Keeping up with the Jazz world, Leander Young, carries out authentic conversions with and about musicians. Make sure to subscribe, leave a comment, and rating. Connect with us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook @improvexchange #improvexchange www.improvexchange.com
Episodes
Sunday Oct 17, 2021
Sunday Oct 17, 2021
Latin Grammy-winning producer, composer, percussionist, and writer, Barrett Martin, has been playing music professionally for over 30 years, including work on over 120 albums and film soundtracks worldwide. His work can be heard on albums by R.E.M., Queens Of The Stone Age, Mad Season, Screaming Trees, Tuatara, Blues legend CeDell Davis, and recording sessions that range from the Peruvian Amazon, to Brazil, Cuba, the Palestinian West Bank, the Mississippi Delta, and the Alaskan Arctic. Barrett also holds a master’s degree in ethnomusicology and linguistics, and has practiced Zen for over 25 years.
He has guest lectured at several universities across the United States, and has written essays for The Huffington Post and Riot Material (links below). In 2014 he was awarded the ASCAP Deems Taylor/Virgil Thompson Award for excellence in writing, and in 2017 he received two Latin Grammy nominations, winning a Grammy for producing Nando Reis’ Best Brazilian Rock Album, “Jardim-Pomar”. In this episode, Jane shares his background, education, and musical journey.
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Sunday Oct 10, 2021
Sunday Oct 10, 2021
CONRAD KORSCH is a New York City based acoustic and electric bassist / multi-instrumentalist / vocalist / musical director / bandleader / composer / producer, and educator. After attending the prestigious Settlement Music School throughout his grade school and high school years in Philadelphia, he earned a Bachelor's Degree in Jazz Bass Performance from Temple University, where he attended on scholarship and graduated Magna Cum Laude and with other honors. Widely known for his tenure with Rod Stewart from 2002 - 2018 as bassist and eventually Musical Director / Bandleader, and as a member of The Faces since their R&R Hall Of Fame Induction in 2012, he has accumulated a long and varied list of other notable recordings, performance, production and TV / Film / Theater. In this episode, Jane shares her background, education, and musical journey.
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Sunday Oct 03, 2021
Sunday Oct 03, 2021
Soaring, poetic, quicksilver, spontaneous, and instantly identifiable are words used to describe the soprano sound of saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom. She's been steadfastly developing her singular voice on the soprano saxophone for over 40 years creating a body of music that marks her as an American original. She is a pioneer in the use of live electronics and movement in jazz, as well as the possessor of "one of the most gorgeous tones and hauntingly lyrical ballad conceptions of any soprano saxophonist - Pulse." She is the winner of the 2018 Grammy Award for Best Surround Sound Album for her trio album "Early Americans." In this episode, Jane shares her background, education, and musical journey.
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Sunday Sep 26, 2021
Sunday Sep 26, 2021
As a virtuoso bassist, versatile composer, and acclaimed bandleader, Marc Johnson has been a major innovator on the jazz scene for the past two decades.
Born in Nebraska in 1953, Johnson took up bass at the age of 16, having already studied piano and cello. While completing his formal education in the celebrated music program at the University of North Texas, at age19, Johnson began performing professionally with the Fort Worth Symphony. In 1977, he was on the road with the Woody Herman Band. A stop with Herman in New York City marked a major turning point for Johnson, where he was invited to sit in with Bill Evans at the Village Vanguard. In 1978, he joined Evans' trio, remaining with him until the pianist's death two years later. Johnson appears on numerous albums recorded with Evans, including the Grammy-winning We Will Meet Again and released in 1997, a six-CD box set of live recordings, Turn Out the Stars, weaving his distinctively warm tones and melodic lines into the complex harmonies of the Trio.
Over the past 20 years, Johnson has performed on more than 100 albums. Many have been with pianists, including Eliane Elias, Lyle Mays, and Enrico Pieranunzi, although Johnson has also recorded with saxophonists Stan Getz, Joe Lovano, and Michael Brecker, drummers Peter Erskine and Paul Motian, and Jack DeJohnette, vibist Gary Burton, and bandoneon master Dino Saluzzi. And many of his most notable recordings have been with guitarists. In addition to his long membership in guitarist John Abercrombie's trio, Johnson formed two guitar-oriented bands that rose to prominence in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Overpass, recorded in January and February 2018 at Nacena Studios, in São Paulo, was produced by Marc Johnson and Eliane Elias. In this episode, Marc shares his background, education, and musical journey.
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Sunday Sep 19, 2021
Sunday Sep 19, 2021
Pianist Benito Gonzalez “Two times Grammy nominee” is an internationally beloved artist who combines a long lineage of American jazz traditions with rhythms from around the world. He’s worked with dozens of the greats, and he always brings some of the best rhythm section players in the world.
Today a rising tide of young jazz pianists are attempting to find their distinct voices by taking cues from their elders. But only a few take their artistry beyond their predecessors to make bold 88-key statements on their journeys to new vistas, fresh sounds, inspired expressions. That personal-touch devotion to the wonders of the instrument brings with it a certitude of intuitive creativity. In this episode, Benito shares his background, education, and musical journey.
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Sunday Sep 12, 2021
Sunday Sep 12, 2021
Alex Corrêa was born on august 17th, 1981. As the son of a classical pianist was at the age of five his first contact with the piano but was at thirteen when he decided to follow the music path. At seventeen, Alex began his undergraduate studies at Universidade Estadual de Londrina - Brazil, which brought him into significant contact with many sound environments, anthropological and philosophical studies, and skills aimed at teaching music. In this episode, Alex shares his background, education, and musical journey.
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Monday Aug 16, 2021
Monday Aug 16, 2021
Arturo O’Farrill, pianist, composer, and educator, was born in Mexico and grew up in New York City. He received his formal musical education at the Manhattan School of Music and the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College. Arturo’s professional career began with the Carla Bley Band and continued as a solo performer with a wide spectrum of artists including Dizzy Gillespie, Lester Bowie, Wynton Marsalis, and Harry Belafonte.
O’Farrill’s well-reviewed and highly praised “Afro-Latin Jazz Suite” from the album CUBA: The Conversation Continues (Motéma) took the 2016 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition and the 2016 Latin Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Album. His powerful “Three Revolutions” from the album Familia-Tribute to Chico and Bebo was the 2018 Grammy Award (his sixth) winner for Best Instrumental Composition. In this episode, Arturo shares his background, education, and musical journey.
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Monday Aug 02, 2021
Monday Aug 02, 2021
Originally from Sacramento, California, Ches Smith is a drummer, percussionist, and composer based in New York. He has collaborated with a host of artists on many scenes since the early 2000s, including Marc Ribot, Tim Berne, John Zorn, Darius Jones, David Torn, John Tchicai, Nels Cline, Mary Halvorson, Trevor Dunn, Terry Riley, Kris Davis, Dave Holland, Secret Chiefs 3, Xiu Xiu, Good for Cows, Theory of Ruin, and Mr. Bungle, among others.
He has nine records to his name as a bandleader that features his writing and ensemble curation, and is a devout student of Haitian Vodou drums, performing in religious and folkloric contexts in New York and Haiti for the last decade. In this episode, Ches shares his background, education, and musical journey.
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Monday Jul 19, 2021
Monday Jul 19, 2021
The Luxembourgish drummer regularly proves his versatility and openness through numerous projects going from jazz to melodic hardcore to art music and electronic music. He was recently chosen by the American Drummer Jim Black to represent Luxembourg at Crisis Cross Europe. Michel Meis Endorses Paiste Cymbals.
Diversity runs through the Michel Meis 4tet's music like the proverbial thread. Through its diverse moods and complex yet never arbitrary structures. The band offers compositions that are as elaborate as they are playful, as danceable as they are melancholic. This eclectic character is crystallized in Meis' playful drums. In this episode, Michel shares his background, education, and musical journey.
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Tuesday Jul 13, 2021
Tuesday Jul 13, 2021
Tawanda Suessbrich- Joaquim is a 25-year-old singer-songwriter from New Mexico. As a first-generation American, growing up in a multi-cultural European, African and American household meant becoming familiar with music, culture, and experiences from all over the world. Soon enough, she was gravitating solely towards singing and performing, from her early youth all the way until graduating in 2017 with a Bachelor's Degree in Contemporary Music from Santa Fe University of Art and Design, where she was studying vocal jazz under Mirabai Daniels and chair of her program, saxophonist and flute-player Horace Alexander Young.
During those years she could be found charming audiences at El Meson with John Rangel’s quartet, honoring the cultural diversity of New Mexican artists at Burque Noir events, and doing plays, performances, fashion shows, and model work. After moving to Los Angeles in 2019, and working hard to stay inspired during 2020, Tawanda has most recently won the 2021 Sarah Vaughan Vocal Jazz competition, a title previously assumed by contemporaries such as Cyrille Aimée, Jazzmeia Horn, and Samara Joy McClendon.
Deeply inspired by the great classics, Billie, Ella, Sarah, and Anita O'Day, richly influenced by her background of world music, classical training, folk, pop, and independent styles, Tawanda looks forward to delving ever further into the worldwide Jazz scene and exploring multi-genre fusion in the near future, with the hopes, always, of giving back to her people and the earth, and refining her gift of story-telling. In this episode, Tawada shares her background, education, and musical journey.