avant garde

Tales from the Jazz Side with Les McCann episode #17

Tales is coming to you with guest renaissance artist, Mr. Les McCann. “Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.”       —Winston Churchill Les McCann, legendary musician, artist-renaissance man. He is most known for being a pianists, vocalist and composer, but not a lot of…

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Tales from the Jazz Side with Charles Blenzig episode #13

Tales is coming to you with guest artist pianist/composer/arranger/teacher Charles Blenzig. All good things come to those who wait. And wait I did until finally everything lined up and voilà, I now present to you the interview with my road buddy, my friend, Charles Blenzig. You ask, how come that was so hard to do, don’t…

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Tales from the Jazz Side with Jennifer Vincent episode #12

Tales is coming to you with guest artist cellist/bassist/composer/ Jennifer Vincent. If you’ve ever wondered who is that amazing bass player on American Lullaby, Standard Delivery, Awake and Travis Shook plays Kurt Weill, it is none other than Jennifer Vincent. As with most of my guests so far on this should, we too go back a…

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Tales from the Jazz Side with Pheeroan akLaff episode #10 part 1 & 2

Tales is coming to you with guest artist drummer/composer/ arranger/educator Pheeroan akLaff. This episode is in two parts.  “A versatile drummer who has mostly been associated with the avant-garde, Pheeroan akLaff has appeared with some of the more adventurous musicians in jazz of the past 30 years.” From All Music From his collaborations with the…

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Tales from the Jazz Side with Sean Conly episode #9

Tales is coming to you with bassist/composer/arranger Sean Conly. Sean Conly is another notable musician with an impressive multiple musical language background. He has played with such legendary greats as Andrew Hill, Russ Lossing, Ray Barretto, Freddie Hubbard, Cedar Walton, Randy Brecker, Howard Alden and Lew Tabackin to name a few. I had the pleasure…

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Tales from the Jazz Side with Kengo Nakamura episode #6

Tales is coming coming to you with guest artist bassist/composer Kengo Nakamura. In October I had the pleasure to play Billboard Live Tokyo with the Michael Franks band. I was excited to travel to Japan as it had been a while since we had played there. This leg of the tour, we would play in…

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Tales from the Jazz Side with Mark Egan episode # 5

Tales coming to you with guest artist bassist/composer/producer Mark Egan. Moving back to my 20 years with Michael Franks anniversary tribute, I have the utmost delight in speaking with a gentleman that I’ve known primarily from listening to his music. And once again, through Michael, I now have the greatest pleasure to work with this…

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Tales from the Jazz Side with Willard Dyson episode #3

Tales is coming to you with guest artist drummer/composer/teacher Willard Dyson. In keeping true to my celebration of 20 years with Michael, this month’s Tales from the Jazz Side guest is one of my hanging buddies while I’m out on the road with the Franks band. It’s true when they say that you can learn…

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Tales from the Jazz Side with Jay Anderson, episode #2

Tales is coming to you with guest artist bassist/composer/teacher Jay Anderson. Jay Anderson bio on All About Jazz starts off with “Bassist/composer Jay Anderson is among the most versatile and respected jazz artists performing today.” Whenever we read reviews or comments about artists’ abilities, sometimes we come away with the feeling that the words were…

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