WBGO, NPR Music, and Berklee College of Music are teaming up to present a second year of The Checkout – Live at Berklee. The series brings critically acclaimed, New York-based Berklee alumni back to their alma mater for concerts in the Red Room @ Cafe 939. The shows will be webcast live worldwide in high definition over NPRmusic.org and in New York over WBGO-FM as a special edition of The Checkout, the acclaimed multimedia show featuring what’s new on New York’s jazz scene. They will also be archived, and available for on-demand listening, at NPRmusic.org, and WBGO.

Chihiro Yamanaka

Year two of The Checkout – Live at Berklee will debut with pianist and composer Chihiro Yamanaka’98 on October 18. The series continues with saxophonist and composer Dayna Stephens’01 on November 15, alto saxophonist Jaleel Shaw’00 on February 7, 2013, and tenor saxophonist Walter Smith III ’02 on March 7, 2013. Concerts and broadcasts will begin at 8:00 p.m. ET. Tickets to the live performances at the Red Room @ Cafe 939 are $10 for the general public and $5 with a Berklee ID. Tickets are available at cafe939.com.

“Boston is a major incubator for jazz, and this series aims to underline that fact,” said Josh Jackson, host and producer of The Checkout. “WBGO and The Checkout are delighted to return to Berklee. We look forward to showcasing these young talents as they pursue their artistry and inspire future generations.”

Chihiro Yamanaka is one of the most exciting jazz pianists and composers of her generation, and is the leader of the Chihiro Yamanaka Trio. 2012 has been a milestone year: she performed in the Mary Lou Williams Women In Jazz Festival at the Kennedy Center, in a concert featured on JazzSet with Dee Dee Bridgewater, at the Iridium Jazz Club and Dizzy's at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York, at the Regattabar in Boston, and in a benefit concert at Carnegie Hall. Yamanaka’s new CD, Reminiscence is her second U.S. release. Reminiscence reached the #1 spot on the Japanese jazz charts and won the Nissan Presents Jazz Japan Award for Album of the Year.

Photo: R.J. DeLuke

Saturday, July 28, we will be at Caramoor, the outdoor performing arts center near Katonah, New York, for the 19th Annual Caramoor Jazz Festival. Yes!! Please come by and say HELLO.

Beginning at 3 o'clock with The Cookers, we're laying down tracks for a Labor Day special and future JazzSets .

Trumpeters David Weiss and   Eddie Henderson and saxists Craig Handy and Billy Harper play that beautiful four-horn harmony of  The Cookers, “a supergroup,” just home from a tour of the Northwest. They open the day.

The line-up features two winning voices – Gretchen Parlato (above), this year’s Jazz Journalists Association Female Singer of the Year, and Dee Dee Bridgewater, who received the award in 2011. Both Dee Dee and Gretchen spent July touring Europe, so stepping onto the Venetian Theater stage should ease the transition home for each.

Photo: Mark Higashino

And not one but two NEA Jazz Masters are on the program. Kenny Barron plays solo piano , and drummer Roy Haynes leads his Fountain of Youth Band. Barron will probably wing it. As he told George Kanzler in this month’s New York City Jazz Record, "I rarely do set lists. It works out better for me. Every time I try and do one I’m always sorry I did it. . . . I like to read the audience, see who’s out there" and choose accordingly. "That’s not pandering, it’s just realizing who you’re playing for."

Pianist to pianist, in a recent interview with Ethan Iverson of The Bad Plus, Fred Hersch said, "Kenny Barron is like a combination of Tommy Flanagan and McCoy Tyner." Can't do better than that!

And Roy Haynes is likely to get up and dance. We’ll make that a radio highlight. JazzSet’s Grammy Award winning Technical Director Duke Markos is recording and mixing in Surround Sound. We thank the Caramoor Jazz Festival for supporting WBGO and JazzSet programming from Caramoor.

From the back of the audience toward the stage ihe Venetian Theater at the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts .. Photo: Gabe Palacio