Home » Jazz Articles

Radio & Podcasts

Tune in daily to hear the internet's top jazz programs including Mondo Jazz, Jazz Bastard, World of Jazz, The Third Story, One Man's Jazz, Jazz at 100, Neon Jazz, A Broad Spectrum, Liner Notes and more. View our program schedule and check out the most recent JazzWeek Radio Chart.

Ben Sidran: If You Can't Laugh At Life You're Through

Read "Ben Sidran: If You Can't Laugh At Life You're Through" reviewed by Leo Sidran


In a career spanning over fifty years and thirty five records, Ben Sidran has established himself as a philosopher poet. Equally celebrated for his precise, probing writing style as he is for his improvised spoken word jazz raps, he has carved out a truly unique space for himself. The Times of London aptly described Ben as “the world's first existential jazz rapper," and The Chicago Sun Times once referred to him as “a renaissance man cast adrift in the modern ...

2

Shabaka: This Is The Moment To Make Patient Music

Read "Shabaka: This Is The Moment To Make Patient Music" reviewed by Leo Sidran


Shabaka Hutchings grew up between the UK and Barbados. He started playing clarinet as a young boy in Barbados and eventually moved back to England to go to music school in the early 2000s.After college he began a period of working furiously on a kaleidoscopic range of projects and became an icon of the new sound of London jazz, which integrated African rhythms and modes, Caribbean and Middle eastern sounds and was largely danceable.Shabaka himself has ...

1

Jose James Makes Music For 'Party And Politics'

Read "Jose James Makes Music For 'Party And Politics'" reviewed by Leo Sidran


Singer Jose James has been a consistent and insistent musical presence ever since he released his first album, The Dreamer in 2008 on British dj Gilles Peterson's newly formed Brownswood Recordings label. Since then he's made a dozen albums, recorded for iconic record labels like Impulse! and Blue Note, and eventually formed his own label Rainbow Blonde with his partner (in business and in life) Taali. The richness and depth in his baritone voice is reminiscent of classic ...

1

Celebrating The Third Story at 10 with Will Lee and Amanda Sidran

Read "Celebrating The Third Story at 10 with Will Lee and Amanda Sidran" reviewed by Leo Sidran


Ten years ago, on a bit of a whim, I invited bassist Will Lee to come over to my home studio in Brooklyn to do an interview with me for a new project I was starting: a podcast. A year or two earlier, my friend had turned me on to Marc Maron's WTF podcast, and I was totally hooked on the concept of casual long form interviews among peers. At the time Maron spoke almost exclusively to comics, and I ...

1

Keyon Harrold: Having The Courage To Be Who You Are

Read "Keyon Harrold: Having The Courage To Be Who You Are" reviewed by Leo Sidran


Trumpeter/composer Keyon Harrold was born and raised in Ferguson, MO to a musical family. He is the son of pastors and one of 16 children. As a boy, a trumpet was placed in his hands, and the rest is history. He moved to New York to study at The New School in the 1990s and became part of a legendary generation of musicians associated with the neosoul movement, including Common, Bilal, Roy Hargrove, The Roots, and Robert Glasper. ...

1

Ani DiFranco: I Love People Who Are Brave In Showing Themselves

Read "Ani DiFranco: I Love People Who Are Brave In Showing Themselves" reviewed by Leo Sidran


Ani DiFranco began recording and self-releasing her music as a 20 year old in Buffalo, New York in 1990. 34 years later she is widely considered to be a feminist icon. But in many ways she emerged iconic, fully formed and fearless. A facile lyricist with a biting honesty, she played guitar with a virtuosic, rhythmic style. And she was ahead of her time as an independent artist who owned all her own masters and controlled most of ...

1

Pete Min's Colorfield Records And Sculpted Chaos

Read "Pete Min's Colorfield Records And Sculpted Chaos" reviewed by Leo Sidran


Pete Min is a recording engineer, producer and label owner based in Eagle Rock, Los Angeles. His label Colorfield Records features artful collaborative explorations with musicians in unlikely configurations. Pete's studio Lucy's Meat Market has become one of the most in demand spots for recording among a subset of musical artists with LA ties ranging from Ben Wendel and Larry Goldings to Andrew Bird and Feist. Min started Colorfield Records to pursue a less traditional approach ...

2

Joey Alexander: I Just Happened To Start Early

Read "Joey Alexander: I Just Happened To Start Early" reviewed by Leo Sidran


When Joey Alexander made his first appearance in the States nearly a decade ago, it seemed to send a kind of shockwave through the jazz world. He was 10 years old when Wynton Marsalis invited him to travel from his native Indonesia (he was born in Bali but moved to Jakarta to pursue his music) to New York to perform at the Jazz at Lincoln Center Gala. He played a solo arrangement of “Round Midnight." It was incredible.

4

Todd Sickafoose: Things Take A Long Time

Read "Todd Sickafoose: Things Take A Long Time" reviewed by Leo Sidran


Bassist and composer Todd Sickafoose shows up in a lot of places: on stage with singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco, drummer Allison Miller or violinist Jenny Scheinman, behind the scenes as a record producer for artists like Noe Venable and Anais Mitchell, orchestrating the music for the Broadway musical Hadestown (which earned him both a Grammy for record production and a Tony for orchestration), and as a bandleader. His new record Bear Proof is his first album of original music ...

3

Gregory Hutchinson: It’s All About Feel

Read "Gregory Hutchinson: It’s All About Feel" reviewed by Leo Sidran


Gregory Hutchinson--or “Hutch" as he is known--is one of the most highly regarded and highly recorded jazz drummers on the planet. Part of what makes him so special is that he sits at the crossroads of the old school and the new school. He was mentored by old jazz masters like Red Rodney, Ray Brown and Betty Carter. He worked extensively with Joshua Redman and Roy Hargrove, among many other innovative jazz musicians of his generation.He has also ...


Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.