Episode 21-Wayne Escoffery: Fostering Pride in Black American Music-Jazz
Strictly Jazz Sounds
Grammy-Award winning saxophonist Wayne Escoffery is my guest on the 21st episode of Strictly Jazz Sounds. What attracted me to Wayne was his prolific traveling, extensive performances and recordings with his own band (11 recordings), the Mingus Big Band (3 recordings, one a Grammy Award winner), the Black Art Jazz Collective (4 recordings), and as sideman with trumpeter Tom Harrell (7 recordings, co-producing 4) plus works with other notable jazz musicians. He is now a Harlem resident in the neighborhood where Sonny Rollins grew up, Sugar Hill, but he was born and spent his childhood years in...
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Episode 20-Roni Eytan: Jazz Harmonica Colossus
Strictly Jazz Sounds
Roni Eytan, a renowned Israeli-born, New York based jazz harmonica player, performs with a passion that differs from other harmonica artists. Perhaps it’s the region from which he derives-the Middle East and North Africa. His culture greatly influences his compositions and inspires his passions. Roni’s work is influenced by harmonica legend Toots Thielemans but only partially. The folk cultures that make up the regions and his spiritual influences mostly inspire his writing. Roni Eytan stopped by my studio to talk about his harmonica work and how he got interested in this...
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Episode 19-Alexandra Ridout: Her Journey Into Jazz
Strictly Jazz Sounds
Alexandra (Alex) Ridout is a young jazz trumpeter from the UK, now residing in New York City. In this episode of Strictly Jazz Sounds, she lays out her journey as a musician, comparing the experiences and educational backgrounds between the UK and the US. Ridout recalls her time at the Royal Academy of Music in London and Manhattan School of Music, emphasizing her family's influence, especially her jazz musician parents. Highlighting her musical achievements, the conversation includes her participation and victory in the BBC Youth Competition, winning at 17 years old. She talks about her...
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Episode 18-Jocelyn Gould: Striking a Chord
Strictly Jazz Sounds
In this episode of Strictly Jazz Sounds, I have a conversation with Jocelyn Gould, a professional jazz guitarist who fills all the shoes it requires to drive a successful career. Jocelyn shares her journey from pretending to play a cardboard guitar at the age of four to winning a Juno Award for her first album, Elegant Traveler. She later discusses the challenges and triumphs of her career, including her education in the U.S. at Michigan State University, her experiences in New York's rough and tumble jazz scene, and her recent endeavors, including her podcast and latest album releases....
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Episode 17-Yasushi Nakamura: The Shy Bassist with the Groove
Strictly Jazz Sounds
Yasushi Nakamura loves his music. And he truly loves laying down the groove lines behind a hot band like he does for almost a dozen bands. However, being one of today’s first-call bassists means frequent and long show tours that can take him away from his family of two-children and spouse for weeks, even months at a time. It has resulted in an impressive list and number of recordings made on both electric and acoustic or double bass. Pianist and longtime friend, Emmet Cohen, says that Yasushi “…is known in the music community for playing in over a dozen bands and is hardly ever seen...
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Episode 16-Terri Lyne Carrington: Changing the Faces of Jazz
Strictly Jazz Sounds
Question: What would jazz music sound like if it had been born in a country without patriarchy; taught without bias and performed on a stage with radical inclusivity? That’s what jazz titan Terri Lyne Carrington says is the foundation behind Berklee College of Music’s Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice. Terri Lyne is the founder and artistic director of the Institute and a professor at Berklee, her alma mater. In this episode of Strictly Jazz Sounds, I spend time with Terri Lyne Carrington, getting deep into this question along with how to lift women and nonbinary individuals in this...
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Episode 15-Brandee Younger: Jazz Harp Meets Hip-Hop
Strictly Jazz Sounds
In jazz, two legendary harp musicians come to mind. Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane. Now, there is a third musician whose image immediately erupts into focus. For harp artist, educator, and Grammy nominated musician Brandee Younger, both Ashby and Coltrane made a tremendous impact on her. And with her latest recording, Brand New Life, on Impulse Records, Brandee Younger embraces Ashby and her impact on the harp. I caught up with Grammy nominated harpist Brandee Younger at the Spoleto Jazz Festival in Charleston, North Carolina. This was a major opportunity for me to learn how the harp,...
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Episode 14-Roxy Coss: Students Are the Music
Strictly Jazz Sounds
For tenor saxophonist, composer, bandleader, educator and artist Roxy Coss, jazz education is everything. When we talked in July, she and her husband, saxophonist, educator and composer, Lucas Pino, just returned from their week-long session as co-directors of the Brubeck Jazz Summit, (yes, that Brubeck-Dave Brubeck) a week-long intensive emersion of jazz education and performance for talented students worldwide. To participate, young people must have exceptional capacity. To teach, your credentials must be superior. In this episode, Roxy Coss shares her deep thoughts and intense...
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Episode 13-Miki Yamanaka: Living Her Dreams
Strictly Jazz Sounds
Japanese jazz pianist Miki Yamanaka, born and raised in Kyoto and Kobe Japan, now resides in New York City with her drummer husband Jimmy Macbride. Her upcoming album, Shades of Rainbow is set to drop on September 8. Excitement explodes in Miki during this hour-long interview with this jubilant pianist who is a mainstay at New York’s prime jazz clubs for emerging talent, Smalls and Mezzrow, both found in the West Village in Greenwich Village in the lower west side of Manhattan. Miki’s been a New York resident since 2012. She did her graduate work at Queens College in Jazz Performance...
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Episode 12-Julieta Eugenio: Music is Magic
Strictly Jazz Sounds
“”— Music moves the soul in so many ways. It moves the spirit and inspires living beings to become one with the music. Argentinian Julieta Eugenio was just that person from a young age. She’s not entirely sure why. Her parents didn’t play an instrument though they played recordings around the house. As long as she can remember, music was in her life. Her personal interest wasn’t piqued until she saw a piano when she was about five years old. It was like magic, Julieta recalls. She was visually pinned to the piano. That’s love at first site. Music grabbed her and it...
info_outline“Music in the soul can be heard by the universe.”— Lao Tzu
Music moves the soul in so many ways. It moves the spirit and inspires living beings to become one with the music. Argentinian Julieta Eugenio was just that person from a young age. She’s not entirely sure why. Her parents didn’t play an instrument though they played recordings around the house. As long as she can remember, music was in her life.
Her personal interest wasn’t piqued until she saw a piano when she was about five years old. It was like magic, Julieta recalls. She was visually pinned to the piano. That’s love at first site. Music grabbed her and it hasn’t let her go since. Later, when she was in middle school, when she joined the school band, Julieta nonchalantly selected a saxophone when presented with a choice of instruments. A tenor saxophone.
Julieta Eugenio hails from Argentina and now lives in New York city. She made this bold change in her life at 23 years old. Alone. No family or friends to accompany her. Julieta’s formal music studies began following high school in Buenos Aires at Conservatorio Manuel de Falla (Bachelor 2012) and the Conservatorio Nacional Lopez Buchardo (IUNA) where she studied jazz. In New York, Julieta attended Queens College where she studied jazz and performed in area clubs with the masters, including pianist Johnny O’Neal, David Kikoski and Pasquale Grasso.
The mental journey Julieta took was immense. She loves jazz and knew she had to take the leap, leaving the familiar settings and family, the beautiful landscape of Argentina, and the comfort of her home country to challenge herself in New York City. It seems, though, to be paying itself off as Julieta was recently recognized as one of the top ten emerging jazz talents by the Recording Academy in their online publication, “Grammys.” In 2017, Eugenio won the International Women in Jazz Competition as a member of the SIJ Trio, which she formed with pianist Sarah Slonim and bassist Inbar Paz. With her own trio, she won the DCJazzPrix 2022, a competition presented by the DC Jazz Fest.
I think we all know what it’s like to be somewhere new, far from home and vastly different from home. Thrust a global pandemic into this formula. That’s what Julieta had to face, alone in New York. Then, good fortune showed up. One of her beloved sisters decided to immigrate to New York for work, which saved Julieta. And those are her words describing the arrival of her sister. Jazz also saved her.
Thank you for listening to this podcast. Subscribing will make sure you’re one of the first ones to receive future episodes. Check out my website for other articles and photos. As usual, you will be treated to two complete tracks of music. These compositions will come from Julieta’s 2022 debut recording, Jump, which can be found on Greenleaf Music. Jazz Journalists Association president, Howard Mandel, gave the album a four-star rating in DownBeat Magazine. This features her trio with Julieta on tenor sax, Matt Dwonszyk on bass and Jonathan Barber on drums.
Upcoming episodes include saxophonist Roxy Coss, pianist Miki Yamanaka, who has a new album soon to be released, and harpist Brandee Younger. You can listen to this podcast on Spotify, Apple, Amazon and other streaming services. Thank you for listening.