Podcast 42 - Michael Blake Returns

Saxophonist Michael Blake seems to change his approach on every album he makes. No matter if that context is avant-garde, electronic, or swing, what shines through is his distinctive saxophone voice and compositional style. Michael’s saxophone playing can be soulful or technical and fully embraces spontaneity and interaction. He is surely one of the most underrated saxophonists on the scene today.

In 2013, he received the Chamber Music America’s New Jazz Works grant and started working on his most straight ahead album to date. Tiddy Boom is a hard swinging tribute to tenor saxophonists Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins. Michael filtered the contrasting styles of each saxophonist through his own voice to compose a suite of brand new music that is both old school and timeless. This is the best example to date of Michael throwing down on the saxophone!

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Office Playlist - Ben Allison and Man Size Safe

Podcast 23 - Ben Allison

Photo: Greg Aiello

The show this week features the great bassist and composer Ben Allison. He recently released a record on his own for the first time titled The Stars Look Very Different Today. We talk about a lot of interesting things including how Dungeons and Dragons relates to jazz music, Dick Cheney, and why he streams his music on his own website instead of Spotify. Also, we get his candid take on why Star Trek is better than Star Wars.

If you like what you hear, please Subscribe in iTunes and give us feedback. That will help us out tremendously. Also, feel free to email me with any suggestions or questions. Thank you for listening!