Music

Billy Martin of Medeski, Martin & Wood, arguably the most accomplished jam band on the planet, expands his universe in adventurous music-making.

A heavy groove drummer who has never been shy in incorporating exotic sounds — from bamboo rain sticks to Tibetan bowls — Martin is now ready to make his mark in contemporary classical music. MMW recently teamed up with the renegade classical chamber ensemble Alarm Will Sound for Omnisphere, a concert album released last week.

As we continue to remember pianist and composer Randy Weston, who died on Sept. 1, we’re reminded of his devotion to the motherland, Africa. But how many people know about his ties to Central America — and in particular, his deep connection to Panama?

The Cuban mambo group Orquestra Akokán visited our studio at WBGO yesterday. In this Checkout podcast, you'll hear their full performance, and my conversation with two co-leaders from the band.

The Charlie Parker Jazz Festival is a perennial summer favorite in New York City, bringing crowds to both Tompkins Square Park in the East Village and Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem. 

This was the festival's 26th year, and we captured two sets in Harlem, by singer Catherine Russell and trumpeter Keyon Harrold. You can hear them both here, exclusively on WBGO.

Randy Weston, a pianist and composer who devoted more than half a century to the exploration of jazz’s deep connection with Africa, died on Saturday at his home in Brooklyn. He was 92.

His death was announced by his wife and business partner, Fatoumata Weston.

Before Adrian Younge was writing orchestral music with a hip-hop flair, he was a law professor by day and a DJ by night. During this period, he became obsessed with classic soul from 1968 to 1973 — music that he says resonated in ways this country had never seen before. Younge, a multi-instrumentalist from Los Angels, aspires toward a similar feeling on his new album, The Midnight Hour, with Ali Shaheed Muhammad from A Tribe Called Quest.

Doug Doyle spoke with a number of musicians, producers and writers while organizing a WBGO News roundup of tributes to Aretha Franklin. Here are three interviews in longer form, beginning with singer Lizz Wright, who like Franklin came out of the gospel church.

Doug MacLeod is a definitive troubadour. He travels. He sings. He tells the stories of the songs. And he's a terrific guitar player.

Albert King, Albert Collins, Joe Louis Walker, Son Seals, and Coco Montoya all have recorded MacLeod's songs, and his own newest album of songs and stories is Break The Chain.

He's playing at Queen's Brewery (Thursday 8/23) in Ridgewood, NY, and at The Town Crier (Friday 8/24) in Beacon, NY.

In my office there hangs a postcard-sized photograph of Sonny Rollins — captured, I'm sure, in the midst of the umpteenth amazing chorus of some standard we all thought we knew. The pianist in the picture is Mark Soskin, probably best known for his 13-year tenure with the Saxophone Colossus.

Today's show unfolds in two parts. First Joe Lovano shares his appreciation of fellow tenor saxophonist Ben Webster, whom he first learned about his while growing up in Cleveland, OH. (Lovano expressed his appreciation many years later with an original blues, "Big Ben.") 

A handful of piano students were sweating in a classroom on the first morning of a two-week summer intensive in the Tuscan countryside. These were three women and four men, mostly in their early 20s, from Australia, Korea, Canada, Greece, Israel, and Belgium. Hotshots back home, they ranged from gung-ho eager to white-knuckle anxious about demonstrating their talents here at Siena Jazz Workshop, where everyone could play.

Ted Nash made his first recording as a leader in 1978, and titled it “Conceptions.”

Whether playing saxophone, clarinet or flute, he has shown how magnificently broad his conceptions are: exploring a tango/klezmer/New Orleans brass feel with Odeon; giving sounds to great painters like Van Gogh, Matisse and Pollack with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra; reinventing the music of Henry Mancini, who employed both his father and uncle; or musically reimagining great speeches from John Kennedy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Nelson Mandela and Winston Churchill.

Jazz Middelheim is probably the oldest jazz event in Belgium, originally founded in 1969. It can also make a claim as one of the most adventurous with its programming.  

Saxophonist Dave McMurray says that every time he hears an instrumentalist from Detroit, it feels like they’re singing.

The Motown native knows this feeling. He grew up with it, eventually bringing his own versatility to gigs with B.B. King, Herbie Hancock, Johnny Hallyday, Gladys Knight, Nancy Wilson and Geri Allen. This was all in addition to being part of Was (Not Was), whose bassist and cofounder, Don Was, is now president of Blue Note Records.