To understand why great jazz radio still matters we’ve been turning to those essential jazz radio voices around the country who make a difference, and who continue to deliver the sound to their listening audiences and work diligently to grow the jazz audience. For part 3 of this ongoing series we hear from vocalist Andromeda Turre (heard throughout the week; check schedule), whose show Growing Up Jazz (she’s quite personally experienced in that title as the daughter of two exceptional musicians: cellist-vocalist Akua Dixon and master trombonist & conch shell fire-breather Steve Turre) is heard on SiriusXM’s Real Jazz channel, and two stalwarts from my home station, WPFW (89.3FM in the DMV; live streamed at www.wpfwfm.org), community radio in Washington, DC: veteran DC jazz show host Tim Masters (“Jazz Masters” Thursdays 10pm-midnight) and Craig Hall.

Andromeda Turre: The most well-rounded jazz radio programs are the generous ones. There is a sense of style and taste from the programmer, but they also consider music that the listeners love, even if it’s not always their favorite – so long as it’s good quality music!

I particularly favor a sense of balance and evolution with the music – keeping the tradition and the history at the listener’s top-of-mind, but also creating the space for living jazz artists and new original compositions so that the genre doesn’t become a museum piece.

In terms of talking to the audience, I like a similar approach, both including things like historic facts, band members and stories, as well as current and future happenings in the jazz world. This gives the listener the opportunity to augment their relationship to the music two-fold, hopefully deepening their place as a vital part of the jazz community.

Tim Masters: That’s an easy question to answer. A well-rounded jazz radio program entertains, informs, and engages. It provides context, and the occasional detail, when it’s important and when it matters. And a well-rounded jazz program takes the listener(s) on a musical journey of enlightenment and discovery. By discovery… I’m not just talking about “new” things. Personally I like to blend old and new. I like to bring an element of surprise (“The sound of surprise” ala Whitney Balliet and WPFW’s Larry Appelbaum), I want to deliver smiles not just of recognition (of say, an old favorite), but at all the twists and turns we take them on. If the sets are creative, that helps. If the selections weave together a story in music, it will (hopefully) grab the listeners. This could be achieved by blending old and new interpretations of the same tune, maybe mixing instrumental and vocal versions. It may be spotlighting a particular composer, or leader, or arranger, or sideman/woman. It could be a thematic arc (I especially like those!). It might be the lyrics themselves that are somehow related – even a single important phrase in a lyric – or, on a broader note, it may be the subject matter. It could be jumping from one genre of jazz to another, or illustrating/demonstrating how one genre led to another. Of course, I also like to occasionally mix things up with interesting (some may call them “odd”) contrasts. Something surprising. Maybe Mahalia Jackson or Sister Rosetta Tharpe, followed by Thelonious Monk… maybe Charlie Parker followed by Gil Evans playing Jimi Hendrix. Maybe something even stranger and more unexpected. Unexpected is an important part of the equation in my book. For reference, it’s kind of like the musical equivalent of the “impossible interview” caricatures that Covarrubias used to draw for Vanity Fair decades ago.

An important sidebar: All of these approaches to radio program production should all be presented in a natural, unpretentious way… not condescending to the audience at all… but leaving it to the listeners to hear, discover, recognize, and interpret in any way they choose to see fit. It also helps to sound and to be engaged. If I’m having fun, my hope is that [the listeners] will too. If I’m excited to share what I love about the music, I’m hoping that they’ll be excited to be hearing it… and if one plays one’s cards right, perhaps the audience will grow to love it as well… or love it even more.

My favorite analogy when discussing my approach to producing a jazz radio program – which i’ve been doing now for going on 47 years – is that we go in working with a blank canvas and we paint as we go. Lots of broad strokes, with an attention to detail in specific spots. Flourishes here and there. Our goal, as with any fine painting, is to draw the listener in. By the end of the program my goal is to have presented a complete and finished work that has brought the audience along with my throughout. They understand the process. They see the big picture. They “get it”. My hope is that their spirits have been lifted, their minds have been stimulated, their ears are happy, and I’m leaving them wanting more… and wondering wha I’ll be weaving, “painting”, or creating next time around.

Craig Hall: I’ve been hosting and producing music programs at WPFW for nearly 5 years. I was the former host for “The Continuum Experience” and currently I co-host “Brother Ah’s Collectors – Next Generation of Sound” [the WPFW show formerly programmed by the late Brother Ah, aka longtime jazz recording session French hornist Robert Northern] as well as an occasional substitute host for more than a dozen programs at the station.

The concept of being “well-rounded” suggests to me that something or someone is broadly inclusive and striving toward being comprehensive at some level. A “well-rounded jazz radio program” then, suggests two things: that the music played on the program is “Jazz” and not [music] of other genres; and that the playlist of any given show either represents as broad a spectrum of the music possible within the time given, or that the aggregated playlists of the show over time does so. The first point is one that I have found cannot be taken for granted. Just as we see so-called Jazz Festivals around the country headlining what amounts to be the best of Soul/R&B targeted toward adult audiences and little to no “Jazz” at all. I also hear programming that is billed as “Jazz” that is guilty of the same format. The second point exposes the challenge in being able to present all the music that has been created historically, as well as the current expressions of the music. How do you have a well-rounded” program when the source materials continues to expand, and we can never catch up to it?

Being “well-rounded” is a dilemma for the Jazz Programmer because it is impossible to be comprehensive. I assume there is a portion of the listening public that responds best to programming which skims across a wide swath of “the music” and its sub-genres and styles. That is the portion of the listening public that can be solidified into a loyal audience for a program of that type. This audience prefers variety over focused programming. They want as much of a mix as the programmer can provide of music that is vocal and instrumental; historical and new; straight ahead and experimental; ballads and upbeat; and which includes all the stylesthat have evolved from the 1920s until today.

Other portions of the listening public respond better to programming that is focused on the one or several areas for which they have an interest and appreciation. A “well-rounded” program to them feels inconsistent and inefficient. They don’t want to listen for two hours only to hear ten minutes of music that they really love. This type of audience is best served by a “focused radio program” that gives them two hours of music that they love, during the two hours that they are listening. This is particularly important in community supported radio, because it creates the conditions that lead to a loyal, residually giving audience for a particular show. Ultimately, “well rounded” and “focused” programming both have their place and serve their respective audiences that are looking for that type of experience. A radio station needs to have both well-rounded and focused Jazz programs to really cover the bases with its audience, so I would say that all “Jazz” radio programs need to be well-rounded.

From either perspective, programmers must make choices about what to play and what not to play in the time given. In most cases I believe those choices are made from a philosophical point of view or guiding principles; in other words the choices are guided by some thoughtfulness and rationale as opposed to being random. I think that this is important to do because it results in the highest likelihood that the music will be presented in the best way academically and emotionally. I believe that listeners prefer the presentation of music in such a way that it is leading them somewhere. They prefer “flow” over musical whiplash and digest the musical information better when it is provided to them with mental and emotional intelligence, as opposed to ina. way that feels like chaotic randomness. I feel like this is important to acknowledge because I have heard some programs that consist of random music that the programmer picked up at a yard sale over the weekend. The selection of music is not selected at all with any coherent intenton.

Having said that, I DO have a philosophy that guides my process of determining what music I will play on my show. It involves several factors, perspectives, and circumstances that mermge in a complicated and elastic algorithm that ultimately results in a final playlist that I can be proud of. The foundation of my guiding philosophy is the belief and understanding that “Jazz” music is African music in its cultural identity and pioneering expressions. It was created by the descendants of African people who were prisoners of war and enslaved in the United States. It is a product of African culture and the genius of African people, using whatever tools, knowledge and methods we deemed necessary to create, borrow, adapt or adopt. Musicians and listeners from other cultures may enjoy it and play it but that does not negate its African identity and source. People all over the world like pizza, and make pizza, but this doesn’t change the fact that pizza is Italian, and beyond pizza itself, only Italians and Italian culture can determine the course, direction and authenticity of the Italian cuisine that people around the world enjoy. My on-air music choices reflect the understanding that “Jazz” is African music, and it is a cultural treasure that stands as proof and testimony to the world and ourselves as to our inherent power and greatness. I present the music of African artiss whatever country or continent they may be from over the music of mediocre white or European artists who have been given credit and attention due to white privilege in a racist society. This doesn’t mean that I universally exclude white artists from my playlists, just that I don’t include any who are mediocre no matter how successful, accepted and famous their privilege may have made them.

The second most important element of my guiding philosophy is to include music that reflects spirituality in its intentions. That means I give preference to music that has spiritual and even religious messages or qualities over music that is the soundtrack to physical and material appetites. This preference is just a preference and not an absolute determinant. My purpose for each show is to “enlighten the mind, uplift the spirit, and strengthen the soul” and the music i select must support that purpose or at least not be in contradiction to it.

The third critical element of my philosophy that influences my play lists is the representation of social and political consciousness. Wherever possible, I try to include music that has a constructive or progressive political message in its lyrics, title or feeling. Most music does not satisfy this condition, but whenever it does, I am likely to include it for my show.

I also strive to be accountable to the history of “Jazz” music by making sure that I present the music of the “masters” and pioneers to provide a context of continuity and to preserve “Jazz’s” historic legacy. I think that is our responsibility, to remember our ancestors, teachers, elders and those that laid the groundwork for the culture and life that we benefit from today. Honoring history is a process of teaching and learning that is an important part of what I try to accomplish with my show. By including “the greats” in my playlists I’m also responding to the expectations of most “Jazz” listening audiences that they will hear copre, foundational artists and songs when they tune in.

No philosophy or show is completely inclusive. Most of the music I play was recorded after 1955, with a particular emphasis on recordings made between 1968-1972. This is simplky because I will only play music that I like, and I can only play muisic that I have. I like the “Jazz” music associated with hard bop forward, more than the music from bebop going back. Consequently this preference is reflected in my collection and impacts the historical scoope of the music that I can present. One of the reasons for my preferences is my age, and the fact that African culture was experiencing a political and spiritual renaissance and rise in African consciousness during the 1960s that best supports my philosophy.

In counterbalance to preserving history, I think it is important to present newly recorded music from artists performing and recording today. The music is alive and thriving and continuing to expand into new parts of the world and the emerging generations. The new music is exciting because it is the modern extension of all that has come before it. In that same vein I will also try to include the music of local artists, who should be able to count on the station and my show to distribute their music through the airwavws. These are the artists that we can go out and see perform at local venues, and I feel like my show should be informing people about who these artists are. Increasingly it is becoming important to terrestrial radio to serve the listening community and connect with local cultural agents in a way that the national media services cannot do.

For my show I learned to include vocalists in additional to instrumental music. This came about when I bewgan hosting a show that was preceded by another program that was about 90% vocalists. To retain listeners from the previous show, I learned to begin my show with vocal music that fit within my own philosophical parameters, even though knowledge of vocal music was not my strong point. This was a shortcoming that I havw strived to fix since vocal music is very vibrant and important to what I am trying to accomplish. Unlike instrumental music, vocal music is genderized because the vocal instrument is obviously male or female. Because of my belief in balance, I usually try to include equal numbers of male and female vocalists in my playlists.

Finally, I think that it is important to “spice” up my show periodically with surprises. These are music choices that fall outside of normal parameters and expectations and provide variety that is intended to be refreshing to he listener. I think it is important to be consistent in order to build an audience and gain their trust. It’s important to throw in something unexpected now and then so that the show and the audience can continue to grow and evolve.

Our ongoing series of virtual conversations with jazz broadcasters on why Great Jazz Radio Still Matters, we hear from disparate parts of the country – from New Orleans, Chicago and Los Angeles. Middleton O’Malley – known to his friends as Middie – was one of my broadcast colleagues at the legendary community radio station and upholder of all things New Orleans music – WWOZ. When Suzan & I arrived in New Orleans a short stint while she was a visiting professor at Loyola University, zeroing in my radio interests I was constantly impressed at not only Middie’s sonorous voice, but also his music selection. Still based in NOLA, Middie now hosts a Monday morning 8-10 shift for “All Jazz Radio” WETF (www.jazzradiowetf.org). By day Middie is a real estate agent.

From SoCal we hear from LeRoy Downs, who broadcasts out of KCRW 89.9FM, an NPR station. I met LeRoy years ago as a constant presence at the Monterey Jazz Festival. He frequently hosted the MJF proceedings at the Dizzy’s Den venue. More recently LeRoy has applied his jazz presenting interests to develop the vibrant “Just Jazz Series” of concert performances around L.A.

From Chicago we hear from one of my fellow jazz journalist (author of The Playboy Guide to Jazz) and longtime jazz radio host Neil Tesser, who has hosted radio programs in Chicago since 1973, on stations including WNIB-FM, WBEZ (Chicago Public Radio), WSBC-AM, as well as on the nationally-syndicated WFMT Jazz Radio Network. Neil and Mark Ruffin (currently heard on SiriusXM’s Real Jazz channel) also created and co-hosted the nationally-syndicated jazz review show “Listen Here!” Tesser currently hosts the Chicago portion of the KSDS (San Diego) slot “Jazz Across America.”

A jazz radio voice from NOLA: Middleton O’Malley

(In response to my question about the guiding philosophies behind his jazz programming efforts and choices) “Those are heavy words and I’m afraid that for me there is no celestial guidance, nor spiritual manifestation. It’s pretty straight forward. The show focuses almost exclusively on so-called Contemporary Jazz with a balance of styles, eras, instruments, artists, and sonic flow. This blended mixture is designed to honor the musicians, and entertain and inform the audience. That’s job one.

As for the rest of it… I want to hit a groove that moves a listener through a range of emotions. Thought provoking runs, body moving rhythms, sublime heart engaging melodies, harmonic compatibilities that cause the listeners brain to surf the brilliance of the artists’ creation, and an intellectual appreciation for the importance of high quality improvisational music.

No matter my credentials, years in the business, appreciative comments or reviews, I do not presume to know a damn thing about the endless styles of programming, or the limitless world of improvisational Jazz. Then there’s the ever-evolving gift of music that us programmer/show hosts have a responsibility to present in a thousand different (and acceptable) ways.

Finally, there’s an ever changing generational wave of performers who enthusiastically embrace the past and explore the future while making incredible personal sacrifices to perpetuate America’s one true musical art form. I’m honored to be a small part of their beautiful world.”

Hear recent Middleton O’Malley shows here…

 2416 MWM 11a 4:15.mp3

 2416 MWM 11b2 4:15.mp3

Holding it down in SoCal: LeRoy Downs

“I’m “The Jazzcat”, jazz radio broadcaster in Los Angeles for the last 25 years, currently on Sunday night at 10:00pm on KCRW.com. What constitutes a well-rounded jazz radio program is openness and exploration! As a jazz broadcaster here in the 21st century, my job is to create a sonic color pallete for those who appreciate this music and for those who are open. A closed mind completes the sphere of knowledge where no more learning can take place. I am a seeker and I go into the universe as an explorer of space, finding those gems to present and program in a manner that intrigues curiosity.

With texture, color, velocity, buoyancy, harmonics, culture with a splash of nostalgia, it is important to lay out an uncharted adventure, leaving listeners with a sense of wonderment and possibility about the current state of the art. The music should leave you bewildered, angry, hopeful, sad. full of love, and excited, but mostly with flexible emotions. Can you be swayed, can your mind be changed, can you view the world through eyes other than your own? We want you to feel and question the feelings within yourself and how you relate to the world.

Jazz music is an ever-changing landscape. A slight shift in the weather, rotation of the planet, political upheaval, race relations, to the love of your children and grandchildren can all be addressed in the messages that lie deep inside of composition. All designed to not just entertain, but to receive its messages literally and subliminally. All while provoking thought, questioning your mores, and connecting with the frequencies of your body waves.

These vibrations NEVER leave us. They are an amalgamation of who we were, who we are, and who we will be. Just as the nature of the music progresses, we can see that these sounds and shapes have molded us to some degree into the beings that we are, the way we think, the way we express ourselves, and the way we love.

I believe in the growth of humanity, which is why my music programmng hardly ever repeats. It’s a discovery that I think we all benefit from. If I’m playing what you already know, the mind tends to relax with familiarity and rely on the rhythms and harmonies that already exist inside your body and there is no progression. If you are challenged. either with complexity or simply frequencies that are new, you emote either with curiosity, disdain, love or confusion. Whatever the feeling is, there are questions which means you as a listener are seeking as well. I love tqaking these active listening, uncharted journeys and ending up in new places. I am only guided by the universe and the moment, never pre-programmed or swayed by consultants. Always free, open and based in love and respect!

Chi-town Jazz Voice: Neil Tesser

“Whenever possible, I try to balance an inordinate number of variables: classic recordings and new releases, vocals and instrumentals, Black artists and White, a mix of homegrown and global musicians, “mainstream” and edgier improvising, familiar songs and original compositions. Bu “balance,” I don’t mean one-to-one ratios. So, for instance, while I always lean toward instrumentals, I want to pepper in a vocal or three within a given hour. And while I want listeners to hear something different and challenging – which these days increasingly includes jazz influenced by other cultures (Asian, African, South American… I usually won’t include a lot of that within a program, or even necessarily in every program.

But my main goal is to find the connections that will take listeners on a journey, as seamlessly as I can manage, across this varied sonic landscape. I try to lead listeners from a track they may have previously heard to an artist they thought they didn’t like, or that they never knew existed, without crashing the party. I’m not trying to shock. I’m trying o expand the canvas while showing how disparate things fit together, either sonically or stylistically or historically. The right connections can take people from A to Z – from Armstrong to Zawinul – in the course of five or six tracks, on a trip that needn’t be strictly chronological.

And, I’d rather not over-explain any of that. I believe you can convince the ear, rather than the cerebellum, that two widely different pieces, sometimes recorded decades apart, really do relate to one another. If that convinces fans of either one of those tracks to seek out the other, all the better. Throw in some judiciously edited commentary, an anecdote where approporiate, and I’ve done my job.

African Rhythms Chapter 10

Making a Home in Africa

© Willard Jenkins

“Son, never forget what you are.  You’re an African.  Though you were born here in the United States of America, you are an African.  An African born in America, do you understand?  Your mother country, the home of your ancestors, is Africa.  Wherever you travel all over this planet, you must always come back to her.  Africa is the past, the present and the future.  Africa is the four cardinal points: the North, the South, where the sun rises and where it sets.”

                                    — Frank Edward Weston as conveyed to his son Randy Weston

During the mid-late 1960s when I began to seriously contemplate making a life in Africa, considering my two earlier trips there Nigeria was naturally my first choice.  It was an English-speaking country, so I figured there wouldn’t be a communication barrier; most of the educated people in Nigeria spoke English and I had gotten to know everybody from the Governor General to various Nigerians in television, radio, sculptors, painters and assorted other artists.  Nigeria just seemed the most obvious African country for me to migrate to.

            There were other possibilities on the continent as well.  At that time, largely because of the successful independence movement there in ’59 and the charisma of Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana was then the most celebrated African nation in New York.  I had many Ghanaian friends at the time.  But Nigeria still presented the most obvious migration possibilities to me since I had such positive experiences there, including friendships with Nigerian musicians like Fela Kuti and Bobby Benson, who owned the club Caban Bamboo there in Lagos.  I had recorded Bobby’s tune “Niger Mambo,” so there were many reasons why Nigeria was the most obvious place in my mind.  The Nigerians had really impressed me with the pride they had in their culture, and I was so impressed with the art there.  It really is a fantastic country; the climate is great as well.  But the Biafra war raging at that time was a real deterrent, so that took care of that and I never really came close to moving to Nigeria.

            Besides my lifelong fascination with Africa, stemming first from my father’s teachings, there were some negative factors related to the music scene in the U.S. at the time which increased my desire to move to the continent.  When the Beatles came on the Ed Sullivan show and I saw the hysterical reaction to their music, I saw everybody flipping out about that music, I said to myself: ‘oh man, black music in America is in trouble now.   At the same time, the jazz scene in the mid-late 60s – at least as far as the press and the critics were concerned – was being heavily infiltrated with what they referred to as free or avant garde jazz.

            What exactly is free jazz?  For me the freest jazz I ever heard was Louis Armstrong.  I never heard anybody play freer than him.  The very concept of free can be intricate things, different kinds of things, which I have no problem with.  But when it comes to free, with jazz, we must never lose touch with our ancestors, because every note, all that music we had been playing up to that point was really for freedom because we were under serious oppression between the slavery and the very powerful, mental and physical racism.  So I had to ask myself ‘what are they talking about “free” jazz?’  It was like when they came up with what they called cool jazz, when Miles Davis came out with Gerry Mulligan and The Birth of the Cool and all of a sudden everybody was saying ‘be cool when you play, don’t sweat when you play… be like the Europeans in essence.  But with us we sweat… so that didn’t really work for black musicians in general.

            Then, after the Beatles hit, there was also all this critical euphoria over what they were calling free or avant garde jazz – which when I heard it didn’t excite me in the least and seemed so opposite black music – coupled with other disturbing things I was witnessing, I really got turned off to the music scene in the U.S. and began turning more and more towards Africa and an African existence.  One night I saw Max Roach’s band opposite Dave Brubeck’s Quartet at a club in New York, I was appalled at how the audience seemed to completely overlook Max’s mastery and went wild for Brubeck’s so-called cool sound.  It struck me that the collective audience was losing its taste for black culture, for what makes our music unique, what makes the music black people produce that makes it different than other kinds of music; and I truly wanted to stay in that tradition.  But in the U.S. we seemed to be drifting away from that.

            Nobody wrote more great music than Ellington, and I don’t care what Duke played or wrote you always heard the blues underneath.  He wrote for the Queen of England, he wrote for the Emperor of China, but you’d always hear the blues underneath.  For me, that’s us, that’s what makes our music unique; and to be modern you don’t have to play free or play a lot of notes.  Our masters proved that, look at Count Basie or Thelonious Monk.  The music I was hearing at this time seemed to be getting away from our basic traditions.  When we play for people it’s supposed to be a spiritual healing process.  It can be done with Ben Webster playing “Body & Soul”; it could be Clifford Brown playing “I Remember April”

            There’s a certain romance, a certain love in our music, a certain emotion despite all the adversity.  When you hear Coltrane with Duke and they play “My Little Brown Book,” there’s a certain romance, and that’s what I wasn’t hearing in the music anymore.  We were taught that to play jazz you gotta be able to play the blues, you gotta be able to play for a woman, to romance her.  I felt that the music of that time in the 1960s was getting more and more like machines with the electronics and things.  If you don’t have a pretty sound it just doesn’t reach the people.  The music was getting more and more western, for me it was getting away from the so-called black tradition, that feeling.  So those were some of the factors that sealed my desire to migrate to Africa, curiously at the same time and for many of the same reasons that some of my peers were pulling up stakes and moving to Europe.  Ironically my migration point was not to be the more obvious West Africa, but North Africa.

            One month after returning from Morocco after our 1964 tour stop there I got a letter from the USIS in Morocco saying the Moroccan people are completely crazy about your music and they want you to come back.  Our final concert on that 1964 tour, after three months on the road in Africa, was in Morocco.  During our performance Ed Blackwell took one of those classic drum solos that just drove the Moroccan people crazy.  When I came back to New York after the tour I found that the Moroccan people had been writing letters that were sent to me from the USIS office in Rabat, saying they were still talking about our concert and they wanted me to come back.  So Morocco chose me, I didn’t choose Morocco, I later figured out.

                                    The Foreign Service

                                                Of the

                                    United States of America

May 11, 1967

Rabat, Morocco

Dear Randy,

It’s been nearly a month since you left Morocco, and the fans are still roaring.

…As you know, Radio Maroc broadcast the Agdal Theater performance… once.  The fans are outraged!  The DJ has received about 100 phone calls and letters asking for a second airing of the tape, including one letter from Marrakech in which a young listener literally threatened the DJ if he did not play again “this greatest moment in Moroccan jazz history.”  The radio has decided to run the tape again.

            But more than this, our office has been besieged with demands that you come back to Morocco June 22 for the USIS-sponsored “1967 Festival du Jazz” at the American Embassy gardens in Rabat.

            When you were here, you mentioned the possibility of going to Beirut this summer for a private engagement.  You also suggested you might be able to stop over in Morocco on your way.

            Do you think you could arrange to be here June 22 for the Jazz Festival?  You’d really make the show, and placate 2,500 wildly enthusiastic fans.

            Again, the Weston sound at the Embassy gardens would be a real sensation.  We’d love to see you back, and await your soonest reply.

Best regards,

Charles L. Bell

American Embassy

            One thing led to another and by 1967 I was finally ready to make the move.  At the time I was living in the apartment on 13^th Street that I had gotten from Ramona Low and Adele Glasgow, Langston Hughes’ friends.  I was able to transfer the lease on that apartment to Booker Ervin and his family.  So I left everything in that apartment, my piano and all the furniture, I left it with Booker Ervin and his family.  The only things I took with me to Morocco besides my clothes were my papers, books and music.  And because I wanted them to experience life in Africa first hand I took my children, Pamela and Niles, to live with me there.  And this was despite the fact that I didn’t really know anything about Moroccan culture.  The vibrations and the spirits were just right, Morocco was calling.

            When I arrived in Morocco in’67 I found there was such a great appreciation there for the music that I became involved with their culture almost immediately.  They have such a diversity of music, from the Atlas Mountains to the Sahara Desert, so I was always looking for their traditions.  There’s a tendency on the part of some folks to feel that Western culture, or the Americanization of things, is supreme.  That might mean that a McDonalds becomes more important than the traditional cuisine, like the traditional Moroccan tagine (or stew) for example.  Because the west has dominated the world they’ve also created a kind of musical colonialism in a way; you’ll find American pop music almost everywhere you go.  The Moroccans were very protective of their musical traditions, and that really appealed to me, drew me deeper into their traditions.

            When we first got to Morocco, after landing in Casablanca, we came straight to Rabat because that had been where that concert that was our last tour stop in ’67 had taken place and it was also where those many letters had come from the USIS office, so it seemed like a natural first stop.  Besides that it’s the capital city of Morocco.  We wound up staying in Rabat for one year and if it weren’t for one very important factor involving my kids I might still be there, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

            The American ambassador at that time, based in Rabat, was a Greek American named Henry Tasca, and he was very much in tune with my music.  There was also a brother stationed there who was one of the deputies at the U.S, embassy, a man named Bill Powell.  Bill was interested in helping me find my way there, and in helping me to create a base for African music in Morocco; to eventually have bases, or cultural centers, in different parts of the African world where people could come and study the culture, learn about it, take pride in it, and encourage the young people to continue the culture.  That was my major goal in coming there.  So we stayed in Rabat because there were people there who were willing to help me with my projects.  I didn’t know anybody in Casablanca, I had just met some people there, but Rabat was like the center.  It’s not as large as Casablanca but it’s a very beautiful city.

                                                Embassy of the

                                    United States of America

July 18, 1968

Mr. Randy Weston

Villa no. 3

Route des Zaers, km 3.800

Rabat

Dear Randy:

Since your first performance in Morocco in 1967, I have followed your career with great interest and much admiration.  I feel that you are making an important original contribution both in your research on African folk music and in your original compositions inspired by African themes and adapted from African rhythms.  I have been particularly pleased with the enthusiastic reception which your compositions based upon Moroccan themes, such as the “Marrakech Blues,” have had in Morocco.

I am sure that the benefits which will be derived from your research work on African folk music will be of major significance.  As you so very well understand, Africans must be helped to rediscover their own music.  They must learn to value their folk music, as you value it, realizing that the music of no other civilization can rival African music in the complexity and subtlety of its rhythms.  At the same time, your research will help Americans to understand more fully the great debt that American jazz, blues, and spirituals owe to African music.  Inevitably, the result of your work can only draw the African and American continents closer together.

I feel that you are uniquely qualified to carry out this important work.  Your great talent as a composer and as a jazz pianist, combined with the warmth of your own personality, have won you friends wherever you have gone.  You have been of great assistance to the American mission in Rabat, and I hope you will be able to continue work in Morocco for many years to come.

With warmest best wishes,

Sincerely,

Henry J. Tasca

American Ambassador to Morocco

            I met a man named Jahcen who owned a restaurant in Rabat called Jour Nuit (Night and Day), and he also owned a hotel right on the beach.  When I came to Morocco after they had persistently asked me to come back, I went back with a trio, with Ed Blackwell on drums, Bill Wood on bass and myself.  We played at the Hotel Rex and this guy Jahcen was very interested in the idea of opening up a club with me. 

One thing I had observed from my travels in Africa was that many of the prominent musicians there, guys like Fela and Bobby Benson in Nigeria, owned their own clubs. This gave them a base of operations and the opportunity to present music and musicians they favored.  I was really into the idea of owning my own club; little did I know then what a headache that can be.  But back then I thought it would be a great idea because I wanted to have a place where I could present our culture, the way we approach music, the way we approach life.  That’s why I stayed in Rabat that year.  Jahcen and I spent about a year negotiating this club deal, but ultimately it never happened, for one reason or another.

We stayed in the Hotel Rex for three months, and then I had to get a house because I was able to arrange for my children Pam and Niles to come over and join me after getting my divorce and gaining custody.  Plus Ed Blackwell and his wife and three children were with us and we needed the space.  I met a chauffer for one of the Moroccan government ministers and he arranged for us to rent a house just outside Rabat.  We all shared this house, Pamela, Niles, Bill Wood, Ed Blackwell and his wife and three little children, all in one house.  It was a two-family Moroccan house and everybody had a bed. 

Besides making plans to open up this club we had also arranged through a Moroccan organization called DIAFA and the Minister of Culture to do a tour with the sextet.  Ultimately they couldn’t afford to bring the sextet so we went a few places as a trio.  We performed in Rabat, Casablanca, Zagora, and Marrakech, on about a 3-week tour of Morocco.  The Americans wanted to contact the other places we had performed in Africa for return engagements because we were a big success on that 1967 tour and America always needs that good image through art and culture, so we were ideal; we were African American, nobody was a drunk, and we were always on time.  We did a little playing here and a little there, but the main gigs didn’t happen so the tour idea fizzled out.  As usual with musicians there were many plans for the next gig, but those next gigs were few and far between.  And since I wanted to put my children in school and had learned that the best American school in the country was in Tangier, we moved there after that first year in Rabat.  If it weren’t for that school I would have stayed in Rabat.

In retrospect it’s difficult to see how we sustained ourselves that first year.  But the rents were very cheap at that time and our basic needs, like food and things were very inexpensive.  And like I said, I arrived in Morocco with a little money because I was determined to live in Africa, so I had a little backup.

Tangier is right across the Mediterranean Sea from Spain and it is very near Portugal, so it’s a real international city.  I met a lot of so-called expatriates hanging out in Tangier, people like the writers Allen Ginzberg, Paul Bowles, Brion Gysin, and others, who all appeared to be looking for something, I don’t know what.  But they all lived in Tangier at the time, which made it even more of an international city.  Besides that they seemed genuinely interested in having someone like me coming from the states there, a so-called jazz musician.

When we first arrived in Tangier I arranged to move into an apartment that had about four rooms, so both the kids and I had our own rooms.  In Rabat I had a Moroccan woman named Khadija who did all the cooking and cleaning in our house and I was able to bring her with us to Tangier for a short time.    Eventually we were able to rent a big house right on the beach through an American guy who must have been about 80 years old and had been living in Morocco a long time.  It was a nice place with three terraces facing the Mediterranean.  I hired a Jillalah chieftess named Haemo to be the cook of the house and take care of us.  The Jillalah are like the Gnawa, another Moroccan spiritual sect, but I’m jumping ahead of myself.  She was very strong and a superb cook.  Each morning she’d go to the market and buy fresh food for that day.  We lived in that house for over two years, with no telephone. 

At the time I was going with a French woman named Genevieve McMillan who had some money from investments and was totally into African art.  She and I talked with this old guy and rented this great house.  These days Genevieve has one of the biggest African art collections in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  She lends things out to museums all over the world.  We got along well but in the end she didn’t get along with my children so she had to go.  She gave me an ultimatum: ‘it’s either me or them,’ that kind of thing, so I said ‘bye.’  We split and left the house to her.  The kids and I wound up moving to a small apartment, then to another very nice apartment on Boulevard de Paris.  It was in a pretty modern apartment house, with four rooms, very spacious, lots of sunshine.

The American school was my major motivation for moving to Tangier, it wasn’t like I had been promised any gigs there.  We did manage to play a couple of concerts, played a gig for the Hot Club of France in the city of Meknes, played at a couple of hotels and that kind of thing.  Many people I met in Tangier were deeply into the arts and culture and there was a lot of talk about opening a jazz club in town, but for me it was just a challenge finding a useful piano, much less the commitment to act on such plans.  The first year there I didn’t make any real money.

I felt like I was on a scouting trip because I wasn’t able to do very much playing.  In ’67 I became friendly with a guy from the USIS office in Tangier, a very nice guy who was a writer.  We tried to hook up a tour of Africa through the USIS but it fell apart at the last minute.  At that time the USIS really knew the value of culture and they would send musicians to South America, Africa, etc.

Wherever I go on the globe I’m always interested in connecting with, or at least hearing, traditional music and musicians, and Morocco was no exception.  The first of the Moroccan spiritual brotherhoods I connected with was the Jillalah, who I met through my friend Absalom, who was a government police official at the time and who loved the music.  I met him in a bar through a woman from Vienna, Austria.  Her name was Trudy and she had her own club where they would play Viennese waltzes and sing.  He immediately said ‘man, I’ve got your record “Uhuru Afrika.”  I was shocked!  He invited me to his house and I met his gorgeous wife Khadijah who could really cook; I had my first home cooked dinner in Tangier at their house.

From that point on Absalom and I were partners, we became one with his family.  He’s the one responsible for introducing me to the Jillalah, he and a Moroccan named Muhammad Zane.  This was about the time I was just getting that house and they introduced me to Haemo, the Jillalah woman I hired to take care of the house.  She was a strong Riff Mountain Berber woman; there was nothing glamorous about her.  So because of her there would often be Jillalah musicians at the house.  Jillalah is a Sufi sect; they see their instrument as a direct communication with Allah.  They play these end-blown flutes called a qsbah or gisbah, and drums called bendir, that’s their way of communicating with the Creator.

There actually were three spiritual Moroccan musical traditions I connected with.  Another was the Joujouka, who Ornette Coleman later connected with and made a record.  The Swiss writer Brion Gysin was part of that European and American writers circle in Tangier, along with Paul Bowles and those guys.  Brion was very much into the music.  Through him I heard about this village in the Riff Mountains called Joujouka.  By this time in ‘67 everybody I was in contact with knew of my interests in connecting with the traditional musicians.  Mel O’Connell would arrange for government cars to take us to particular villages to hear the music, so we all went to Joujouka together.

For the trip to Joujouka you drive to a certain point where the mountain starts to rise and cars cannot go, so you either go by donkey or you walk.  Joujouka is a village that has no electricity; it’s really soul Morocco with a beautiful view of the surrounding mountains.  The Joujouka musicians are healers, they play a double reed instrument called the ghaita, kind of like an oboe, and they play those frame drums called bendir.  They worship the god Pan, the god of flute.  They have certain ceremonies where they prepare for three days or more.  One of their mystics dresses in goat skin; they create huge bonfires and play their own Joujouka rhythms.  People go into trance and jump through the fire, and they also have a special room where they treat people for various illnesses by using that cold mountain water accompanied by certain sounds they get out of their instruments.  I’ve never had that experience so I can’t tell you what happens, but the Joujouka are reputed to be great healers.  We spent three wonderful days with the Joujouka, enjoying the ceremony, the music, the dance, we ate fresh eggs, completely fresh food, the cooking was wonderful and I thoroughly enjoyed being with the Joujouka.  But the Moroccan spiritual people I connected most deeply with was the Gnawa.

© Willard Jenkins

My recent, extremely rewarding and gratifying experience with the NEA Jazz Masters as recipient of the

2024 NEA Jazz Masters A.B. Spellman award for Jazz Advocacy has provided plenty of room for reflection, including some precious opportunities to participate in retrospective interviews. Among those reflections was my 50+ years as a jazz radio programmer. That odyssey began as an undergraduate at Kent State University when my dear friend Michael Brown bequeathed his weekly WKSU radio show “Exploration Jazz” to my care. From there I had radio opportunities at WABQ and for a very brief moment at WERE – my only “commercial” radio stints – in Cleveland.

When we relocated to the Twin Cities I landed at KFAI, “Fresh Air Radio”, the community radio station in Minneapolis for our four years at Arts Midwest. From there Suzan & I moved to Washington, DC where I took a position directing the former National Jazz Service Organization (fodder for another edition of the Independent Ear!). I was soon invited to DC’s venerable community radio station WPFW for an interview on my work, signing up for a radio opportunity soon thereafter. With community radio stations the usual process calls for those deemed qualified to essentially be wait-listed for programming opportunities. Meanwhile the best way to land one’s own program is to start out serving as a substitute programmer.

I’ve been at WPFW for 35+ years now, working various time slots, including a 4-6pm “Drivetime Jazz” slot on Fridays – which provided the origins of my Jazzology jazz trivia contest, currently available bi-weekly at SavageContent.com. In 2007/2008 Suzan and I moved to New Orleans where she served as a visiting professor at Loyola University and built the Thelonious Monk Institute’s graduate studies program. While there I had the pleasure of programming – starting first as a sub in the typical community radio pecking order – at the legendary WWOZ. When we returned to DC in late summer ’08 I returned to WPFW, where I started back on a weekly 5:00-8:00am slot, eventually working my way to 10pm-midnight on Wednesdays for my Ancient/Future Radio show.

Earlier this year, following the passing of the very popular WPFW programmer Donnie McKethan, I assumed the 2:00pm-4:00pm Sunday slot for my current show Open Sky. All these years as a radio programmer have increased my sense of the ongoing importance of terrestrial radio. Despite the many streaming services, the great presence of SiriusXM’s Real Jazz channel and myriad other opportunities to experience jazz radio over the ‘Net, including the fact that even most terrestrial radio is now available via the internet, jazz programming on terrestrial radio remains an essential option.

With that in mind and in consideration of the fact that you should know who is out here broadcasting jazz, including a sense of the programming proclivities of some of these good folks, consider this part one of a series of responses to a basic question I pitched to friends & colleagues in the jazz radio programming universe: What constitutes a well-rounded jazz radio program? We’ll start this series with insights from Michael “Mr. Jazz” Gourrier, former longtime WWOZ host and currently the Jazz Director at WRIR-FM in Richmond, VA, where Michael landed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation, and one of the key jazz voices of the San Francisco Bay Area, KCSM’s Jesse “Chuy” Varela.

Michael Gourrier: As I approach my 50th year behind the microphone a thought came to mind: “We are the sum of our influences.” I reflected on how things have changed and developed over the years. I remember Spotlight Shows, Specials, Birthday tributes being used as a platform for presentation in past years. Nowadays my programming is dictated by the material that I am presented [with] for exposure. My shows are basically composed of new releases to keep our listeners up to date on what’s happening in the World of Jazz. After review of the submitted material, I compile a Playlist that will include MY impressions of a diverse array of Selections, including different styles, types, size and variety that seems to work, as I receive [consistent] positive response from the Listening Audience.

Here are two [of my] recent Playlists to exemplify the diversity of the presentation:

Hour #1 Playlist For The Sunday Morning Jazz Show (3/31/24)

Artist, Track, Album Title

Dr. John, “Litanie Des Saints”, Going Back to New Orleans (Warner Bros.)

Charles Lloyd, “The Ghost of Lady Day”, The Sky Will Be There Tomorrow, Blue Note

Christian McBride-Edgar Meyer, “Philly Slop/Who’s Gonna Play The Melody”, Mack Avenue

Abena Koomson-Davis, “Abena’s Bop”, Where Is The Love, WJ3 Records

Allen Dennard, “One Step Ahead”, Flashback, ADM

Ken Peplowski, “You Go To My Head”, Unheard, Arbors

Cliff Beach, “”I’m Beginning To See The Light”, You Showed Me The Way, California Soul Music

Mike Clement, “So Bro”, Hittin’ It, Cellar Music

Caroline Julia Cabading, “You Carolina”, Sugilanon, Patois

Spike Wilner, “Contrafactus”, Contrafactus, Cellar Music

Lauren White, “I’m Glad There Is You”, Making It Up As We Go, LWM

Kelly Green, “By The Way”, Seems Green, Soul

Martin Budde, “Red”, Back Burner, Origin

Remy Le Boeuf, “Stop & Go”, Heartland Radio, Soundspore Records

Albare, “Blue Bossa”, Reimagined/Beyond Belief, Alfi

Jill Salkin, “Stolen Moments”, What The World Needs Now, JSM

Radha Thomas, “Daahoud”, As I Sing, Subcontinental Records

Alex Beltran, “Sub Rosa”, Rift, Calligram Records

Jane Scheckter, “A Beautiful Friendship”, I’ll Take Romance, JSM

Wolff/Clark/Dorsey, “Gloria’s Step”, A Letter To Bill Evans, Jazz Avenue

Neal Alger, “Go With The Sco-Flow”, Old Souls, Calligram Records

Simon Lasky Group, “Tampa Strut”, For The Dreamers, Ubuntu Records

Chris Rottmayer, “Song Of Modes”, Being, Shifting Paradigm

Hour #1 Playlist For Bebop and Beyond with Mr. Jazz (3/31/24)

Donald Byrd, “Cristo Redentor”, A New Perspective, Blue Note

Ron Rieder, “Un Coco Loco”, Latin Jazz Sessions, Ronaldo Music

BK Trio, “Groovin’ On”, Groovin On, BK Music

DeeAnn, “A Little Romance”, It’s My Time, DAAM

Seulah Noh Jazz Orchestra, “Arrogant of Elegant”, Nohmad

Marta Karassawa, “Cama de Gato”, Tempo Born, MKM

Adonis Rose Trio, “You Taught My Heart To Sing”, For All We Know, Storyville

Abdullah Ibrahim, “Tuang Guru”, Gearbox

Ernesto Cervini, “Stuck Inside”, A Canadian Songbook, TPR Records

Lori Bell, “Recorda Me”, Recorda Me, LBM

Hour #2

Hendrik Muerkens, “Dreamsbville”, The Jazz Meurgengers, Cellar Jazz

Tom Keeenlyside, “Third Street Wobble”, Third Street Wobble, AJR

Gaston Reggio, “Michigan”, Instru Dash Mental

Jack Wood, “A Day in the Life Of a Fool”, The Gal That Got Away, Jazz Hang

One For All, “Oscar Winner”, Big George, Smoke Sessions

Brandon Goldberg, “It Ain’t Necessarily So”, Live at Dizzy’s, Cellar Jazz

Spike Robinson Quartet, “Doxy”, The Live Session, PME Records

Touching, “I Can Be Two People At Once”, Head In The Sand

Stephen M. Lee, “In The Moment”, In The Moment, SLM

Scott Marshall, “Frugal Fugue”, The Solitude Suite, SMM

Clearly Michael Gourrier, aka “Mr. Jazz”, has developed a radio show format with particular emphasis on exposing his listening audiences to new & recent releases, and to somewhat lesser-known artists in many instances. Or as he closed… SO MUCH MUSIC… SO LITTLE TIME.

Recipient of the Jazz Journalist Association (JJA) 2023 “Jazz Hero” award for the San Francisco Bay Area, Jesse “Chuy” Varela has been a fixture on Bay Area jazz radio for more than a minute. He is currently heard on KCSM Jazz 91 out of San Mateo, CA, aka “The Bay Area’s Jazz Station”.

Jesse “Chuy” Varela: This is my 40th year in Jazz broadcasting. I cut my eye teeth at KPFA – Pacifica Radio [the Bay Area’s sister station to WPFW] and KJAZ in San Francisco. At KPFA I began as a board operator for Phil Elwood, longtime jazz critic at the San Francisco Examiner and a veteran jazz radio programmer at KPFA, going back to 1951. It was moldy fig 78s of Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, Turk Murphy, as well as key figures like Duke Ellington, Dizzy, Charles Mingus and other greats. [Phil Elwood] taught me to honor the past and share its legacy with listeners. “Spread the gospel” were his words to me when I left after five years as his engineer.

I spent 12 years at KJAZ hosting The Latin Jazz Show and filling in on the straight-ahead shifts. What I learned at KJAZ was the art of the set: How to mix and sequence pieces of music so they blend well sonically and harmonically, as well as to talk about the music succinctly.

Now as music/program director at KCSM JAZZ 91, the SF Bay Area’s jazz radio station, I program – and emphasize to our programmers – about presenting a show with a vision of mixing the past with the present in the stylistic genres and subgenres that exist in this music. We present what we call “edu-tainment”, which means teaching about jazz but still entertaining our audience about great jazz. After 25 years at KCSM Jazz 91 I still live by the words passed on to me by my mentors: Have Fun! I still enjoy what I do and try to smile every time I open the mic.

Among the many travels I was afforded while working with NEA Jazz Master pianist-composer-bandleader Randy Weston (African Rhythms, 2010 Duke University Press) was an extremely pleasant journey to Annecy, France, a lovely alpine town hard by Lake Annecy and the Swiss border where Randy had resided for a time. It was on that trip that I also met the man who had produced several of Randy’s late career records for the Universal Music Group, Jean-Phillipe Allard. More recently Jean-Phillipe has launched his own Artworks imprint. What exactly is the role of a record producer and how does one arrive at that particular station in the world of recorded sound? Recently we posed questions to Jean-Phillipe about his record business odyssey and about his plans for the Artworks label.

1. How and when did your career in the record business evolve to record production

In 1987 I was hired by PolyGram France to create a jazz department. It was also therise of the CD format and there were a lot of reissue activity, as well as,the reactivation of PolyGram/Verve/EmArcy jazz A&R, first in Japan with the great producer/journalist Kiyoshi Koyama, then in the US with the signings of the Harper Brothers, Betty Carter, Sphere, Charlie Haden Quartet West.  Initially, my job was supposed to only be the marketing of international (signed outside of France) jazz product and the reissuing of French jazz repertoire (Django Reinhardt, Stephane Grappelli, Miles Davis, Chet Baker …etc).

Kiyoshi Koyama contacted me in 1988 to help him to produce a recording of John Lewis in Paris with the French all-stars, Christian Escoudé, Pierre Michelot, Michel Gaudry and Daniel Humair. The recording happened in December 1988, and it was my first time in a recording studio. This is clearly when I first contracted the jazz producing and recording bug! Directly witnessing the creation of music that did not exist the minute before and will never be repeated, but immortalized on tape, was an unforgettable thrill.  Koyama became my first mentor, John Lewis and Pierre Michelot became lifelong great friends and teachers. Christian Escoudé, who is still active and on the scene, is also still a close friend.   

About the same time the French arranger/big band leader Laurent Cugny sent me a recording of his orchestra playing the music of Gil Evans with Gil himself.  It became my first signing, and right after that Jacques Muyal, an old friend of Randy Weston, contacted me about a new project with him. Randy, who was a little forgotten at that time, was one my heroes. I deeply loved his music. At the same time Christian Escoudé came with a project of “Gypsy Waltzes“ mixing the tradition of gypsy jazz, bebop and traditional French music. I recorded Christian’s project in May 1988 and Randy’s Portraits tryptic in June 1988. These 3 projects launched me into the world of producing and executive producing new projects.  Randy became a very good friend and we then worked on a lot of his projects and stayed in touch until the end of his glorious life. He was also very important in teaching me the history and the spirit of this music.  After these projects everything happened naturally.

2) Talk about your must rewarding experiences as a record producer.

All the recordings with Randy or with Abbey Lincoln were very special but the recording of Randy’s “The Spirit of Our Ancestors” that I coproduced with Brian Bacchus was certainly a highlight. We had in the studio Pharoah Sanders, Billy Harper, Dewey Redman, Alex Blake and Jamil Nasser, Idris Muhammad, Talib Kibwe, Dizzy Gillespie, Idrees Sulieman, Benny Powell, Big Black, Azzedine Weston and Her Greatness Melba Liston. Except for Brian and myself, everybody was a legend. The spirits was so powerful, and we had the feeling that history was being made. I still have goose bumps when I think to some of the amazing moments from this session.

In 1991, Abbey asked me to record with Stan Getz and we put together the recording of You Gotta Pay the Band. That session altogether took 5 hours over 2 days as Stan was struggling with his health at that time, so we had short days. It was an easy and spontaneous session. Hank Jones, Mark Johnson and Charlie Haden were relaxed and Inspired. Abbey, as always, was intense, deep, real and impressive. She gave inspiration to the musicians including Stan who was very touched by her soulful singing and moved by her lyrics. It was a dream session.

The other highlight with Abbey was the recording of Abbey sings Abbey that I coproduced with the great engineer/producer Jay Newland. I selected, with Abbey, 12 of her own songs. At that time Abbey was not in great shape, so we had only 2 hours per day to record her. These 2 hours were so heavy andemotionally charged that it was indescribable. Abbey was literally singing for eternity. Everybody who participated in this session still talks about it as one the best things they ever did. It was pure magic. It happened to be her last recording. People Time, the duet album of Stan Getz and Kenny Barron was also Stan’s last recording. Stan wanted to do it at the Montmartre Club in Copenhagen because he knew that Kenny loved the piano there. This one was another “spiritual” experience. Stan had only 3 months to live and even if sometimes he was getting tired, he was playing better than ever. He had this special relationship with Kenny, and they had this kind of telepathic connection. I never saw them talking about the repertoire or the keys or anything else; they were just playing and inspiring each other to the highest level. I was so lucky that Stan asked me to produce this recording. Since then, I worked and still work with maestro Kenny Barron. I was very moved by this recording and was quite aware that this kind of experience may only happen once in your life.

Another unforgettable session was with the South African genius, Bheki Mseleku. My friend, partner and coproducer Brian Bacchus turned me on to Bheki when he emerged from the British scene.  We decided to produce his first American project with the musicians he was dreaming of working with. The lineup again was historic. We had Pharoah Sanders, Joe Henderson, Abbey Lincoln, Marvin ‘Smitty’ Smith, Michel Bowie, Elvin Jones and Rodney Kendrick among others. Bheki did not read or write music, but his compositions were extremely sophisticated and despite 2 fingers missing on his right hand, his amazing virtuosity on the piano was stunning. He was also singing and playing the saxophone extremely well. He really seemed to be coming from another planet.  At the time of this recording, apartheid was still going on in his country and that too was another planet.  Again, the spirits were powerful, and this session stays very special, inspiring and unique to me.

3) For some the role of a record producer is not easily defined. Tell us what you see as the responsibilities of a record producer.

The role of a record producer for jazz depends a lot on the artist and also the producer.  Most generally the producer is in charge of the preparation of the session, choosing the right studio, the right engineer, the rehearsal studio, the piano, the piano tuner etc… Of course, the artistic aspect is very important. 

With Abbey Lincoln, she was writing or choosing her material, then we would talk and try to define the kind of production she would like for each song, then I would suggest musicians and arrangers. The final decision was always mutual.  During the session we would choose the takes together.  Then I would supervise the mixing and ask her for her approval or changes. Same thing for mastering and track order.

J.J. Johnson asked me to produce his albums mainly because he wanted me to choose the takes during the recording and to tell him if another take was necessary or not.  For some reason he trusted my judgement.  You must know the work well of the artist you are working with. Knowing the artist’s playing live as well as recorded work helps you to judge if what you hear is the best of what they can do, but everything must be done right on the spot without taking too long to make decisions.

Most jazz recordings are done in one to three days. It is not only a question of budget, it is also because great musicians are very spontaneous and get bored quickly if the session takes too long. A lot of masterpieces have been done in just few hours. It is a question of preparing well for the session and also the trust between the producer and the artist.

Regarding my work I would always consider it as coproducing with the artist. Some producers are musicians or arrangers like Teo Maceo or Larry Klein, others are engineers some are professional listeners. I would fall in this last category. Listening to the artist before the session, listening to the music during the session and listening to the mixing engineer, the music and the artist during the postproduction process.

There are a lot of great producers but none of them can do a great album without great artists. Some artists like to work without a producer. It is their choice, and their talent will shine anyway. I still think that they should have somebody they trust that could help them to deliver their best.

4) Taking us up to the present, talk about the evolution of your newest imprint, Artwork Records

Artwork Records is my first experience with an independent label. Before that I only worked for Polygram or Universal labels. The difference is that all my choices are only driven by my own personal taste. I would never sign an artist on this label for commercial or political reasons, or because of corporate strategy and need.

We released 5 albums in 2023 and we will certainly release 5 in 2024. I don’t want to do more that that. It has to be very selective, and I want to have the time to focus on each individual project. As I’ve always done, I’m working with American artists as well as French artists. I believe that the greatest French jazz artists bring their own poetic language to this African American artform. It was obvious for Django Reinhart and Stéphane Grappelli and today’s artists like Alain Jean-Marie, Baptiste Trotignon, Oan Kim, Daniel Humair, Christian Escoudé, Laurent Cugny, Jacky Terrasson or Bireli Lagrène; all who are still contributing to the richness of this music.  As a French person I feel very close to this approach of the American idiom with a French accent.

I also have had the good luck to work with some of the greatest American jazz artists and I want to continue to do that for the rest of my life, but I will always believe that this music has no borders.

5) Correct me if I’m wrong but your first two Artwork Productions are solo piano by the great Kenny Barron and the emerging Sullivan Fortner. Why those two pianists, and talk about both in the solo piano format.

When I decided to create Artwork Records my first call has been for Kenny Barron. The fact that he agreed to record for my new unknown label was very important to me. It gave me confidence to go on. If Kenny is with me, I feel that there is no limit as I don’t think there is a greater jazz musician on earth than Kenny. He represents to me all the historic qualities defined by the creators of this music, a master of his instrument, an improviser with no limit to their imagination, always swinging, a unique and sensitive ballad player, open minded to all the great music cultures, and a great composer. Kenny is also a gentleman and a humble person. In fact, his humility makes him even more impressive.  In spite of that, I am working with him on and off for more than 30 years and I am still very intimidated by this gentle genius!

When he told me that he wanted to do a solo album I could not be happier. It was his first solo project in 30 years. I got his favorite Steinway piano in Paris; I rented the beautiful Théâtre de L’ Athénée for the quality of its acoustics, as well as its magnificent architecture. I invited about 15 people to attend the recording session to bring some human warmth and then Kenny delivered this spontaneous masterpiece.

My second call was for Sullivan Fortner. I had signed Sullivan ten years ago on Impulse where he released 2 albums. Since then, he did not have another project under his name. I was thrilled to get a positive reply from Sullivan as I consider him the most important pianist of his generation. I still have the feeling that he is not recognized for the magnitude of his real value. He is much more innovative and creative than his low-key attitude might suggest.  He had 2 projects that he wanted to release, one was a piano solo album produced by Fred Hersch and another one more experimental on which he was playing all kinds of keyboards and other instruments. Both projects held equal importance for him. After discussing he convinced me these 2 projects must be released as one under the form of a double CD. He called it Solo/Game.

The piano solo part for me is as innovative and groundbreaking as the “experimental” part.  He is already influencing all the younger generation of artists and this project is certainly a milestone in the history of jazz piano.

Regarding the art of piano solo: I think that it is the highest level of excellence and there is a long list of masterpieces in this format. I had the chance to record piano solo albums by Randy Weston (Marrakech In the Cool of the Evening), John Lewis (Private Concert), Hank Jones (A handful of Keys) and I could see, and feel the amount of concentration of these masters involved in this challenging exercise. It is very often beyond styles, bebop, stride, blues, free , swing…

It is just a dialogue of the artist with himself through the instrument. When a journalist asked Kenny Barron about the source of his inspiration for this recording, he just answered: “The piano.” If it is a great piano, he is happy and inspired. This is a very intimate relationship between the artist and, in this case, Steinway & Sons.

Some of my favorite albums are piano solo recordings: Monk “Solo“, Hank Jones “Tiptoe Tapdance“, Randy Weston “African Nite“, Charlie Mingus “Plays Piano“, Fats Waller, James P. Johnson … but I am also a big fan of the great Classical piano players like Alfred Brendel, Samson François, Sviatoslav Richter… and their interpretations of the classical repertoire.  All the jazz piano masters studied the European classical composers, and it is certainly mostly in their solo works that you can hear this influence.

6) Tell us what’s up next from Artwork.

We’re going to release on March 8th the 2nd album of saxophonist Oan Kim’s, called “Rebirth of Innocence” and on May 10th a new Kenny Barron quintet project with Immanuel Wilkins, Steve Nelson, Kiyoshi Kitagawa and Johnathan Blake.  

In the Fall, we will have a Sullivan Fortner trio album, a septet project of pianist Micah Thomas and the French 4 pianist’s group PIANOFORTE with their debut album. This quartet of great keyboardists is comprised of Baptiste Trotignon, Éric Légnini, Bojan Z and Pierre De Bethman. You may not know some of these pianists here in the US, but you probably know Baptiste Trotignon from his co-lead project with Yosvany Terry.

I am also working on unreleased historical recordings…more news on that to come!