Episodes

SFrench soprano saxophonist Emile Parisien danced onto my radar when I saw him perform in duo with accordionist Vincent Peirani at the 2014 Berlin Jazz Festival. He was virtuosic, superbly musical, and, most importantly, gave me a newfound appreciation for the soprano saxophone. He has been recording as sideman and leader for the Munich-based ACT label for ten years and his latest album “Louise” is his 7th offering as bandleader. For the first time, he teams up with a core band comprising both E...

South African writer, teacher, media consultant and creative industries researcher Gwen Ansell is a former Louis Armstrong Visiting Professor at the Center for Jazz Studies, Columbia University, and the author of Soweto Blues: Jazz, Politics and Popular Music in South Africa and the textbook Introduction to Journalism. She is also the person to whom I defer whenever asked about anything relating to South African jazz! We have an in-depth conversation about the state of arts journalism in South A...

Tierney Sutton is a Los Angeles and Paris-based vocalist with a sensational career under her belt-and music more to come, I might add. She has released fourteen albums, nine of which have been nominated for Grammy Awards for Best Jazz Vocal Album. Her fifteenth album comes out on 6 May 2022 and is called “Paris Sessions II”. Like the first volume, it features guitarist Serge Merlaud and bassist Kevin Axt, but this time flautist Hubert Laws joins the fray and the results are both intimate and mus...

I want to preface this interview by saying that I don’t care much for the hype machine or popular opinion and am led, predominantly, by my interest in an artist and the question of whether or not I enjoy their music. Such was the case when a publicist contacted me about one of their artists-a capable musician with a pretty banal musical approach. I explained to the publicist the kind of music I enjoyed and she cleverly pitched me another of her artists, the Durham-raised, London-based pianist Pa...

Vocalist Nomfundo Xaluva is a multi-award winning jazz singer known for her ability to weave together her Xhosa identity, South African jazz roots, and a contemporary approach to songwriting and singing. With two albums out on Universal Music, she is also a beloved educator who recently became a Lecturer in Jazz Studies at the University of Cape Town. She’s performed across South Africa and is one of the most exciting figures in the South African jazz community. Show Notes: Tracklisting: – Ox...

Matt Pierson is an award-winning producer whose discography is studded with the brightest stars in contemporary jazz-Brad Mehldau, Joshua Redman, Pat Metheny, Jane Monheit, and countless others. He led Blue Note’s marketing and A&R departments before taking up the post of running Jazz A&R for Warner Brothers Records. After a stint consulting for Sony Masterworks, he continues to produce albums for musicians including Bria Skonberg, Pasquale Grasso, and Samara Joy. Show Notes: Tracks Played – Sa...

Vocalist Michael Mayo is a dazzling interpreter, improviser and musician. He comes from brilliant musical stock in the form of his parents Scott Mayo and Valerie Pinkston-Scott is currently Sergio Mendes musical director and Valerie has lent her vocals to artists ranging from Whitney Houston to Diana Ross. But Michael will tell us more about his parents during the course of our conversation. Michael grew up in Los Angeles, studied at the New England Conservatory and the Thelonious Monk Institute...

Vocalist Areni Agbabian is an experimental improviser, folk and sacred music singer, and pianist. As a vocalist she has worked in new opera, dance, contemporary jazz, new music and multi-media performance. In fact, I first met Areni a decade ago during a course at the School of Improvised Music in Brooklyn, New York. We remained in touch and met up again in Paris in 2014 when she was there studying sacred Armenian music (and I was just eating croissants and ogling Parisian architecture). Her sub...

Alto saxophonist Will Vinson hails from England but established a great many of his musical collaborations while living in New York City. These working relationships with musicians like Aaron Parks, Kurt Rosenwinkel and Ari Hoenig, to name a few, have resulted in Will’s reputation as a saxophonist with incredible power and dramatic sensitivity, whose playing is characterised by his imposing sound and technique. Will’s recording output has also been prolific. In fact, we met over Zoom (Will was i...

Dave Stapleton is the founder and driving force behind the London-based label Edition Records. A brilliant pianist and composer in his own right, he has grown a label that now boasts releases by Dave Holland, Chris Potter, Daniel Herskedal, Snowpoet, and Kurt Elling, who recently won the label its first Grammy Award when he received Best Jazz Vocal Album at the 2021 Grammys. Show Notes: Tracks Played: – Rob Luft: Life Is The Dancer – Slowly Rolling Camera feat. Mark Lockheart: Feels Like Fic...

Vocalist and composer Somi talks about diving into the world of South African vocalist and activist Miriam Makeba for her upcoming album “Zenzile: The Reimagination Of Miriam Makeba” due 4th March 2022. The album follows the September 2021 premiere and tour of Somi’s musical theatre production based on the life of Makeba, “Dreaming Zenzile”. Somi talks about tackling the world of Miriam’s music, collaborating with guests from across the African continent, from Angelique Kidjo to Nduduzo Makhathi...

Drummer Jared Schonig is much-loved both in the New York jazz community and amongst Broadway musicians. He took on the gargantuan, brilliant task of releasing a double album, “Two Takes Volumes 1 & 2”, on Anzic Records in September 2021. The recording features quartet renditions of his music, followed by big band arrangements of the same repertoire by eight of the great arrangers working today-Jim McNeely, Miho Hazama, Darcy James Argue, Alan Ferber, Laurence Hobgood, Brian Krock, John Daversa a...

The Franco-Irish violinist Fiona Monbet takes the jazz violin tradition, pioneered by artists like Didier Lockwood and Stéphane Grappelli before him, and manages to pay homage while ushering the instrument, beautifully, into the current day jazz clime. In fact, Lockwood once declared Fiona to be his “spiritual daughter”. With her new album “Maelström”, she expresses not just the many dazzling facets of her instrument, but also how genres like tango, folk song, and Bossa nova can be unified throu...

Gail Boyd is the president of Gail Boyd Artist Management and the entertainment law firm Gail W Boyd P.C. She was a founding partner in Boyd, Staton and Cave, the first African American female law firm in New York and has been involved in entertainment law since 1976. As a lawyer, Gail Boyd has represented jazz artists such as Betty Carter, Tommy Flanagan, Kenny Barron, Gretchen Parlato, and Randy Weston. As a manager, she currently represents John Clayton, Lakecia Benjamin, Scott Tixier, and Nd...

Vocalist Theo Bleckmann is in a league and a category of his own. Equally dazzling when interpreting the music of Kate Bush or singing the songs of Charles Ives, he made his ECM Records leader debut in 2017 with his album “Elegy”. More recently, he collaborated with the brass quartet The Westerlies for their haunting record “This Land.” Theo and I talked about his approach to recording versus performing live, his cherished collaborations with drummer John Hollenbeck and pianist Shai Maestro, and...

Anat Cohen and Marcello Gonçalves are superb musicians as individuals and as a duo, they shine even brighter. “Reconvexo” is their second album together and sees the pair turn their attention to the deep well of music from the Música Popular Brasileira songbook. Recorded while quarantined together in Rio, these songs come from Brazil’s greatest composers and are interpreted by one of jazz’s greatest clarinetists and the dazzling Brazilian 7-string guitarist. Show Notes: Tracklisting: – Reconv...

Saxophonist Matt Carmichael has been making a big impression on audiences since he emerged on the Scottish jazz scene as a teenager with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra of Scotland. No longer a teen, his debut album “Where Will The River Flow” was released in March 2021 and caught the attention of the WDR Big Band and Bob Mintzer, who has arranged the entire album for the band with Matt as a featured soloist. This concert will take place in March 2022 if you’re lucky enough to be in Germany th...

Mirna Bogdanovic hails from Slovenia but now calls Berlin home. I can’t remember how I stumbled upon her music but it was love at first listen and I’m not alone in my reaction. Mirna’s debut album “Confrontation” was awarded “Debut Album of The Year” by the Deutscher Jazzpreis in 2021 and she’s making a name for herself with her finely honed songwriting, inventive arranging, and truly contemporary vocal approach. Show Notes: Tracklisting: – Cold Lake – Changes – Rain – Confrontation – Dan...

Israeli pianist, Shai Maestro, is at the helm of a dream trajectory. Fresh out of high school, he received a call from the bassist Avishai Cohen, inviting him to join his trio with drummer Mark Guiliana. Four trio albums later, Shai went on to form his own groups, recording his compositions that superbly fuse virtuosity with melodic sophistication and rhythmic variety. In 2018, he recorded his first album as leader for the storied ECM Records and his second, “Human” was released in January 2021....

It’s a new year, which means it’s the perfect time to bring a new guest to The Jazz Session. While this musician is new to the podcast, she is certainly not a new or unknown entity to jazz musicians and educators the world over. Vocalist Dominique Eade is a musicians’ musician, having recorded with Dave Holland, Fred Hersch and Ran Blake, and performed with Bill Frisell and Anthony Braxton. Dominique’s relationship with the New England Conservatory of Music dates back to 1984, having both gradua...

Acclaimed vocalists Amy Cervini, Hilary Gardner, and Melissa Stylianou join forces and voices to become ‘Duchess’, a New York City-based vocal trio known for tight harmonies and big fun, carrying the tradition of the Boswell and Andrews Sisters into the 21st century. They’ve released four albums together, including their most recent “Live at Jazz Standard”, particularly poignant as the much-loved New York jazz venue did not survive the pandemic. We talk about the magic of hearing and seeing Duch...

French vocalist Camille Bertault is a dazzling musician whose expressive personality permeates everything she does. Initially a classical pianist, she soon found her voice, so to speak, as a vocalist, immersing herself in transcribing not only jazz solos by the greats but also intricate classical melodies by Debussy, Bach and more. One of her early claims to fame was penning a French vocalise to Coltrane’s behemoth “Giant Steps” but she pays homage to the tradition of French chanteuse with equal...

Saxophonist Joel Frahm is one of the warmest people I know AND he has one of the warmest tenor sounds to boot. I first became aware of his immense musicality when hearing him on the albums of vocalist Jane Monheit and I’ve been smitten with his lyricism ever since. His latest release, “The Bright Side”, features a chordless trio with bassist Dan Loomis and drummer Ernesto Cervini. The album came out on Anzic Records in June 2021 and is a joyous showcase for Joel’s creativity and his longstanding...

Trumpeter Nadje Noordhuis hails from Australia but makes her home in New York, where she performs both as a bandleader and as an in demand sideman with leaders like Maria Schneider, Darcy James Argue and Anat Cohen. A finalist in the 2007 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition, her new genre-bending quintet with Maeve Gilchrist (celtic harp), Jesse Lewis (electric guitar), Ike Sturm (electric bass), and James Shipp (synthesizers, percussion) coolly blends acoustic and electric instrument...