Mar 27, 2020
I liked Lakecia Benjamin’s first two CDs. They were fun - funky and swinging. But they were not that memorable.
I love her new CD.
Pursuance: The Coltranes, pays homage to two of the greatest musical innovators of the 20th century, John and Alice Coltrane. That’s some pretty tough company to put yourself near, given...
Mar 26, 2020
The works of William Shakespeare and the jazz world have had a limited connection. Sure, Duke Ellington released Such Sweet Thunder, a twelve-part suite based on Shakespeare’s work in 1957, and Dame Cleo Laine recorded the moving Shakespeare and All that Jazz with her husband Sir John Dankworth in 1964. There is a...
Mar 25, 2020
Trumpeter Jason Palmer has been near the top of my list of people to feature on Straight No Chaser for several years now. As a sideman working with Mark Turner and Noah Preminger, he made huge contributions to some of their top recordings, and last week he dropped his fourteenth album as a bandleader.
The Concert: 12...
Mar 24, 2020
A common thread runs through the next few podcasts that will appear on Straight No Chaser. Each has a talented jazz composer and performer who found creative inspiration from sources other than music itself. In the next few days you will hear conversations with Jason Palmer, whose latest album was inspired by works of...
Mar 22, 2020
Today is the 90th birthday of our greatest living composer of Broadway musicals, Stephen Sondheim. His career has spanned the past sixty odd Broadway seasons, during which he wrote or co-wrote many of the most important, influential and successful shows in history.
He collaborated on two classics as lyricist – first...