chamber Music America, Asian Cultural Council, and New Music USA. Shah holds a B.A. in Latin American Studies from Harvard, and a Master’s in Jazz Voice from Manhattan School of Music.

To date, Shah’s projects include Visions (2014), co-produced by Lionel Loueke; Folk Songs of Naboréa, which premiered at the Park Avenue Armory in 2017; and Interplay in duo with François Moutin, which was nominated in 2018 for France’s Victoires de la Musique for Jazz Album of the Year. Shah regularly performs her music at major concert halls, festivals, and clubs on six continents.

乐团 whose 2020 album “The Adventures of Pie Boy” won Best Instrumental Album, Best Instrumental Recording and Best Arrangement (Bittersweet) at the 32nd Annual Golden Melody Awards and serves as music director for Tia Ray 袁婭維.

He has recorded, produced, performed and arranged for dozens of artists across Greater China, including David Tao陶喆, Li Ronghao 李榮浩， Matzka馬斯卡, Leah Dou竇靖童, Maobuyi 毛不易， Karen Mok莫文蔚， A-Lin, Kevin Sun and more. He graduated from Oberlin College and Conservatory, where he studied Jazz performance with Robin Eubanks. Hsieh plays Denis Wick mouthpieces and the Adams F5 Flugelhorn.

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Terence Hsieh 謝燕輝 is a three-time Golden Melody Award-winning producer, trombone, and trumpet specialist, and keyboardist from Durham, North Carolina who lives and works in Greater China. He is the bandleader of The Spice Cabinet 五香放克乐团 whose 2020 album “The Adventures of Pie Boy” won Best Instrumental Album, Best Instrumental Recording and Best Arrangement (Bittersweet) at the 32nd Annual Golden Melody Awards and serves as music director for Tia Ray 袁婭維.

He has recorded, produced, performed and arranged for dozens of artists across Greater China, including David Tao陶喆, Li Ronghao 李榮浩， Matzka馬斯卡, Leah Dou竇靖童, Maobuyi 毛不易， Karen Mok莫文蔚， A-Lin, Kevin Sun and more. He graduated from Oberlin College and Conservatory, where he studied Jazz performance with Robin Eubanks. Hsieh plays Denis Wick mouthpieces and the Adams F5 Flugelhorn.

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MaryLynn was a founding member of the Grammy-nominated vocal jazz group, Rare Silk.

The group started in Boulder, CO. Their very first album, New Weave flew to the top of the Billboard Jazz charts and received 2 Grammy nominations. MaryLynn and the group toured the world singing in the US, Europe, and Japan.

Rare Silk received acclaim working alongside artists such as Miles Davis, Branford Marsalis, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, and as an opening act for Spyro Gyra and BB King. Their touring took them to some of the best venues in the country - The Playboy Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl, Carnegie Hall, Jacksonville Jazz Festival, Blues Alley in DC, New York Jazz clubs, and Boston Globe Jazz Festival, to name a few. Her experience working within this environment gives MaryLynn a rich history in the Jazz idiom.

MaryLynn’s return to singing began about 11 years ago. She performs locally at Suter Du Bose’s Caffe Sole and in Denver with different musical configurations.

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Nicole Zuraitis is a 2X GRAMMY-nominated jazz singer-songwriter, pianist, and arranger, New York-based bandleader and winner of the prestigious 2021 American Traditions Vocal Competition Gold Medal. With a “heart as big as her remarkable voice,” (Jazz Police), Nicole has positioned herself as one of the top artists and "prolific songwriters" (Broadway World) to watch in jazz and beyond.  

As a recording artist, Nicole has released five albums as a leader, and her sixth album How Love Begins, co-produced with eight-time GRAMMY-winner Christian McBride, was released July 7th, 2023, featuring all original music. It was nominated for BEST JAZZ VOCAL ALBUM for the 2024 GRAMMY® awards…. holy cow.

Besides leading her quartet, Nicole is the premier vocalist for the Birdland Big Band and frequently headlines iconic NYC jazz clubs like Dizzy’s Club at Lincoln Center, Birdland, the Blue Note, the Carlyle, 54 Below, and the late, great 55 Bar. She has appeared as a featured soloist with the Savannah Philharmonic, Asheville Symphony, and Macon Pops. She has supported iconic singers like Melanie, Morgan James, Darren Criss, and Livingston Taylor on piano and vocals. 

Nicole's arrangement of Dolly Parton's Jolene, co-written with renowned drummer and bandleader Dan Pugach, was nominated for a 2019 GRAMMY®, springboarding her career and making her a household name in the modern-day jazz landscape. In 2020, she was named in the top 40 under 40 for 2020 in Connecticut Magazine, and her weekly live stream during the COVID-19 crisis, "Virtual Piano Lounge," was featured in Forbes Magazine. 

Nicole has collaborated with an extensive list of luminaries, including Christian McBride, David Cook, Gilad Hekselman, Veronica Swift, Benny Benack, Stephen Feifke, Cyrille Aimee, Antonio Sanchez, Dave Stryker, Omar Hakim,  Rachel Z, Helen Sung, and Bernard Purdie. She is a proud educator and currently vocal faculty at NYU, SUNY Purchase, and the Litchfield Jazz Camp. 

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Hailing from Charlotte, North Carolina, Sean Mason taught himself to play piano by ear at the late age of 13. Driven by an insatiable passion for learning, Sean’s piano virtuosity evolved into a distinctive language, marking his unique presence in the jazz scene.

Sean’s educational path unfolded from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro to Juilliard in New York City. This transformative transition defined Sean as an artist seamlessly blending his Southern roots with the cosmopolitan essence of New York City.

As the bandleader of the Sean Mason Quartet, Mason directs an ensemble celebrated for bringing to life his highly melodic, original compositions. Sean’s influence also extends beyond the stage. In 2022, his artistry gained national recognition through a feature on NPR’s Jazz Night in America, on the “Youngbloods” series. His versatile musical expressions also found a place in the soundtracks of Emmy-nominated Tulsa Burning: The 1921 Race Massacre (2021) and Netflix’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020).

In 2023, Mason released his debut album, “The Southern Suite,” on Blue Engine Records, the label of Jazz at Lincoln Center. This record firmly establishes Mason among the vanguard of jazz musicians, pushing the genre’s boundaries with innovative compositions.

Since 2019, Mason has recorded and performed with acclaimed luminaries Wynton Marsalis, Branford Marsalis, and Catherine Russell. Through these collaborations, Mason has seamlessly weaved his jazz roots with blues and gospel influences, showcasing his remarkable musical dexterity.

In a realm populated by accomplished artists, Sean Mason stands out as one who pays homage to tradition while fearlessly exploring new horizons in jazz. His melodies transcend mere notes, resonating with the soulful echoes of North Carolina, the rhythmic pulse of New York, and a mosaic of influences that collectively define his distinctive sound.

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Kevin Sun is a Chinese-American saxophonist and composer. His music has been called “...intense, harmonically virtuosic and compositionally complex" (DownBeat Magazine), and he has released five albums to date—most recently a double album entitled The Depths of Memory in October 2023. Sun has also released album four with the bands Mute, Earprint, and Great On Paper, and he appears on recordings led by Jacob Garchik, Dana Saul, Xiongguan Zhang, and Elijah Shiffer.

In addition to performing in the U.S., Sun has performed extensively in China and previously served as the Artistic Director of the Blue Note China Jazz Orchestra from 2018 until 2020, leading performances of the BNCJO at the Blue Note Beijing with guest artists such as Rudresh Mahanthappa, Kris Davis, and Ingrid Jensen. He performs every Tuesday at Lowlands Bar in Brooklyn, where he has been in residence since September 2021 with support from Keyed Up!, a program of the nonprofit organization Jazz Generation.

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For the past 44 years percussionist/producer / composer Zimbel has led the Juno Award-winning nine-piece global / jazz collective Manteca which he cofounded with bassist Henry Heillig in 1979. The group has recorded 14 full-length CD’s, toured the world and shared stages with Miles Davis, Weather Report, Van Morrison, Ella Fitzgerald and become one of Canada top selling domestic jazz artists. Manteca’s most recent CD “The Offspring Project” was released globally on September 15, 2023.

Zimbel has been professional percussionist since 1973 and has recorded more than 50 albums with artists such as Daniel Lanois, Cano, Ellen McIlwaine, Lorraine Segato, Lennie Gallant, Phil Dwyer, Lyne Tremblay, West Trainz, Nancy White etc. He has performed live with Leonard Cohen, Robert Paquette, France D’amour, Kevin Parent, Florence K, Ritchie Cole and many others. He has also been a music and broadcast producer and artistic director with credits that include The Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction of Neil Young, Bruce Cockburn, Stephan Venne and Beau Dommage in 2017 at Massey Hall, The Pan Am Games opening in Toronto with Cirque du Soleil for CBC, Canada Day on Parliament Hill, 2001, 2005, 2011, Canada’s Cultural program at Expo 2005 in Japan and Dubai 2020 and album productions for Lyne Tremblay, Lorraine Segato, Phil Dwyer, Manteca, American Dumpster, Lennie Gallant and others. Manteca’s archives have been collected by the National Library of Canada since 1993.

In addition to Zimbel’s work as a musician, he is a published writer, broadcaster, filmmaker and creator of original radio and television programs. In the fall of 2018 he created, wrote and hosted the 7 hour limited series for Jazz FM in Toronto called “Road Stories”. Matt has also co-created and hosted numerous prime-time national radio and television programs for

CBC including (Café au Lait 93 & Rad Radio 95) and was awarded the Toronto ACTRA Award for best radio host in 1986 for his CKLN show “Breakfast of Champions”. In November of 2020 he launched the original podcast “Yes We Canada” which completed its’ first 26 episode season and is currently producing season two. Zimbel has hosted feature interviews with Leonard Cohen, Robbie Robertson, Buffy St. Marie, Emmy Lou Harris, Shirley Temple Black, k.d. Lang, Steve Allan, Etta James and author’s Ann Rice and James Michener among many others.

He has written, directed and produced numerous documentaries, the most recent of which was the 2015 feature documentary “Zimbelism” on his father, the renowned photographer George Zimbel, which he co-directed with Jean Francois Gratton and which appeared in festivals all over the world including Beijing, Shanghai, London, Barcelona, Los Angeles, Salem and Toronto’s Hot Docs where it was a finalist for the audience award.

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Hailing from the vibrant music scene of St. Louis, saxophonist and composer Willie Morris emerges as a fresh and exciting force on the jazz scene. With a deep-rooted appreciation for the Black-American art forms that have flourished in his city, he brings a dynamic and unique perspective to his craft. 

In this early stage of his career, Willie has already been blessed with remarkable opportunities that have allowed him to perform and record alongside a distinguished lineup of artists. Collaborating with esteemed musicians such as Randy Brecker, John Clayton, Jason Marsalis, Montez Coleman, Josh Lawrence, Donald Edwards, Boris Kozlov, Rudy Royston, and Art Hirahara, among others, Willie has had the privilege of immersing himself in diverse musical settings that have expanded his artistic horizons. 

 A testament to his extraordinary talent, Willie's debut album, "Conversation Starter" (Posi-Tone 2023), serves as a platform for showcasing his exceptional abilities. Teaming up with an exceptional band consisting of Patrick Cornelius, Jon Davis, Adi Meyerson, and EJ Strickland, the album embodies the depth and range of Willie's musical prowess. Through his soulful saxophone melodies and innovative compositions, Willie delivers a captivating listening experience that resonates with audiences on a profound level.

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Born in the Mongolian capital Ulaanbaatar, composer, pianist and arranger Shuteen Erdenebaatar (*1998) brings a unique sound to the audience with her yearning melodies enriched with profound and expressive harmonies and rhythms.

The daughter of Erdenebaatar Gombo, who recently earned the title “The Emeritus of Art” for his 40 years as director of the National Mongolian Opera, and Batkhuyag Ochirbat, a television director and journalist, Shuteen was brought up surrounded by arts and culture - particularly classical music. Accordingly, she studied classical piano and classical composition at the State Conservatory of Ulaanbaatar before coming into contact with jazz through a program at the Goethe Institute. "It was then that a whole new world opened up to me," she says. "Suddenly I had the freedom to play what I heard in my heart, not just what was written in the notes. With her bachelor's degree in classical music in hand at age 20, she yearned to explore the world of jazz and eventually came to study at the Conservatory in Munich. A key moment. She earned two master's degrees both in Jazz Performance and in Jazz Composition, and most importantly was able to find and cultivate her own jazz voice. 

Shuteen Erdenebaatar is a laureate of the prestigious BMW Young Artist Jazz Award 2022, the 1st Prize and the audience award for the legendary Young Munich Jazz Award, the Music Scholarship of the City of Munich 2022, the Composition Prize at the Biberach Prize 2022 and the 1st Prize at the Kurt Maas Jazz Prize 2021, among others. Her compositions have been played in the Munich Philharmonic Hall or in Studio 2 of the Bavarian National Radio. Furthermore, she has also been commissioned by Mongolia's most significant orchestras, such as the Bayan Mongol Big Band, the Mongolian State Philharmonic Orchestra or the Mongolian State Opera Symphony Orchestra. 

Currently she is working as a composer and pianist on her own projects such as the Shuteen Erdenebaatar Quartet, the Lightville Duo, and as a conductor for her newly formed 20-piece, cross-genre Chamber Jazz Orchestra in Munich. In 2023, she signed a three-album agreement with the multi-Grammy award-winning New York label Motema Music, which includes all three of her current projects. The first album Rising Sun with her quartet was released on September 15, 2023. 

About Rising Sun: 

Erdenebaatar’s classical foundation is unmistakable throughout, displayed by her technical brilliance, stylistic finesse, and the thematic structure of her compositions. Enriched by expressive harmonies and rhythm variability, Erdenebaatar’s memorable melodies serve as a framework for her formidable band to stretch out. The quartet consists of a German cadre of fellow players from her university cohort, all now award-winning rising stars and bandleaders in their own right. Bassist Nils Kugelmann, whom Southern Germany’s leading daily paper The Süddeutsche Zeitung named “one of the best in his field”, is a rhythmically and melodically outstanding all-rounder. Drummer Valentin Renner is one of Germany’s busiest jazz drummers, currently the backbone of several notable jazz ensembles in the country. Finally, the creative and highly virtuosic  Anton Mangold rounds out the ensemble on saxophones and flutes. The quartet’s charismatic interplay is a highlight of the album. "It helped me a lot to know everyone well. I already had in mind who was playing each part when I was composing,” Erdenebaatar shares. 

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Aline Homzy is an award-winning violinist and composer. Praised as one of Canada’s finest jazz violinists, she has performed and/or recorded with Danilo Perez, Munir Hossn and The Weather Station. Her music has been performed by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Swedish guitarist Mikko Hilden, and South-Korean bassist Yongwon Cho. Homzy is also a community builder, with a focus on highlighting women instrumentalists and improvisers. She was the recipient of a 2018 TD Discovery Projects Award that saw her curate a sold-out concert featuring female improvisers at the Canadian Music Centre. During the pandemic, she produced the documentary “Sounds of Davenport,” which aimed to showcase musicians in her community through a beautifully captured video-concert, supported by her political representatives. Homzy has performed at the TD International Toronto Jazz Festival, Festival international de Jazz de Montréal, Stockholm International Jazz Festival, and Daigu - South Korea- International Jazz Festival. She was a finalist for the 2022 Toronto Emerging Jazz Artist Award, and was awarded a distinguished fellowship to attend the prestigious Hambidge Artist Residency in Georgia, USA also in 2022. Her debut album Éclipse features her group “Aline’s étoile magique” and was released in August 2023, preceded by a 2023 Canadian jazz festival tour. In this episode, Aline shares her background, education, and musical journey.

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Saxophonist, Multi-Reedist, Composer, Recording Artist, Bandleader, and Educator Sharel Cassity (pron. "Sha-Relle") is a musician well-established on the New York and Chicago jazz scenes. Listed as "Rising Star Alto Saxophone" in Downbeat Magazine for the past decade, Sharel has appeared on the Today Show, won the 2007 ASCAP Young Jazz Composers Award & has been inducted into the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame. Her four albums released as a leader have received top-rated reviews in publications like JazzTimes, Jazziz, Downbeat & American Indian News & earned her a cover story in Saxophone Journal. Cassity's latest album, "Evolve," was recorded and distributed on her record label, Relsha Music.

Selected to attend The Juilliard School Jazz program under full scholarship for a Masters in Music, Sharel earned her BFA from The New School for Jazz & Contemporary Music in 2005. A skilled and versatile sideman, Sharel is a regular member of the Dizzy Gillespie Latin Experience, Nicholas Payton TSO, Cyrus Chestnut Brubeck Quartet, and the Jimmy Heath Big Band.

She has also performed regularly alongside renowned Grammy-winning artists Roy Hargrove, Lewis Nash, Joe Chambers & Darcy James Argue. Sharel has toured 24 countries and performed at leading venues like the Newport Jazz Festival, Monterey Jazz Festival & the North Sea Jazz Festival. Additionally, she has shared the stage with Herbie Hancock, Wynton Marsalis, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Christian McBride, Jeremy Pelt and Natalie Cole. Sharel was lead alto in the Diva Jazz Orchestra from 2007-2014 and performed in Wynton Marsalis' Broadway musical After Midnight.

In mainstream genres, Sharel joined Top 40 hit singer-songwriter Natalie Merchant on her recording "Paradise is Here." She has also performed with Aretha Franklin, Vanessa Williams, K.D. Lang, Fantasia, Trisha Yearwood, Seth MacFarland (Family Guy), Ruben Blades, and DJ Logic.

Sharel appears in publications "I Walked with Giants" by Jimmy Heath, "AM Jazz: Three Generations Under the Lens" by Adrianna Mateo and "Freedom of Expression: Interviews with Women in Jazz" by Chris Becker. An alumnus of IAJE Sisters in Jazz, Betty Carter's Jazz Ahead, and the Ravinia Summer Residency, Sharel has received Downbeat Student Music Awards for Best Jazz Soloist, Composition, and Ensemble.

As a classical pianist, Sharel placed third in the Disney International Piano Concerto Competition at the age of 10, among many other collegiate and state piano competitions. An accomplished classical saxophonist, Sharel was offered a full scholarship to North Texas State University for classical saxophone.

Currently, Cassity has accepted a temporary full-time position at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as Professor of Saxophone for the Fall 2019 semester. Additionally, she has three adjunct positions in the Chicago area at Elgin Community College, Columbia College, and DePaul University. Between 2016-17 Sharel taught internationally as the Woodwind Professor at Qatar Music Academy in Doha, Qatar. 

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Pianist-composer Kris Davis was named 2017 Rising Star Pianist/2018 Rising Star Artist in Downbeat magazine and dubbed one of the music’s top up-and-comers in a 2012 New York Times article titled “New Pilots at the Keyboard,” with the newspaper saying: “One method for deciding where to hear jazz on a given night has been to track down the pianist Kris Davis.” To date, Davis has released twelve recordings as a leader.

Her 2016 release, Duopoly, made The New York Times, Pop Matters, NPR, LA Times, and Jazz Times best albums of 2016. Davis works as a collaborator and side person with artists such as John Zorn, Terri Lyne Carrington, Craig Taborn, Tyshawn Sorey, Eric Revis, Michael Formanek, Tony Malaby, Ingrid Laubrock, Julian Lage, Mary Halvorson and Tom Rainey. Davis received a Doris Duke Impact award in 2015 and multiple commissions to compose new works from The Shifting Foundation, The Jazz Gallery/Jerome Foundation and the Canada Council for the Arts. She is the Associate Program Director of Creative Development for the Insitute Jazz and Gender Justice at
Berklee College of Music.

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Contemporary jazz singer/keyboardist Frank McComb was born in Cleveland on July 15, 1970, beginning his piano studies at age 12 and forming his first trio five years later. His professional break followed in 1991, when he was tapped as musical director for the R&B group Rude Boys, subsequently backing DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince in the studio and on tour; in late 1992, McComb signed to the Mojazz label, and in 1994 collaborated with Branford Marsalis on his jazz-rap fusion project Buckshot LeFonque. The solo Love Stories followed in early 2000. In this episode, Frank shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Born on June 16, 1965, in Carthage, Missouri, Javon Jackson was raised in Denver, Colorado and chose saxophone at the age of 10. At age 16 he switched from alto to tenor and later enrolled at the University of Denver before spending part of 1985–86 at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. He left Berklee in 1986 to join Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, where he later played alongside pianist Benny Green, trumpeter Philip Harper, trombonist Robin Eubanks and bassist Peter Washington. Jackson remained a fixture in the Jazz Messengers until Blakey’s passing in 1990.

In 1991, Jackson made his recording debut with Me and Mr. Jones, featuring James Williams, Christian McBride, and master drummer Elvin Jones. He joined Jones’ group in 1992, appearing on the great drummer’s albums Youngblood and Going Home. Jackson’s 1994 Blue Note debut, When the Time Is Right, was a straight-ahead affair produced by iconic jazz vocalist and bandleader Betty Carter. His subsequent four recordings for the Blue Note label through the ‘90s were produced by Craig Street and featured wildly eclectic programs ranging from Caetano Veloso, Frank Zappa and Santana to Muddy Waters, Al Green and Serge Gainsbourg.

His subsequent four recordings for the Palmetto label had him exploring a blend of funk, jazz and soul with such stellar sidemen as organist Dr. Lonnie Smith, guitarists Mark Whitfield and David Gilmore, trombonist Fred Wesley and drummer Lenny White. In 2009, Javon was commissioned by the Syracuse International Film Festival to compose a full-length score for the Alfred Hitchcock film, “The Lodger,” a silent movie based on the hunt for Jack the Ripper. The original score had its debut at the festival, performed live by Jackson’s band (featuring pianist Manasia) at the film’s screening in October 2010.

In 2012, the saxophonist released a potent tribute to a towering influence, Celebrating John Coltrane, his inaugural release on his Solid Jackson Records which featured the venerable drummer and former Coltrane collaborator Jimmy Cobb. He followed later in 2012 with Lucky 13, which featured the great soul-jazz keyboardist Les McCann and included a mellow instrumental rendition of Stevie Wonder’s “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing” along with a version of McCann’s 1969 hit, “Compared to What.”

That same remarkably productive year, Jackson was the recipient of the prestigious Benny Golson Award from Howard University in Washington, D.C. for recognition of excellence in jazz. Jackson’s debut on the Smoke Sessions label, 2014’s Expression, was a live quartet recording from the Smoke Jazz & Supper Club in Upper Manhattan. On February 18, 2022, Javon will release, The Gospel According to Nikki Giovanni, his fifth album for his Solid Jackson Records label.

Jackson finished and received his undergraduate degree from the Berklee College of Music and obtained a master’s degree from the State University of New York at Purchase, where he also taught. In 2013, he accepted the position of Professor of Jazz Saxophone; Director of the Jackie McLean Institute of Jazz Studies at the University of Hartford’s Hartt School of Music, Theatre and Dance. In this episode, Javon shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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At the start of his career, the great guitarist Kenny Burrell wrote, “Freddie Bryant is a brilliant young guitarist and composer.” Since then he has shown his versatile skills in jazz, classical, Brazilian, and other world genres. Freddie is currently in demand in the New York jazz scene. He worked with Ben Riley for over a decade with the Monk Legacy Septet (Memories of T on Concord Records) and The Ben Riley Quartet (Grown Folks Music on Sunnyside Records). He has been a member of the Mingus Orchestra since the millennium and has toured and recorded with Tom Harrell (Paradise on RCA). His own group, KALEIDOSCOPE whose CD, Live Grooves…Epic Tales is on the HiPNOTIC record label and features grooves from around the world including Brazil, Cuba, and New Orleans, and influences from blues, gospel, India, and the Middle East.

This Spring and Summer celebrate the release of his opus, Upper West Side Love Story, a double CD of his 16-movement song cycle featuring an all-star nonet: Carla Cook – vocals, Regina Carter – violin, Donny McCaslin and Steve Wilson on saxophones and flutes, Gwen Laster and Akua Dixon filling out the string section on viola and cello with the grooving rhythm section of bassist John Benitez and drummer Alvester Garnett. In this episode, Freddie shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Gabriela Martina is a vocalist, composer, and bandleader who grew up in Switzerland. She spent 13 years living and working in the US (Boston & New York) learning from the people who made Jazz (among many other styles of music originating from the US) as important of an art form as it is today.

Gabriela grew up yodeling with her family and had performances as early as the age of 4. Being raised on a beautiful farm in the heart of Switzerland surrounded by a musical family has influenced her musical path strongly. Martina’s upcoming album ‘Homage to Grämlis’ (delayed by Corona 2020), is a tribute to the farm in the Swiss Alps where she was raised. In spring of 2019 she won the LABgrant from The Boston Foundation, which gave her great support with her album production of ‘Homage to Grämlis’.

In the fall of 2021, Martina had the great honor to receive the arts & culture award 2020 from the arts and culture commission Horw, her home town in Switzerland. She also received the DIPLÔME DE MÉDAILLE DE VERMEIL from the lauréats Arts-Sciences-Lettres, 2020, in Paris (France).

During the time of the pandemic, Gabriela Martina has composed nine new compositions for her newest album called ‘STATES’. The word ‘States’ refers to the United States of America, but also to a ‘state of mind’, or simply a ‘state of being’. Sounds created with your voice and percussion/drumming as the first human musical elements. She has used them as the core elements for her compositions. Her works include wordplay, music with words (spoken word) and words with no meaning (gibberish). The release for this album is slated for 2024!

Released in 2016 with a four-star review from DownBeat, her album, No White Shoes, represented a major step in the singer’s sojourn as a 21st-century musician. Martina had the opportunity to perform and collaborate with heavyweights like Meshell Ndegeocello, Jack DeJohnette, and Angelique Kidjo. She recorded with veteran drummer J.R. Robinson and was a semi-finalist in the Shure Voice Competition at the 2009 Montreux Jazz Festival, performing with guitarist Lee Ritenour’s band. Martina released a critically hailed EP in 2010, Curiosity, which included her original song “Ain’t Nobody,” a finalist in the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers Foundation Young Jazz Composer Awards in 2012. Martina owns her own booking agency called Red Velvet Sounds and is cofounder and curator of the free improv concert series In Momentum.

In June 2019 she took part in the Central Swiss Yodeling Festival and graduated with top marks. She has also performed in concert venues such as the Berklee Performance Center, Jordan Hall, International Tennis Hall of Fame, State House of Flags and the Scullers Jazz Club. Gabriela has a bachelor's degree from Berklee College of Music and a master's degree from the New England Conservatory of Music, where she studied with Donna McElroy, Jason Moran, Cecil McBee, Miguel Zenon, Frank Carlberg, Dominique Eade, Ken Schaphorst, Jerry Bergonzi among many others.

Martina is passionate about learning more about other cultures, helping to develop a sense for community, and fighting inequality and racism. She is a strong advocate of causes that promote equal human rights independent of religious or political affiliations. From 2009 to 2010, Martina was the founder and president of the Cultural Leaders Club at Berklee College of Music, where students investigated causes and effects in terms of race, gender, and ethnicity issues. Sonic Relief, which Martina co-founded, was awarded the Berklee Urban Service Award 2016 for using music to aid people in need, such as organizing a humanitarian fundraising concert for Syrian refugees, featuring Simon Shaheen and the Lee Swensen Katz Trio in December 2015.

Gabriela Martina has many hidden talents, one of them being cooking which she clearly proved through her cookbook she wrote during the desperate times of the pandemic 2020/2021 called ‘Dinner with My Neighbor’. In this episode, Gabriela shares her background, education, and musical journey.

“Jazz was the first music that I ever heard. It was introduced to me by my Dad who always played jazz around the house. He regularly sat me down and told me to listen closely to the music, that jazz was life.” Her beloved father passed away when she was 11. “The last time I saw him, he was at the hospital, had me driven in, and he told me that he wanted me to promise him something. He wanted me to promise him that I would sing jazz after I became a woman. Years passed, life went on, and I became involved in performing and recording r&b. But when I was completing the second CD in 2013, I kept on thinking about my last conversation with my Dad. It was as if he was reminding me about my promise. I decided that I would see if I had what it took to sing jazz.”

Douye’ has since worked very hard at finding her own place in the jazz world. Rather than doing it halfway or merely copying the great jazz singers of the past, she was determined to study hard, learn a countless number of songs, and sing jazz in her own way. She paid close attention to the reactions of the audience and the musicians when she appeared at jazz jams at the World Stage in Los Angeles. “If I did not sound any good, they would certainly tell me! I gained the courage to give it a real try after getting some confirmation from the jazz crowd that I could do this.”

Daddy Said So features Douye’ singing a set of classic jazz standards. Her voice is attractive, warm, and quietly emotional, has a solid sense of swing, and she clearly has a deep understanding of the lyrics. It is an awe-inspiring jazz debut for the up-and-coming singer.

Rather than utilize the same group of musicians on each selection, a wide variety of brilliant jazz artists make memorable appearances throughout the release. Douye’ originally made demos of the songs that she planned to record, sent them to many of her favorite musicians, and happily discovered that every artist was interested in being on her project.

Douye’ recorded “Nature Boy” as a duet with the immortal bassist Ron Carter. “It was funny. He suggested that we meet for the session at 11. I said, ‘Alright but I would be there at 10:30.’ Ron Carter replied that he would make it by 10:30 too. I arrived at the studio at 10:17 and he was already there! I think we were finished with ‘Nature Boy’ before 11.”

“Mood Indigo” and “I Loves You Porgy” were recorded with veteran pianist Kenny Barron’s trio. “But Beautiful” and “All The Things You Are” feature a talented Nigerian tenor-saxophonist Zem Audu and pianist Benito Gonzalez. Douye’ originally recorded “Lush Life” and “Sophisticated Lady” as duets with her friend the late pianist Joel Scott. Later, tasteful bass and drum parts were added but Douye’ kept Scott’s beautiful accompaniment intact. “Round Midnight” and “In A Sentimental Mood” was performed with pianist-arranger John Beasley and a few of Los Angeles’ top jazz players (saxophonist Bob Sheppard, bassist John Clayton, and drummer Roy McCurdy). Check out Douye’s deep-toned vocal on “’ Round Midnight” and Beasley’s emulation of Duke Ellington’s piano playing on “In A Sentimental Mood” from Duke’s famous collaboration with John Coltrane.

Every performance has its special moments. The great guitarist Russell Malone not only arranged “Body And Soul” but organized a group that included trumpeter Jeremy Pelt and drummer Willie Jones III. “Autumn Leaves” (arranged by Angelo Metz as was “Besame Mucho”)) and “Someone To Watch Over Me” (arranged by Phil Small and produced by Metz) find Douye’ joined by the Kim Richmond Orchestra while the warm tenor-sax of Justo Almario co-stars on “Besame Mucho.” Also included on Daddy Said So is a very spirited rendition of “Summertime” that was recorded in New York with a band of young Cuban Americans led by drummer-arranger Zack O’Farrill (the 21-year-old son of Arturo O’Farrill).

“I’m so grateful,” says Douye’. “While it took time to coordinate everyone’s schedules, each session came together very quickly. It was so enjoyable that it confirmed my decision to sing jazz.”

Douye’ was born in Lagos, Nigeria, and regularly spent her summers in England. She was in a church choir in Africa when she was quite young and often sang along with recordings from her father’s record collection. Douye also wrote poems and songs as she grew up. Early on she knew that singing was going to be her lifelong love. In her pursuit of singing, she moved to Los Angeles to attend the Musicians Institute as a vocal major. While attending school, she met songwriter Terry Shaddick who had composed the giant hit “Physical” for Olivia-Newton John. Shaddick and Douye’ soon formed a musical partnership, writing all of the fresh new music for her first two albums Journey and So Much Love. During this era, Douye’ performed classic r&b inspired by Anita Baker, Sam Cooke, Sade, Regina Belle, Rachelle Ferrell, and other major soul singers. In this episode, Douye shares her background, education, and musical journey.

Tony Monaco began his keyboard life at age eight, on the accordion. When he was twelve, his destiny as a jazz organist was sealed when he first heard Jimmy Smith. An enthusiastic student, Tony began working in Jazz clubs as a teenager in his native Columbus, Ohio, guided by local organ gurus Hank Marr and Don Patterson. For further inspiration, he studiously absorbed the mastery of Jimmy McGriff, Richard "Groove" Holmes, Charles Earland, Jack McDuff, and Dr. Lonnie Smith. All would play a role in the development of his musical palette. On Tony's sixteenth birthday, his prayers were answered. He received an encouraging phone call from Jimmy Smith, who soon became his Mentor/Teacher. Four years later, Jimmy Smith invited Tony to play at his club in California--a peak lifetime experience for Tony.

From 1980 to 2006, Tony stood by his family businesses and married to have three daughters, while running Monaco’s Palace Italian restaurant for ten years while performing weekly in the lounge. Tony then entered the food brokerage industry peaking towards Torchbearer status with SYSCO Foods. Always inspired by music, Tony then went to work as an assistant Broadcast producer for a prominent ad agency learning his production skills and playing gigs at night to continue supporting his family. After graduating from college with a B.S.B.A. from Franklin University in 1989, Tony's occupation changed again to supervisor of Monaco Concrete (“my Father needed a good manager and my daughters were getting close to going to college!”).

Tony now enjoys and concentrates on all his musical energies flourishing ultimately as he pursues his passions. In April 2000, Tony met fellow jazz organist Joey DeFrancesco, who offered to produce a debut CD for him. This collaboration resulted in the critically acclaimed "Burnin Grooves”. The international success of the recording served as the catalyst for regional and national tours. This success was followed by two more releases for Summit Records that received critical acclaim and significant sales, charting in the Jazzweek Top 10. In September 2003, Summit Records released "A New Generation”, a unique recording featuring both Tony's and Joey DeFrancesco's Trios. They recorded the project using two "Hammond-Suzuki New B3's" as Tony was awarded a major endorsement role with Hammond and Suzuki. As Tony’s reputation has grown, he has been blessed to play with some of the greatest musicians in jazz, including Mel Lewis, Lewis Nash, Red Holloway, Plas Johnson, Sonny Fortune, Jon Faddis, Adam Nussbaum, Bruce Forman, Harvey Mason, Chester Thompson (drummer) Herlin Riley, Matt Wilson, Jeff Clayton, Terrell Stafford, Eric Alexander, Late Bobby Durham, Russell Malone, Peter Bernstein, Paul Bollenback, Bruce Forman, Kevin Mahogany, Victor Lewis, Pat Martino, Fareed Haque, and even George Benson.

An ardent student of the organ, it's no surprise that Tony is an accomplished teacher as well. In addition to private students, classes and clinics, Tony has produced a series of instructional DVDs titled "Playing Jazz Hammond" that have quickly become indispensable for any serious student of the organ. Tony teaches Lessons online with a system he created giving lessons one on one online to anyone from anywhere around the globe!

Presently, Tony maintains a busy schedule touring, including festival appearances, clinics, and workshops In 2007 he appeared on the cover of Keyboard Magazine. In April 2012, Tony released "Celebration Life * Love * Music, a two-disc set of all originals as he continues to Celebrate his Musical gifts and shares his skills with everyone. Tony’s drive as an innovator and missionary continues to carry forward his passion for the Hammond Organ. Now Executive Producer of the Summit Records subsidiary Chicken Coup Records, he has recorded and released CDs for several undiscovered organists around the globe, and his role as an educator has allowed him to spread and cultivate many new hopefuls to the art of the jazz organ.

In 2014 Tony released Furry Slippers with fellow guitarist Fareed Haque and Drummer Greg Fundis! Topping the Jazz and College charts and gaining several reviews!

Tony continues his mission to raise awareness and appreciation of the jazz organ and its importance in genres as diverse as traditional Gospel, RnB, and Modern Jazz. He is formulating new strategies and record deals using his network through Chicken Coup Records to help himself and his peers and students advance in this ever-changing music market and utilize new technologies and markets. Tony is a vital source of musical experience, knowledge, and humility ready, willing, and able !!! In 2017, Tony celebrated a special anniversary, celebrating 50 years as a musician! In January 2019, Tony released his 11th Internation release "The Definition of Insanity" on his Chicken Coup Records label. He will be recording his second venture with Drummer great Steve Smith and Guitarist Vinny Valentino as Groove Blue Trio Tours Russia and Europe! Tony's looking forward to recording both new Instructional Vids as well as New Music while touring globally! In this episode, Altin shares his background, education, and musical journey.

A native of the Ohio Valley, Dorothy fulfilled her dream of moving to New York City in 1970 and stayed there for fifty years. She was a friend, fellow musician, and confidante to her husband, Mike Longo, for thirty-two years. Steeped in classical piano training since the age of six, she earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music and music education. Dorothy brought a love for jazz music and humanity to New York City and her collaborations with Mike. It was a love that extended far beyond the jazz scene and was elevated by their involvement with the Bahá’í Community. In this episode, Dorothy shares her background, education, and musical journey.

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Altin Sencalar began his studies at Texas State University, studying with Freddie Mendoza. While attending TSU, he gained entrance into the thriving Austin music scene and began emerging as a new talent. Altin soon moved to Austin and attended the University of Texas at Austin’s Butler School of Music, where he studied under the tutelage of Andre Hayward. He became a fixture in the local music scene after being named a “2017 Top 10 Austin Music Awards Horn Player” and recording his debut album, Introducing Altin Sencalar.

After completing his bachelor’s degree from UT, he was given the opportunity to travel as a soloist with the University of Texas Jazz Orchestra to the Montreux Jazz Festival, North Sea Jazz Festival, and Luxembourg Gardens in Paris, France. Altin then attended Michigan State University as the Graduate Assistant to Michael Dease and Rodney Whitaker, where he pursued his Master of Music in Jazz Studies. While at MSU, Altin co-founded the Sencalar/Glassman Quintet with fellow trombonist Chris Glassman and released two co-led albums. His sophomore album, released in 2021, is titled Reconnected and explores his Mexican/Turkish/Texan roots. His latest full-length release, In Good Standing (Posi-Tone, 2023) finds Altin with some New York City heavyweights and shows his growth as a composer, musician, and band leader.

Altin has gained international and national recognition through numerous competitions and awards. Such honors have come from Yamaha, The American Trombone Workshop Jazz Competition solo divisions, International Trombone Association’s Jazz Solo – Carl Fontana Competition and J.J. Johnson Competition, the Kai Winding Trombone Ensemble Competition, Texas State Trombone Symposium Michael Rath Jazz Solo Competition, Downbeat Student Music Awards, and the International Tuba-Euphonium Association Rich Matteson Jazz Euphonium Competition, among others. In this episode, Altin shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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A native of São Paulo, Brazil, Felipe Salles has been an active musician in the US since 1995, where he has worked and recorded with prominent jazz artists, including Randy Brecker, Paquito D’Rivera, David Liebman, Melissa Aldana, Lionel Loueke, Jerry Bergonzi, Chico Pinheiro, Magos Herrera, Sofia Rei, Yosvany Terry, Jovino Santos Neto, Oscar Stagnaro, Luciana Souza, and Bob Moses. He has toured extensively in Europe, North and South America, India, and Australia, as a sideman and a leader of his own group.

Salles is a 2018 Guggenheim Foundation Composition Fellow, a 2021 South Arts Jazz Road Creative Residency Grant Fellowship recipient, a 2015 NALAC Fund for the Arts Grant winner, a 2009-2010 winner of the French American Jazz Exchange Grant, and a 2005-2006 winner of the Chamber Music America New Works: Creation and Presentation Grant Program, grants sponsored by The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. He was awarded First Place in the 2001 Concurso SGAE de Jazz " TETE MONTOLIU; 2001, with his composition The Return of The Chromo Sapiens.

His arrangements and compositions have been performed by some of the top groups in the world including The Metropole Orchestra, UMO Helsinki Jazz Orchestra, Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, Amazonas Band, Helsinki Philharmonic Violas, Meta4 String Quartet, Manhattan School of Music Jazz Orchestra, Manhattan School of
Music Jazz Philharmonic Orchestra, New England Conservatory Jazz Orchestra, and New England Conservatory Wind Ensemble, among others.

Salles has released nine critically acclaimed recordings as a leader.

Departure (Tapestry, 2012) received 4 stars from DownBeat Magazine and placed on their best albums of the Year list in 2013. They noted that Salles is adept at “crafting pieces that juggle intriguing complexity with buoyant rhythms and lush colors.” JazzTimes Magazine noted that “Felipe Salles blends the visceral and the
cerebral on his fascinating fifth album, infusing classical modernist strains with the buoyant rhythms of his Brazilian homeland.”  Ugandan Suite (Tapestry, 2014) also earned a place on DownBeat Magazine’s best albums of the Year list in 2014 and was praised by jazz guitarist Lionel Loueke: “This is one of the best
progressive works I have heard in a long time. What a great blend of classical, African, and Jazz music.” Varanda (Tapestry, 2017) with the Brazilian jazz collective titled The Reunion Project, also earned critical acclaim including 4.5 stars in DownBeat Magazine.

The Lullaby Project and Other Works for Large Jazz Ensemble (Tapestry, 2018) is Salles’ first large jazz ensemble recording and was composed for and recorded by his own Interconnections Ensemble, to critical acclaim (DownBeat Magazine’s best albums of the year list in 2019).

His second extensive ensemble recording, the ambitious The New Immigrant Experience (Tapestry, 2020), was released as a CD/DVD set, to critical acclaim, including a 4.5 stars review from DownBeat Magazine, making the magazine’s list of best albums of 2020. He has recently released a quartet album, Tiyo’s Songs of Life (Tapestry, 2022), featuring Avery Sharpe, Zaccai Curtis, and Jonathan Barber, and his third significant ensemble recording, Home is Here (Tapestry, 2023), featuring an array of guest artists. Felipe Salles is a D’Addario Woodwinds Select Reeds and Conn-Selmer Saxophones Artist/Clinician. He currently leads both The Felipe Salles Group and The Felipe Salles’ Interconnections Ensemble and works as a member of the New World Jazz Composers Octet, Kyle Saulnier Awakening Orchestra, Alex Alvears Mango Blue, and Gonzalo Grau (Grammy Nominated) La Clave Secreta.

Felipe Salles has a Master's and a Graduate Diploma in Jazz Performance from New England Conservatory, and a Doctorate in Jazz Arts Advancement from Manhattan School of Music. He is a Professor of Jazz and African American Music Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he has taught since 2010. In this episode, Felipe shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Flute-playing soul-jazz phenomenon Ragan Whiteside has become one of the genre’s most consistently dynamic and popular artists. Thanks to her incredible skill and creativity on her chosen instrument, as well as her charismatic presence on stage, Whiteside is at the top of her game. That was demonstrated in October 2022, when she became the first artist to win the competitive Best Contemporary Jazz Artist Award at the inaugural Jazz Music Awards, held at the Cobb Energy Centre in Atlanta. Whiteside is also a 2023 NAACP Image Award Nominee and four-time nominee for the Smooth Jazz Network’s Best Artist Award.

That distinction is well-deserved, as the Atlanta-based musician, songwriter, and vocalist have become one of very few women players to excel in the male-dominated instrumental sphere, garnering eight consecutive Top Ten Billboard airplay singles by 2022. And she’s done it as an independent artist, releasing projects on Randis Music, the label she founded with her husband, producer, and composer Dennis Johnson.

Her most recent full-length project, 2022’s Thrill Ride, is her sixth career album to date and it lives up to its title, demonstrating Whiteside’s breathtaking virtuosity and melodic skills on a thrilling journey through a landscape of dynamic grooves. The project features eight songs, which are largely produced by her longtime collaborators Dennis Johnson and Bob Baldwin. Other producers include Chris “Big Dog” Davis on the sexy update of Stevie Wonder’s “Don’t You Worry Bout A Thing,” and James Lloyd of the veteran group Pieces Of A Dream, who contributes “A Toast At Sunset” as writer and keyboardist as well.

Her third single from the project, “Full Court Press,” is a smooth and sexy groove co-written by Whiteside with the team of Johnson and Baldwin, who produced, and featured guitarist Phil Hamilton and drummer Rich Harrison, also known as the artist RAH.

Whiteside’s previous single was the title track, “Thrill Ride,” which was also written and produced by Johnson, Baldwin, and Whiteside, and features guitarist Hamilton and drummer RAH. The single peaked at No. 1 on five radio charts, including the Billboard Smooth Jazz Chart, Mediabase, the Smooth Jazz Network, Radiowave and Groove Jazz Music. Her previous single from the set, “Off The Cuff,” not only peaked at

No. 7 on the Billboard Smooth Jazz Airplay chart, where it spent 17 weeks, but it also earned her the Jazz Music Awards nomination that she ultimately won.

In addition to her projects, Whiteside has been a busy collaborator. Over the last two years, the native New Yorker also charted at No. 1 on the Billboard Smooth Jazz Airplay chart for her collaboration with Kim Scott’s 2022 remake of Ashford & Simpson’s 1978 mega-hit, “I’m Every Woman” along with Althea René, which peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard Smooth Jazz chart. Whiteside also co-wrote Bob Baldwin’s top-charting hit, “B Positive,” with production partners Dennis Johnson and Baldwin. Additionally, she is featured on “This Time Around” with contemporary jazz artist Jarez, from his latest project, J Funk City. In 2022, she appeared on two tracks, “Seven Eight” and “Solo,” on veteran jazz drummer Billy Cobham’s new album, Drum’N’Voice Vol. 5.

Whiteside has continued to delight fans and critics alike with her engaging, upbeat melodies and exhilarating flute playing. Tunes like “Thrill Ride,” “Off The Cuff,” “JJ’s Strut,” “Reminiscing,” “Jam It,” “Early Arrival,” “See You At The Get Down,” and the Billboard No. 1 “Corey’s Bop” have burnished her reputation. But while Whiteside has made her mark fusing inspired flute melodies and breathtaking solos with hip upbeat grooves, she gained her musical acumen by training as a classical flutist.

Originally from Mount Vernon, New York, Whiteside played drums, piano, and violin in elementary school before a desire to be in the marching band put the flute in her hand at age 8. “They had this thing called Band Day where all the public schools would march in a parade through Mount Vernon. I said, ‘Oh. I need to be in this parade.’” There were no violins in the marching band, so Whiteside was offered the flute. “I did not want to play the flute. And it took me about a week to get a sound out of it,” she says.

But once young Whiteside locked onto the instrument, she immediately focused on
what kind of music she wanted to play but was steered into a more traditional path.
“My parents got me a private teacher. I said to my teacher, ‘Okay, I want to do jazz.’ And he was like, ‘No, you’re going to play classical,’” Whiteside recalls. “‘I don’t want to play classical.’ ‘Well, you can play jazz later, but you need to get your foundation in classical music.’ Once again, I was being forced into something, but I started playing and I started getting good at it, and I started to like it.”

The young flute player got good and got serious. She participated in Mount Vernon High School’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU-influenced marching bands), entered multiple musical competitions – some with cash prizes – and won. Members of the National Association of Negro Musicians mentored her, many of whom held positions as opera singers, orchestrators, music directors, and instrumentalists in classical music at a time when African Americans were still not often included. She also participated in the NAACP’s ACT-SO (Academic, Cultural, Technological, and Scientific Olympics) competitions for young people, where she won both regional and national titles in two different years. With these distinctions under her belt, Whiteside went on

to the Cleveland Conservatory of Music, where she was one of just six African American students. When she transferred to the highly competitive HARID Conservatory in Boca Raton, Florida, she discovered she was now the only one.

After receiving so much encouragement and mentoring during her high school years, this was a culture shock. “I was on my own, there was no support, there was nobody I
could go and talk to,” Whiteside explains. “On top of that, just being in a classical conservatory, it's cutthroat, it's competitive, it's hardcore. A lot is expected of you, and
everybody's trying to go after the same five or six openings.” The pressure to perform was intense and her motivation for that life started to wane. During her senior year-end performance, for which she was to play a well-rehearsed, 20-minute flute concerto, Whiteside went blank halfway through. Offered the opportunity to start again, Whiteside realized she was at a turning point and instead walked out.

Influenced by such diverse flute masters as jazz-classical player Hubert Laws, the late Latin jazz artist Dave Valentin, and the French classical flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal, Whiteside received rigorous musical training that prepared her to play in the most prestigious symphony orchestras in the world, but after graduation, Whiteside admits she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do. Back home in Mount Vernon, she attended a show at a local jazz club where keyboardist, producer, and composer Bob Baldwin was headlining. While watching, Whiteside says she had an epiphany: “I was sitting up front and I said, ‘Oh my God. This is what I want to do.’ ”

After the show, she introduced herself to Baldwin. “I told him, ‘Look I'm a classical musician but I want to make the transition to jazz. Do you have any advice for me? And we talked for a while and he pretty much took me under his wing, right then and there,” Whiteside explains. “And two days later, I went to a studio in Yonkers, and it turned into my first non-classical studio session.” Whiteside performed a Stevie Wonder tune for Baldwin and studio owner Dennis Johnson, who later became her husband. “I played a Stevie Wonder tune, and they’re like, ‘Hey, we need some flute on this jingle for [New York smooth jazz station] CD 101.9.’ And I did that, and from there Bob taught me how to make that transition from classical to jazz, and Dennis showed me the ins and outs of audio recording and using computers to compose music.” Since then, Johnson and Baldwin have become Whiteside’s frequent songwriting collaborators.

Whiteside instantly began her successful foray into the contemporary soul-jazz sphere. After launching the Randis Music label in 2007 with her husband Johnson, she collaborated with Johnson and Baldwin again on her 2007 release Class Axe, 2012’s Evolve, 2014’s Quantum Drive, 2017’s Troublemaker, and 2020’s five-track EP Five Up Top. She also teamed with popular saxophonist Kim Waters for the 2017 release Early Arrival. She has collaborated on tracks with several artists including Marion Meadows, Patrice Rushen, Tom Brown, Walter Beasley, Melba Moore, Chieli Minucci, Frank McComb, and others. She has also been a popular performer at the Berks Jazz Fest, the Seabreeze Jazz Festival, the Mallorca Smooth Jazz Festival in Spain, and the Capital Jazz Super Cruise.

Meanwhile, Whiteside and her husband Dennis Johnson made the jump from New York to Atlanta when it became clear that Atlanta offered a more attractive lifestyle. Further, digital technology has made it easy to produce and distribute music from anywhere. “Atlanta is like a hub,” Whiteside explains. “You can get to so many different places relatively quickly from Atlanta. For the first time, we were able to get to New Orleans, Nashville, Houston, the Carolinas, and all over Florida without having to fly, and every place we went, we experienced new musical influences.”

Whiteside has also maintained a career as a tech consultant and her role as a mother of two. In late 2020, Whiteside added another title to her list of accomplishments: Radio personality. Spotted at a show by David Linton, a former label executive and current program director of Atlanta’s station, Jazz 91.9 WCLK, Whiteside was offered the opportunity to audition as a host. She now holds down the popular No. 1 Saturday morning show “Saturday with Ragan Whiteside, ” another role she has grown to enjoy.

With so many professional balls to juggle, and the concert industry opening back up, Ragan Whiteside can lay claim to life as a contemporary jazz star as one big “Thrill Ride.” In this episode, Ragan shares her background, education, and musical journey.

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Superb Alto Saxophonist Christopher McBride has been slowly but steadily turning heads with his ubiquitous work as an invaluable sideman since the mid-aughts. Now Christopher is gaining respect amongst fans, critics, and his peers as one of the most versatile saxophonists in the world. His 2012 debut album Quatuor de Force certainly establishes his ability to front a group and write his own soulful, melodically indelible tunes. Applauded for his ability to play in all musical situations, McBride has the ability to unleash a fiery attack and serrated tone, but on his recent album he explores a more measured, mellow sound heavily influenced by contemporary R&B—with a strong shot of Cannonball Adderley’s post-bop sensuality–but his improvising is very rigorous and cogent.

Starting his professional career in Chicago in 2007, Christopher has been in high demand around the world as a musician, composer, arranger,

and educator. In addition, since moving to New York in 2013 his group The Whole Proof has played venues all over New York such as Smalls Jazz Club, Smoke Jazz Club, Ginny's Supper Club & Fat Cat. The musicians he has performed for stretches over many genres with artists such as Billy Preston, Jimmy Heath, Bobby Broom, Percy Gray, Roy Hargrove, Talib Kweli, Lupe Fiasco, Guy Sebastian, Solange, Ne-Yo, Jennifer Hudson, Alice Smith, Brandon Flowers, Lea DeLaria, 88 Keys, Milton Mustafa, Winard Harper, and the Marquis Hill Blacktet. He now currently resides in Brooklyn, New York. In this episode, Christopher shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Benjamin Lapidus is a Grammy-nominated musician who has performed and recorded throughout the world as a bandleader and supporting musician playing guitar, Cuban tres, Puerto Rican cuatro, touch style/tapping instruments (Warr guitar and Chapman Stick), as well as organ. As a scholar, he has published widely on Latin music, and he is a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY, and The Graduate Center.

Since the 1990s, Lapidus has performed and/or recorded Cuban tres, Puerto Rican cuatro, guitar, voice, and other instruments on film soundtracks, video games, television commercials, and albums with some of the most notable musicians in Latin music and jazz. Some of these collaborations include performances and/or recordings with Andy and Jerry González, Ibrahim Ferrer (Buena Vista Social Club), Pío Leyva (Buena Vista Social Club), Manuel “Puntillita” Alicea (Buena Vista Social Club), Bobby Carcassés, Orlando “Cachaíto” López, Juan Pablo Torres, NEA Jazz Master Cándido Camero, Larry Harlow, Ruben Blades, Típica 73, John “Dandy” Rodríguez, David Oquendo, Xiomara Laugart, Nicky Marrero, Nelson González, Carlos Abadie, Los Hacheros, Pedrito Martínez, Roman Díaz, Paul Carlon, Adonis Puentes, Pablo Menéndez, Bobby Sanabria, Ralph Irizarry, Charlie Sepulveda, Luis Marín, Humberto Ramírez, Harvie S., Hiram “El Pavo” Remón, Gene Jefferson, Frank Anderson, Enid Lowe, Jared Gold, Greg Glassman, Bobby Harden, Brian Lynch, Mark Weinstein, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Larry Goldings, Chico Álvarez, Alfredo “Chocolate” Armenteros, Emilio Barretto, Eddie Zervigón, José Fajardo, Rudy Calzado, Los Afortunados, Jose Conde, Kaori and Yuko Fujii, Roberto Rodríguez, Maurice El Medioni, Michael Torsone, and many others.

As the leader of the Latin jazz group, Sonido Isleño (founded in 1996), he has performed throughout North and South America, Europe, and the Caribbean while releasing five internationally acclaimed albums of his original compositions. In 2007, Lapidus served as musical director and arranger for Garota de Ipanema(JVC/Victor Japan) with Kaori Fujii and toured Japan twice. In 2008, he recorded Herencia Judía and in 2014, he released his eighth album as a leader, Ochósi Blues. Blues for Ochún (2023) is his ninth album as a leader. As a composer, Lapidus’ music has been recorded by groups in Cuba and Japan and has been featured in documentaries and television. In 2015, Latin Jazz USA awarded Lapidus a lifetime achievement award for his contributions to Afro-Latin music. In 2015, he wrote the liner notes, contributed an original composition, sang, and played electric guitar and Cuban tres on Andy González's Grammy™-nominated album, Entre Colegas.

As profiled on the 2023 television show, Shades of Us (https://youtu.be/I_xMYUtgAhA), Benjamin Lapidus was born in Hershey, PA in 1972 to first-generation Brooklynites and the family moved almost 15 times before returning to New York City when Lapidus was 14. Trained in piano from a young age, he moved through a variety of instruments including trumpet and bass before concentrating on the guitar. Lapidus was exposed to music by his grandmother and his father, who played in Latin and jazz bands in the Catskills in the 1950s. Through his father’s record collection and stories of his father’s visits with his Latin American relatives, the seeds of Latin music were planted. Yet it wasn’t until the 1980s that the youngest Lapidus became immersed in Latin music when he moved to a predominantly Latin neighborhood in New York City, where numerous important musicians also resided. Living a block away from Mikel’s jazz club, Lapidus still has vivid memories of practicing in Mario Rivera’s house or seeing Mario Bauzá walk down the street. Deciding he needed a complete musical education, Lapidus earned two degrees from Oberlin Conservatory and Oberlin College, becoming one of the program’s first jazz guitar graduates. In 1994, Lapidus started to play the Puerto Rican cuatro and Cuban tres. After leading his own quartet at festivals and clubs throughout Europe and winning a grant to study briefly with Steve Lacy in Paris, he returned to the U.S. and worked with Joe McPhee, Joe Giardullo, Tani Tabal, Thomas Workman, and other creative improvisers.

At the same time, Lapidus began performing with Larry Harlow, Alex Torres, and other Latin music luminaries in New York and Puerto Rico. Lapidus earned a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology at the CUNY Graduate Center in 2002. His travels to Cuba acquainted him with distant relatives and grounded him in the music of Eastern Cuba. He has taught guitar and Cuban tres at the New School and popular music of the Caribbean, Latin music in New York, and world music at Queens College and John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY. Today, Lapidus is a professor in the Department of art and Music at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and on the Doctoral Faculty of the Graduate Center, CUNY. In addition, he has served as scholar-in-residence with the New York Center for Jungian Studies and the Jewish Museum during several humanitarian missions to the Jewish communities of Cuba between 2004-2016. In 2008, Lapidus published the first-ever book on the Eastern Cuban musical genre changüí called Origins of Cuban Music and Dance: Changüí (Scarecrow Press). He has published numerous peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, translations, and presented papers at international conferences on Cuban music, Puerto Rican music, Latin jazz, and improvisation. He has also written liner notes for a number of recordings. In 2013, Lapidus won a prestigious National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) fellowship for his critically acclaimed book New York and the International Sound of Latin Music, 1940-1990 (University Press of Mississippi, 2021). With endorsements from Rubén Blades, Ilán Stavins, and other prominent academics around the world, this ground-breaking book has been featured on BBC 3 Music Matters, NPR’s Afropop, and Alt. Latino shows as well as the Miami International Book Fair and countless news outlets. The book maintains its bestseller ranking in Amazon’s top 20 salsa books since its release. In this episode, Benjamin shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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He was born in Lucenec on February 22, 2001, and comes from a family of musicians (father Stefan- an established Jazz Artist). Alan's talent began to manifest in his early childhood. As a four- year- old he began attending piano lessons at the Art School in Lucenec. During this period he has his first diploma in a regional piano competition. After moving with his family to Austria's Neusiedl am See in 2012, he started to study at the local music school. In a short period of time, he was selected among the top students in Burgenland, allowing him to participate regularly in master classes with the best pedagogues and performing artists. He has held several public concerts in the framework of Piano Academy Oberschützen.

Since 2014 he has attended the Church Conservatory in Bratislava, where he was admitted as an extraordinary student to the class of Mgr.Art Andrea Balešová ArtD. Under her leadership, he participates in a number of international competitions and he has had successes- Brno 2015-3rd prize, Eisenstadt 2016 – 2nd prize, Kamenice nad Lipou 2016 -1st prize, MILANO 2017 -3rd prize. In the year 2018, he began his studies at the MUK University Vienna jazz piano with Professor Oliver Kent.

In addition to studying jazz and classical piano, Alan is dedicated to improvisation and composition. He has had his first valuable experience at Jazz stages with professional artists. Some time ago, he was auditioning at the Vienna Festival. He was chosen among the finalists.

A festival performance with legends of Austrian Jazz was the best start for him. Alan recorded already three different albums- Nina Berglova Inou Krajinou, New Faces of Slovak Jazz, and Alan&Stefan Bartus Trio Connectivity. He is currently preparing to release his debut album, which he recorded with the legendary Gregory Hutchinson, Kornel Fekete Kovács, and his father Stefan Pista Bartus.

2017 Alan wins further achievements in the Jazz region-with his Trio(J.Valíček, M.Štubniak) he becomes the absolute winner of the Jazz Start Up competition and in the New Face of the Slovak Jazz Competition and he has got the Convincing Instrumental Performance Award. This success gave him opportunities to preset music with his Trio at Bratislava Jazz Days Festival, Top Jazz Fest, Jazz Fest Trencin(Jazz pod Hradom) Liptov Jazz Fest, etc.. 2022 he is winning the solo piano competition Excellence Piano Awards with Grand Prix Majestic Excellence Award and Piano Solo Professional Gold Award.

In the same year, he is the winner of the prestigious Austrian Ö1 Jazz Prize and is accepted to one of the best jazz schools in the world, the Manhattan School of Music in New York. In 2022, Alan also earned a collaboration with living American jazz legend, saxophonist Jerry Bergonzi, with whom he toured and recorded an album in the Lukáš Oravec Quintet. Alan has also recorded and toured with the respected New York saxophonist, Tim Armacost. In 2023 he is winning the Artedea Jazz Competition with his duo Bartuš&Widauer Experiment. In this episode, Alan shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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The sonically innovative harpist, Brandee Younger, is revolutionizing the harp for the digital era. Over the past fifteen years, she has worked relentlessly to stretch boundaries and limitations for harpists.  In 2022, she made history by becoming the first black woman to be nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition. That same year, she was also nominated for an NAACP Image Award. Ever-expanding as an artist, she has worked with cultural icons including Common, Lauryn Hill, John Legend, and Moses Sumney.  

Her current album, Brand New Life, builds on her already rich oeuvre and cements the harp’s place in pop culture.  As the title of the album suggests, Brand New Life is about forging new paths–artistic, personal, political, and spiritual. On this album, Younger salutes her musical foremother, the trailblazing harpist Dorothy Ashby, while also speaking to the sentiments of more recent generations. “We're bringing new life to Dorothy Ashby’s popular and previously unreleased compositions. We're creating new life…for the instrument,” Younger said. Brand New Life is an album about living fully, in neon bright color.

In March of 2022, Younger flew to Chicago and began recording Brand New Life in the home studio of her long-time collaborator and friend, Makaya McCraven, who produced and played drums on the album. In the Windy City, Younger hoped to harness some of Ashby’s funky energy from a recording she did there nearly five decades before. Younger gathered artists who have had a sense of kinship with Ashby; from the internationally-lauded neo-soul bassist/vocalist/rapper Meshell Ndegeocello to her long-time bassist Rashaan Carter, plus the legendary rapper and producer Pete Rock and the talented contemporary producer 9th Wonder.

The latter producers introduced hip-hop and R&B listeners to Ashby in the 1990s and early 2000s via slick samples. Pete Rock and CL Smooth’s 1992 release, “For Pete’s Sake,” samples Ashby’s 1968 hit “Come Live With Me.” 9th Wonder’s remix of singer Amerie’s 2003 R&B classic “Why Don’t We Fall in Love,” also includes a Dorothy Ashby sample from “Come Live With Me.” With Younger’s solo rendition of this heavily sampled song on Brand New Life, she builds a sonic bridge between generations. “I wanted everyone on the record to have a special connection to Dorothy [Ashby]," she said.  For the project, Younger also recorded a number of Ashby’s compositions that were never recorded before, alongside Ashby fan favorites and Younger originals. 

The emotional complexity of the album is stunningly captured in the title track, “Brand New Life,” an original co-written by Younger and singer, Mumu Fresh. “This love is so deep, time and space couldn’t keep you away from me,” Mumu Fresh sings. Younger’s playing paints lush details over Mumu Fresh’s smooth vocals leaving nothing to be sonically desired. Against the backdrop of current social issues–climate change, racism, health disparities, and women’s rights–the song speaks to a desire that many people have for change, for something new in the world. “Brand New Life'' reaches listeners at the level of the human.

Love is a subtle but insistent thread throughout the album. The opening track, “You’re a Girl For One Man Only,” is a previously unrecorded Dorothy Ashby composition. Sonically, it is tender and evocative of a first kiss or the early seasons of a new romance. Younger recalls the original song's lyrics’ more traditional message of romantic longing that we still hear in popular music today. Boy chases girl. Girl succumbs. In Younger’s version, there is a sense of agency and exploration. Younger creates a mesmerizing atmosphere. In the second half of the track, we are met with a delicate dance between Joel Ross on vibraphone and Younger on harp, the two instruments pining through the melody. 

Brand New Life is part of her steadfast efforts to amplify the contributions of black women harpists and to keep their legacies alive.  Her care for and attention to Dorothy Ashby as a musical ancestor has been consistent throughout her career. Akin to the popular hashtag, #CiteBlackWomen, which demands consumers credit and recognizes black women for their intellectual labor, Younger urges us to recognize Ashby’s contribution to the American songbook. The album is part of a larger project of recognizing not only the history of innovators of the distinguished harp – a history that places Ashby and Younger together on a continuum – but also the presence of everyday black women. 

“Running Game” was an obscure seven-inch single release originally entitled “Double Talkin’” and featured Ashby on piano. In the song’s intro, we hear what sounds like a casual conversation at a black women’s beauty salon or at a social gathering of sorts where women freely share advice and observations on life with one another. The voices in the intro are of Younger’s mother and aunt. Younger set up listeners by reading the lyrics from Ashby’s original.

“Every man I meet is double talkin'. "Where did the good men go?” The women candidly respond to the song lyrics. One says, “As far as the game, men have been running game since day one.” The track leads into, “Running Game,” a ballad with inflections of Negro spirituals and the blues.  Here, Younger’s expressivity on her instrument is incomparable. As the strings (arranged by DeSean Jones) hum behind her, the “double-talking” gold-digging man comes into full view. “Running Game” ends on a note of optimism, of marching forward despite life’s struggles. 

Younger was born and raised in Hempstead, New York. As a teen in the early 1990s, she bopped to the beats of artists like LL Cool J, Queen Latifah, and Busta Rhymes. Among these hip-hop greats, she discovered Ashby’s music by way of hip-hop legend Pete Rock. She began playing harp at the age of eleven and eventually enrolled at the Hartt School of Music at the University of Hartford in Connecticut where she studied classical music. It was through the encouragement of legendary saxophonist Jackie McLean that she made her first foray into jazz with the harp. 

Hearing Ashby for the first time made her envision new possibilities for herself as a harpist. “She was covering all of these popular tunes and soundtracks [of the time] and I wanted to do that. She's playing pop, jazz, and everyone’s sampling her–DJ Premier, Pete Rock, J. Dilla. Hearing, then seeing her as a Black Woman, while I'm this random little isolated black girl playing the harp by myself was everything to me.” Younger forged her way with a small but mighty group of black women harpists as examples—Sarah Lawrence from her hometown, Ann Hobson-Pilot, Dorothy Ashby, and Alice Coltrane—who were consistent sources of inspiration.

In 2006, after graduating from Hartt School, Younger went on to develop a name for herself on the jazz and commercial recording scene in New York City. To date, her performance roster is fierce. As a side-woman, she has played alongside jazz icons such as Pharoah Sanders, Ravi Coltrane, Jack DeJohnette, and Reggie Workman. Younger’s commitment to carrying the torch can also be seen through her work as a performer and educator.

In 2008, she earned a Master of Music from New York University’s Steinhardt School. During this time, she began to work seriously as an educator. She has been a guest faculty and lecturer at numerous universities including but not limited to Berklee College of Music, Princeton University, Howard University, and Tulane University. Currently, she serves as a teaching artist faculty at New York University and The New School.   

In 2020, Younger was named winner of the DownBeat Critics Poll in the category of "Rising Star" harpist. Her work as a side woman is evidence of Younger’s undeniable presence in the sound of contemporary jazz today. In recent years, she has appeared on albums by Lakecia Benjamin, Robert Glasper, Jeremy Pelt, The Baylor Project, and Makaya McCraven, just to name a few. In addition to her contributions as a side-woman, Younger’s commitment to honoring the legacy of black women harpists can be seen through her curatorial work. She has curated a number of performances dedicated to honoring the work of Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane. This work speaks to her dedication as a purveyor of black music and history. In this episode, Brandee shares her background, education, and musical journey.

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Andrey Chmut is a Ukrainian saxophonist, composer, and producer. Andrey works with Bob James, Jamala, Candy Dulfer,  Dave Koz, Julio Iglesias Jr, Andrius Mamontovas, Igor Zakus, Tina Karol, Valery Stepanov, Eric Moore, and many other artists.  The song Moving Forward from the album "Smoothability", which was recorded with American jazz pianist and producer Grammy Winner Bob James, became a top song on the American radio giant Sirius XM and lasted more than a year in rotation.  Andrey Chmut debut album "Smoothability", which was also released on Skytown Records (LA) was included in the top 10 Ukrainian albums of the year according to the Aprize 2019 award from Radio Aristocrats and 4 position for top 100 Best Smooth Jazz Albums (Amazon).

During 2022 Andrey travel around the world with support concerts in Ukraine At the beginning of 2023, Andrey was invited to the Bob James Quartet and went on a US tour.  James and Chmut are working on a joint album that will be presented to the general public in 2024. In this episode, Andrey shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Guitarist Dominic Miller is a highly regarded pop, classical, and jazz-influenced player, best known for his long association with Sting. Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1960, Miller spent his first ten years living in South America, where his father worked for Johnson Wax. Around age ten, he moved back to the United States with his family, settling in Racine, Wisconsin. By age 15 he had picked up the guitar and played in various bands during high school. Later, he studied at London's Guildhall School of Music, where he made his first forays into the U.K. music scene and befriended artists like violinist Nigel Kennedy and Level 42 keyboardist Mike Lindup. From the late '80s onward, Miller was an in-demand performer, touring and/or recording with such acts as Level 42, World Party, King Swamp, the Pretenders, Phil Collins, Branford Marsalis, and many others.

Beginning with 1991's The Soul Cages, Miller began a fruitful working relationship with Sting. He has appeared on almost all of Sting's albums since the '90s, including Ten Summoner's Tales, Mercury Falling, Brand New Day, All This Time, Sacred Love, If on a Winter's Night, and more. He has also made significant contributions to albums by Chris Botti, Vinnie Colaiuta, Kim Richey, Ronan Keating, LeAnn Rimes, and many others.

As a solo artist, Miller debuted with First Touch in 1995, followed by Second Nature in 1999. These albums showcased his adept technique and inclination toward evocative instrumentals. He has delivered a steady stream of solo efforts since then, including 2002's New Dawn with Neil Stacey, 2004's classical-themed Shapes, and 2008's In a Dream with Peter Kater. He has also delivered a handful of eclectic efforts for the Q-Rious label, including 2010's November; 2014's Ad Hoc; and 2016's collaboration with Manolito Simonet, Hecho en Cuba. In 2017, Miller made his ECM debut with the atmospheric Silent Light. A second ECM release, Absinthe, followed by 2019 and 2023 a third ECM release, Vagabond. In this episode, Dominic shares his background, education, and musical journey. 

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Cheryl Ann Spencer is a Singaporean jazz pianist specializing in classical and modern jazz.  Aside from a banking and finance degree, she has a second degree in Jazz Music from the LaSalle College of Arts. She is pursuing classical composition and piano pedagogy at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music at the National University of Singapore. She majored in jazz piano under her principal study teacher Mr. Kerong Chok at La Salle,. Cheryl reconnects with her first love in music and draws inspiration from the vibrant jazz community around the world including Kenny Barron, Mc Coy Tyner, Oscar Peterson, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, and Chok Kerong.

Cheryl grew up in a music-centered family. Her late father, Mr. Teo Chin Huat, was a pianist/ music educator previously from the Vienna Conservatory. Cheryl's natural love and inclination towards music was evident at a young age as she developed a great ear and could play the right notes on any musical instrument despite not having formal training. Since she was young, she has played in numerous school events and chapel services as teachers appreciate her ease and confidence in playing the piano.

A mother of two children, Cheryl took a break from work when her children were born in the last decade. Motherhood gives her great joy and inspiration to create music. Since then, she took up her second degree in Jazz Music and formed the 'Evolution Quartet band with Tamagoh (drums), Fabian Lee (Double Bass) and Cheryl Ann Spencer (piano), and Rit Xu ( Flute).

Cheryl has performed at Esplanade Recital Studio, Maduro, Blu Jazz, Harry's Bar at Boat Quay, and British High Commissioner's Fundraising Dinner at Nassim Road. She recently held her personal recital concert at the LaSalle College of Arts. In this episode, Cheryl shares her background, education, and musical journey.

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Claire Victoria Roberts is a composer, vocalist, and violinist, who blurs the boundaries of jazz, contemporary, and singer-songwriter genres. She collaborates, as an artist, with musicians from classical, jazz, and folk spheres, drawing upon her diverse influences and melding styles together: through improvised vocals, contemporary classical timbres, and melody-driven compositions.

Her work has been performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Psappha Ensemble, cellist Oliver Coates, Opra Cymru, Uproar Ensemble, Solem Quartet, and The Carice Singers. She has collaborated as a violinist and improvising vocalist with Camden Symphony Orchestra, Sherman Theatre, New Voices Choir, Morley Arts Festival, Aberystwyth Arts Festival, and Sherman Theatre. As a composer, she has been commissioned by Cheltenham Festival, Presteigne Festival, MusicFest, and the Wigmore Hall.

As a jazz vocalist, Claire has performed at festivals across the UK and abroad including Brecon jazz, Marsden jazz, and Begues jazz (Cataluna). 2021 saw the release of her E.P. 'NOIR', alongside the Treske Quartet, interpreting the melancholy, cynical lyrics of her chosen jazz and chanson material.

Claire won the Welsh Music Guild's Young Composer award in 2022, was awarded a Jerwood Arts composer award in 2021, is the Winner of a Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize 2019-2020, as well as 2017 winner of the Mathias Composition prize, and 2019 winner of a Francis Chagrin award. She has been broadcast on Radio 3, Radio Wales, and Radio Cymru. In this episode, Claire shares her background, education, and musical journey.

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After four decades in the international spotlight, the achievements of saxophonist Branford Marsalis continue to grow. From his initial recognition as a young jazz lion, he has expanded his vision as an instrumentalist, composer, bandleader, and educator, crossing stylistic boundaries while maintaining unwavering creative integrity. In the process, he has become a multi-award-winning artist with three Grammys, a citation by the National Endowment for the Arts as a Jazz Master, and an avatar of contemporary artistic excellence.

Growing up in the rich environment of New Orleans as the oldest son of pianist and educator, the late Ellis Marsalis, Branford was drawn to music along with siblings Wynton, Delfeayo, and Jason. The Branford Marsalis Quartet, formed in 1986, remains his primary means of expression. In its virtually uninterrupted three-plus decades of existence, the Quartet has established a rare breadth of stylistic range as demonstrated on the band’s latest release: The Secret Between the Shadow and the Soul. 

Branford has not confined his music to the jazz quartet context. A frequent soloist with classical ensembles, Branford has become increasingly sought after as a featured soloist with acclaimed orchestras worldwide, performing works by composers such as Copeland, Debussy, Glazunov, Ibert, Mahler, Milhaud, Rorem, Vaughan Williams and Villa-Lobos. And his legendary guest performances with the Grateful Dead and collaborations with Sting have made him a fan favorite in the pop arena.

His work on Broadway has garnered a Drama Desk Award and Tony nominations for the acclaimed revivals of Children of a Lesser God, Fences, and A Raisin in the Sun. His screen credits include original music composed for: Spike Lee’s Mo’ Better Blues, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks starring Oprah Winfrey and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom starring Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman. Ma Rainey is the Netflix film adaptation of two-time Pulitzer Prize winner August Wilson’s play, produced by Denzel Washington and released in December 2020.

Branford has also shared his knowledge as an educator, forming extended teaching relationships at Michigan State, San Francisco State, and North Carolina Central Universities and conducting workshops at sites throughout the United States and the world.

After the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina, Branford and friend Harry Connick, Jr. conceived of “Musicians’ Village,” a residential community in the Upper Ninth Ward of New Orleans. The centerpiece of the Village is the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music, honoring Branford’s father. The Center uses music as the focal point of a holistic strategy to build a healthy community and to deliver a broad range of services to underserved children, youth, and musicians from neighborhoods battling poverty and social injustice. In this episode, Branford shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Josh Feldstein founded The Verve Jazz Ensemble in 2006 as a band that paid homage to the past while vehemently establishing newer, younger audiences for the vintage sound of Hard Bop-inspired jazz.  Josh has studied extensively with drumming legend John Riley and the amazing Joe Morello, Josh’s additional drumming influences include Art Blakey, Max Roach, Philly Joe Jones, Buddy Rich, and Peter Erskine.

Josh has recorded 8 records with the VJE, including the band’s #1 JazzWeek radio chart album, “Connect The Dots.”  His newest VJE album, “All In,” is now being played on US and global internet radio, and will be released commercially on Spotify and all streaming platforms on May 26th.

Josh Feldstein was born in Manhattan and received his degree from Queens College, City University of New York.  As a child, Josh began studying drums at age 11. After a drum instructor one day told him that his drumming style “reminded him of Gene Krupa” (whom Josh had never heard of at the time), Josh immersed himself in the recordings of the legendary "Sing, Sing, Sing" soloist. "I listened to all the big bands, from Benny Goodman to Count Basie to Duke Ellington and everything in between,” Josh said.  "I knew immediately it was jazz drumming for me!” In this episode, Josh shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Brent Vaartstra is a professional jazz musician, author, podcaster, and jazz coach living in New York City. He is the director of the internationally renowned jazz education company Learn Jazz Standards, which helps musicians of all instruments level up their jazz playing without the overwhelm.

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Jason Marshall’s 2003 arrival in New York City signified the continuation of hard-swinging, forward-thinking baritone saxophone playing. With early encouragement to appreciate all types of music, Jason has developed a style that encompasses the whole of African-American music. A special interest is given to the amalgamation of soul, R and B, and funk with straight-ahead jazz. Years of dedication and perseverance have resulted in a giant, soulful sound and instantly appealing concept. Influences such as Leo Parker, Nick Brignola and Bruce Johnstone have coalesced to ensure an open perception of the baritone sax and a “take-no-prisoners” approach to playing jazz music.

Jason has studied with no less than the elite baritone saxophone specialists of the 20th century including Hamiett Bluiett, Ronnie Cuber, and Gary Smulyan. These Three masters of the instrument have contributed invaluably to Jason Marshall’s ability, each one pouring their own personal wealth of knowledge into him. Other teachers include altoists Bruce Williams, Mark Gross, Steve Wilson, and Vincent Herring and tenor players Greg Tardy, Wayne Escoffrey, and Paul Carr. Mr. Lorenz Wheatley garners special distinction as being Jason’s first saxophone teacher and earliest source of musical direction.

Jason’s formative musical experiences include stints with the Thad Wilson Jazz Orchestra and Bluesman Roy Gaines. He is currently playing and touring with Roy Hargrove’s band RH Factor and the Roy Hargrove Big Band. Jason’s band “Overt Negritude” has Released its debut, self-titled album. Jason has also conducted numerous demonstrations, clinics, and workshops at every level of education throughout the world. In this episode, Jason shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Growing up in a musical family in Bucks County, PA, Ms. Henry immersed herself in the arts early on, singing in school and church, and studying cello and ballet. After graduating from the University of Miami with a degree in Communications and Theatre, she launched a successful acting career, appearing in national commercial roles and a series of voiceover assignments. However, she directed her strongest passion toward the development of her full-time singing career which was quickly rewarded when the Miami New Times named Nicole “Best Solo Musician.”

Since then, based on her various career accomplishments and active commitment to supporting non-profits such as Miami Music Project (Board Member), YoungArts, and Miami Children’s Initiative (past Board Member), proclamations from the City of Miami Beach and Miami-Dade County have named “Nicole Henry Days” in 2011, 2016 and 2017. Ms. Henry has also served two terms on the Board of the Florida Chapter of the Recording Academy (GRAMMYs). In this episode, Nicole shares her background, education, and musical journey.

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With a voice that can make you cry, laugh, or fall in love with her all over again, Sharon Marie and her band have quickly become a favorite in the realm of Los Angeles jazz musicians and performed in beautiful rooms around the country. She's performed on the same stage as jazz greats Nancy Wilson, Tony Bennett, and Chris Botti!

If you're looking for a soulful jazz vocalist who harkens back to the Golden Age of jazz while also bringing a distinctive, soulful, heartfelt flare to the music she sings, look no further than Sharon Marie. She is the cream of the crop of female jazz singers. This exceptional vocalist hails from Jacksonville, Florida and brings a unique sense of jazz history to her song stylings. With her charming and refreshing approach, she often employs rhythmic and tempo variations that leave listeners with a lasting impression that is truly unforgettable!

Sharon dubs her band "The Bad Boyz of Jazz" because of its exceptional musicians. She often jokes, “They are so good that they are baaad!” Their innovative rhythmic sense, lush arrangements, and musical skills have made them a household name. Whether you're a fan of Sharon Marie Cline's sultry, soulful sounds or want to hang out with some cool cats, you can't go wrong with The Bad Boyz of Jazz. Sit back and enjoy the romantic swingin' melodies of Sharon Marie Cline and The Bad Boyz of Jazz. In this episode, Sharon shares her background, education, and musical journey.

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Jeremy Pelt has become one of the preeminent young trumpeters within the world of jazz. Forging a bond with the Mingus Big Band very early on, as his career progressed, Pelt built upon these relationships and many others which eventually lead to collaborations with some of the genre's greatest masters. These projects include performances and recordings with Cliff Barbaro, Keter Betts, Bobby "Blue" Bland, Ravi Coltrane, Frank Foster, Winard Harper, Jimmy Heath, Vincent Herring, John Hicks, Charli Persip, Ralph Peterson, Lonnie Plaxico, Bobby Short, Cedar Walton, Frank Wess, Nancy Wilson, and The Skatalites, to name a few. Pelt frequently performs alongside such notable ensembles as the Roy Hargrove Big Band, The Village Vanguard Orchestra, and the Duke Ellington Big Band, and is a member of the Lewis Nash Septet and The Cannonball Adderley Legacy Band featuring Louis Hayes. As a leader, Pelt has recorded ten albums and has toured globally with his various ensembles, appearing at many major jazz festivals and concert venues.

Pelt's recordings and performances have earned him critical acclaim nationally and internationally. He has been featured in the Wall Street Journal by legendary jazz writer and producer, Nat Hentoff, and was voted Rising Star on the trumpet, five years in a row by Downbeat Magazine and the Jazz Journalist Association. Pelt is touring throughout the United States and Europe in support of his latest release, "Soundtrack". In this episode, Jeremy shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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As an acclaimed trombonist, composer, and producer, Delfeayo Marsalis has also dedicated his prolific career to music theatre and education. Along with the Marsalis family of musicians including his father Ellis, the artist was destined for a life in music.

Marsalis has toured internationally with jazz legends such as Ray Charles, Art Blakey, Max Roach, Elvin Jones, and Slide Hampton, as well as leading his own groups.

At the age of 17, Marsalis began his career as a producer and has to date produced over 120 recordings garnering one Grammy award and several nominations.

In 2008, he formed the Uptown Jazz Orchestra, a highly entertaining ensemble that focuses on maintaining important jazz traditions such as riff playing, New Orleans polyphony, and spontaneous arrangements.

Delfeayo also formed the Uptown Music Theatre in 2000. A non-profit organization that empowers youth through musical theatre training. He has written sixteen musicals to date based on historical and/or uniting the community. In addition, he has composed over 90 songs that help introduce kids to jazz through musical theatre and has reached over 5,000 students nationally with his Swinging with the Cool School soft introduction to jazz workshops.

Marsalis has a dual Bachelor’s degree in Music Performance and Production from Berklee College of Music, and a Masters in Jazz Performance from the University of Louisville. A Doctorate has also been conferred from the New England College. In this episode, Delfeayo shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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A native of eastern Pennsylvania, JD Walter’s past, present, and future has always embodied music. From church Boy choirs at the age of six to the American Boy choir school in Princeton to the University of North Texas on a vocal jazz scholarship, Walter has become a pioneer of improvisation and electronic innovations in the world of jazz. His recording career spans 20 years and his purist progressive approach to jazz music has been recognized worldwide.

After extended studies in Amsterdam with Jazz vocal Icon, Deborah Brown, Walter returned to the U.S. and embedded himself in the New York Jazz scene. It was in New York, surrounded by visionaries of jazz, where he began to organically develop his liberated, vibrant style that turned him from straight-ahead to progressive jazz singing. Walter’s recordings include, "Dressed in a Song", “Sirens in the C-House,” “Clear Day,” “Dedicated to You,” “2Bass, a Face and a Little Skin,” “Live in Portugal,” “Live at the 55 Bar,” “One Step Away,” and Guest appearances on over 100 recordings.

The latest album, released on February 7, 2020, testifies to his personal progression as an evolving artisan and provides an intimate, inventive collection of standards and originals. “Dressed in a Song,” produced by Walter and Grammy-winning producer and A&R executive Al Pryor, features piano and vocal duets and trios with veterans and up-and-comers alike, including Jim Ridl, Orrin Evans, Jean-Michel Pilc, Marc Cary, Taylor Eigsti, Julius Rodriguez, Ben Wolfe, Obed Calvaire, and Becca Stevens.

Over the decades, Walter has performed as a featured artist at numerous American jazz clubs and festivals in the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, Central America as well as over 80 tours in Russia. He remains a regular in the New York music scene, and has headlined at Dizzy’s Lincoln Center, The Jazz Standard, The Blue Note, and The Jazz Gallery, among other venues.

He has shared the stage with legendary artists, ranging from Dave Liebman, Billy Hart, Tom Harrell, Eddie Gomez, Bob Dorough, Nicholas Payton, Ben Monder, Sean Jones, Jean-Michel Pilc, Bill Evans, Mark Murphy, Greg Hutchinson, Ari Hoenig, Randy Brecker, Tim Warfield, Jim Ridl, Orrin Evans, Seamus Blake, Igor Butman, Nasheet Waits, Craig Handy, Boris Kozlov, Robin Eubanks, Eric Revis, Billy Drummond, Christian McBride, Adam Nussbaum.

Walter currently resides in New York and teaches privately and abroad at The Prince Claus Conservatory in Groningen, Holland, The Jazz and Music School in St. Petersburg, and the Music Wave School in Moscow. In this episode, JD Walter shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Hailing from the East Bay, Oddity is a sonic storyteller seeking refuge in the intersections of jazz, hip-hop, and neo-soul. With influences ranging from Billy Strayhorn to D'angelo, Oddity can be found wherever inspiration strikes - be it a tender touch on a warm Rhodes, a heavy dilla-style backbeat, or a bluesy trombone melody.

Oddity’s story is one of resiliency and rebirth, of toeing the precipice of the abyss and returning with an open heart and a present mind. Her experience as a transgender woman of color is inextricably woven into the music: at once an affirmation of life, a tear-streaked lament, a desperate call to action. Join Oddity as she discovers the beauty and cultivates peace by centering love, against all odds.

Joey Escobar is a pianist, teacher, composer, and arranger with a degree in music from UC Berkeley. Growing up with 10 siblings, Joey's upbringing gave him a strong appreciation for both community and diversity. His earliest influences were the music of JRPG composers like Nobuo Uematsu, Hitoshi Sakimoto, and Masashi Hamauzu, and the 90s hip-hop sounds, 70s rock, and jazz played in the house by his older siblings and parents. His latest inspirations are the classical music of Bach, Maurice Ravel, and Frederic Chopin, as well as modern geniuses such as Kendrick Lamar, Ambrose Akinmusire, and Esperanza Spalding. He currently lives in El Cerrito and is most known for being the co-composer and pianist with Oddity.

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Known as one of the most eclectic trumpet players in New York City, Bailey is an in-demand musician and teaching artist on call for everything from traditional jazz to R&B and Pop, to classical. He became a member of The Buddy Rich Band while still in college, and his career has included

long-running gigs with Ray Charles, master conguero and bandleader Ray Barretto, The Woody Herman Orchestra, and Frank Sinatra, Jr. His work with Latin Jazz innovator Arturo O'Farrill won two Grammy awards for the albums The Offense of the Drum and Cuba - The Conversation Continues. He has played on more than 70 albums and, as a jazz educator, has taught at the University of Miami and Florida International University.

A trumpet prodigy, Bailey's spectacular gifts began to be noticed as a high school musician in 1984 when DownBeat Magazine cited him in its annual Student Music Awards for outstanding performances in both the classical and jazz trumpet categories, noting “Shades of Wynton!” The same year, he was a finalist in the National Foundation for Advancements in the Arts (NFAA) Arts Recognition and Talent Search, along with Donny McCaslin and Bill Charlap; and won the National Association of Jazz Educators’ Youth Talent Contest. Later, as a senior at the Eastman School of Music, he won DownBeat’s Best Instrumental Soloist award.

Looking back, he says, “It all started for me when I discovered Clifford Brown. Clifford was the centerpiece of the golden era of jazz trumpet, and a great place to begin my lifelong study of the instrument. He was influenced by everyone before him, and became an influence on everyone after.”

Bailey, who continues to teach privately, believes that educating the next generation of musicians is essential for any artist. “In American culture, where the arts are often ignored or deemphasized in both schools and the mainstream media, it is up to us, the artists, to inspire an appreciation for great art,” he says. “By keeping performance standards as high as possible and sharing our devotion with others, especially children, we enrich countless lives.” In this episode, John shares his background, education, and musical journey. 

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Nate Wooley was born in 1974 in Clatskanie, Oregon, a town of 2,000 people in the timber country of the Pacific Northwestern corner of the U.S. He began playing trumpet professionally with his father, a big band saxophonist, at the age of 13. His time in Oregon, a place of relative quiet and slow time reference, instilled in Nate a musical aesthetic that has informed all of his music-making for the past 20 years, but in no situation more than his solo trumpet performances.In this episode, Nate shares her background, education, and musical journey.

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SeaJun Kwon is a composer and bassist who focuses on exploring boundaries. His music draws from the jazz and avant-garde music traditions of Anthony Braxton and Henry Threadgill as well as contemporary classical composers György Ligeti, Tristan Murail, and Morton Feldman. Born and raised in Seoul, South Korea, Kwon graduated from Boston’s New England Conservatory and is currently based in Brooklyn. He has been leading his group Walking Cliché Sextet since 2019. The ensemble released two albums, Suite Chase Reflex(2021) and Micro-Nap(2021). 

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Pianist and composer SATOKO FUJII, “an improviser of rumbling intensity and generous restraint” (Giovanni Russonello, New York Times), is one of the most original voices in jazz today. For more than 25 years, she has created a unique, personal music that spans many genres, blending jazz, contemporary classical, rock, and traditional Japanese music into an innovative synthesis instantly recognizable as hers alone. “Fujii’s music troubles the divide between abstraction and realism. . . . All of this amounts to abstract expressionism, in musical form. But it’s equaled by her rich sense of simplicity, sprung from the feeling that she is simply converting the riches of the world around her into music,” writes Giovanni Russonello in the New York Times.

A prolific composer for ensembles of all sizes and a performer who has appeared around the world, she was the recipient of a 2020 Instant Award in Improvised Music, in recognition of her “artistic intelligence, independence, and integrity.” Her talent as a big band composer, arranger, and leader have been recognized numerous times in DownBeat Critics Polls. The New York City Jazz Record has twice named her Artist of the Year. In 2021, El Intruso named her Pianist of the Year.

Since she burst onto the scene in 1996, Fujii has led and recorded with some of the most consistently creative ensembles in modern improvised music. She recorded her 100th CD as leader or co-leader live in concert in September 2022. To mark the milestone, she wrote a new suite, Hyaku: One Hundred Dreams, featuring trumpeters Wadada Leo SmithandNatsuki Tamura, tenor saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, bassoonist Sara Schoenbeck, electronics artist Ikue Mori, bassist Brandon Lopez, and drummers Tom Rainey and Chris Corsano.

Among the groups she led are a piano trio with Mark Dresser and Jim Black (1997-2009), and an electrifying avant-rock quartet featuring drummer Tatsuya Yoshida of The Ruins (2001-2008). In addition to a wide variety of small groups of different instrumentation, Fujii also performs in a duo with trumpeter Natsuki Tamura, with whom she’s recorded eight albums since 1997. She and Tamura are also one half of the international free-jazz quartet Kaze, which has released five albums since their debut in 2011.

Fujii has established herself as one of the world’s leading composers for large jazz ensembles, prompting Cadence magazine to call her “the Ellington of free jazz.” Since 1996, she has released a steady stream of acclaimed albums for jazz orchestras and in 2006 she simultaneously released four big band albums: one from her New York ensemble, and one each by three different Japanese bands. In 2013 she debuted the Satoko Fujii Orchestra Chicago at the Chicago Jazz Festival and two years later debuted the new Satoko Fujii Orchestra Berlin.

With 2016 marking her 20th year in creative music, Fujii performed concerts once a month in cities around the world, including solo concerts and with her duo with Tamura performed with special guests. She also presented performance with small and large ensembles.

During her 60th birthday year in 2018, a milestone known as Kanreki in Japan, Fujii celebrated by releasing one new CD a month. In keeping with the Kanreki tradition of reflecting on the past while looking to the future, the 12 albums included releases by groups that Fujii has led or been part of for years, such as Kaze, Orchestra Berlin, and Orchestra Tokyo, as well as new groups and collaborations with Australian keyboardist Alister Spence; Mahobin, a cooperative quartet featuring Lotte Anker, Ikue Mori, and Tamura; and a new trio, This Is It!

In addition to playing accordion in Tamura’s Gato Libre, she pursues a fruitful collaboration with bassist Joe Fonda. Together, the duo has released five recordings, sometimes adding guests like Tamura and Gianni Mimmo. In 2019, she recorded Confluence, an album of intimate, highly interactive duets with drummer Ramon Lopez.

When the pandemic forced her to stay home for more than a year, she remained musically active, converting her home practice room into a recording studio and producing her seventh solo album, Hazuki; and a duet with Tamura, Keshin. She also collaborated by swapping sound files over the Internet, releasing the duet albums Prickly Pear Cactus with Ikue Mori; Thread of Light with bassist Joe Fonda; and Underground by Futari, her duo project with vibraphonist Taiko Saito. She also explored the use of computer editing to shape a solo release, Piano Music. In this episode, Satoko shares her background, education, and musical journey.

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Matthew Alec is a jazz and popular music saxophonist, founder and Executive Producer at Cleveland Time Records, and bandleader for the high-energy jazz fusion group Matthew Alec and The Soul Electric.

Nominated as “Cleveland’s Best Horn Player” by Cleveland Scene Magazine in 2009, Matthew has performed for over 20 years and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Music from Kent State University. He has toured nationally and has opened for a number of A-list acts including Earth, Wind, and Fire, Incubus, Robert Randolph and The Family Band, Keane, Average White Band, Lupe Fiasco, OAR, Ozomatli, Bret Michaels, Rusted Root, and others. He has performed with former Saturday Night Live Musical Director, CBS Orchestra member, and Blues Brothers bandsman Tom “Bones” Malone, internationally-acclaimed bassist Victor Wooten and his brother Roy “Futureman” Wooten, Saturday Night Live trombonist Steve Turre, Kenny G bassist Vail Johnson, Grammy-winning Ohio Players alumni Billy Beck, and Parliament-Funkadelic bassist Ben Powers, Jr. He has recorded with Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, Parliament-Funkadelic and Talking Heads member Bernie Worrell and aforementioned Tom "Bones"Malone.

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Born in Rovaniemi, a small town on the Arctic Circle in Northern Finland, fretted/fretless guitarist and oud player Jussi Reijonen is truly the product of a life lived transcending boundaries.
Having grown up in Finnish Lapland, the Middle East and East Africa, and spending much of his adulthood in the United States, Jussi has lived a life soaking up the sounds, sights, scents and shades of Nordic, Middle Eastern, African and American cultures, all of which are reflected in his creative work as composer and performer.

Along his path, Jussi has worked as bandleader, sideman, composer or arranger with a diverse array of world-renowned artists. He has collaborated with Jack DeJohnette, Pepe de Lucía, Javier Limón, David Fiuczynski, Simon Shaheen, Bassam Saba, Arto Tunçboyacıyan, Dave Weckl, Hüsnu Şenlendirici and the New York Gypsy All-Stars, among others. He has performed extensively at prestigious festivals and venues throughout the United States like Lincoln Center and the Library of Congress, as well as in Finland, Sweden, Latvia, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Germany, France, Canada and Lebanon.

Jussi’s Independent Music Award-nominated debut album un | ان was released to great critical acclaim in early 2013 on his unmusic label. His latest album Three Seconds | Kolme Toista, a long-form suite for a new transcultural 9-piece ensemble, features musicians from Jordan/Iraq, Palestine, Turkey, Japan and the United States and was released worldwide on October 14th, 2022 via Challenge Records International.

Alongside his solo work, he co-leads Sawaari, a quintet exploring the nexus of Indian rhythms, Arabic maqamat, and trance music from North Africa and Southern Italy. He collaborates with Swiss vocalist Gabriela Martina, and is a member of the New York Arabic Orchestra.

Through his work as an educator and doctoral researcher at Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland, Jussi continues to promote and provoke transcultural dialogue and conversation across boundaries and disciplines beyond mere identity politics. In this episode, Jussi shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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As a native of Louisville, Kentucky, Marcus grew up with aspirations of becoming a pro football player, but his goals changed after having committed over 13 years of his young life to the U.S. Navy honorably. During this time, his love for jazz grew by listening and learning from the late Grover Washington, Jr., David Sanborn, Kirk Whalum, Najee, Dave Koz, the late saxophonists, Art Porter and George Howard. Marcus says on one account,” I became truly inspired by a phone call from the late George Howard, a conversation and experience I’ll never forget.” Marcus would find his way before Rebbie Jackson (a Sister of Jackson 5 & Janet Jackson) and her family during a weekend show in Las Vegas. He knew his life was being routed towards a musical journey. Since then, Marcus has performed locally in Jacksonville, Florida and continued to travel abroad. To name a few notable events, Marcus performed for the Convoy of Hope (Super Bowl XXXIX) NFL Sponsored Event. Marcus won the Artist Music Guild’s (AMG) 2019 Instrumentalist of the Year Award. He was the headliner for the 2020 Orange County Mayor’s Jazz in the Park (Orlando FL). Other recent notable performances consisted of kicking off the 2019 Summer Jazz Series on Jacksonville Beach, FL before Jessy J. (saxophonist) and Canadian Jazz Band, Four80East. Most recently, Marcus set the tone by opening up the Main Stage at the 2021 Jacksonville Jazz Festival before the Legendary R&B Singer, Jeffrey Osborne and Legendary, Chart-topping & Famed Jazz Saxophonist, NAJEE.

During Marcus’s musical journey, he also received encouragement from famed percussionist, Sheila E., and saxophonists, Nelson Rangell, Najee, Mike Phillips, his sax mentors: Joe Yorio (Toured with Peabo Bryson) & Mel Holder (Billboard Saxophonist & Stellar Award Finalist), and the late great saxman, George Howard.Not too far in the recent past, Marcus released the single “Brand New Day” (2018), globally and to 200+ radio stations globally. The song was composed/produced by jazz sensation, International Recording Artist/keyboardist, Jonathan Fritzen, whom also performs on the single. It debuted at #1 song, with the most spins during its 1st week in rotation on Billboard Smooth Jazz radio stations across the US. It even received airplay in the UK and charted 7 consecutive weeks on The Smooth Jazz Network Top 100, along with peaking at #1, #5, #30 on other jazz charts. Marcus shares his background, education, and musical journey in this episode of Improv Exchange.

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Jeff Denson has released 16 albums as a leader or co-leader and toured extensively throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe with both his own groups and others at some of the world’s most prestigious venues and festivals such as the Village Vanguard, Birdland, The Kennedy Center, JVC Jazz Festival Paris, Montreal Jazz Festival, Berlin Jazz Festival, and SFJazz to name a few. Jeff has worked with some of jazz’s finest artists such as Brian Blade, Joe Lovano, Chris Potter, Jane Ira Bloom, Dave Douglas, Walter Smith III, Rachel Z, Omar Hakim, Gerald Cleaver, Warren Wolf, Leo Genovese, Edward Simon, Paul McCandless, Cuong Vu, Ralph Alessi, Dan Weiss, Lionel Loueke, Romain Pilon, and Mimi Fox, among many others and had an ongoing relationship with the legendary Lee Konitz for over a decade until his passing in 2020.

Jeff has been ranked in the DownBeat Rising Star Critic's Poll ten times in the Bass, Electric Bass, and Male Vocalist categories, and was voted #1 Rising Star Electric Bassist in 2021. Jeff is the Founder and Artistic Director of Ridgeway Arts, Inc., a 501c3 arts nonprofit organization, and the Dean of Instruction at the California Jazz Conservatory in Berkeley. Jeff shares his background, education, and musical journey in this episode of Improv Exchange.

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Nicole Johänntgen, jazz saxophonist, composer, and coach, tours Europe-wide with her band "Henry" and her solo program. Her second solo album was released in June 2022 on her label "Selmabird Records". She has produced 20 albums to date and received numerous awards. Johänntgen also performs internationally as a guest soloist at the invitation of various bands and is given the artistic direction to put together projects for festivals. Her focus is on live playing, studio recording, and mentoring. Thus, in 2022, she will increasingly conduct workshops for young people, as well as adults, who want to expand their knowledge in music, in jazz. In 2015 she founded the "Kids Jazz Club" and in 2013 the music business workshop SOFIA Support Of Female Improvising Artists to support young female jazz musicians in self-management and networking. Nicole Johänntgen's musical career began 28 years ago. At the age of six on the piano and years later she found her way to the saxophone and jazz as well as pop. First, she founded her Saarland band "Nicole Jo" at the age of 17, of which there are now six albums. She quickly expanded her radius. Played in America with the Sisters in Jazz (2003). Was a member of the European Swinging Jazz Orchestra, the IASJ International Association of Jazz of Schools, and the Dutch Rembrandt Frerichs project. Nicole Johänntgen studied jazz/popular music at the State Academy of Music in Mannheim, Germany, and has lived in Switzerland with her family since 2005.

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For over fifteen years, John Yao has been honing his talents as a trombonist, a composer and arranger, and has cemented his place on the New York City jazz scene. Yao’s lyrical soloing and expressive round tone combined with his with a creative hunger for exploring the boundaries of harmony and rhythm in his compositions/arrangements has established him as a unique musical talent. Yao has released five solo recordings, all of which feature his adventurous, boundary-pushing compositions for small groups and big bands alike. As a composer, Yao has also been commissioned to write works for professional artists and ensembles including the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra, Jazz Orchestra of Philadelphia, Luis Bonilla, and HGM Jazzorkestar Zagreb among many others. His works have been performed internationally by many college and high school ensembles, including Temple University, Indiana University and the University of North Carolina, to name a few. Many of his works are published and available to professional and educational ensembles. As a trombonist, Yao has worked extensively as a sideman for Grammy-award winning New York City ensembles, such as the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra and Arturo O’Farrill, and the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra among many others. Yao has also established himself as an in-demand educator in New York and beyond. Presently he serves as Assistant Professor of Trombone at Berklee College of Music, and as an Adjunct faculty member at Molloy College. He is an active guest artist and soloist at colleges and universities around the United States and abroad.

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Jonas Timm is a Leipzig-based pianist, composer und improviser. He grew up in Berlin in within his parental background of Choir music. Trained in classical Piano and Voice starting in the age of 5, he discovered improvised music in his early teens and went to study Music in Leipzig with Grandmaster Richie Beirach, Albert Bover and Michael Wollny. Besides he learned from: Alexander von Schlippenbach, Sebastian Schunke and Nils Klein among others...

As formative part of Leipzigs prospering young Jazz scene, he tries to develop new spaces in intercultural exchange between people and continents. Jonas is currently collaborating and touring with several Ensembles like the Berlin Radio Choir and the Gewandhaus Choir Leipzig and played with Norma Winstone, Theo Bleckmann, Johannes Enders to list a few...

He is a current scholarship holder of the State of Saxony, the German Foundation of Orchestra, the Performing Rights Society and the Foundation of the Castle of Rheinsberg. Furthermore he does curate the anually MJUZIK Festival and the „Reihe 22“ in Leipzig On April 22, 2022, Jonas released his Debut CD “Morbu” as JazzThing Next Generation Vol. 90 with Diego Pinera (drums), Tino Derado (accordion), Bertram Burkert (acoustic guitar), Lorenz Heigenhuber (Doublebass), where he combines the rhythms of Latin-American Dances with the harmonic heritage of the post-impressionistic composers of Spain and France. In this episode, Jonas shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Joel A. Martin is a Norwalk CT-based pianist, producer, composer, and arranger who has collaborated with, and/or written music for, Grammy® Award-winners Alan Menken, Kathleen Battle, Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, cellist Eugene Friesen of the Paul Winter Consort, and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Jaimoe of the Allman Brothers, among many luminaries.

At age 17 Joel was the youngest and the first African-American pianist to compete in the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition (1985). He has appeared as a soloist with the NY Philharmonic, El Paso Symphony, Springfield Symphony Orchestra (MA), Philadelphia Orchestra, Cab Calloway Orchestra, New Hampshire Festival Orchestra, and the Hartford Symphony, among many others.

Trained as a classical pianist at the Hartt School of Music and SUNY, Purchase, he created "Jazzical" in 1995 as a celebration of creative fusion: "the explosive union of classical composition and jazz innovation ignited with a fresh spirit all its own." This concept, form and vehicle "captures the dynamic force of multiple cultures and influences, unleashing a kinetic energy that breaks down boundaries and yields whole new worlds of musical expression." In this episode, Joel shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Alyn Shipton is a writer, publisher, broadcaster, and jazz double bassist. He has broadcast about jazz since 1989, and currently hosts BBC Radio 3’s long-running and much-loved programmed Jazz Record Requests. His biographies of Dizzy Gillespie (1999) and singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson (2013) both won Association for Record Sound Collections (ARSC) Awards for Excellence; and Nilsson also gained an American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) Foundation Deems Taylor/Virgil Thompson Award. His New History of Jazz (2001) was the Jazz Journalists’ Association (JJA) book of the year’ by the Jazz Institute of Chicago. His most recent work, The Art of Jazz: A Visual History (2020), was described as ‘indispensable’ by Publishers Weekly. He co-leads the Buck Clayton Legacy Band, and is a research fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in London (where he teaches Jazz History to Emma Rawicz). In this episode, Alyn shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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The JuJu Exchange is a jazz-fusion group founded by three childhood friends from Chicago, each bringing their own unique stories and traits to the collective.

Nico Segal (trumpeter and producer) is Grammy Awarded musician and producer who is a frequent Chance the Rapper collaborator and trumpet player in Chance’s band The Social Experiment.

Julian Davis Reid (pianist and producer) is an artist-theologian who also hosts spiritual retreats called Notes of Rest, which interweave texts and music to promote rest, contemplation and creativity.

Nova Zaii (drummer and producer) is a sonic designer and the inventor of the patented Nova Portals instrument, a touchless electronic instrument.

Whether performing at The Chicago Jazz Fest or The Songbyrd, The JuJu Exchange brings uncut emotion with the intent to move the audience in mind, body, & soul. The band’s debut project Exchange reached #1 on the Apple Jazz Albums Chart upon release and their new single Walk Cycle debuted #1 on the All-New Jazz Spotify Playlist. They released their second record, The Eternal Boombox EP, inspired to provide relief as the world grappled with a catastrophic year. Each song corresponds to a stage of grief from the Kübler-Ross “Five Stages of Grief” Cycle.

The JuJu Exchange creates experimental and nuanced music that calls us all to wonder and trust. Their music, primarily instrumental, blends acoustic and digital instruments to accompany meaningful conversation around spiritual, mental, and physical experiences amongst their audiences' diverse backgrounds. They hope their music inspires the listener to participate in the kinds of exchange the world desperately needs.

The band has been booked for Microsoft Teams Roundtable, Yale University, Northwestern University, Jazz Institute of Chicago, Chicago Ideas Week, and Apple On Michigan. The band’s members have worked, performed, and produced with artists including Chance The Rapper, Frank Ocean, Derrick Hodge, Andrew Bird, Tank & The Bangas, Peter CottonTale, Jamila Woods, Grace Weber, Jennifer Hudson, Tiff Joy, VIc Mensa, Prefuse 73, Fulcrum Point New Music Project, and The Chicago Children’s Choir. In this episode, Julian Davis Reid shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Theon Cross is an award-winning tuba player and composer who not only redefines what can be done with his instrument but also transcends traditional genre conventions with his heady brew of low-end theory combined with strains of ‘jazz, dub, hip-hop, soca, grime, and other sounds from the Afro-Caribbean diaspora’.

His new album, Intra-I (meaning ‘Within Self’) syntheses the diversity of his musical art and experience to deliver an essential message to a world gripped by tribulation. Across ten sonically divergent and bass-rich tracks, Intra-I explores themes of self-reliance, origins, identity, and more. An exploratory and upful celebration of Afro-Diaspora Music, the album features songs that examine self-development, the importance of history and heritage, and the strength in adversity shown by the first generations of post-war Caribbean immigrants to the UK. In this episode, Theon shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Tony Overwater is an award-winning bass player whose sound and unique way of playing have established him as a key player in the European music world. He is a remarkable solo performer and leader of his own projects but also a collaborative and attentive sideman. He is well known for his pioneering work in Arab music.

In 1995 Tony Overwater went on tour with the Yuri Honing Trio through the Middle East, notably Lebanon and Syria, and fell in love with Arab music culture. He met musicians from Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq and started a long-time collaboration with the Lebanese singer Rima Khcheich.

He has been involved in Arab music ever since and developed a uniquely new playing style on the acoustic bass which allows him to play the microtonality of the Arab scales. He has been studying the maqams (scales), rhythms, and songs of classical Arab music. He recorded several albums with Rima Khcheich and eventually became the musical director of her ensemble. Regularly Rima Khcheich and Tony Overwater play duo concerts in which they perform classical Arab music in muwashah style in which the acoustic bass replaces the Oud. This has never been done before and is highly successful at festivals around the world. In this episode, Tony shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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As a member of a musical family, Aleksi has been exposed to virtually all styles of music since birth,  from jazz to classical, folk to rock, and a half dozen other stops in between some of those genres. He’s listened to everyone from Jimi Hendrix to John Scofield, Derek Trucks to Wes Montgomery. His guitar speaks an authoritative language and yet, there is a relaxed feeling and an inbred admiration of music’s many faces. The sound is warm, round, and full, the phrasing is like a smooth-flowing brook, bubbling here, charging there, but always reflecting his basic understanding of what his instrument is about.

As any good New York artist does, Aleksi plays with the best and brightest across the creative landscape. From films to radio, pop to jazz, on tape or video, he maintains an ideal balance of adaptability and uniqueness. He’s played and/or recorded with Snack Cat (The Funk-Soul band he leads), Roberta Flack, Jersey Boys, J Hoard, Bailen, the Broadway cast of Aladdin, The Seth Weaver Big Band, Bailen, Peter Bernstein, Sam Dillon, Paul Bollenback, Augie Haas, Benny Benack, Vic Juris, Mike Glick (his pops) plus dozens of regional and nationally known bands and artists. He has also worked with major labels and publishing companies including Warner Chappel, Warner Music, Ropadope, APM, EMI, and Outside in Music.

Guitar and Me is the debut solo release from New York-based guitarist Aleksi Glick. The album plays as a genealogy of the guitar, weaving through various musical styles that have been crucial to the guitar’s evolution as well as influential to Glick’s own journey with the instrument. While still rooted in jazz and blues, the album pushes the boundaries of the genre by seamlessly floating through an eclectic mix of other styles including R&B, folk, rock, and bossa nova. Guitar and Me feature thirteen original compositions and solo arrangements of guitar-based classics that Glick recorded while in isolation at the height of the Covid pandemic.

The album starts off with a  burner, “With Ease,” an original bluesy hard bop tune that came to Glick after a memorable Mardi Gras in New Orleans. The bossa and R&B-infused title track “Guitar and Me” follow as Glick’s own love letter to his guitar. A mix of originals, jazz standards, and classic songs follow. Other highlights include  an arrangement of the Grateful Dead fan-favorite “Casey Jones” and the timeless classic “Georgia on  My Mind.” “A Tune for Vic,” is a moving tribute to Glick’s recently deceased mentor, the late great Vic  Juris. The album concludes with another original, “Rebirth” which is an homage to Glick’s early love of classic rock, and finally “Long Black Veil” one of two tracks that Glick sings on. With each track, you can hear the different influences on Glick’s playing from the classic tones of Wes Montgomery to the modern techniques of John McLaughlin, to the dynamic energy of Jimmy Hendrix.  In this episode, Aleksi shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Emma Rawicz is an award-winning young saxophonist and composer, already making waves on the UK music scene. She has been described as a force to be reckoned with' (Jazzwise) and 'a fast-rising star' (London Jazz News). At the age of 20, she has already recorded her eagerly awaited debut album featuring Ant Law, made up entirely of her original compositions, the first single Voodoo was released in February, and the album Incantation is due to be released in May 2022.

She has also created a name for herself both as a bandleader and a sideman. New arrival on the scene, she has already made an impact, regularly playing at major London jazz venues with a wide range of established musicians. Emma is a recipient of the 2021 Drake Yolanda Award.

Emma's influences range from modern jazz and fusion to folk and soul, key figures in her musical development include Chris Potter, Ari Hoenig, Kenny Jarrett, Joe Henderson, Chick Corea, and more.  

Growing up in rural North Devon, Emma didn't discover jazz until the age of 15, and didn't pick up a tenor saxophone until a year later, but had spent her childhood otherwise immersed in largely folk and classical music.

Emma is a natural performer. Her music has a unique sound, fusing all her many influences, and her compositions range from lilting Afro Cuban-inspired grooves to hard-hitting modern jazz and funk numbers. In this episode, Emma shares her background, education, and musical journey.

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Naughty Professor is an iconoclastic New Orleans-based jazz-funk sextet whose adventurous
recordings and horn-charged, high-energy live performances have earned them an enthusiastic
fan base, critical acclaim, and widespread attention from their musical peers. Their diligent roadwork has established Naughty Professor as a beloved live act. Weaving together with complex, inventive compositions and loose, organic improvisation, the band honors their hometown's jazz, R&B, and brass-band traditions while looking to the future.

Where their first four releases showcased the group's knack for self-contained instrumental
experimentation, their upcoming EP Good Things continues the trajectory of their 2017 album Identity by joining a trinity of explosive collaborators, whose instrumental and compositional contributions continue to expand the music into new territory. Naughty Professor has shared the stage with artists such as Soulive, Galactic, Snarky Puppy, Fitz, and the Tantrums, The Revivalists, Rebirth Brass Band, The Soul Rebels, Papadosio, George Porter Jr., Victor Wooten, and many more. In this episode, Sam and Noah share their background, education, and musical journey.

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Sigurd Hole has been a vital part of the Norwegian music scene for the past decade, both as part of different jazz ensembles and through his work related to Norwegian folk music. In February 2020 came the monumental "Lys / Mørke".  A solo bass double album recorded on the arctic islands of Fleinvær in Northern Norway, "Lys / Mørke" can in many ways be seen as a response to the climate and ecological crisis, focusing in large on the conscious act of listening to the natural world. The album was premiered in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall on February 3rd, 2020, and received worldwide critical acclaim. 2022 sees the release of a new album called "Roraima", out February 18th. "Roraima" was commissioned by Oslo World for the festival in 2020, and reflects themes such as solidarity and ecological vulnerability and draws inspiration from the creation myth of the Yanomami people and the sound of the Amazon rainforest. The ensemble features Trygve Seim, Frode Haltli, Helga Myhr, Tanja Orning, Håkon Aase, Per Oddvar Johansen, and Sigurd Hole, and the music also includes field recordings of the Amazon biophony by US soundscape ecologist Bernie Krause. Besides his own projects Hole is known for his work with ensembles and musicians like Tord Gustavsen trio, Eple Trio, Karl Seglem acoustic quartet, Helge Lien, Bugge Wesseltoft, Eli Storbekken, Nils Økland, Terje Isungset, Frode Haltli and Trygve Seim. In this episode, Sigurd shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Ari O’Neal is a guitarist from Prince George’s County, Maryland. She’s been playing since the age of 10. Although she learned how to play guitar in many amazing music programs (Music & Arts Center, Levine School of Music, Juilliard's Jazz Camp, etc.), she never made it out into any collegiate music programs. After playing in churches and clubs around the DMV area. After being discovered on Instagram, she was called to play for Beyoncé at Coachella in 2018. That show led to the OTRII Tour, and then Normani, Fantasia, Nelly, Alicia Keys, and more. In this episode, Ari shares her background, education, and musical journey.

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Tomas Fujiwara is a Brooklyn-based drummer and composer. Described as “a ubiquitous presence in the New York scene…an artist whose urbane writing is equal to his impressively nuanced drumming” (Troy Collins, Point of Departure), Tomas is an active player in some of the most exciting music of the current generation, with his bands Triple Double (with Gerald Cleaver, Mary Halvorson, Brandon Seabrook, Ralph Alessi, and Taylor Ho Bynum), Tomas Fujiwara & The Hook Up (with Jonathan Finlayson, Brian Settles, Halvorson, and Michael Formanek) and The Tomas Fujiwara Trio (with Alessi and Seabrook); his collaborative duo with cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum; the collective trio Thumbscrew (with Halvorson and Formanek); and a diversity of creative sideman work with forward-thinking peers like Tomeka Reid and Matana Roberts. In The New York Times, Nate Chinen writes, “Drummer Tomas Fujiwara works with rhythm as a pliable substance, solid but ever-shifting. His style is forward-driving but rarely blunt or aggressive, and never random. He has a way of spreading out the center of a pulse while setting up a rigorous scaffolding of restraint...A conception of the drum set as a full-canvas instrument, almost orchestral in its scope.”

Born and raised in Boston, MA, Tomas studied with legendary drummer and teacher Alan Dawson for eight years before moving to New York at the age of 17. He is currently a member of ensembles led by Taylor Ho Bynum, Mary Halvorson, Matana Roberts, Nicole Mitchell, Matt Bauder, and Tomeka Reid, in addition to projects with artists such as Anthony Braxton, John Zorn, Michael Formanek, Ben Goldberg, and Benoit Delbecq, and has performed at festivals and venues across North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Middle East. He also has many experiences outside the jazz realm, including a five-year run with the Off-Broadway show Stomp and performances with the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical Fela!, featuring Patti Labelle and members of Antibalas.

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Multi-instrumentalist Gebhard Ullmann grew up near Bonn, studied medicine and music in Hamburg starting in 1976, and moved to Berlin in 1983 to live as a professional musician. One year later, the 27-year-old was leading (and co-leading) his own bands, releasing his first albums in 1985. The next few years saw him working with Alexander Von Schlippenbach and Paul Bley (among many others) as well as touring the Middle East, East Africa, Australia, New Zealand, South East Asia, Turkey, Poland, Lithuania and Estonia.  In this episode, Gebhard shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Multi-GRAMMY®-winning pianist/singer/composer Eliane Elias’ distinctive musical style has emerged as one of the most unique and immediately recognizable sounds in jazz. Elias blends her Brazilian roots and alluring voice with her virtuosic instrumental jazz, her classical and compositional skills, while she consistently displays her pianistic mastery and ability to integrate the many artistic roles she takes on.

With nearly 30 albums and over 2.3 million albums sold to date, Eliane Elias is critically acclaimed, has a strong presence on Spotify with 565,000 monthly listeners and over 22 million Spotify listens for her song “Little Paradise.” She has toured in 71 countries, is a four-time Gold Disc Award recipient, a three-time Best Vocal Album winner in Japan and winner of the 2018 Edison Lifetime Achievement Award in Holland to name a few accolades. Her 2019 album Love Stories was voted “Downbeat’s Best Album of 2019- Masterpiece” and as most of her previous releases, hit #1 on the jazz charts worldwide.

Eliane’s skills together with her charismatic personality, bring a wide spectrum of musical experiences and unique presentations to the audience. As Jazziz proclaimed, Eliane is “A citizen of the world” and “An artist beyond category.” In this episode, Eliane shares her background, education, and musical journey.

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Myele Manzanza is a drummer and composer who has rightfully earned himself a reputation as a visionary musician who is not afraid to experiment. Born in New Zealand to a Congolese master percussionist, and currently residing in London, Manzanza was raised listening to hip hop, jazz and dance music all of which strongly inform his current practice.

As a drummer and a sideman Manzanza regularly tours and collaborates with a broad range of artists across multiple genres including Theo Parrish, Mark de Clive-Lowe, Amp Fiddler, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, Jordan Rakei, Ross McHenry, The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Ria Hall, Marcus Strickland, Recloose and Sorceress among countless others.

Manzanza has truly established himself on the world stage having being selected from over 20,000 applicants to participate in the Red Bull Music Academy in London. He has multiple solo album releases on esteemed international labels Sound Signature, First Word and BBE and is recognized as one of NZ top jazz musicians, having been nominated for the 2017 NZ Jazz Album of the Year for his sophomore album OnePointOne and 2020 APRA Best Jazz Composition for his work Mortality from the A Love Requited LP. In this episode, Myele shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Jonny was brought up in a musical family, his parents played in a country and western band along with his aunt and uncle that toured the UK with Chet Atkins. His Grandma on his father's side was a proficient pianist and his mother's parents played in the salvation army brass band. In this episode, Jonny shares his background, education, and musical journey.

At a very early age, Jonny became fascinated with the piano, it was through this instrument he would discover his love for music and singing. At the age of 14, Jonny played the Accordion that his grandfather bought for him and it was from this he found his passion for the instrument.

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Jihye Lee is a jazz composer and bandleader based in New York, highly regarded for her personal and adventurous storytelling approach to large-ensemble jazz. A native of South Korea, Lee had no jazz or classical training growing up, though she found success in Korea performing as an indie-pop singer-songwriter. She graduated from Dongduk Women’s University with a degree in Voice Performance, discovering her love of large-ensemble jazz only after beginning her studies at Boston’s Berklee College of Music in 2011. Confidently she began to explore her own identity and voice within this exciting, historically rich medium, winning Berklee’s Duke Ellington Prize just months after declaring her Jazz Composition major (and again the following year). Though she could never have anticipated this new path, she has followed it to greater heights, moving to New York in 2015 and earning a master’s degree at Manhattan School of Music under the guidance of the great Jim McNeely, with generous funding from school scholarships and the CJ Cultural Foundation. In this episode, Jihye shares her background, education, and musical journey.

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Over a career spanning more than 25 years, award-winning jazz guitarist Nigel Price has become widely acknowledged as one of the hardest working musicians in the business.

Musically, his blend of flowing bebop lines, deep blues sensibility, and his mastery of chording continue to delight audiences and fellow musicians alike. His career highlights include a support show for Gladys Knight at The Royal Albert Hall and an appearance on Van Morrison’s recent album Keep Me Singing.

Starting his professional career in his early 20s, Nigel toured Europe with various reggae and funk bands before settling on a solo guitar career and turning his attention to jazz. Citing early influences as Wes Montgomery, Joe Pass, John McLaughlin, and the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Nigel honed his craft by attending gigs and sitting in with the players of the time.

Nigel has played on more than 50 albums including 5 as a leader, spent ten years with acid jazz outfit The Filthy Six, was a member of James Taylor’s band for 3 years (with whom he recorded 5 albums), and performed with the legendary David Axelrod. He has also taught at The International Guitar Foundation at King’s Place, London. In this episode, Nigel shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Nick Di Maria is a trumpeter, composer, podcaster, activist, and educator based in New Haven, Connecticut.

A graduate of Western Connecticut State University, Nick holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Jazz Performance. Nick has been a student Dr. Eddie Henderson since 2003. Other musical mentors include Dave Scott, Jeremy Pelt, Taylor Ho Bynum, and Rich Clymer. Nick also holds a Masters of Science in Music Education.

Nick is also Director of the Outer Space Jazz Series, a local, weekly jazz showcase at the Outer Space club in Hamden, CT. Nick has worked with musicians of the highest caliber. In the 2012-2013 season Jeremy Pelt, Wayne Escoffery, Peter Bernstein,  and Jimmy Greene have performed at the series. Nick also directed the now annual O.S. Jazz Festival which consists of bands from all over the state performing originally composed jazz. In this episode, Nick shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Drummer, composer and bandleader Mareike Wiening has distinguished herself bringing “a planar modulating harmonic language and a propulsive drift” (Giovanni Russonello, New York Times) to the most compelling jazz music of today. Ms. Wiening’s music was described as “thoroughly modern, progressive jazz, Mareike Wiening’s album Crosswalk has many layers that unfold with each repeated hearing; she will most definitely become a leading part of the jazz scene in the years to come.” (All About Jazz)

Her new album Future Memories, which follows her critically acclaimed debut album Metropolis Paradise.

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For more than forty years, drummer Louis Hayes has been a catalyst for energetic, unrelenting swing in his self-led bands, as well as in those whose respective leaders reads like an encyclopedia of straight-ahead post-bop modern jazz.

Hayes himself an authentic architect of post-bop swing, began his professional activities at the tender age of 18. He started with tenor saxophonist, flutist and oboist Yusef Lateef who like Hayes is a Detroit native (other jazz luminaries hailing from the "motor city" include the Jones brothers, Elvin, Hank and Thad, guitarist Kenny Burrell, pianist Tommy Flanagan, and many others). After the stint with Lateef, Hayes went on to rhythmically propel groups led by pianist Horace Silver, legendary saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, and pianist Oscar Peterson. These positions were augmented by countless recordings on the Blue Note, Prestige, Riverside and other labels with the likes of John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, J.J. Johnson, Jackie McLean, Wes Montgomery, Cedar Walton, Dexter Gordon, Woody Shaw, George Benson, Freddie Hubbard, Joe Henderson, McCoy Tyner, and the list goes on. In this episode, Louis shares his background, education, and musical journey. 

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Eric Wyatt is a saxophonist who plays tenor, alto, and soprano sax. Born in Brooklyn, New York, Eric was taught music by his dad, Charles Jolly Wyatt, who played in the army band in Germany. His dad moved to Harlem in the early 50’s just in time to play with many of the world’s greatest players. Eric can recall stories of his dad taking him to concerts where he would sometimes drive the band members in the family station wagon. Eric at 11 years old drove with his father in 1972 to Storrs, CT with bassist Larry Ridley and pianist Albert Dailey.

The band leader was Eric’s godfather Sonny Rollins. Jim Hall was on the gig as well. This inspired Eric at a young age to hear his first live concert. Some of his dad’s friends were Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Dexter Gordon, Gary Bartz, Big Nick Nicholas, Gilley Coggins, Wilber Ware, and Dizzy Gillespie. Eric went with his dad to see Miles Davis at the Bottom Line club and went backstage after the gig.

Eric began on alto and studied at Kingsborough Community College. He also went to Lehman college where he studied with pianist Stanley Cowell. He had some opportunities early in his career to write and license an original song to channel 5 in NY for a tv news show called Black News with host Bill McCreary in 1985.

He went on to switch to tenor after his dad passed in July 1989. He met and studied with a Brooklyn legend named Arthur Rhames who inspired him. The lessons he learned from Arthur helped to put Eric on the right track. Eric started playing in Europe as a leader in Sept 1996 performing in Paris, France at the La Villa Jazz Club. Dany Michel brought him there 2 times and Eric made connections in Europe and took his quintet to the Half Note Jazz Club in 1998 and 1999. He has played as a leader in Moscow, Russia, as well as in Slovakia, Prague, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Athens in Greece, Australia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore.

He has 5 recordings as a leader and has played as a sideman on CDs with Kenny Garrett, Jeff Tain Watts, Bob Crenshaw, Al Foster, Rufus Reid, Warren Wolf, Wallace Roney, and Steve Jordan. His Cds currently out today are Borough Of Kings, Positone, Look to the Sky, and The Golden Rule 4 Sonny, and A Song of Hope. In this episode, Eric shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Trumpeter, composer, and educator Jared Hall hails from Spokane, Washington.  He studied at Whitworth University, the Indiana University Jacobs School Of Music, and The University Of Miami’s Frost School Of Music, where he received the degree Doctor of Musical Arts in 2015. His primary teachers include Terence Blanchard, Joey Tartell, Dan Keberle, Whit Sidener, David Baker, and Brian Lynch, under whom he pursued his doctoral studies.  Hall is the winner of the 2013 National Trumpet Competition - Jazz Division, and has performed and recorded with Paquito D'Rivera, Bob Hurst, John Daversa, Arturo Sandoval, Maria Schneider, Vincent Herring, Peter Erskine, Dave Liebman, Alan Pasqua, Brian Lynch, Ira Sullivan, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Terence Blanchard, Rick Margitza, Wycliffe Gordon, David Binney, George Benson, Gloria Estefan, Fred Hersch, Shelly Berg, the South Florida Jazz Orchestra, the Frost Concert Jazz Band and the Henry Mancini Jazz Septet directed by Terence Blanchard, among many others. In this episode, Jaded shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Latin Grammy-winning producer, composer, percussionist, and writer, Barrett Martin, has been playing music professionally for over 30 years, including work on over 120 albums and film soundtracks worldwide. His work can be heard on albums by R.E.M., Queens Of The Stone Age, Mad Season, Screaming Trees, Tuatara, Blues legend CeDell Davis, and recording sessions that range from the Peruvian Amazon, to Brazil, Cuba, the Palestinian West Bank, the Mississippi Delta, and the Alaskan Arctic. Barrett also holds a master’s degree in ethnomusicology and linguistics, and has practiced Zen for over 25 years.

He has guest lectured at several universities across the United States, and has written essays for The Huffington Post and Riot Material (links below). In 2014 he was awarded the ASCAP Deems Taylor/Virgil Thompson Award for excellence in writing, and in 2017 he received two Latin Grammy nominations, winning a Grammy for producing Nando Reis’ Best Brazilian Rock Album, “Jardim-Pomar”. In this episode, Jane shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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CONRAD KORSCH is a New York City based acoustic and electric bassist / multi-instrumentalist / vocalist / musical director / bandleader / composer / producer, and educator. After attending the prestigious Settlement Music School throughout his grade school and high school years in Philadelphia, he earned a Bachelor's Degree in Jazz Bass Performance from Temple University, where he attended on scholarship and graduated Magna Cum Laude and with other honors. Widely known for his tenure with Rod Stewart from 2002 - 2018 as bassist and eventually Musical Director / Bandleader, and as a member of The Faces since their R&R Hall Of Fame Induction in 2012, he has accumulated a long and varied list of other notable recordings, performance, production and TV / Film / Theater. In this episode, Jane shares her background, education, and musical journey.

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Soaring, poetic, quicksilver, spontaneous, and instantly identifiable are words used to describe the soprano sound of saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom. She's been steadfastly developing her singular voice on the soprano saxophone for over 40 years creating a body of music that marks her as an American original. She is a pioneer in the use of live electronics and movement in jazz, as well as the possessor of "one of the most gorgeous tones and hauntingly lyrical ballad conceptions of any soprano saxophonist - Pulse." She is the winner of the 2018 Grammy Award for Best Surround Sound Album for her trio album "Early Americans." In this episode, Jane shares her background, education, and musical journey.

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As a virtuoso bassist, versatile composer, and acclaimed bandleader, Marc Johnson has been a major innovator on the jazz scene for the past two decades.

Born in Nebraska in 1953, Johnson took up bass at the age of 16, having already studied piano and cello. While completing his formal education in the celebrated music program at the University of North Texas, at age19, Johnson began performing professionally with the Fort Worth Symphony. In 1977, he was on the road with the Woody Herman Band. A stop with Herman in New York City marked a major turning point for Johnson, where he was invited to sit in with Bill Evans at the Village Vanguard. In 1978, he joined Evans' trio, remaining with him until the pianist's death two years later. Johnson appears on numerous albums recorded with Evans, including the Grammy-winning We Will Meet Again and released in 1997, a six-CD box set of live recordings, Turn Out the Stars, weaving his distinctively warm tones and melodic lines into the complex harmonies of the Trio. 

Over the past 20 years, Johnson has performed on more than 100 albums. Many have been with pianists, including Eliane Elias, Lyle Mays, and Enrico Pieranunzi, although Johnson has also recorded with saxophonists Stan Getz, Joe Lovano, and Michael Brecker, drummers Peter Erskine and Paul Motian, and Jack DeJohnette, vibist Gary Burton, and bandoneon master Dino Saluzzi. And many of his most notable recordings have been with guitarists. In addition to his long membership in guitarist John Abercrombie's trio, Johnson formed two guitar-oriented bands that rose to prominence in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Overpass, recorded in January and February 2018 at Nacena Studios, in São Paulo, was produced by Marc Johnson and Eliane Elias.  In this episode, Marc shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Pianist Benito Gonzalez “Two times Grammy nominee” is an internationally beloved artist who combines a long lineage of American jazz traditions with rhythms from around the world. He’s worked with dozens of the greats, and he always brings some of the best rhythm section players in the world.

Today a rising tide of young jazz pianists are attempting to find their distinct voices by taking cues from their elders. But only a few take their artistry beyond their predecessors to make bold 88-key statements on their journeys to new vistas, fresh sounds, inspired expressions. That personal-touch devotion to the wonders of the instrument brings with it a certitude of intuitive creativity. In this episode, Benito shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Alex Corrêa was born on august 17th, 1981. As the son of a classical pianist was at the age of five his first contact with the piano but was at thirteen when he decided to follow the music path. At seventeen, Alex began his undergraduate studies at Universidade Estadual de Londrina - Brazil, which brought him into significant contact with many sound environments, anthropological and philosophical studies, and skills aimed at teaching music. In this episode, Alex shares his background, education, and musical journey. 

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Arturo O’Farrill, pianist, composer, and educator, was born in Mexico and grew up in New York City. He received his formal musical education at the Manhattan School of Music and the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College. Arturo’s professional career began with the Carla Bley Band and continued as a solo performer with a wide spectrum of artists including Dizzy Gillespie, Lester Bowie, Wynton Marsalis, and Harry Belafonte.

O’Farrill’s well-reviewed and highly praised “Afro-Latin Jazz Suite” from the album CUBA: The Conversation Continues (Motéma) took the 2016 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition and the 2016 Latin Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Album. His powerful “Three Revolutions” from the album Familia-Tribute to Chico and Bebo was the 2018 Grammy Award (his sixth) winner for Best Instrumental Composition. In this episode, Arturo shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Originally from Sacramento, California, Ches Smith is a drummer, percussionist, and composer based in New York. He has collaborated with a host of artists on many scenes since the early 2000s, including Marc Ribot, Tim Berne, John Zorn, Darius Jones, David Torn, John Tchicai, Nels Cline, Mary Halvorson, Trevor Dunn, Terry Riley, Kris Davis, Dave Holland, Secret Chiefs 3, Xiu Xiu, Good for Cows, Theory of Ruin, and Mr. Bungle, among others.

He has nine records to his name as a bandleader that features his writing and ensemble curation, and is a devout student of Haitian Vodou drums, performing in religious and folkloric contexts in New York and Haiti for the last decade. In this episode, Ches shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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The Luxembourgish drummer regularly proves his versatility and openness through numerous projects going from jazz to melodic hardcore to art music and electronic music. He was recently chosen by the American Drummer Jim Black to represent Luxembourg at Crisis Cross Europe. Michel Meis Endorses Paiste Cymbals. 

Diversity runs through the Michel Meis 4tet's music like the proverbial thread. Through its diverse moods and complex yet never arbitrary structures. The band offers compositions that are as elaborate as they are playful, as danceable as they are melancholic. This eclectic character is crystallized in Meis' playful drums. In this episode, Michel shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Tawanda Suessbrich- Joaquim is a 25-year-old singer-songwriter from New Mexico. As a first-generation American, growing up in a multi-cultural European, African and American household meant becoming familiar with music, culture, and experiences from all over the world. Soon enough, she was gravitating solely towards singing and performing, from her early youth all the way until graduating in 2017 with a Bachelor's Degree in Contemporary Music from Santa Fe University of Art and Design, where she was studying vocal jazz under Mirabai Daniels and chair of her program, saxophonist and flute-player Horace Alexander Young.

During those years she could be found charming audiences at El Meson with John Rangel’s quartet, honoring the cultural diversity of New Mexican artists at Burque Noir events, and doing plays, performances, fashion shows, and model work. After moving to Los Angeles in 2019, and working hard to stay inspired during 2020, Tawanda has most recently won the 2021 Sarah Vaughan Vocal Jazz competition, a title previously assumed by contemporaries such as Cyrille Aimée, Jazzmeia Horn, and Samara Joy McClendon.

Deeply inspired by the great classics, Billie, Ella, Sarah, and Anita O'Day, richly influenced by her background of world music, classical training, folk, pop, and independent styles, Tawanda looks forward to delving ever further into the worldwide Jazz scene and exploring multi-genre fusion in the near future, with the hopes, always, of giving back to her people and the earth, and refining her gift of story-telling. In this episode, Tawada shares her background, education, and musical journey.

Feifke is an internationally recognized arranger and orchestrator and has written commissioned works for notables like the Manhattan School of Music Jazz Orchestra featuring Sean Jones and John Faddis, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra with Ken Peplowski, the Malmo Big Band with Katie Thiroux, and the New Generation Festival with Orchestra Senzaspine and Dominick Farinacci. He is the recipient of the 2020 David Baker Prize in composition from the Ravinia Festival and serves as musical director for the Tony Award Winning actor and singer Santino Fontana. In this episode, Steven shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Nicolas Stocker is a core member of the celebrated ritual groove music ensemble Nik Bärtsch's Mobile since 2015. His extensive sideman work includes collaborations with Ricardo Villalobos, Maarja Nuut, Areni Agbabian, Witch’n’Monk, and many more - «...the music is really enhanced by Stocker's outstanding work on drums. In addition to numerous album productions, he has recorded drums for several movie soundtracks and worked with GRAMMY-Award-winning producers Manfred Eicher and David Odlum. He is featured on the ECM Records releases Continuum by Nik Bärtsch's Mobile, Bloom by Areni Agbabian, as well as on John Zorn’s Tzadik Records release Witch’n’Monk, which won the prestigious Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik. Both Bloom and Witch’n’Monk have been named Contemporary Album Of The Month by The Guardian. In this episode, Nicolas shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Born and partly raised in Uganda, Mark Kavuma is a prominent young Trumpet player on the British jazz scene. Leading his own Quartet, the 'Floor Rippers' house band, and his main outfit 'The Banger Factory'. As well as, playing with Jean Toussaint's Young Lions, Jazz Jamaica, Nu Civilisation Orchestra and also one of the brass leaders at London based carnival band Kinetika Bloco. 

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Dani Rabin is a member of MARBIN, with fellow bandmate Danny Markovitch. MARBIN is a progressive jazz-rock band based in Chicago, IL, with a unique story that stands out in today's music world. With a do-it-yourself approach, Marbin started touring extensively in 2011, bringing their original instrumental music to every part of the United States. Through word of mouth, Marbin has gained hundreds of thousands of devoted fans all over the world and has sold tens of thousands of albums. Check out his Latest release Fernweh.

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Irwin Hall got his start at the age of 9 when he won a lottery in school and was gifted an alto saxophone. By the age of 11, he was on stage performing professionally and began winning state and national competitions. Irwin attended Princeton University on a full ride to study East Asian philosophy. He learned Japanese and after graduating began work at a major Japanese newspaper in Tokyo. As fate would have it, he ran into songstress Melody Gardot backstage at the Tokyo Jazz Festival who heard him play and immediately hired him to tour with her band. He quit his job and went on back-to-back international tours as her featured soloist. Soon after he caught the ear of 3x Grammy/Tony Award winning NEA Jazz Master Dee Dee Bridgewater and joined her working band, honing his skills under the master vocalist on saxophone, flute, and bass clarinet. His woodwind work is featured on the two Grammy-nominated albums: Star People Nation by trumpeter Theo Croker and Currency of Man by Melody Gardot. He has toured extensively with Grammy-nominated vocalist Jazzmeia Horn and bass virtuoso Charnett Moffett, among many others. Irwin now leads his own band - Irwin Hall Organ Trio (#IHOT) - and continues to perform in cities around the world. In this episode, Irwin shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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One of the most sought-after drummers of his generation, Ulysses Owens Jr sets the mark. From GRAMMY award-winning performances with Christian McBride’s acclaimed Trio and Big Band to world tours with Kurt Elling and Joey Alexander, Owens’s artistic command of percussion has earned him positions in some of the most successful jazz ensembles of the 21st century. Owens’s reverence for tradition distinctly manifests in his straight-away playing style, but it is the versatility of his talent— his unique ability to manipulate texture and create penetrating musical shapes— that attracts the attention of jazz’s heavy hitters. His performance catalog includes collaborations with Nicholas Payton, Wynton Marsalis, Monty Alexander, Dianne Schurr, Renee Fleming, and Mulgrew Miller, just to name a few. In this episode, Ulysses shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Isobella Burnham is a vibrant Bassist, Vocalist and Composer from England. Growing up in Barbados she soaked up the rich musical culture around her and studied Jazz at the Barbados Community College. Since moving back to London, Isobella has played and toured around Europe, Africa and Asia with Connie Constance, Steamdown, Tom Misch, Sampa The Great and Poppy Ajudha. The Boss/Roland, Rotosound artist is featured on Blue Note’s Reimagined Album performing bass and vocals for Steamdown. Her Debut EP Dancin’ Garuda set to be released on 21 st May 2021. In this episode, Isobella shares her background, education, and musical journey.

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Returning to Improv Exchange, Christophe Schweizer talks about his latest project PLENITUDE by Brazilian trombone legend Raul de Souza.

Christophe Schweizer is considered one of the most innovative and creative musicians on the European Jazz scene, both with respect to his abilities and versatility on the trombone and other low brass instruments (also as an interpreter of classical and new music), as well as especially to his work as a composer, arranger, and bandleader.

Born in Switzerland and nowadays residing in Hamburg, Germany, he lived in New York for seven years starting in the mid-nineties. During this period, he worked with the George Gruntz Concert Jazz Band for three years, and occasionally with the orchestras of Maria Schneider and Sue Mingus, playing two European tours with the latter. In this episode, Christophe shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Lynne Arriale is an active educator and adjudicator. She has conducted master classes and clinics internationally throughout the US, UK, Europe, Canada, Brazil, and South Africa. She adjudicated the Chamber Music America’s New Jazz Works, the Montreux Jazz Competition, American Pianists Association Fellowship Awards, The Kennedy Center’s Mary Lou Williams Competition, The American Jazz Pianist Competition, and the Jacksonville Piano Competition. She was a featured mentor at The Mary Lou Williams Emerging Artist Workshop at the Kennedy Center. 

Lynne is a Yamaha Artist and is currently a Professor of Jazz Studies and Director of Small Ensembles at The University of North Florida in Jacksonville. In 2018, she was awarded the UNF Presidential Leader Award and was runner-up for the 2020 UNF Faculty Association Distinguished Professor Award. In this episode, Lynne shares her background, education, and musical journey.

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A world-class musician, composer, arranger, and educator, Diego Rivera has entertained audiences for over 20 years. Rivera is known for his muscular tone and unique blend of straight-ahead mainstream jazz fused with music inspired by his Latino background and heritage. He is a tenured Associate Professor of Jazz Saxophone at Michigan State University where he also serves as Associate Director of Jazz Studies. 

Rivera was born in Ann Arbor, MI, and raised ‘just up the road’ in East Lansing, MI. Born into a Mexican-American family, his Chicano heritage has always been important to him and shaped his creative endeavors. His parents named him after the famed muralist, Diego Rivera. A trip to the Detroit Institute of Arts at a young age inspired him to make his own mark with the Saxophone rather than the brush. He attended Michigan State University where he studied with Andrew Speight, Branford Marsalis, Ron Blake, and Rodney Whitaker. In this episode, Diego shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Described as "one of the most compelling voices to emerge on her instrument in recent years", Australian-born-based trumpeter/composer Nadje Noordhuis possesses one of the most unforgettably lyrical voices in modern music. Her deeply-felt, clarion tone and evocative compositional gift meld classical rigor, jazz expression, and world music accents into a sound that is distinctively her own. Noordhuis was one of ten semi-finalists in the 2007 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Trumpet Competition and was selected as a Carnegie Hall Young Artist in 2012. Based in New York since 2003, she is a member of the multiple Grammy-winning Maria Schneider Orchestra, Grammy-nominated Darcy James Argue's Secret Society, and the Grammy-nominated Anat Cohen Tentet. In this episode, Nadje shares her background, education, and musical journey.

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Guitarist/composer Amanda Monaco has performed at venues such as Jazz at Lincoln Center, Birdland, Jazz Standard, and Flushing Town Hall, and with artists such as Milt Hinton, Steve Wilson, Rufus Reid, and the Mingus Orchestra. She has released eight albums to date and her current jazz projects include her eclectic quartet Deathblow, rambunctious organ quartet Glitter, an all-female jazz sextet Lioness. Her New Music ensemble The Pirkei Avot Project performs her original music with lyrics from selected verses (from a collection of rabbinical teachings with the same name) compiled in the third century C.E. An educator since 1990, Amanda is an Associate Professor at Berklee College of Music where she teaches private instruction, labs, and guitar ensembles. In this episode, Amanda shares her background, education, and musical journey.

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Born in Incheon, South Korea, Jihee Heo is a New York-based jazz pianist, composer and keyboardist. Heo holds a Master of Music degree (Jazz Piano Performance) from Manhattan School of Music (2013), and a Bachelor’s Degree (Jazz Piano Performance) from the Conservatorium van Amsterdam (2008). Heo has performed at acclaimed festivals and venues such as The Washington D.C. Jazz Festival, O+ Festival, Leverkusen Jazz Festival, The International African Arts Festival, The Jersey Shore Festival, Bergen Pac, Harlem Stage, National Sawdust, The Bitter End, Arthur’s Tavern, Rockwood Music Hall, Nublu, Cornelia Street Cafe and Brooklyn Bowls, among others. In this episode, Heo shares her background, education, and musical journey.

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Multiple Grammy Award–winning drummer, producer, and educator Terri Lyne Carrington has recorded and toured with Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Stan Getz, Dianne Reeves, David Sanborn, John Scofield, Diana Krall, Yellowjackets, Cassandra Wilson, Kassa Overall, and countless other jazz luminaries. Carrington made history as the first woman to win a Grammy Award in the Best Jazz Instrumental Album category for Money Jungle: Provocative In Blue, a reimagining of the Duke Ellington classic. Her collaborations with Esperanza Spalding and Geri Allen, as well as her female-driven Mosaic Project recordings, have received critical acclaim. She is Zildjian Chair in Performance at Berklee College of Music and received an honorary doctorate from the college in 2003 as well as a bachelor's degree in 1983. She also serves as artistic director for the Berklee Beantown Jazz Festival and Berklee's Summer Sessions: Women’s Performance Program, and is co-artistic director of the Carr Center in Detroit, Michigan. Carrington is also going for her fourth Grammy after receiving her fifth nomination for her Album "Waiting Game". In this episode, Carrington shares her background, education, and musical journey. 

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Andrew McGowan is a New Orleans born pianist who played with renowned artists such as Jason Marsalis, Joe Dyson, and Sasha Masakowski in New Orleans as well as bands such as The Stooges Brass Band and The Session at venues such as Snug Harbor, The Jazz and Heritage Festival, and also many international clubs and festivals such as the Edinburgh Jazz festival and South by Southwest. After moving to NYC in 2016, Andrew played at major jazz clubs in NYC such as Blue Note, Minton’s, Dizzy’s, Smalls, and Fat Cat.

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Through more than a quarter-century as a first-caller on the jazz scene, Eric Reed has articulated this inclusive conception as a leader of numerous ensembles, solo performer, composer, producer, educator, and sideman with numerous artists, including extended stints with Joe Henderson, Freddie Hubbard, Buster Williams, and Wynton Marsalis. Whatever the context, whatever the style, he consistently animates the flow with fresh ideas, virtuosic chops, intellectual clarity, and an unwavering will to groove. In this episode, Eric shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Nathan East is one of the most in-demand bassists of all time. A founding member of the chart-topping contemporary jazz group Fourplay, Nathan was 16 years old when he got his first break and found himself on the road with Barry White. The next time the phone rang, Quincy Jones was on the line. The calls kept coming and for the last forty years, Nath has been churning out hit songs with artists as legendary as Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Michael Jackson, Phil Collins, Whitney Houston, Beyoncé, Barbra Streisand, and Stevie Wonder. In this episode, Nathan shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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London-based jazz vocalist James Hudson has all of the unique qualities that epitomize the 21st-century crooner. An assured and charming performer, his natural affinity with an audience is complemented by effortless vocals, tasteful phrasing, and interpretive prowess.

James’s debut album 'TOMORROW', set for release in February 2021, will be the biggest milestone of his career so far. Over a year in the making, the album features James and his band performing brand-new interpretations of classics from The Great American Songbook. Greatly influenced by Nat King Cole, Mel Torme, Oscar Peterson, Sarah Vaughan and Tony Bennett, James is fuelled by a desire to play his part in keeping jazz standards alive. In this episode, James shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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John Beasley, Multi-GRAMMY® and Emmy Award-nominated pianist, composer, arranger, producer, music director. An uncommonly versatile pianist, he has backed such jazz icons as Miles Davis and Freddie Hubbard – playing in the bands of both these trumpet greats while still in his 20s. Since then, Beasley has performed with a wide range of artists from Dianne Reeves, Ivan Lins, John Patitucci, Chaka Khan, Christian McBride, Carly Simon, Steely Dan, Lee Ritenour, Somi, A.R. Rahman, and James Brown’s last concert at the Hollywood Bowl. His extensive work as a composer-arranger extends beyond jazz, with many credits in television such as Star Trek:TNG, Cheers, and Fame; and in films scored by 15-time Oscar nominee Thomas Newman 1917, James Bond’s Spectre and Skyfall, Finding Dory, He Named Me Malala, and Shawshank Redemption. While on tour with Miles Davis, Beasley was inspired to record his first album Cauldron, which was produced by Steely Dan’s Walter Becker. A dozen albums later, Beasley has earned ten GRAMMY nominations, six for his project called MONK’estra. In this episode, John shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Jim Lang is a seasoned composer in the film and television world, having strengthened many projects through his diverse musical palette. He is most recognized for his theme music, original songs, and score for Nickelodeon‘s hit animated series Hey Arnold!, which has aired in over 70 markets worldwide. Most recently, Jim scored Hey Arnold: The Jungle Movie, the highly-anticipated return to television after a 13-year hiatus. The film, which features updates to the iconic themes from the series, picks up after the cliffhanger ending of Hey Arnold: The Movie, and finds Arnold and friends searching for his parents in Central America.

Jim is currently scoring season two of Wind Dancer Films‘ popular early childhood science show, Ready, Jet, Go! for PBS. His original music is also featured in the Ron Howard films The Paper, Ransom, and ED TV. Other film scores include the independent features Born Killers, Fred & Vinnie, Cellmates, and Guido. Additionally, Jim scored The Jim Henson Company’s animated feature series Unstable Fables, and Houston International Film Festival’s Best Short Grand Prize winner World Song. He has also collaborated with acclaimed horror director John Carpenter, for his film In the Mouth Of Madness.

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Dejan has performed in more than twenty – five countries around the globe (USA, Russia, China, Japan, Britain, France, Germany, etc.) both independently and as the leader of the acclaimed jazz-rock band EYOT. Aside from 4 released albums of EYOT, where he is signed as the sole composer of all compositions, Dejan also released three solo piano projects for the US market, under 90&9 Records and Magnatune labels, and one more for Serbian label Metropolis. Ilijic has composed music for multi-awarded documentaries and TV shows that aired on numerous national and local TV channels in Serbia and Europe, and also at international film festivals. In this episode, Dejan shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Christophe Schweizer is considered one of the most innovative and creative musicians on the European Jazz scene, both with respect to his abilities and versatility on the trombone and other low brass instruments (also as an interpreter of classical and new music), as well as especially to his work as a composer, arranger, and bandleader.

Born in Switzerland and nowadays residing in Hamburg, Germany, he lived in New York for seven years starting in the mid-nineties. During this period, he worked with the George Gruntz Concert Jazz Band for three years, and occasionally with the orchestras of Maria Schneider and Sue Mingus, playing two European tours with the latter. In this episode, Christope shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Danny Markovitch is the co-leader and founder of the jazz-fusion band Marbin. Marbin is a progressive jazz-rock band based in Chicago, IL, with a unique story that stands out in today's music world. With a do-it-yourself approach, Marbin started touring extensively in 2011, bringing their original instrumental music to every part of the United States. Through word of mouth, Marbin has gained hundreds of thousands of devoted fans all over the world and has sold tens of thousands of albums. Marbin has released eight albums: Marbin (2009), Breaking the Cycle (2011), Last Chapter of Dreaming (2013), The Third Set (2014), Aggressive Hippies (2015), Goatman and the House of the Dead(2016), Israeli Jazz (2018), and Strong Thing (2019). Marbin regularly plays in clubs all over the US and in jam and jazz festivals around the world.

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NYC-based drummer/composer/teacher Allison Miller engages her deep roots in improvisation as a vehicle to explore all music. Described by critics as a Modern Jazz Icon in the Making, Miller won Downbeat’s 67th Annual Critics Poll for “Rising Star Drummer” and JazzTimes’s 2019 Critics Poll for “Best Jazz Drummer.” Boom Tic Boom, Allison’s longtime band, won Jazz Journalists Association’s 2019 award for “Best Mid-Sized Ensemble.” Her composition, “Otis Was a Polar Bear”, is included on NPR’s list of The 200 Greatest Songs By 21st Century Women+. She is also the first recipient of the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation’s Commissioning Grant. In this episode, Allison shares her background, education, and musical journey.

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At a young age, Giveton taught himself how to play the trumpet. From there he has gone on to share the stage with some of the biggest names in music such as Wynton Marsalis, Jon Batiste, and Ben Wolfe. On top of that, earlier this year he was awarded the Letter One Rising Star Jazz Award. All that while he’s still continuing his studies at The Juilliard School. Giveton’s debut album, True Design, was released on April 19, 2020, which also happens to be his birthday.  Giveton isn’t the only top-notch player on this album, Immanuel Wilkins (alto sax), Micah Thomas (piano), Kyle Benford (drums), and Philip Norris (bass) all lend their amazing talents to bring this album to life. In this episode, Giveton shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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John Fedchock’s illustrious career in jazz has spanned four decades. Since his emergence on the scene in 1980, Fedchock has established himself as a world-class trombone soloist, a heralded bandleader, and a Grammy-nominated arranger. An in-demand performer and writer in New York City, his multifaceted talents have led him to become one of NYC’s premier jazz artists. His critically acclaimed John Fedchock New York Big Band has become a marquee group, showcasing Fedchock’s trombone and arranging as well as the band’s all-star soloists. The JFNYBB’s five CDs on the MAMA and Reservoir Music labels have all received high praise from critics and extraordinary success on national jazz radio charts. The early success of the band resulted in Fedchock’s name appearing in DOWNBEAT’s Readers Poll under the categories of Trombone, Arranger and Big Band, simultaneously for several consecutive years. In recognition of his formidable arranging skills, Fedchock is a two-time GRAMMY Award nominee for “Best Instrumental Arrangement”. The JFNYBB’s recordings have appeared in jazz radio’s Top Ten, and the New York Times has applauded the band’s “Cheerful Syncopation, Served With Spit-and-Polish Precision. In this episode, John shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Dutch double bassist, composer and producer Jasper Somsen (1973) graduated in both Jazz and Classical double bass. He collaborated amongst many others with Peter Erskine, Enrico Pieranunzi, Joey Calderazzo, Jeff Ballard, John Beasley, Jean-Michel Pilc, Eric Marienthal, Bob Sheppard, Seamus Blake, Lynne Arriale, Jorge Rossy, Kendrick Scott, Justin Faulkner, E.J. Strickland, André Ceccarelli, Gary Husband and Gabriele Mirabassi. In this episode, Jasper shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Brian Scarborough is a top call trombonist, improviser, composer, and educator in the greater Kansas City area.  He can be seen performing around Kansas City with his own ensembles, and is a member of the People’s Liberation Big Band of Greater Kansas City, the Boulevard Big Band, Zen Brass, The Kansas-Nebraska Act, and is a sub for the Kansas City Jazz Orchestra.  Brian has also appeared with the Fountain City Brass Band. In this episode, Brian shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Steve Davis, the father of Tony Davis, is widely regarded as one of today’s leading improvisers on the trombone. Davis has appeared in Downbeat Magazine’s Readers and Critics Polls numerous times, winning the TDWR (Rising Star) Trombone Category in 1998. Davis has also been recently nominated by the Jazz Journalists Association four years in a row (2010-2013) as Trombonist of the Year. In this episode, Steve shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Hailing originally from Nagasaki, Japan, Keita Ogawa is 2 times Grammy nominees and Grammy Award winner and one of the most versatile and sought-after percussionist and drummer in New York City if not the world. Currently, he works several projects like Snarky Puppy, Bokanté, Banda Magda, Bokantè, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Charlie Hunter, JSquad, Camila Meza and the Nectar Orchestra, Clarice Assad, and more. In this episode, Keita shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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When Jason Burt found the recordings in his late grandfather’s attic, he thought they might belong in a World War II museum gift shop. His grandfather, Richard Burt, was a Juilliard-trained musician; before becoming a music teacher in West Sacramento, he volunteered his talents as the lead trumpet player of the 746th Air Force Band. Quite the storyteller, he often spoke of his time with the band, and his experience of being stationed in the Philippines during World War II. In this episode, Jason shares his background, education, and his journey to make his Grandpa and the 746th Air Force Band go platinum.

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Dutch saxophonist Yuri Honing has widened his musical scope through collaborating with such great talents as Pat Metheny and Charlie Haden. Honing achieved his first international breakthrough with his trio recording Star Tracks, an album consisting only of pop songs. Another landmark recording was Seven, made in New York and featuring Paul Bley, Gary Peacock, and Paul Motion, which received the prestigious Edison (Dutch Grammy) Award. In this episode, Yuri shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Kyle Benford is a percussionist we believe will be making noise for years to come. After hearing his recordings with raising Jazz artist Micah Thomas and Giveton Gelin we seem to be correct. A Juilliard Alum, Wynton Marsalis has mentioned that Benford is indeed an "MVP". In this episode, Kyle shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Takuya Kuroda is a powerhouse talent, whose writing has been praised as “soulful” and “modern,” “effortlessly bridging the gap between jazz and soul, between history and tomorrow.” This interview marks the upcoming release of Kuroda’s widely-anticipated Album, Fly Moon Die Soon - a fitting title for the work of a musician on the ascent. In this episode, Takuya shares his background, education, and musical journey. 

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Jocelyn Gould is an accomplished guitarist, vocalist, and bandleader. Originally from Winnipeg, Canada, she grew up singing every chance she got and became enthralled with the guitar as a teenager. Jocelyn maintains an active international performance career, including performances at the St. Lucia Jazz Festival, the Detroit Jazz Festival, and the TD Toronto Jazz Festival. Jocelyn’s debut recording, Elegant Traveler, was released in March 2020. In this episode, Jocelyn shares her background, education, and musical journey.

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The New York Times wrote "Only occasionally — a few times in a generation, even — does a pianist come along who seems to have gobbled up and processed so much music, their style can make sense of both jazz’s history and its presence in a single motion. Micah Thomas is one of those players." Micah performs in venues throughout the city both as a leader of his own groups and as a sideman for such luminaries as Immanuel Wilkins, Joel Ross, Lage Lund, Melissa Aldana, Etienne Charles, Gabe Schnider, Harish Raghavan, Stacy Dillard, and Joshua Redman. He also appeared as a guest with Wynton Marsalis’ Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra in 2017 alongside Sullivan Fortner, Aaron Diehl, and Joel Wenhardt, and as a solo performer at the 2018 Newport Jazz Festival. In this episode, Micah shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Yoo Sun Nam is an up­ and ­coming alto saxophonist and composer from South Korea. At a young age, she was very intrigued by many different styles of music including classical, Korean traditional, pop, and funk. In 2011, Yoo Sun moved to New York City, where she began pursuing her Master’s degree in jazz studies from NYU Steinhardt. During her time in New York, Yoo Sun was fortunate enough to have studied and performed with great jazz artists such as Artist Faculty members Joe Lovano, Dave Pietro, Gill Goldstein, Kenny Werner, Alan Ferber, and Ralph Alessi. In this episode, Yoosun shares her background, education, and musical journey.

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“One of the most commanding voices on bass today” Yasushi Nakamura is praised for imaginative, quicksilver bass lines that deepen the groove. His blend of guitar-like precision and gut-level blues has sparked collaborations with artists such as Wynton Marsalis, Wycliffe Gordon, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Hank Jones, Dave Douglas, Steve Miller, etc. With his charismatic stage presence and artful, hard-swinging melodic touch, Nakamura is a first-call performer capturing new audiences and fans around the world. In this episode, Yasushi shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Shane Cooper is a bassist, composer, and producer based in Johannesburg, South Africa.  He is part of the new wave of South African Jazz artists pushing the music forward and is also known for his work in the electronic/dance music world, as well as commissioned works for films and theatre. In 2017 he launched MABUTA with band members Bokani Dyer, Sisonke Xonti, Robin Fassie, and Marlon Witbooi.  Their new album Welcome To This World is out now on all digital platforms through Shane’s record label Kujua Records. In this episode, Shane shares his background, education, and musical journey.

Bassist, singer, and composer Ellen Andrea Wang has distinguished herself as an inventive artist, blending genres in new and unprecedented ways. Wang received the Kongsberg Jazz Festivals great musician award in 2015. The prize is awarded to a musician who has a leading position on the Norwegian jazz scene. We believe she's talent on the rise and a force to be reckoned with. In the episode, Ellen shares her background, education, and musical journey. 

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Most jazz listeners are surely acquainted with one of the genre’s foremost trombonists, Steve Davis. The good news is his 25-year-old son, guitarist Tony Davis has also picked up the mantle and is continuing the family’s musical legacy. Not only does Davis display considerable talent with his swinging guitar style, but he also wrote most of the tunes on this debut as a leader, Golden Year. In this episode, Tony shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Maik Krahl was once described as “represents his generation’s as the top German jazz trumpeter. His musical statements enrich me and let me look forward to the future of a whole genre, which will always exist.” We tend to agree. His first album Decidophobia was released in 2018 with Double Moon/Challenge Records International. His second album Fraction featuring Seamus Blake was released in May 2020. In this episode, Maik shares his background, education, and musical journey.

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Hot House Jazz Magazine described Chris McCarthy as “one of the most imaginative and impressive voices on the New York jazz scene.” Since arriving in New York City in 2016, McCarthy has made a name for himself as one of the scenes most in-demand young sidemen. He steps into the foreground as a bandleader with the release of his April 2020 Ropeadope debut, Still Time To Quit. In this episode, Chris shares his background, education, and musical journey. 

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Jazz and Latin Jazz vocalist, Lauren Henderson, paints reflective and impassioned stories with her haunting voice and enchanting compositions. Henderson's compositions navigate journeys imposed through the African Diaspora in connection to her Panamanian, Montserratian, and vast Caribbean roots as they interplay with her North American upbringing. In this episode, Lauren shares her background, education, and musical journey.

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Steve Perry is best known as lead singer, songwriter, and rhythm guitarist for the Oregon ska-swing band the Cherry Poppin' Daddies. Their hit song "Zoot Suit Riot,” was a subversive, punk-forward cocktail of jazz and ska with a swing finish that sends listeners back to the 1940s. In this episode, Steve shares his background and his musical journey.

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Alexa Tarantino is an award-winning, vibrant, young jazz saxophonist, woodwind doubler, composer, and educator. Alexa was also recently named one of the “Top 5 Alto Saxophonists of 2019” by the JazzTimes Critics’ Poll. In this episode, Alexa talks about her musical journey and her latest release Clarity.

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Trumpeter and singer Benny Benack III has proven to be a rare talent: not only a fiery trumpet player with a stirring command of the postbop trumpet vernacular in the vein of Kenny Dorham and Blue Mitchell but also a singer with a sly, mature, naturally expressive delivery in the post-Sinatra mold, performing standards and his own astute songs with a thrilling sense of showmanship. Benny shares his educational background, his music career, and his latest release A Lot of Living to do.

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In addition to being a solo artist, Almazan is the founder and director of Biophilia Records. In this episode, Fabian Almazan joins us as he talks about his music journey and the future of Jazz.

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Dayna Stephens is a Brooklyn-born Bay Area-raised artist, who is known as an improviser educator and a written composer. In this episode, Dayna shares his music career, his experience playing the Sax, his latest and upcoming release.

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Theo Hill is hailed by the New York Times as "a vital young pianist at play in New York's straight-ahead tradition." Something which couldn't be more true. In this episode Theo Hill shares his music career, his experience playing the Vibes, and his latest release Interstellar Adventures. 

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Kassa Overall is something like a cross between a jazz musician, a backpack rapper and a bedroom producer. Kassa's combination of live performances, studio recordings and remixes and his bridgings of jazz and hip-hop cultures is the short list of what makes him amazing. 

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Emmet Cohen is committed to the inter-generational transfer of the knowledge, history, and traditions of jazz. Which I can honestly say is one thing I love about his style and his Masters Regency series. In this episode Emmet Cohen talks about his music career, his mission, and his future.

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Yes! That metal xylophone is actually called a vibraphone and one of its eminence is Warren Wolf. In this episode Warren Wolf shares his music career, his experience playing the Vibes, and his latest release Reincarnation.

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Leon Foster Thomas: The Road Seldom Traveled. When most people think of Jazz Instruments, Steel Pan isn't what normally comes to mind. In this episode, we have Leon Foster Thomas joining us. He is a seasoned jazz musician from Trinidad and Tobago, currently based in Miami, Florida. Leon shares his educational background, his music career, and his experience playing this unique instrument. 

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In this episode, we have Kathrine Windfeld joining us. She is a seasoned jazz musician from Denmark. Kathrine will be sharing with us her music journey.

Being a bandleader, Katherine shares with us how she created her first big band and a sextet. Also, she will be telling us about her new album, and where she sees jazz music in the next ten years.

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In this premiere episode, the host Leander Young, invites his friend and bass player from his band, Tristan Eggener to share his musical journey.

Tristan shares his educational background, his music career, and his experience as a music professor. He also shares his take on trends and changes in the jazz music scene and how they affect musicians today.

Listen to hear how Tristan learned to deal with the reality of life that he was not taught in music school.

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