The Jazz Podcast

Music has been an integral part of Martin’s entire life. Since his early days as a musician, Martin staged concerts as a teenager (featuring Elton John), worked in various music clubs and was a DJ/Music Director in professional radio.  For 17 years, he was responsible for Pepsi-Cola’s international communications, where he worked with the likes of Michael Jackson, Madonna, Tina Turner, The Spice Girls, Britney Spears, Beyoncé, Robbie Williams and Pink, amongst many others. He's founded Ubuntu Music, one of the great labels for new music and jazz and today he shares his thoughts on running the label with us. 
You will often find him at live shows, whatever the time of the day or night, looking for the next Bird, Dizzy, Esperanza, Charlie, Miles, Ron, Ella, Art or Chet.

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As a band leader and co-leader he is responsible for much of the output of the groups; Lammas, The Underground Orchestra, Storms / Nocturnes (feat. Joe Locke and Geoffrey Keezer), Acoustic Triangle, the last few years of Bill Bruford’s Earthworks, and The Lighthouse Trio, (feat; Gwilym Simcock and Asaf Sirkis). This final group makes a 20th anniversary come-back tour and release during 2024! 

Today we chat to Tim about his new album, Moment of Departure. 

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Kirk is a musician and writer based in Portland, as well as being a multi-instrumentalist he makes a music podcast, Strong Songs and produces and co-hosts the Triple Click video game podcast.
Today he joins the show to chat to Rob Cope about all things podcasts, jazz as well as a look into music in video games. 

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Simon’s latest project features his recently formed U.S. Jazz Octet with three front line horns and vocals. There are special guest appearances by leading U.K. jazz artists, including Tim Garland and Paul Booth and, for the first time, Simon’s arrangements appear alongside his original compositions. 

Simon explains his thinking behind For the Dreamers: “I think that, deep down, I always knew (hoped!) that I would spend some time in America one day; form a band there; do some concerts; and record an album. My only surprise is that it took me until my mid-forties to do it! I wanted to harness my love for many genres of American music, utilise local American musicians and compose music for that particularly confident way they have of playing. This is the resulting album!

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Mark joins the show to chat about his new album, Smiling. Joining the show is Olivia Cuttill as a guest host. 

Saxophonist and composer Mark Lockheart first came to prominence in the mid 1980s with the influential big band Loose Tubes. In 1992 Mark formed the eclectic co-led quartet Perfect Houseplants, a group that released six albums and collaborated with classical artists such as the Orlando Consort, Andrew Manze and Pamela Thorby. 

The mid-90s saw Mark recording and performing with many jazz, folk and pop artists, including Django Bates, Kenny Wheeler, Norma Winstone, June Tabor, Stereolab, Jah Wobble, Robert Wyatt, Prefab Sprout, Don Um Romao, Thomas Dolby and Radiohead.

In 2003 Mark joined Seb Rochford’s Polar Bear, which over a period of 12 years recorded six ground-breaking albums. The band’s second album, Held On The Tips Of Fingers, was nominated for the 2005 Mercury Award and later appeared in Jazzwise's 100 Albums That Shook the World. The band's fifth album, In Each And Every Way, was also nominated for a Mercury Award in 2013. 

In 2007 Mark was a featured soloist (along with John Pattitucci and Gwilym Simcock) in Mark Anthony Turnage's About Water, which premiered on the Southbank in June 2007. Mark collaborated several times more with Turnage, performing his A Man Descending with the Southbank Sinfonia in 2008 and more recently as one of the featured musicians in Turnage's opera Anna Nicole, which premiered at the Royal Opera House in London in 2011. 

In 2009 Mark's quintet album In Deep was released to critical acclaim. The following year saw the release of Mark's first big band album Days Like These with the Hamburg-based NDR big band. That same year Mark was awarded APPJC Parliamentary Jazz Musician of the Year 2010. 

In 2013 Mark released Ellington In Anticipation, a radical reworking of Ellington melodies with an all-star line up including Seb Rochford and Liam Noble. The album received numerous four and five-star reviews and was MOJO magazine’s Jazz Album of 2013 and nominated as Best Jazz CD of 2013 by the APPJC at the 2014 Parliamentary Awards.  

An invitation to perform at the New York Rochester Jazz Festival in 2014 led to the formation of Mark's trio, Malija, with bassist Jasper Hoiby and pianist Liam Noble. Malija's debut album The Day I Had Everything was released in December 2015 to critical acclaim. The group's second album Instinct was released in 2017 followed by a 21-date tour.  

In 2016 Mark was awarded Jazz FM Instrumentalist of the Year and also nominated for the British Composer Awards for his composition With One Voice. A few years later saw the birth of two very contrasting projects , the jazz/orchestral work titled Days On Earth for jazz sextet and 30-piece orchestra, released on Edition Records in January 2019 and a set of English Renaissance music ‘Salvator Mundi’ recorded at Temple church in London with organist Roger Sayer.

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Rob Cope chats to Olivia about her brand new album, The Whole Damn Plan, featuring guest host and long time friend of the show, Mark Lockheart. Our 7th birthday celebrated in style with one of the finest musicians of the next generation.

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Swedish jazz vocalist and composer Clara Green talks to Tara Minton about her new record, "Being Green."

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Jamil joins the show today to chat about his new album, Red Kite. He has recorded and collaborated with many artists and recorded four albums of his own music, each of which have received national and international accolades. Jazz UK writes about Jamil: His music is both swinging and sophisticated, Sheriff showing himself to be a constantly inventive arranger. Just when you think you’ve heard it all, he’ll come up with something fresh.As a composer, arranger and pianist Jamil has toured extensively throughout the UK and performed at national and international jazz festivals.

Described by The Guardian as "someone who has made a real difference to the vitality of the jazz scene in the North of England.

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Born in Detroit, raised in London and now based in Kraków, Alex Roth is a composer, guitarist, producer and interdisciplinary collaborator who over the last decade has earned a reputation as “one of contemporary music’s most innovative and impressive talents” (musicOMH). His diverse body of work encompasses improvised performances; a wide range of concert music from solo to orchestral compositions; scores for dance, theatre and film; leading numerous bands; and producing electronic music. He has collaborated with some of Europe’s leading experimental musicians, such as John Butcher, Arve Henriksen, Savina Yannatou, Kit Downes, Mikolaj Trzaska and Olga Szwajgier.

Alex leads the acclaimed improvising trio Cut The Sky (whose debut album, with Waclaw Zimpel and Hubert Zemler, was selected by Polityka as one of 2023's best releases); produces experimental electronic music as Supersigil; co-directs Sephardic music group Sefiroth (for whom he also directed the multimedia performance Arvoles Lloran por Luvia); and founded the networked ensemble MultiTraction Orchestra, whose debut album Reactor One was hailed by The Guardian as "a remarkable sonic collage by an A-list of international improvisers.”

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Today a living legend joins the show! Even for a successful composer and arranger in Hollywood, Gordon Goodwin’s numbers are impressive: A 2006 GRAMMY Award for his Instrumental Arrangement of “Incredits” from the Pixar film The Incredibles, three Emmy Awards, and thirteen GRAMMY nominations.

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Multi-award winner as best jazz vocalist - BBC Jazz Awards 2007 and 2004 and Parliamentary Jazz Awards 2018,alongside nominations from the Jazz FM Awards 2013 and Downbeat Magazine 2017 - Ian Shaw has amassed a number of highly acclaimed internationally released albums and is a popular performer both in the UK and the US. He has been cited, along with Mark Murphy and Kurt Elling, as one of the world’s finest male jazz vocalists.

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Jamie Cullum (born 20 August 1979)[1] is an English jazz-pop singer, songwriter and radio presenter. Although primarily a vocalist and pianist, he also accompanies himself on other instruments, including guitar and drums. He has recorded nine studio albums, three compilation albums, one live album and twenty-four singles. Since April 2010, he has presented a weekly Tuesday evening jazz show on BBC Radio 2.

Today he comes on The Jazz Podcast to chat to Rob Cope.

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Face to Face, Nikki’s new album is out today! As a founder member of the hugely innovative Creative Jazz Orchestra in the early 90s, Nikki Iles came to prominence working with musicians such as Anthony Braxton, Vince Mendoza, Mark Anthony Turnage, Kenny Wheeler and Mike Gibbs.

Mike subsequently booked her for one of her first recording dates with great American musicians, Steve Swallow and Bob Moses on the CD “By The Way” on AH HUM records. For many years, Nikki served a lengthy apprenticeship in the North of England playing with the cream of British and American jazz such as Peter King, Iain Ballamy, Art Farmer, Peter King ,Tina May ,Tim Garland and Jim Mullen.

Many of these relationships were re- kindled later ,when after a car accident, Nikki finally decided to make the move to London in 1998. Here she joined the groups and toured and recorded with musicians such as Steve Arguelles, Mick Hutton, Martin Speake, Stan Sulzmann and Julian Arguelles and Norma Winstone .

Several awards followed with the BT British Jazz Award and an IAJE Award in America for services to Jazz. Although well known as a pianist, composition still remains a major part of her musical life.

The breadth of Nikki’s artistic vision has led her to disregard the arbitrary boundaries of the jazz scene and most notably, commissions have included a collaboration with American dancer Mimi Cichanowicz , the UMO Jazz Orchestra in Finland, “A Gentle Prayer “ - London Sinfonietta , “Red Ellen” - Tim Garland’s Northern Underground Band, “Carillion – The LPO’s Renga ensemble and this year “The Caged Bird” from the International Society of Jazz Arrangers and Composers.

Nikki was honoured to have her piece HUSH commissioned by the National Youth Jazz Orchestra featured at the 2012 Proms ( BBC TV) and more recently write for the great American singer, Kurt Elling and The Scottish National Jazz Orchestra.

Recently she has been particularly busy - she was awarded the prestigious Ivors Academy Gold Badge and the Ivor Novello Award - winning the best large ensemble composition in 2021.

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Nicky Schrire is a multitalented and inventive British-South African vocalist and composer based in Toronto, Canada. Her work has seen her likened to vocalists Joni Mitchell, Norma Winstone, and Esperanza Spalding with The BostonGlobe’s Jon Garelick noting that “though her approach has earned her comparisons to Gretchen Parlato and Becca Stevens, the similarities are superficial…she’s got her own thing, and it’s very much worth listening to.”

A graduate of the South African College of Music and New York’s Manhattan School of Music, she studied with Anthea Haupt, Peter Eldridge, Theo Bleckmann, and Dave Liebman. Schrire has performed in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, London, Dublin and South Africa, with musicians including Ben Wendel, Gerald Clayton, Fabian Almazan, Nir Felder, and Taylor Eigsti. She released three critically acclaimed jazz albums-2012's "Freedom Flight", 2013's "Space and Time", and the 2014 EP "To The Spring"-which earned her comparisons to songwriters like Joan Baez and Mary Chapin Carpenter. Her duo album “Space & Time” featured Grammy-nominated pianists Gerald Clayton, Gil Goldstein and Fabian Almazan. The Ottawa Citizen’s Peter Hum described the recording as “fifty minutes of emotionally eventful, richly crafted music”.

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Mária talks about her creative process and new album, Topol'ana.

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Nils Petter Molvær, Norwegian trumpet player, composer and producer, who takes multiple music styles – jazz, ambient, house, electronic and break beats, as well as elements from hip hop, rock and pop music – and effortlessly reshapes them into unique and dramatic soundscapes of deep intensity.

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Neset made an astonishingly powerful impression when he first emerged onto the European jazz scene as a young saxophonist of protean gifts more than a decade ago.
Django Bates, who was a teacher and a significant mentor at the Rhythmic Conservatory in Copenhagen, had Neset in several of his band, and also appeared on Neset’s breakthrough album, Golden Xplosion (Edition, 2011).

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Greek born with Egyptian roots, electric jazz harpist and composer Maria-Christina Harper is reinventing the sound of the harp in the jazz world. With her anarchic spirit and an interest in exploring what the harp can do, rather than exploring its traditional sounds, she presents her instrument in new and exciting ways. Combining her traditional music roots with free jazz she creates an irresistible, compelling sound cosmos. It’s where East meets West.

Based in the UK, Maria-Christina collaborates with two outstanding, highly acclaimed players to form the Harper Trio featuring drummer’s-drummer Evan Jenkins and the dynamic saxophonist Josephine Davies (Instrumentalist Of the Year, 2019 Parliamentary Jazz Awards).

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Aline Homzy is an award-winning violinist and composer. Originally from Montreal, born to a Québécois mom and an American dad with Eastern-European roots, Aline’s original music reflects her culturally-diverse background.

Beyond composing music, Aline is a regular violinist in the studios of Toronto, recording other artists’ original music. Aline is seeked-out for her lightning-fast sight-reading skills, her deep knowledge of jazz and improvisation and her musicality and upbeat personality. Some artists that she has recorded for include David Occhipinti, Andrew Downing, Iskwé, The Weather Station, Amanda Tosoff and many more. She is also the leader of the string section for SymphRONica (2019 Juno-nominated), Maurizio Guarini’s “A Goblin’s Chamber Music”, De Bouche à oreille – série de spectacles francophone, and many other Toronto- based projects that record and perform in the city. Aline has also performed and/ or recorded with international artists such as Munir Hossn (Brazil), Emma Smith (Edinburgh), Jake Sherman (USA), Leah Michelle (USA), Ed Sheeran (Great Britain), Danilo Perez (Panama), Cho Yongwon (South Korea), Mikko Hildèn (Sweden), amongst others. Aline has performed in halls and venues such as Koerner Hall, Massey Hall, The Glenn Gould Studio, the Burdock, the Great Hall, various stages for the TD International Toronto Jazz Festival, Festival international de jazz de Montréal, Stockholm International jazz festival and many chamber-music and jazz-related concert series.

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Henry Spencer is a multi-award-winning trumpeter, composer and bandleader. Since releasing his album and an EP with a multi-GRAMMY Award Winner in New York (credits include Miles Davis, Prince, Herbie Hancock, Michael Jackson), touring with his band internationally with a growing following, audiences and radio/TV broadcasts, he's now working with two Platinum producers and a London Symphony Orchestra composer. Check out the new album, The Defector now. 

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Mark joins the show to chat to Rob Cope about his new album, Live at the Village Vanguard. His first live album, and one not to be missed! 

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Kyle joins the show to chat to Rob Cope about his new album, Eastwood Symphonic. Eastwood Symphonic, Kyle Eastwood forthcoming album, is a tribute from a son to his father, legendary actor and director.

This family collaboration now becomes an unique album, that will come along a film produced by Arte, a European symphony tour and a unique event at the Deauville American Film Festival.

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Matthew Halsall is a trumpeter, producer and composer who is redefining spiritual jazz for the next generation. Over the course of nine albums, numerous accolades and his taste-making label, Gondwana Records, he’s become a vital voice in UK music with his lithe, limitless blend of jazz and deeply meditative influences that’s in tune with the natural world. His thoughtful and refined style draws on the foundations laid by greats like Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders, but adds the sample-fuelled electronica that he first heard in clubs, as well as global percussive influences and his signature – what you might call – sparkle. Today we feature his new album,  An Ever Changing View, which is out today! 

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Zoe Rahman: https://www.zoerahman.com/

Zoe Rahman’sstyle is deeply rooted in jazz yet it reflects her classical background, British/Bengali heritage and very broad musical taste. Known for her powerful technique, wide-ranging imagination and exuberant performance, she has become a highly sought-after musician on the international music scene, having worked with the likes of Courtney Pine, George Mraz, Jerry Dammers’ Spatial AKA Orchestra and many other artists. A MOBO Award winner, Mercury Prize nominee and Ivor Novello Impact Award winner, Rahman is a unique presence in the British music industry.

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https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gemini--6#/

An artist interested in multiple musical directions and one who strives for quality and sincerity in his work. His exciting energy has compelled him towards many different musical directions and projects. Considered by his contemporaries as cutting edge, Gray shows promise as an artist that will not only move the music forward, but one who will share his unique musical vision with the world of music.

Devin Gray’s fresh approach to modern drumming has enabled him to play with many of the worlds great jazz musicians. He has performed and recorded with innovative musicians of contrasting styles and backgrounds such as: David Liebman, Tony Malaby, Gary Thomas, Ingrid Jensen, Dave Burrell, Dave Ballou, Michael Formanek, Nate Wooley, Stephan Crump, George Garzone, Chris Speed, Drew Gress, Sam Rivers, Ralph Alessi, John O’Gallagher, Ellery Eskelin, Kris Davis, Ted Rosenthal, Matt Mitchell, Satoko Fujii, Uri Caine, Andrew D’Angelo, Vardan Ovsepian, Angelica Sanchez, as well as many others.

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If you enjoy this show, you can preorder Rob's new album Gemini at this link below.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gemini--6

Today John joins the show to chat about his incredible career so far. 

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Saxophonists Andy and Suzanne join the show to chat to Rob about their career, their move from Manchester to Berlin and then again to Prague. A journey not to be missed! 

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Rob Buckland has crafted a career around his primary work as a saxophonist that defies categorisation. Renowned for a highly distinctive, original sound, with real personality and projection, combined with an open-minded approach to repertoire and performance styles, his work takes him around the globe in an astonishing variety of musical settings.

Constantly evolving, Rob's most recent projects include a new collaboration with world-renowned Jazz pianist and composer Gwilym Simcock. Featuring the two musicians in both classical and jazz contexts, joined by string quartet, this project merges genres seamlessly to create a new take on some beautiful classical inspired repertoire, with improvisation sympathetically woven into the fabric of the music. This project will record a CD in 2021, and has expanded to a programme with jazz quartet and orchestra. He is also a founder member of the Neoteric Ensemble, a six-piece brass and saxophones chamber group that is currently commissioning and recording a new programme of original music.

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Award-winning New York City jazz pianist and accordionist Ben Rosenblum has been described as “mature beyond his years,” (Sea of Tranquility), an “impressive talent” (All About Jazz), who “caresses [the music] with the reverence it merits” (Downbeat Magazine). Since the release of his debut trio album, Instead (4 stars, Downbeat), Rosenblum has toured extensively with his trio and sextet throughout the United States, including multiple trips to the Northeast, Midwest, South and West Coast, as well as internationally in Canada, Europe and Japan. He was a featured soloist at Carnegie Hall's Stern-Perelman Auditorium – with Reona Ito's New York Harmonic Band – and has appeared at prestigious venues throughout the world, including at the Appel Room at Lincoln Center, Kuumbwa Jazz Center, Ravinia, Himawari-No-Sato Concert Hall in Yokohama, Bird's Eye inBasel and the Library of Congress. Rosenblum's second trio album in 2018, River City, was called “richly romantic” and “well-realized” by JAZZIZ Magazine, which featured the title track as part of their Best of Fall 2018 CD. In 2020, Rosenblum released his third album, Kites and Strings, which is the first to feature him on both piano and accordion alongside his new sextet, the Nebula Project. That year, the Nebula Project was votedrunner-up for Best New Artist in JazzTimes' Readers' Poll. Most recently, Rosenblum recently his fourth album, A Thousand Pebbles, in 2023. In May 2023, Rosenblum and the album were featured in a Downbeat Magazine article entitled "Worldly Jazz Adventuring." Rosenblum has been privileged to share the stage with many highly acclaimed jazz musicians, including extensive work with Curtis Lundy, Winard Harper, Deborah Davis and Chris Washburne, as well as appearances with Bobby Watson, Sean Jones, TS Monk, Warren Wolf, Eliot Zigmund, and many others. Rosenblum's musical interests also extend beyond jazz to include work in numerous world music scenes, including musical styles from Brazil, Peru, Croatia, Bulgaria, India, Ireland, Jewish traditions and more.

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Ally Fiola is a Nova Scotian saxophonist and film composer. Her recently recorded original jazz album, Interblaze, features 3x Grammy winning saxophonist Jeff Coffin (Dave Matthews Band, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones), Grammy winning keyboardist Glenn Patscha (Bonnie Raitt), Kurdish guitarist Shvan Kaban, and many top-tier Nova Scotian musicians, including co-producer Chris Mitchell. Ally’s full and soulful  saxophone tone is influenced by Cannonball Adderley, Maceo Parker, Hank Mobley, and David Sanborn, to name a few. 

Quirky melodies combined with joyous grooves and unexpected twists and turns, Ally’s jazz compositions are often inspired by New Orleans brass band, soul, and contemporary jazz. As an experienced composer, she connects to a wide-range of listeners with music that is emotionally charged, infused with personality yet widely accessible. “Thoughts of Home”, an original composition from her latest album, was nominated for the 2022 Marvin Hamlisch International Music Awards in the jazz category.  

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Amy Jones is one of the leading pop vocalists in the UK. Running her own band and business, The White Keys, she has built up an empire to rival any music business start up. Today she shares with us her journey as a musician and an entrepreneur. 

https://amysyed.tumblr.com/

www.instagram.com/amy.vt.jones

www.thewhitekeys.co.uk

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Shirley Smart is recognised as one of the UK’s most versatile and creative cellists – being equally at home and well versed in jazz and Middle Eastern music, as well as classical music.

Originally trained under Raphael Wallfisch at the Guilldhall School of Music, and Janos Starker in Paris, she subsequently moved to Jerusalem, where she remained for 10 years, studying and performing a wide variety of musical traditions from the North Africa, Turkey and Middle East. She was also highly active on the jazz scene, working with artists including Avishai Cohen, Omer Avital andYasmin Levy. Since returning to the UK, she has quickly become known as one of the most creative cellists on the music scene and has worked with many leading jazz and world music groups, including Antonio Forcione, Mulato Astatke, Gilad Atzmon,Neil Cowley, Julian Ferraretto,Robert Mitchell, Maya Youssefand Alice Zawadski.

She leads her own trio, with John Crawford on piano, and Demi Garcia Sabaton drums, and band Melange.

Shirley is Head of Performance and a Lecturer in Music at City University and Kent University, and also teaches Improvisation and Jazz at the Royal College of Music Junior Department. She is a visiting tutor for the National Youth Jazz Collective, and an in demand workshop leader.

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Montreal-based saxophonist and composer Christine Jensen has been described as, “an original voice on the international jazz scene… [and] one of Canada’s most compelling composers,” by Mark Miller of the Globe and Mail. According to Greg Buium of Downbeat Magazine, “Jensen writes in three dimensions, with a quiet kind of authority that makes the many elements cohere. Wayne Shorter, Maria Schneider and Kenny Wheeler come to mind.” After a performance at the 2006 Montreal International Jazz Festival, Scott Yanow wrote, “She’s rapidly developing into a major force … as a player and as a writer.”

Jensen is equally at home performing in small and large ensemble settings. Her latest opus, Treelines - The Christine Jensen Jazz Orchestra on Justin-Time Records, won her the 2011 Juno Award for Contemporary Jazz Album of the Year, along with Quebec’s Opus Award for jazz recording of the year. Downbeat magazine described it as“…a stunning orchestral debut… ****1/2 stars”. She recently performed at various jazz festivals across Canada as well as at Dizzy’s Jazz Club-Lincoln Center in New York with this ensemble. “Jensen’s formidable orchestra is the glistening sunlight, the tranquility and force of the ocean, and the majestic trees that her music imagines.”-Jazz Times

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Inspired by Dave Koz and tutored by renowned music teacher Artem Mendelenko, saxophonist Andrey Chmut was born in the small town of Medzhybizh in Western Ukraine.  His young life was filled with music (his mother plays the balalaika, his father plays the accordion, one of his sisters is a violinist while another is a singer) and since the age of five his mission to become a globally recognized sax-player has continued unabated.

By the age of nine he had commenced music school in Medzhybizh and was playing sax in his local church, something that he still very much loves to do.  Three years later he moved to Kiev where he studied classical saxophone, first at the Glinka School Of Music and then later at the historic Glière Music College.

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Mayo released his third album, Meu Brasil in January 2023. Meu Brasil is his first Brazilian project and features maestro Sergio Mendes, guitarists/composers Dori Caymmi and Guinga and the voice of Gracinha Leporace, among others. 

“This album is an homage to a music and a country that has so deeply shaped my musical life. It’s called Meu Brasil because I wanted to share how the music has touched me and, from my Black American perspective, how I feel the music.” 

Additionally, Mayo performed on screen and on the soundtrack for the 2022 film Babylon, recorded on the critically-acclaimed television series Better Call Saul, on Beyonce’s smash, new album Renaissance, John Legend’s new album Legend, and on Oscar-nominated composerTerence Blanchard’s score of Father Of The Bride remake. Spring 2022 saw Mayo performing as part of the 94th Academy Awards orchestra and the 64th annual Grammy Awards with legendary rapper, Nas. In autumn 2021, Mayo recorded on “You Deserve It All” by megastar John Legend. Summer 2021 had Scott playing all the woodwinds on the Netflix Children’s animation Ada Twist, Scientist founded by President and First Lady, Barack and Michelle Obama. 

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Hannah Horton is a melodic maverick, visionary jazz saxophonist, composer, bandleader and journalist. Star of UK jazz, her music is rooted in jazz, folk and funk. Her established individual and sophisticated sound is edging through boundaries and creating waves worldwide.

An official Henri Selmer Artist, alumni of the prestigious Guildhall School of Music and Drama and Trinity Laban, and member of award winning Women In Jazz Media, Hannah works the jazz world in her own authentic way. Her most recent album ‘Inside Out’ has received critical acclaim worldwide and she continues to wow audiences with her creative, compelling, emotive and alluring playing, alongside her warm and charming personality on stage.

Today Hannah provides inspiration of her own by running ‘J Steps’ – a new band initiative designed to nurture the talent of musicians who identify as female or non-binary with it’s main aim being to balance a historic lack of representation of women in jazz.

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Immy, daughter of Pete Churchill and Nikki Iles is forging her own way in the world. Today we chat to her about all things music. Such an inspiring young musician, catch this one now! 

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Fergus McCreadieis one of the most exciting young jazz pianists on the world stage. With his unique blend of Jazz and Scottish folk music inspired by his country’s  sublime landscapes, Fergus captures the hearts and minds of audiences worldwide. He is undoubtedly a future star in the making. 

Released on Edition Records to instant critical acclaim, Forest Floor topped the UK Jazz & Blues charts, prompting sold-out performances at Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh and Love Supreme this summer. Fergus is the only non-classical musician to be selected as a 2022 BBC New Generation Artist.  In 2022, Fergus was awarded the JazzFM Award for Instrumentalist of the Year, on top of winning the Scottish Album of the Year Award on the same day. 

This year Fergus is headed to the North Sea Jazz Festival, we catch up with him about the upcoming gig. 

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Corrie Dick is the name of a UK-based musician specialising in euphoric, sonically-conscious groove drumming. He is lauded for his touch, uniquely fresh approach to style and melodicism. He is an essential component of any project lead by Laura Jurd including Mercury Prize Shortlisted Dinosaur; provides the intricate and fluent stick work in the Elliot Galvin Trio; brings intense, free colours to Danish powerhouse bassist Jasper Høiby’s exciting Fellow Creatures; writes deep and spiritual music for Blue-Eyed Hawk; and provides the full spectrum of rhythmic elements for guitar wunderkind Rob Luft’s ensemble. He also leads his own joy-inducing supergroup, releasing his debut album with the ensemble in November 2015, selling out concerts across the UK ever since. The album displays Corrie’s striking abilities as composer/lyricist by skilfully fusing Celtic folk and contemporary jazz with new takes on African rhythms.

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Caitlin LM is an electronic producer, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist from Manchester. Her ethereal vocals and live instruments meld with pulsating synths and undulating beats to create a powerful yet intimate soundworld.

Taking inspiration from the likes of Bonobo, Jon Hopkins and Thom Yorke, with jazz and cinematic influences, her music flows from vulnerability to defiance.

Her latest single Evergreenwas featured on BBC Radio 6, BBC Introducing Manchester, BBC Radio Scotland and Amazing Radio.

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Art Themen was involved in the traditional jazz scene in Manchester in the late 1950s. A member of the award winning Cambridge University jazz band from 1958 to 1961, he became involved in the early London blues scene, playing alongside Alexis Korner, Jack Bruce, Mick Jagger and Chuck Berry. He fronted the Stan Tracey quartet for 20 years from 1976. Key influences are Sonny Rollins and Dexter Gordon. Themen has toured world wide and played and recorded with many US and British luminaries. A busy and sought after musician who nowadays is most often seen on stage with many of the best of Britain's top jazz players such as Alan Barnes, John Donaldson, John Critchinson, Dave Newton, Georgie Fame, Don Weller, Mornington Lockett, among many others. Themen is a player who is known for his originality and individual style.

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Olivia Murphy is a multi-award winning composer, conductor and improviser based in South-East London, originally from Peterborough. After studying jazz saxophone at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, Olivia has found composition her main focus and an important emotional outlet. She thinks of herself as a story-teller, enjoying weaving melodic lines with varied textures and ensemble improvisations to bring her ideas and memories to life, and over the last few years has been busy crafting musical stories for various jazz and new music ensembles.

 Most recently, Olivia stepped in as guest conductor for the Calum Gourlay big band, MD’ing the band through her compositions at the Vortex Jazz Club during the EFG London Jazz Festival. She was also recently commissioned by The Royal Birmingham Conservatoire to reimagine a Mike Gibbs composition in celebration of the legendary composer’s 85th birthday. The performance in December featured a fourteen piece large ensemble and Julian Argüelles as featured soloist.

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New York saxophonist Daniel Bennett has been hailed as one of the most original and unpredictable musical voices of his generation. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette describes Bennett's music as a mix of "modern jazz and avant-pop." Daniel Bennett has been featured in Timeout New York, NPRand theBoston Globe.The UK Jazz Journal called Bennett, "an outspoken voice of hope," during the Covid 19 pandemic. Daniel Bennett Group was recently voted 'Best New Jazz' in Hot House Magazine. The trio is currently promoting their 9th studio album, 'New York Nerve.' The Daniel Bennett Group performs regularly at the Blue Note (NYC), Ronnie Scott's (London), Tomi Jazz (NYC) and Herb Alpert's Vibrato Club (LA). Bennett is a touring clinician and associate director of the New York Jazz Academy in Times Square. Daniel Bennett played woodwinds in 'Blank! The Musical,' the first fully improvised musical to launch on a national stage. The New York Times called the show, "Witty, Likable and Ludicrous!" Daniel Bennett orchestrated the music for 'Whitman at the Whitney,' a stage adaptation of the poetry of Walt Whitman. The production debuted at the Whitney Museum in New York City. Daniel Bennett's theatrical works have strongly influenced his eclectic sound and musical storytelling abilities as a bandleader. Daniel Bennett Daniel Bennett is an endorsing artist for Morgan Mouthpieces. 

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Beboptical Illusion is the 3rd release from drummer and band leader Gaz Hughes, today we preview the new music on the show. This album features the same trio from his previous albums but marks a leap forward in the band's evolution as most of the tracks are original compositons.

The album was recorded in August 2022. It is being released on 3rd Feb 2023 and will be supported by a huge UK tour.

For more details see:  www.gazhughesmusic.com

credits

released February 3, 2023 

Gaz Hughes - Drums 
Andrezej Baranek - Piano 
Ed Harrison - Double Bass 

Recorded by Dave Speakman 
Mixed by Dave Speakman & Gaz Hughes 
Mastered by Pete Maher 

Photography by Nathan McDowell 
Art work by Tom Sullivan.

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Originally from the Netherlands, vocalist, and songstress, Vivienne Aerts is barely categorizable in genre or style. She plays in band formation, duo, solo, supplemented with synthesizer, loop station, and effects. Vivienne surprises challenges and tells stories. Her lyrics travel to the core of recognition; talk to the soul and open a barrel of emotions. Heartbreaking, singing of happiness, sometimes humorous, she tells about the things that make life beautiful.

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 Faye MacCalman is a performer, composer-songwriter and improviser on saxophone, clarinet and voice. Freewheeling through genre boundaries inspired by jazz, blues-folk, minimalism and rock to name a few, Faye fuses experimental songwriting with off kilter patterns, heartfelt melodies and surreal atmospheres. 

Faye is bandleader of critically acclaimed jazz-art-rock trio Archipelago, nominated for UK Jazz Act of the Year in the 2021 Jazz FM Awards after releasing their 2021 album ‘Echoes To The Sky’. Faye is also a current Jerwood Arts / Cheltenham Jazz Festival fellow, and her collaborations includeArun Ghosh, Anna Meredith, Zoe Rahman, Maximo Park and The Unthanks.  

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Quentin and Rob join the show to tell Tara Minton all about their new album, Five Way Split. Out March 17th on Ubuntu Music. Guest intro by Caitlin L-M.

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Born in 1967 to the late, great bassist Jamil Nasser, Muneer 's exposure to the jazz idiom was early and powerful. In 1976, "My dad took me to see Dizzy Gillespie at the Village Gate and Dizzy blew the place apart.  I had to get a trumpet and weeks later I did."  In 1979, he went to the International Art of Jazz Workshop for college students. Dave Burns, a trumpeter in Gillespie's Big Band, had reservations about his age. Muneer's talent, however, overshadowed this concern.  "Mr. Burns acceptance fortified my confidence and I began studying with him." Muneer also received private instruction from George Coleman, Jimmy Owens, Oliver Beener, and Webster Young. These workshops and lessons taught him the basics of jazz improvisation, which were tested at serious jam sessions conducted by Eddie Henderson, Ted Curson, Tommy Turrentine, Barry Harris, C Sharpe, and Gil Coggins. "If you couldn't play, they would bench you with quickness and give you a homework assignment." As a youngster, Muneer saw many masters in concert such as George Coleman, Randy Weston, Lou Donaldson, Woody Shaw, Roy Eldridge, and Phineas Newborn.

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As an acclaimed trombonist, composer, and producer, Delfeayo Marsalis has also dedicated his prolific career to music theatre and education. Along with the Marsalis family of musicians including his father Ellis, the artist was destined to a life in music.

Marsalis has toured internationally with jazz legends such as Ray Charles, Art Blakey, Max Roach, Elvin Jones and Slide Hampton, as well as leading his own groups.

At the age of 17, Marsalis began his career as a producer and has to date produced over 120 recordings garnering one Grammy award and several nominations.

In 2008, he formed the Uptown Jazz Orchestra, a highly entertaining ensemble that focuses on maintaining important jazz traditions such as riff playing, New Orleans polyphony and spontaneous arrangements.

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Tomas Fujiwara is a Brooklyn-based drummer and composer. Described as “a ubiquitous presence in the New York scene…an artist whose urbane writing is equal to his impressively nuanced drumming” (Troy Collins, Point of Departure), Tomas is an active player in some of the most exciting music of the current generation, with his bands Triple Double (with Gerald Cleaver, Mary Halvorson, Brandon Seabrook, Ralph Alessi, and Taylor Ho Bynum), Tomas Fujiwara & The Hook Up (with Jonathan Finlayson, Brian Settles, Halvorson, and Michael Formanek) and The Tomas Fujiwara Trio (with Alessi and Seabrook); his collaborative duo with cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum; the collective trio Thumbscrew (with Halvorson and Formanek); and a diversity of creative sideman work with forward thinking peers like Tomeka Reid and Matana Roberts. In The New York Times, Nate Chinen writes, “Drummer Tomas Fujiwara works with rhythm as a pliable substance, solid but ever shifting. His style is forward-driving but rarely blunt or aggressive, and never random. He has a way of spreading out the center of a pulse while setting up a rigorous scaffolding of restraint...A conception of the drum set as a full-canvas instrument, almost orchestral in its scope.” 

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It would be impossible to have grown up in the multicultural melting pot of Birmingham and not have your very soul steeped in music.
I was born between Balsall Heath and Moseley;  home of Ocean Colour Scene, UB40, The Beat, the drummer Bev Bevan,  the “Mostly Jazz Festival”  and for a short while,  the writer J.R.R Tolkien. My local high street, Ladypool road, now famous for it’s Balti restaurants,  had at one end of it one of the most renowned Reggae record shops in Britain; “Don Christie’s”. 

Halfway down was “The Red Lion” pub where live jazz was played three nights a week. It’s claim to fame was infact, having been the location for the UB40 video “Red, Red Wine” a few years earlier but for me,  it was a  wonderful new world into which I snuck (all at a much too early age and of course unbeknown to my parents) and where I absorbed not only jazz,  but a bohemian, slightly naughty and thrilling world where grown ups drank and partied (mine didn’t)  and where there was something exciting in the air that I couldn’t  quite  fathom or quite put a name to yet but… I think it began with S. Further down this same road led to Moseley Village,  an area known for being creative, cosmopolitan and the focus of artistic and student activities with plenty of pubs, restaurants and live music, home of The Moseley Folk Festival and of the aforementioned “Mostly Jazz, Funk & Soul” Festival.

My first proper CD as a vocalist was “Just in Time” and was produced by award winning jazz singer Ian Shaw. It was launched at The 606 Club in 2005 and I’ve continued on a brilliant jazz singer journey ever since, whilst at all times following the advice that bass player Geoff Gascoyne gave me  to “Always play with the best people. Don’t be afraid to call them. They’ll take the gig!”

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Joel Schoch was born in 1991. He started playing the piano at the age of 9. He finally fell for composing music in the context of his High School graduation work, where he composed the music for the musical "Verbutzt". After a preliminary course in film music in Bonn (DE), he studied "Film and Media Music" at the Hogeschool van de Kunsten in Arnhem (NE), before completing his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in "Composition for Film, Theatre and Media (FTM)" at the Zurich University of the Arts. During his studies he wrote music for ensembles of various sizes,  composed music for games, wrote a children's musical and composed a 3D radioplay.


His soundtrack to the award-winning indie computer game Far: Lone Sails, which was released in 2018 for pc and in 2019 for playstation an xbox, became known to a wider public. For the soundtrack he got a nomination for the German Developer Award in the category: Best Sound.

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 It’s not as though guitarist Bobby Broom hasn’t had meaningful encounters with pianists during his long and distinguished career. Still in his teens, the Harlem native got his startas a performing artist playing clubs with Charlie Parker alumni Al Haig and Walter Bishop, Jr. Dave Grusin contributed keyboardsto (and produced) Broom’s first two albums. And James Williams was instrumental in advancing his career, while Dr. John provided six years of meaningful employment. Then there were Chicago greats Willie Pickens, Jodie Christian, Earma Thompson,andRamsey Lewis, who all supported him through the years.

But it had been many years leading up to his revelatory new album, Keyed Up – a tribute to great pianists featuring a future great in Justin Dillard – that Broom hooked up with a keyboardist on one of his recordings. Having established himself as one of the day’s great guitarists in bass and drum trio settings, why did he expand to a quartet this time around? Have a listen and find out!

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Jonathan Lindhorst is a Berlin based saxophonist and composer who is not only an active member of the Berlin jazz and free improvised music scene, but also plays regularly in New York and in his home country of Canada.

  In addition to leading his Canadian based project The Limerence Quartet, he is a member of Innocent When you Dream: The Music of Tom Waits, Fake Noise, Hover Trout, and various other Berlin based collective projects.

​

Lindhorst has performed at numerous venues and festivals throughout North America and Europe, including the North Sea Jazz Festival, The Montreaux Jazz Fest, and the L'Off Festival de Jazz a Montreal, and alongside such great musicians as Christine Jensen, Anne Mette Iversen, Tobias Meinhart, Phil Donkin, Sebastien Ammann, Dan Peter Sundland, Aaron Shragge, Eyal Lovett, Alexander Maksymiw, and Peter Van Huffel to name a few.

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Maria Schneider, Ingrid Jensen, Matt Wilson, Matt Balitsaris and Ben Rosenblum join us for a very special show, celebrating the life and music of celebrated pianist, Frank Kimbrough.

https://jazztimes.com/ says of Kimbrough, he was probably best known for his long association with the Maria Schneider Jazz Orchestra, in which he had held the piano chair since 1993. He was also a member of Ryan Truesdell’s Gil Evans Project and enjoyed lengthy collaborative relationships with de Prophetis, drummer Matt Wilson, and bassist Ben Allison, in whose Jazz Composers Collective Kimbrough was a charter member.

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Kerry Politzer is a Portland-based jazz pianist, composer, and educator. She is on the music faculty of Portland State University and the University of Portland, and she also teaches through Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Swing University. Kerry received a Bachelor of Music in Jazz Piano from the New England Conservatory of Music, where she studied improvisation and composition with the late jazz guru Charlie Banacos. She continues to be inspired by his teachings and is now working on a Master of Music in Jazz Composition from Rowan University.

Prior to moving to Portland, Kerry lived in New York for many years, where she studied Brazilian music and performed original compositions at clubs including Smalls. She also toured with DIVA No Man’s Band, playing with Diane Schuur, Slide Hampton, and Larry Coryell. In 1996, Kerry was one of six finalists in the American Pianists Association’s 3rd Biennial Jazz Piano Competition. Her composition Rhodes Rage won Third Prize, Jazz Category in the 2005 International Songwriting Competition. 

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Georgia makes her third appearance on our show to tell us about her new ventures and plans for 2023! 

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Edgar started listening and playing music at an early age. Starting out on the accordeon  he switched to piano to serve his musical aspirations better. At the moment, Edgar is picking up the accordeon again after more than 45 years. 

After he graduated from business school with a Bachelor degree in Applied Economics he decided to pursue his musical aspirations at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. While he was learning jazz from great Dutch pianists as Rob van Kreeveld and Frans Elsen, he gradually started to develop his own ideas. 

Today we preview his new album,  A Gentle Insult, out Friday 13th January. 

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Los Angeles-based saxophonist Bob Reynolds is a Grammy-winning member of the instrumental group Snarky Puppy, an award-winning composer, and a prolific recording artist with 10 top-selling solo albums to his credit.

Widely known for his work with both Snarky and John Mayer, he’s been a featured soloist with Grammy-winning instrumentalists like Larry Carlton, Chris Botti, and Jeff Lorber and worked with a host of pop artists including Michael Bublé, Idina Menzel, Josh Groban, The 1975, and USHER.

The New York Times called him “a self-assured saxophonist and an unassuming yet effective composer,” and his solo albums showcase his melodic improvisational style, tuneful songwriting, and, as the LA Times put it: “hip-swiveling” grooves. His Guitar Band album, filmed live in concert, has over 4 million views on YouTube.

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Experimental jazz harpist, vocalist, composer, electronic music producer, Julie Campiche’s innovative musical language is an on-going process in which she shares her vision of the world. Through her early experience in jazz, classical electronic and avant-garde experimentation this harp jazz pioneer has developed an authentic extremely diversified style. Her music is imbued with intensity and urgent fragility.

Campiche founded the Julie Campiche Quartet in 2016 by bringing together some of the most promising Swiss musicians of their generation to create an ensemble that has stood apart. Their work includes instrumental electronic effects in the acoustic space intertwined with organic sounds and electronic samples all of which are used in a complex musical structure. The quartet’s sonic signature is unique in the world of contemporary and progressive jazz.

The Julie Campiche Quartet release their sophomore album ‘You Matter’ on the 4th of November 2022. It is an experimental body of work in avant-garde jazz with the magical, unexpected and emotive sounds of the harp at its core. It is the fruit of their five years experience on the road together. They have grown as one voice towards a new visionary, conceptual, intimate space. Their orchestration is more developed, the instrumentation more expressive, their musical structures and harmonics more and more complex.

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Guitarist Augusto Baschera and pianist João Bernardo released their second album Tempos e Lugares in the May of 2022. This album results from the recording of a live concert at Teatro Micaelense / São Miguel – Azores. The compositions that make up this recording echo traits explored by the duo on their first album, Grey City, which represent and mark the duo’s characteristic identity, such as the unison melodies that are guided by an inner voice endowed with lyricism. In this new work, the duo combines their essence with a rhythmic vigour that emphasizes the duo’s traditions and influences and at the same time reflects the universality of their music, which draws on both classical and jazz styling.

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Blue Lab Beats are a jazztronica duo from London aged 23 and 28. Their influences include jazz, hip-hop, soul, funk, R&B and others. Mix it all up and out comes the sound of Blue Lab Beats! Today Rob Cope chats to Mr. DM about their music.

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Rob Cope explores some of the great new music out there right now. Featuring tracks from:
Ant Law & Alex Hitchcock
Evie Asio
Laszlo Gardony 
Josh Sinton
Faye MacCalman
Patricia Brennan
Samara Joy

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Tucked away from the sprawl of Los Angeles, nestled off the 605 Freeway, lies one of Jazz music’s best kept secrets. A composer, renegade, and wanderer whose musical journey is gaining a second wind. Garrett Saracho has lived many lives, from being a fresh-faced signee to Impulse Records in the early 1970s to working on blockbuster films to touring with his cousins’ iconic rock group Redbone decades later. But while his stories have always been pushed to the background, this next chapter finds him standing tall at center stage.
Today, Garrett’s work has found renewed interest, with a new generation of jazz fans rediscovering “En Medio”, which has been long out-of-print and unavailable on major streaming platforms. His latest adventure finds him in the studio with Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhmammad, recording his first new music in decades for the venerated Jazz Is Dead series. While many have yet to learn the name of this living legend, they are already well-acquainted with the lineage he comes from, the icons he learned from, and the groove he embodies.

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Rob Cope explores the incredible RNCM Saxophone Day 2022. We interview the tutors, musicians and fans who make the day one of the most special events on the saxophone calendar. Featuring interviews with Rob Buckland, Sarah Field, Andy Scott, John Helliwell, Eden Longson, Lauren Scott and lots more! 

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The Brother Moves On (TBMO) is a South African performance art ensemble from Johannesburg, Gauteng. The group was founded somewhere between the years 2008 and 2010 by broad-based artist Nkululeko Mthembu and his brother Siyabonga Mthembu.[1] TBMO began as a self-proclaimed art movement mainly of graphic and fine artists and since began incorporating instrumentalists for the live performance environment.

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Recorded live at The Jazz Café, Camden – the spiritual home of Tomorrow’s Warriors – across three I AM WARRIORgigs between 2019-2021, the album features recording of specially commissioned work by some of our award-winning alumni, including Zara McFarlane, Cherise Adams-Burnett, Camilla George, Cassie Kinoshi, Denys Baptiste, Nathaniel Facey, Sheila Maurice-Grey, Soweto Kinch, Mark Kavuma, Rosie Turton, Mark Crown, Shirley Tetteh, Ben Burrell, Binker Golding, Peter Edwards andFemi Koleoso. 

The project saw established musicians composing for and performing with the next generation of young jazz talent, creating collaborations that cross over generations of musicians and capture the essence of the Warriors ethos ‘Each One, Teach One’. 

I AM WARRIOR is The Sound of Tomorrow’s Warriors LIVE.  

Not only is this a fantastic collection of music, capturing the ’lightning in the bottle moment’ of the live performances, but it is also a great way to support us. All the proceeds from the sale of this collectors’ item, limited-edition vinyl pressing will be reinvested back into the work of Tomorrow’s Warriors Trust (Charity No 1153613). 

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Carole is a London-born jazz pianist, saxophonist and composer who has been living in Ireland since 1986. Her current project, the Carole Nelson Trio, with Carole on piano, bassist Cormac O'Brien and drummer Dominic Mullen, began at the 2015 Dublin Trio Trio Trio Piano Festival. The Trio’s first album,One Day in Winterwas releasedNovember 2017 .

The album, all original compositions from Carole, follows the course of a winter’s day, inspired by the South County Carlow landscape between the River Barrow and the Blackstairs Mountains, where she currently lives.
​'A finely-wraught meditation that tapped into the spacious European piano trio tradition of Tord Gustavsen and Marcin Wasilewski'Cormac Larkin, Irish Times.

Arborealis the trio's second album, released February 2020 and features another collection of outstanding compositions.
'One of the most original jazz composers in Ireland' Irish Times
​'a rare and exceptional talent' Irish Times

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Robert Mitchell joins us to preview his new double album, Hold The Light/The New Resistance, which is released today, October 13th! 

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Grammy nominated saxophonist Ben Wendel was born in Vancouver, Canada and raised in Los Angeles. Currently living in Brooklyn, NY, he has enjoyed a varied career as a performer, composer and producer.  Highlights include tours, performances and/or recordings with artists such as Tigran Hamasyan, Antonio Sanchez, Gerald Clayton, Eric Harland, Taylor Eigsti, Linda May Han Oh, Moonchild, Louis Cole, Daedelus, Snoop Dogg and the artist formerly known as Prince. Ben is a founding member of the Grammy nominated group Kneebody.

As a composer, he has received an ASCAP Jazz Composer Award, the 2008, 2011 and 2017 Chamber Music America “New Works Grant” and was awarded the Victor Lynch-Staunton award by the Canada Council For The Arts. He also co-wrote the score for John Krasinski's adaptation of David Foster Wallace’s "Brief Interviews With Hideous Men."

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Camilla joins the show to celebrate her album release, we chat about the music and her influences. A fantastic show with one of the nicest people you'll ever meet. 

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With her upcoming Verve Records debut, Linger Awhile, 22-year-old Samara Joy makes her case to join the likes of Sarah, Ella, and Billie as the next mononymous jazz singing sensation recorded by the venerable label. Her voice, rich and velvety yet precociously refined, has already earned her fans like Anita Baker and Regina King, appearances on the TODAY Show and millions of likes on TikTok — cementing her status as perhaps the first Gen Z jazz singing star. On Linger Awhile, Samara will introduce that massive audience to a slew of classic standards several times older than she is through her timeless, irresistible sound.

Samara is still relatively new to jazz. Growing up in the Bronx, it was music of the past — the music of her parent’s childhoods, as she put it — that she listened to most. She treasures her musical lineage, which stretches back to her grandparents Elder Goldwire and Ruth McLendon, both of whom performed with Philadelphia gospel group the Savettes, and runs through her father, who is a singer, songwriter and producer who toured with gospel artist Andraé Crouch. “Sometimes I catch myself when I’m singing — I’m like, ‘Whoa, that was a dad moment’,” Samara quips. Eventually, she did follow in the family tradition, singing in church and then with the jazz band at Fordham High School for the Arts, with whom she won Best Vocalist at JALC’s Essentially Ellington competition. That led to her enrolling in SUNY Purchase’s jazz studies program, where she fell deeply in love with the music.

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Born and based in Derby, Dr Corey Mwamba's commitment to jazz and improvised music in Britain and Ireland drives all aspects of his work, whether through making, presenting, promoting, or researching music.

Corey predominantly plays vibraphone; and also plays dulcimer and uses audio processing software. Corey Mwamba is recognised as a highly creative improviser and composer working across a wide range of jazz and contemporary music. Mwamba's distinctive approach and tone is instantly recognisable in any context: a potent blend of pure sound, highly melodic phrases and ethereal textures; barely whispered chords and ear-piercing robotic screams. Corey won a PRSF/Jerwood Foundation Take Five artist development award in 2007; was short-listed for the Innovation category in the BBC Jazz Awards in 2008; and received nominations for "Rising Star on Vibraphone" the last nine DownBeat annual International Critics' Polls.

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Born in Hertfordshire, UK, Elaine was raised in a strong musical environment, her father being the renowned trumpeter Leslie 'Jiver' Hutchinson, a leading influence in the jazz and dance band movement in Britain from the 1930s onwards.

 After initially studying classical piano, Elaine found a natural progression in singing and became a vocalist in her father's own band at sixteen. It was soon apparent that her vocal talent and natural affinity with the stage would lead her to triumph in many areas of the entertainment world. 

Today Elaine chats to Tara Minton about her remarkable career.

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LOS ANGELES, CA - Multi-platinum selling producer, songwriter, arranger Jason "Spicy G"
Goldman, in collaboration with jazz vocalist Lia Booth are set to release their new LP, "There's Only One", on September 16, 2022.

The album features provocative takes on the great American songbook, as well as a trio of
originals reminiscent of the classics. Expanding on Goldman's previous album, "Hypnotised", "There's Only One" is filled with the vibrant sounds of a full big band and orchestra uniquely blended with today's modern production sounds.

All songs were produced, arranged, and orchestrated by Jason Goldman. Says Jason about the
project, "Lia and I are so excited for people to hear There's Only One. We infused many different styles of music into this album, from classic jazz swing to Latin grooves to modern pop sounds all while honouring the tradition of the classic American songbook genre.
There's Only One pulls listeners through a range of emotions through poetic lyrics and the lush sounds of a full jazz orchestra. The album features powerful swingers, lush sultry ballads, and dramatic layered vocal choirs. Several of the songs are inspired by Latin music as well as the classic "It Had Better Be Tonight" which features compelling vocals in both Italian and English. Each individual track is unique, yet there is an undeniably satisfying sense of cohesion throughout the entire album.

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In the Jazz tradition, Walter Smith III has developed under the wings of many of the music’s greats. Walter is/has been a member of several legendary groups (recording and/or touring) including the Roy Haynes Fountain of Youth Band, Terence Blanchard Quintet, Eric Harland’s “Voyager”, Jason Moran’s In My Mind:Monk at Town Hall, Ambrose Akinmusire Quintet, the Christian McBride “Situation”, Christian Scott group and the Sean Jones Quintet to name a few. Smith has performed all over the world participating in virtually every international festival as well as famed venues such as Carnegie Hall, the Village Vanguard, and the Kennedy Center. In addition, he has shared the stage and/or appeared on recordings with many Jazz notables including Mulgrew Miller, Eric Reed, Billy Childs and Joe Lovano. Today he joins us on the show to share his thoughts on music.

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Braxton Cook (born March 27, 1991 in Boston, Massachusetts) is an Emmy Award Winning Artist and one of this generation’s most exciting emerging voices in the Jazz world. Not only does he exhibit world-class virtuosity on the alto saxophone but he is also a uniquely talented vocalist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and composer whose sound blends Jazz, Soul, and Alternative R&B into a fresh new sound all his own. 

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Wooten is the recipient of five Grammy Awards.[8] He won the Bass Player of the Year award from Bass Player magazine three times[2]and is the first person to win the award more than once.[8] In 2011, he was ranked No. 10 in the Top 10 Bassists of All Time by Rolling Stone magazine.[9] Today he comes on the Jazz Podcast to talk about his music, life and philosophies. 

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Nikki Glaspie is among the premier drummers in music today. As a founding member of The Nth Power she's blazing a path of light, and rolling waves of love in her wake. Nikki Glaspie has been trotting the globe behind the likes of Beyonce, Maceo Parker, Ivan Neville's Dumpstaphunk, GRiZ, and more. Today she joins the show to preview her upcoming gig at UTOPIAfest. The festival returns to Reveille Peak Ranch, and to October on October 14-15, 2022. Along with expanded mountain biking and disc golf offerings, the nearby Highland Lakes will be accessible for cooling off before the stages kick off each day. 
The Thirteenth Annual UTOPiAfest will feature two, non-overlapping stages, BYOB, Hill Country, Beer, Wine, & Spirits, workshops and activities, and more.

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Chien Chien Lu is a vibraphonist, contemporary percussionist, and composer whose Taiwanese upbringing, classical music education, and passion for R&B grooves crystallize into a fresh and distinctive approach to contemporary jazz.

Lu’s fierce authenticity and jazz mastery shine bright on her September 2020 debut solo project, The Path,which spent 20 weeks on the Jazz Week Charts Top 20, earned Best Jazz Songs in Golden Indie Music Awards and three Golden Melody Awards nominations, four Golden Indie Music Awards nominations and led to Lu’s being named the “vibraphone rising star” in Downbeat Magazine’s 69th Annual Critics Poll. Lu’s band has also played many prestigious festivals including the Clifford Brown Jazz Festival, and toured extensively in Europe, Asia, and the United States.

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Writers Collin and Nick join the show to chat about their new jazz film, In A Silent Way. These two friends wanted to make a film about a misguided man trying to become a jazz legend, and the results are hilarious. Rob Cope finds out more. 

The film can be found here on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B0B1DKBNLG/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r

And on Apple TV:

https://tv.apple.com/us/movie/in-a-silent-way/umc.cmc.1k8uya2603ckgxyu68bxljns4

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Binker joins the show to chat to Rob Cope and Tara Minton about his music and career. We chat about his latest album and musical philosophies. Binker is not to be missed. 

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Tara Minton heads to the congress to meet and chat to the other jazz harpists in this incredible review show. The WHC is held every three years around the world and seeks to promote the exchange of ideas, stimulate contact, and encourage the composition of new music for the harp.  Concerts, workshops, seminars and exhibits concerning all aspects of harp musicology and performance are offered at these triennial sessions. 

Track List:

Games - Tara Minton 
Unforgettable - Ruth Lee 
Confirmation - Milena Hoge 
Dwik i nastpstwo - Rhodri Davies 
Dark Eyes - The Transatlantic Hot Club 
Joyful Ride - Monika Stadler 
Utklipp Moontrip - Stina Hellberg Agback 
Monk-y Puzzle - Brenda Dor-Groot 
How Insensitive - Park Stickney 
Samba Rag - Rossitza Milevska 
Memphis - Remy Van Kesteren 
Blissful Sigh - Pia Salvia

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 "Eugenie is a great vocal artist and very gifted contemporary music composer and lyricist. 
Her warm and dynamic vocal stylings range from great jazz and show standards to her well-crafted contemporary compositions, which are both melodically and lyrically creative. ​Her sharing of musical intimacies with her audiences is truly a gift to us all."  -   Overton Berry

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Originally from New York, Bramson was born into a family of musicians. Following undergraduate studies in economics, Bramson returned to music, earning a Masters degree from the prestigious conservatory, the Eastman School of Music.

Steve Bramson is the Emmy™award-winningcomposer of hundreds of primetime television episodes and numerous feature films. He scored ten consecutive seasons of CBS Television Network’s long-running series, JAG, and worked with George Lucas on one of the final episodes of his popular series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. Bramson has also composed the music to many highly acclaimed independent feature films starring actors such as Samantha Morton, Elizabeth Shue, Helen Hunt, Rhys Ifans, Thomas Hayden Church, William Macy and John Malkovich. Known for his versatility and craftsmanship, Bramson was chosen to score the popular amusement ride, From the Earth to the Moon, written for the Disneyland Paris theme park. Bramson’s music has been called “imaginative and terrifically inventive” and of his score to Don McKay, one reviewer says “Steve Bramson works masterfully…, (his score is ) a virtual primer on the power of musical restraint...”

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Pianist/Composer Darren Litzie has been performing professionally in a wide variety of settings for over fifteen years. He holds a Master of Music in Jazz Studies Degree from The Hartt School’s Jackie McLean Institute of Jazz at the University of Hartford, and a Bachelor of Music in Jazz Performance Degree from Western Connecticut State University. While completing his graduate studies, Darren was nominated by The Hartt School faculty for membership in the Pi Kappa Lambda Honor Society for achieving musical and academic excellence. 

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Mike Soper is a London based trumpeter, graduating from Trinity College 10 years ago, nows the time for Mike to release his debut album, Undoing. Today we chat to him about the music, his band and his inspirations. 

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Huw is a hard-working & versatile musician from London, UK. Primarily a bass guitarist, he’s toured the world, recorded on countless tracks, and taught students of all backgrounds and ages. 

As well as bass guitar, he can play synth bass, upright bass, guitar, ukulele and keys. From his home studio, he composes, records and provides one-to-one music lessons.

Since 2016 he’s co-written and released music with Goodfoot, a 10-piece funk & soul act. 

Huw uses Anaconda Basses,  Vanderkley Amplification & Cosmic Ears.

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Bandleader of the Nimbus Sextet, Scottish keyboardist Joe Nichols joins Rob and Tara to chat about his life and music. Back in May they won Jazz FM Album of the Week, this is one worth hearing! 

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Our very own host Tara is interviewed by Rob Cope about her upcoming gig at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club here in London. Heres the link to the video show, if you prefer to watch! 
https://youtu.be/yqlbg3f3bIA

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Matt released his debut album ‘Where Will The River Flow’ in March 2021 to critical acclaim throughout Europe including a 5 star review in BBC Music Magazine and was long-listed for the multi-genre Scottish Album of the Year Award. Following the release Matt was invited as a guest soloist with the Grammy Award winning WDR Big Band in Cologne with his music being arranged by Bob Mintzer.His second album will be coming out in Autumn 2022 featuring Charlie Stewart (fiddle), Fergus McCreadie (piano), Ali Watson (bass) and Tom Potter (drums).

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Starting his professional career in his early 20s, Nigel toured Europe with various reggae and funk bands before settling on a solo guitar career and turning his attention to jazz. Citing early influences as Wes Montgomery, Joe Pass, John McLaughlin and the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Nigel honed his craft by attending gigs and sitting in with the players of the time.

Nigel has played on more than 50 albums including 5 as a leader, spent ten years with acid jazz outfit The Filthy Six, was a member of James Taylor’s band for 3 years (with whom he recorded 5 albums) and performed with the legendary David Axelrod.  He has also taught at The International Guitar Foundation at King’s Place, London.

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Emma Rawicz is an award winning young saxophonist and composer, already making waves on the UK music scene. She has been described as 'a force to be reckoned with' (Jazzwise) and 'a fast rising star' (London Jazz News). At the age of 19 she has already recorded her eagerly awaited debut album featuring Ant Law, made up entirely of her original compositions, due to be released in May 2022. She has also created a name for herself both as a bandleader and a sideman. A new arrival on the scene, she has already made an impact, regularly playing at major London jazz venues with a wide range of established musicians. Emma is a recipient of the 2021 Drake Yolanda Award.

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Nick is one of the most dynamic musicians of the millennial generation. An award-winning composer, producer, entrepreneur, educator and trombonist, Finzer is bringing the joy and power of Jazz to traditional fans and the most modern 21st century audiences. He’s on a mission to be a passionate voice defining the sound of Jazz in this age.

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Wadada Leo Smith, trumpeter, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improviser is one of the most acclaimed creative artists of his times, both for his music and his writings. For the last five decades, Mr. Smith has been a member of the historical and legendary AACM collective. He distinctly defines his music as “Creative Music.” Mr. Smith’s diverse discography reveals a recorded history centered around important issues that have impacted his world.

For over two decades, Mr. Smith has been creating music for multiple ensembles. Some of these works take several days to perform: Ten Freedom Summers (2011, RedCat, Los Angeles); “Tabligh” for double-ensemble was performed by Golden Quartet and Classical Persian ensemble at Merkin Concert Hall (2006); Golden Quartet and Suleyman Erguner’s Classical Turkish ensemble at Akbank Music Festival in Istanbul (2007). His largest work “Odwira” for 12 multi-ensembles (52 instrumentalists) was performed at California Institute of the Arts (March 1995).

Today he joins The Jazz Podcast to discuss his two new albums, released on the TUM label. 

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Since she burst onto the scene in 1996, Fujii has led some of the most consistently creative ensembles in modern improvised music. Highlights include a piano trio with Mark Dresser and Jim Black (1997-2009), and an electrifying avant-rock quartet featuring drummer Tatsuya Yoshida of The Ruins (2001-2008). In addition to a wide variety of small groups of different instrumentation, Fujii also performs in a duo with trumpeter Natsuki Tamura, with whom she’s recorded eight albums since 1997. She and Tamura are also one half of the international free-jazz quartet Kaze, which has released five albums since their debut in 2011. 

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Legendary Norwegian guitarist Eivind Aarset joins the show to chat about his music, philosophies and career. He's one of a kind, and an absolutely lovely man as well! 

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Peter has directed the Nu Civilisation Orchestra since it's inception in 2009. The NCO has performed at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Ronnie Scott's, The Royal Northern College of Music. Peter made his BBC Proms conducting debut in 2019 performing  Duke Ellington's 'Sacred Concert'. He has worked with the BBC Concert Orchestra directing his arrangement of Billy Strayhorn's 'Chelsea Bridge' at London Jazz Festival 2019. 

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