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Straight No Chaser - A Jazz Show


Welcome to Straight No Chaser, the Award-winning Podcast hosted by Jeffrey Siegel

Dec 17, 2017

It’s time once again for me to close out the year with my annual “A Few of My Favorite Things” podcast. This is the chance I get to go back through the music I have had the privilege to listen to during the year, and present some of my favorites to you.

I prefer not to think of this as a true “Best of” list, but rather a way of commenting and making recommendations to you on those that caught my fancy and earned repeat playings on my stereo in 2017. I created five somewhat arbitrary categories for my presentation to allow me to highlight veteran performers, newcomers, tribute albums or projects, special collaborations, and reissued or archival releases.

This year was especially difficult, and I think  you’ll enjoy my choices. And they are:

New Things from Old Friends

Matt Wilson – Salt and Honey: Music Inspired by the Poetry of Carl Sandburg

Sean Jones – Live from Jazz at the Bistro

Jimmy Greene -  Flowers: Beautiful Life, Volume 2

Jane Ira Bloom – Wild Lines: Improvising Emily Dickinson

Rudresh Mahanthappa’s Indo-Pak Coalition - Agrima

Those Hitting Their Stride

Tyshawn Storey - Verilisimitude

Brian Landrus Orchestra - Generations

Noah Preminger – Meditations on Freedom

Linda May Han Oh – Walk Against the Wind

Christian Sands - Reach

Tributes to Musical Greats

John Beasley’s Monk’estra - `Monk’estra, Vol. 2

Organissimo – B3atles: A Soulful Tribute to the Fab Four

Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, feat. Jon Batiste and Wynton Marsalis – The Music of John Lewis

Various Artists – For Oscar, With Love

Gregory Porter – Nat King Cole & Me

Reissue or Archival

Jaco Pastorious – Truth, Liberty & Soul – Live in NYC: The Complete 1983 NPR Jazz Alive! Recording

Wes Montgomery – In Paris: The Definitive ORTF Recording

Stan Getz Quartet – Newport Jazz Festival 1964

Alice Coltrane - World Spirituality Classics 1: The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane 

Thelonious Monk - Les Liasones Dangeruese

Collaborations

Omer Avital and Avi Avital – Avital Meets Avital 

Jamie Saft, Steve Swallow, and Bobby Previte with Iggy Pop – Loneliness Road

Chris Thile & Brad Mehldau - Chris Thile & Brad Mehldau

Anat Cohen & Marcello Gonclaves- Outra Coisa 

Jack DeJohnette, Larry Grenadier, John Medeski, John Scofield – Hudson

2017 was also the year that JazzTimes magazine’s readers chose “Straight No Chaser” as Best Podcast for the first time. This was an honor beyond anything I had hoped when I started this project more than a decade ago. To me, it means that I’m doing something right on my end, and I hope I can keep doing it well into the future. A Happy New Year to you all!

Musical selections for Podcast 606 include:

Matt Wilson - "As  Wave Follows Wave" from Salt and Honey: Music Inspired by the Poetry of Carl Sandburg

Brian Landrus Orchestra - "Arise" from Generations

Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, feat. Jon Batiste and Wynton Marsalis – "Spanish Steps" from The Music of John Lewis

Alice Coltrane - "Rama Rama" from World Spirituality Classics 1: The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane 

Jack DeJohnette, Larry Grenadier, John Medeski, John Scofield "Up on Cripple Creek" from Hudson