Tales is coming to you with guest artist drummer/bassist/guitarist/ composer Lionel Cordew. My guest this month is another accomplished player that I have had the honor to work with while out on the Michael Franks tour. One of the first impressions you may get when first meeting Lionel Cordew is his open and easy going…
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Tales is coming to you with guest electric bassist/composer/arranger/producer, Jimmy Haslip. Back in August while playing with Michael and the band in Los Angeles, I had an excellent opportunity to invite this extraordinarily talented and humble gentleman to do an episode of Tales. We conducted the interview backstage after the show. Amidst the noise of the…
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Tales is coming to you with guest vocalist/songwriter Sheila Jordan. “Sheila Jordan is one of the Jazz world’s best kept secrets.”– Blue Note – With 51+ albums to her credit, how could she be the best kept secret? People “in the know”, and what I mean by that, people who are true jazz lovers and…
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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 is coming to you with guest artist guitarist/composer/teacher Jay Azzolina. One of the things that I love about doing these podcasts is that I get to reconnect with musicians/friends that I admire and respect as artists. Life moves so swiftly and in so many directions, that we don’t always have an opportunity to talk…
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Tales coming to you with guest artist drummer/composer Buddy Williams, will be presented in two parts. Part one above. Part two in post write up. “Buddy Williams has got to be one of the most 10 recorded drummers of all time. Period. The resume is just ridiculous. You have to just see it to believe….
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Spotlight Addition Welcome to Tales from the Jazz Side first spotlight addition! This new segment features young musicians as they start their musical journey, creating their own stories to be passed on. Tales is coming coming from singer-songwriter, Julia Blenzig. I met Julia perhaps months after she was born. She is the daughter of pianist, composer, arranger,…
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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 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 is coming to you with guest artists Blues Harmonica player David A. Barnes. It is believed that Jazz evolved from the blues. I think we are all in agreement with that statement. What I don’t think we are clear on are the feelings that surround the music and just how it has truly influence…
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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 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 is coming to you with guest artist singer-songwriter Jua Howard. I was working on my list of guests invitees when I noticed that each month I added more names to the list, so much so, that the list almost doubled in size every month. At the rate I was going it would be 25…
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Tales is coming to you with guest artist pianist/composer/arranger/educator Professor Deviana Daudsjah. As some of you may recall from last months’ episode, in October and November, I traveled to the far east with the Michael Franks’ band. While there, I recorded a marvelous December episode with bassist Kengo Nakamura. I finished my tour dates in…
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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 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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This month’s Tales will be coming from Saxophonist Jacques Schwarz-Bart. Let’s take a different route this month and go by way of a great player that I’ve known from a past life. Now that can be taken in a couple of ways and that’s exactly my intention. Jacques and I go way back… back to the days…
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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 months Tales from the Jazz Side guest is one of my hanging buddy’s while I’m out on the road with the Franks band. It’s true when they say that you can…
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Tales is coming to you with guest artist bassist/composer/teacher Jay Anderson. “Jay Anderson is bedrock, unfailingly solid and dependable, with amazing ability as a soloist and a capacity for rhythmic interplay. He isn’t just a functional bass player. He’s always part of the ensemble while driving it forward.” Ted Panken Jay Anderson bio on…
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Tales is coming to you with guest artist legendary singer-songwriter Michael Franks. Although he is often referred to as a smooth jazz singer-songwriter, I find that description to not be altogether accurate. I consider him to be a jazz evolutionary singer songwriter, whose music covers all the subtle colors and diversity that writing music is…
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Tales From The Jazz Side is a podcast hosted by Veronica Nunn. Her guests chat about their careers and some things that scare them…..just a little.