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.
Revisiting a classic conversation with Creed Taylor from 2015
by Leo Sidran
Creed Taylor was an inspiration to generations of music lovers. He was behind some of the greatest records ever made. He passed away earlier this week at the age of 93.For forty years, Creed Taylor was one of a small handful of jazz record producers and label managers who shaped and defined the sound of jazz recording. Through his work with the Bethlehem, ABC, Impulse!, Verve, and CTI labels, he produced classic albums for countless artists. ...
Continue ReadingBen Sidran At 79: Simplicity Will Get You In The End
by Leo Sidran
For the fourth year in a row, I talked to my dad, musician/producer/journalist/philosopher Ben Sidran in honor of his birthday. This time he's turning 79 and we consider the sociological implications of mowing the lawn, Donald Fagen's solo recordings, the significance of the 1960s in popular culture today, Pharoah Sanders album Pharoah's First (ESP), interviews he conducted in the 1980s with Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins, the myth of Sisyphus, his most recent album Swing State (Nardis), and his idea ...
Continue ReadingFor John Medeski music has always been about healing
by Leo Sidran
For John Medeski, music has always been about healing. “Music just kind of sucked me up," he says. “For me having music was a great way to deal with the hard things in life.Best known as one-third of the avant-garde jazz / funk trio Medeski, Martin & Wood along with Billy Martin and Chris Wood (aka MMW), Medeski began playing piano as a kid, growing up in Florida. By high school, he was sitting in with the likes ...
Continue ReadingEmmet Cohen has one foot in the tradition, and another in the future
by Leo Sidran
Within about a week of home quarantine in March 2020, pianist Emmet Cohen started live-streaming shows every Monday night from his apartment in Harlem.At first it was just Cohen and his bandmates, drummer Kyle Poole and bassist Russell Hall, set up in Cohen's living room. Eventually they started inviting guests, and Emmet's Place became one of the spots for live jazz in pandemic New York. Six months in, it had really caught on: the Emmet's Place performance of ...
Continue ReadingThe Montreal Jazz Festival Is Back In Full Swing
by Leo Sidran
After a two-year slowdown due to COVID, the Montreal International Jazz Festival came back this year. I had been there a couple times, in and out, as a musician. I went this year to cover the festival's full return for The Third Story. When you're a musician at a festival like MJF, the job is actually pretty clear. You get to the gig, play the gig, pack up and go to the next gig. But what does a ...
Continue ReadingStacey Kent reflects on tension, collaboration, and the art of interpretation
by Leo Sidran
Stacey Kent says she tends to be attracted to the “feeling of unrest," and she thinks that her fans like to feel it too. Over the course of a 30 year career that has produced over 20 albums (including including the Grammy-nominated Breakfast On The Morning Tram), Stacey has mined that feeling again and again in different ways. Maybe she understands how to express the complicated emotions around identity, romance, displacement and longing because she has lived them ...
Continue ReadingRyan Lerman Of Scary Pockets On Trusting The Process And Viral Fame
by Leo Sidran
Ryan Lerman has a few tricks up his sleeve. Best known as the co-founder of Scary Pockets, a dynamic funk band from LA who came to prominence on YouTube, Ryan is also an accomplished singer songwriter, bassist, arranger and producer. Here he talks about his happy place ("in the middle of business thinking and artistry"), what he learned about leadership by working as a sideman, how he tried to become a lawyer but ended up playing funk music instead, and ...
Continue ReadingMatthew Stevens: on collaboration, production, gear and career
by Leo Sidran
Guitarist Matthew Stevens talks about growing up in Toronto and watching guitar players like Lenny Breau and Ed Bickert, his work with Esperanza Spalding, Christian Scott, Walter Smith III and Eric Doob, and how he feels about collaboration, production, gear and his career. ...
Continue ReadingWalter Smith III: Listen To The Young Players
by Leo Sidran
From an early age, Walter Smith III began taking music very seriously. “My first gig was playing at a McDonalds in Houston]} with another saxophonist. I took a solo on “Blue Bossa." It was terrible. People clapped, and I figured if I could get away with that and get applause, how could I fail?" <br /><br />Although it may appear Smith is a new voice on the scene, he is widely recognized as an adept performer, accomplished composer, and inspired ...
Continue ReadingLauren Henderson: From the Inside Out
by Leo Sidran
Vocalist Lauren Henderson is unusual in all the best ways. Described as “somewhere between a comforting whisper and a cogent declaration" by The New York Times, she sings with an intimate, sultry, haunting intensity. Her music might be mysterious, but she is an open book. Raised in Marblehead, Massachusetts (birthplace of the American Navy and just down the road from Salem, MA) she attended some of the finest schools in New England. She was a varsity field hockey ...
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