The Checkout

Godwin Louis has been on a quest to trace the roots of jazz.

In the last couple of years, the saxophonist has traveled to over 100 countries in study of the African musical diaspora. His findings inspired Global, a far-sweeping and personal debut album, which could also be seen as a manifesto. Louis believes we are all more connected throughout the Americas than we may realize.

Last summer, the Slovenian-born, Amsterdam-based pianist and composer Kaja Draksler was bestowed the Paul Acket Award at The North Sea Jazz Festival — one of the highest honors given to a contemporary jazz artist deserving of wider recognition.

On this edition of The Checkout, Draksler shares new music from her octet of forward-thinking musicians trained in Baroque, new classical, and European free-jazz traditions.

Andrew Bird is mostly known for his tightly crafted and intricately layered pop songs. But this violinist also thrives in extremely loose and often chaotic environments — settings that favor unpredictability and ample space for improvisation — as we learn on this episode of The Checkout.

Mark Guiliana’s Beat Music grabs a lot of attention for its innovative use of synths and sampling, along with its next-level rhythmic designs. But Guiliana, a groundbreaking drummer, drum programmer and composer, frames the whole project in terms of human connection.

Kurt Rosenwinkel might be the preeminent jazz guitarist of his generation. He’s also an artist who has taken some unexpected turns in an already fascinating career. Once a stalwart on New York’s jazz scene, he left to pursue musical opportunities in Europe. Then he made a new creative shift, pointing his laser-like focus to another realm of possibility: the music of Brazil.

Dan Tepfer is a jazz pianist whose newest project, Natural Machines, brings virtual reality and algorithmic learning into the realm of the concert hall. He appears next Tuesday at National Sawdust in Brooklyn, where his audience will join him in an immersive audiovisual saga.

Moonchild consists of three self-professed "jazz school nerds" from Los Angeles, but their music is where silky-smooth R&B meets engrossing dream pop. 

They met while playing together on tour in a horn section. Then, one luminous night, they were stargazing on a friend’s lawn and decided to form their own trio, which required each member to become a multi-instrumentalist.

What exactly is HighBreedMusic?  Is it a Brooklyn recording studio? A digital music channel? An artist commune? For soul-pop artist Kimbra, tribal hip-hopper Farrah Boulé, and Fender Rhodes aficionado Marc Cary, it’s all of the above. This artist-friendly media platform is a safe place where musicians can find their zone, workshop ideas, and display their musicianship to the world.

The GroundUP Music Festival, which just wrapped its fourth edition in Miami, aims to dissolve the barrier between musician and fan.

With a scarcity of VIP badges, famous artists mingling with festival goers, and jaw-dropping curation of unfamiliar international talent, this annual musical gathering cultivates an ethos of inclusivity.

Multi-instrumentalist Joey Dosik, a 33-year old singer-songwriter from Los Angeles, crafts original soul music that draws from the pantheon: Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke, Bill Withers, Stevie Wonder. On this edition of The Checkout, we'll get inside some of his sports-themed songs and walk through his autobiographical, L.A.-centered jazz playlist.

As we reflect on our eighth season featuring distinguished alumni from Berklee College Music, one theme becomes immediately apparent: jazz is flourishing internationally, especially among younger artists.

Butcher Brown — a group of five sophisticated musicians from Richmond, Va. — upholds a self-professed blue-collar approach to music. Stylistically speaking, that music falls somewhere on the spectrum between jazz, rock and funk.

The meteoric rise of James Francies is no surprise to anyone embedded in New York’s thriving jazz scene. 

Besides celebrating his auspicious debut, Flight, on Blue Note Records, this multi-pronged pianist keeps an ambitious touring schedule with guitarist Pat Metheny and others. On this edition of My Music, Francies — a Houston native at ease in many settings, from jazz to electronic music to hip-hop — tells his story. 

Mark de Clive-Lowe, the Los Angeles-based live-electronics pioneer, is half-New Zealander and half-Japanese. He has lately turned his focus to his Japanese heritage — on a new album and on this episode of The Checkout, from the Berklee College of Music.

Last fall, The Checkout presented Thiefs in concert at Nublu in the East Village. The French-American jazz ensemble with a hip-hop edge takes on some of the concerning issues of today — specifically the rise of racism in Western society. Watch the band perform four thought-provoking compositions, including two song premieres, which are coming to their forthcoming album.

It makes sense that Nellie McKay would find a close kinship with the late NEA Jazz Master Bob Dorough. Despite being separated by nearly 60 years in age, both artists found a niche for their quirky and original songs. The duo made one memorable recording together and also toured the world.

On this edition of The Checkout, Nellie McKay pays tribute to her favorite hipster sidekick, who passed away last April. 

There are many theories as to why jazz is cool again.

Perhaps we’re not giving enough credit to Brainfeeder, the genre-agnostic indie label founded by composer-producer Flying Lotus. Ten years have passed, and one thing is clear: the L.A. based company has been steadily boosting jazz’s prospects and giving the music a healthy makeover. Today we listen back to some of its early recordings, and shine a light on two of its rising stars, Brandon Coleman and Jameszoo.

Anniversaries can be a time for reflection, and taking stock of where we’ve been. So in celebration of WBGO's 40th anniversary, this episode of The Checkout dips into the archives, recalling the era when it was hosted and produced by its founder, Josh Jackson.

Alina Engibaryan is a contemplative singer, keyboardist and composer whose musical roots go back to her childhood in Russia.

Her grandfather, Nikolay Goncharov, was a master jazz drummer in an era when jazz was perceived as “the devil’s music.”

When Jason Lindner became embedded in New York’s jazz scene in the mid 1990s, he led an underground big band. These days, he's paving the way for a new breed of jazz synth artists, with the same renegade spirit.

On this episode of The Checkout, Lindner — the former keyboardist for David Bowie, trumpeter Avishai Cohen and so many others — speaks about his artistic growth, as expressed on The Buffering Cocoon, his third release with the band he calls Now Vs. Now. 

A few years ago, the Trinidadian jazz trumpeter Etienne Charles released A Creole Christmas, a brilliant musical meld of Christian hymns, Venezuelan parangs, and island calypsos. He brought that festive sound into our studio in 2016, leading a sharp and versatile band.

It’s been a decade since pianist Aaron Parks released his debut album, Invisible Cinema, which blurs the line between jazz and rock. After a prolonged absence from that sonic trajectory, he has issued an update with Little Big. He and his band came into our studio this week to perform live on The Checkout.

Amir ElSaffar, a Chicago-born jazz trumpeter and composer, incorporates Iraqi musical traditions in his 17-piece Rivers of Sound orchestra.

Has jazz ever sounded so varied and diverse?

In this Checkout podcast, Nate Chinen — WBGO’s director of editorial content, and the author of Playing Changes: Jazz for the New Century — reckons with the music’s current moment and how we got here.

Maurice “Mobetta” Brown ends his late-night residency at the Blue Note Jazz Club on Saturday, and performs on Winter’s Eve at Lincoln Square, New York’s largest holiday festival, on Monday.

Earlier this year guitarist Julian Lage released Modern Lore, the second album to feature his trio with Scott Colley on bass and Kenny Wollesen on drums. The group appears at the Music Hall of Williamsburg on Nov. 29.

Lage, a former child prodigy, recently brought the trio to WBGO to play some of the tunes from Modern Lore, and talk about the mentors who have shaped his experience in music: guitar maestro Jim Hall, whom he met at age 11 and later toured with; vibraphonist Gary Burton, who brought him on tour as a teenager; and composer and saxophonist John Zorn, who has been a more recent collaborative influence.