In The Groove, Jazz and Beyond

This show doesn't have much of a theme. Its just some killin' great jazz tunes I think you'll dig. It's got some new releases by Anat Cohen and Playdate, and some unreleased tracks that you won't find anywhere else by tenor sax phenom Noah Preminger and rising star trumpeter Josh Evans.

Not your father's Big Band Music. The tracks we will listen to are modern arrangements for large ensembles. Dig the opening number from Gerald Wilson, with a swinging arrangement of Miles’ So What. Also featured are arrangements from University of Connecticut’s jazz program Earl MacDonald and a beautiful tune from Christine Jensen’s Jazz Orchestra. We finish off the show with a different sound from none other than Frank Zappa.

This show features the great guitarist John McLaughlin. Those that have listened to this show for a long time, know that this was my introduction to jazz music (though many would say that the Mahavishnu Orchestra is not jazz). We will hear JM in many different setting. We will hear him rocking out with the original MO, a more traditional setting with Joe Farrell, and the Indian Fusion group Shakti. The podcast ends with two extended compositions, one with the London Symphony and his latest project Five Peace Band.

This show is for my wife Claire, and reviews our evening in NYC hitting up the jazz clubs for our anniversary celebration. It also marks the end of 2010 Radiothon. I'd like to thank all my listeners that showed their support for WHUS and this radio show. Because of you, In The Groove exceeded our fundraising goal. Thanks.. and no more annoying begging for money for the rest of the year!

WHUS FM is the broadcast home to In the Groove, Jazz and Beyond. Without this listener supported community radio station, this Podcast would not be possible. One of the ways that WHUS determines listener support for Jazz programming is by the contributions from our audience during this Radiothon. Your support helps to keep my show on WHUS's schedule. Please show your support by making a donation.

This weeks podcast is a soulful one, but not in the obvious sense of Jimmy Smith or Ray Charles. It starts out with the classic rock group War and a 13+ minute instrumental called City, Country, City. We follow up with some soulful new jazz from Wayne Escoffery and Noah Baerman followed by jazz masters Charles Mingus and Stan Getz.

Returned from Florida, refreshed and renewed to bring you more great jazz. While in Miami, we stopped in at Van Dykes. A fine restaurant and jazz club, serving up live music 7 days a week. While there we were introduced to Silvano Monostarios, a great jazz pianist and composer. His group blew us away. In this podcast we feature along with Silvano, other great artists. The show starts with Ed Thigpen, the great drummer who passed away last month. Later in the show we feature many great young talent from the New York City jazz scene.

This show was recorded the day before Valentines day. No real theme to the show, in fact I don't even mention the Hallmark card holiday. The majority of the playlist comes from talented young musicians/composers that are having an impact on the future of jazz music. Hope you enjoy the tunes.

As we were waiting for the arrival of Kenny Barron for an exclusive WHUS interview (see last weeks podcast), we kicked back and played some great tunes from Rob Garcia 4, Chris Potter, Les McCann and Danillo Perez. This weeks and last weeks podcast can be listened to as a set with this podcast being the first part of the show.

We were honored to have Kenny Barron and Regina Carter, currently with the Monterey Jazz Festival Tour, come to the WHUS studios for a live interview. Kenny Barron, a true grand master of jazz piano, and the wonderfully talented Regina Carter speak about music and the jazz scene with me in between concerts held at University of Connecticut. We start out the show with an inspiring recording form John Coltrane and a Connecticut favorite and friend of the show, pianist Craig Hartley.

This is the first hour of last weeks radio broadcast. It’s an eclectic mix of different styles. Much of it pushes the boundries of traditional jazz music using different instrumentation and creative arrangements. We start out the show with Alice Coltrane’s harp, followed by modern electric guitar, tuba, voice, and electronics. It brings to mind how diverse, modern and creative the jazz experience is.

I had the pleasure of hosting tenor sax artist and composer Noah Preminger for an interview at WHUS on Saturday evening. Noah is one of the young creative jazz artists based in New York City that is defining the future of jazz music. He spoke with us about his background and influences, his method of composition, and some of his current projects. We get to hear from his critically acclaimed album Dry Bridge Road, and some yet to be released recordings. Noah also plays for us live in the studio. We also take the opportunity to promote a couple of live performances coming up this week in Hartford and NYC.

No radio show this week, so I am republishing a podcast originally posted in August of 2008. This tribute was first aired on the anniversary of Bird’s 88th birthday, but its great to hear these tunes any time of the year. This great alto player is often considered the founder of Be-Bop music. Before Bird in the 1940's, Jazz was primarily big-band music, dance music that was perhaps the most popular genre of it's time. Bird featured a hard driving quartet and quintet format with an emphasis on improvisation, freeing the soloist to stretch out. As I listen to the 2 Bird originals on this set, each under 3 minutes, it amazes me how much music is packed into these tracks. The rest of the set features modern day jazz artists that have covered Bird's compositions as well as artists that have been influenced by his music. Actually, every great jazz artist that has played this idium since Bird, has taken some of his chops from Charlie Parker.

This weeks program features guitarists from around the world. We start tonight's show with some rockin' guitar work from Mike Stern's new album Big Neighborhood. A great title that highlights that through music and the Internet, the world has become one big neighborhood. The second track I play from this album features Richard Bona whose vocals give the tune an African vibe. We hear from Belgium's Django, who perhaps brought the guitar to jazz music in the first place. We also get to hear the mid-eastern influence in guitar jazz from the Rudresh's Indo-Pak Coalition and Rez Abassi, and Faroud Haak. Other guitarists present on this podcast are Ben Monder and Adam Rogers.

We continue last weeks retrospective of 2009 releases. Even after 2 shows dedicated to last years music, I still have a stack of music that I did not have the time to get to. I guess you can say that it was a prolific year for new music. Despite reports that jazz is dead, it is indeed thriving with new music and new artists. Check out young talented players like Jimmy Greene, Mike DiRubbo and Lauren Sevian. They are represented here as well as more established artists like Joe Lovano, Steve Davis and Joshua Redman. We end the show with some old time masters too, in Benny Golson and Mingus.