The Stereo Image

Putter Smith and pianist Jeff Colella join Mike Jones for the show's first two-guest conversation, built around Between Friends, their new duo record on Capri Records and their first together since Lotus Blossom in 2014. Putter tells how his big brother Carson's half-size bass started everything, how a polite answer to a stranger at Shelly's Manne-Hole led to playing Mr. Kidd in Diamonds Are Forever, and why his wife was right about Monk. Jeff remembers getting sick to his stomach over his first Monk record, being handed the Count Basie band to conduct with no warning, and sixteen years at the piano for Lou Rawls, a boss who never stopped asking about his dad. And the two of them try to name what happens when they play together... chemistry! Between Friends CD on Capri Records Stream Between Friends on Spotify Stream Between Friends on Apple   Chapters 00:00 Intro 00:42 Making the new duo record 02:54 How they met 05:05 Duo chemistry 09:20 Carson Smith's little brother 15:04 Jeff, from Worcester to LA 20:47 The James Bond gig 31:45 Monk or John Mayall 34:56 Sixteen years with Lou Rawls 42:38 Gigs and records ahead 49:20 Meeting Ray Brown

This week, to celebrate the spooky season we have part 2 of our talk with the great Todd Robbins!  Check out part 1 here. Magician, sideshow artist, and ragtime pianist Todd Robbins sits down with Jonesy for Part 1. He learned the Maple Leaf Rag from a piano roll, learned to eat fire from carnival old-timers, and one night at Hanratty's, he was the only person in the room actually listening to Dick Wellstood: "Wellstood sat down at the piano, and for the next 90 minutes straight played the entire stride book because there was one person listening. It was all the Fats, all the James P, all the Willie the Lion. It was glorious." Check out Speakeasy Magick Chapters: 00:00 Intro 00:22 The Fortune Garden Pavilion 03:08 Frank Fay and the emcee 05:01 Introducing Dave McKenna 08:15 McKenna, Garner, and Wellstood 10:34 Following Wellstood in Buffalo 16:28 Watching McKenna build tunes 21:28 Bradley's and the Green Mill 23:11 Eddie Davis and Woody Allen 38:05 What comes next 39:59 Todd on Mike Jones   *note: a listener sent in these notes related to the musician's mentioned in Todd's episode: the Ruby Braff notes should be Eddy Davis, and the reference to "Simple Isn't Easy" as Red Garland, when it's Red Mitchell...

Todd Robbins learned the Maple Leaf Rag by slowing down a Scott Joplin piano roll and watching where the keys went. In Part 1 of a two-part conversation, the magician, sideshow artist, and ragtime pianist tells Jonesy how a string of happy accidents built a career that now runs six nights a week at Speakeasy Magick in New York, a show he says he put together on the fly, "just like a jazz solo." They get into the magic shop old-timers who taught a twelve-year-old to hammer a nail into his nose, hanging out with the Turk Murphy band in San Francisco, and a brand-new grand piano that could not survive Pete Clute's attack. Plus Todd's first days in New York, and the night Dick Wellstood played the entire stride book for an audience of one. Part 2 next week! Check out Todd's long-running show: Speakeasy Magick Chapters: 00:00 Intro 02:19 Speakeasy Magick origin story 15:07 Building a show like jazz 19:15 Retooling the Houdini Seance 22:21 Theater school, Turk Murphy 27:20 Mostly Magic's animal trap 33:35 Old-timers teach sideshow stunts 37:37 Discovering ragtime via Joanne Castle 42:11 Joplin from a piano roll 46:34 Judy Carmichael, old-time piano 49:51 Pete Clute and Dick Wellstood   *note: a listener sent in these notes related to the musician's mentioned in Todd's episode: the Ruby Braff notes should be Eddy Davis, and the reference to "Simple Isn't Easy" as Red Garland, when it's Red Mitchell...  

This week Quentin Walston, pianist, author, and jazz educator, joins Jonesy for a conversation about a simple idea: people enjoy the music more when they understand what is going on inside it.  He would know.  He broke down Take Five into a short video and four and a half million people watched.  They trace Quentin's path from a bluegrass corner of Virginia to a self-taught start on ragtime and boogie woogie, the moment in high school when the sound he was chasing finally clicked as jazz, and the wineries and cigar shops where he built his solo chops. Along the way: his book Jazz Piano Like a Pro, his vinyl album Retro Future, the joy he hears in Errol Garner and Duke Ellington, and a new project bringing 1920s stride piano back without a trace of corniness.  Buy Quentin's books or check out more info at his website: https://quentinwalston.com/store

This week Jonesy sits down with the great Skip Heller: composer, guitarist, bandleader, arranger, and one of the most restlessly curious musicians you will ever meet. Skip grew up in Philadelphia a few blocks from Dizzy Gillespie's old house, never took a real music lesson, and built a life in music that runs from bebop to rockabilly to exotica. They get into his new Dizzy Gillespie project with his band Voodoo 5, why joy is the fuel in the music he loves, growing up on the Smothers Brothers and John Hartford, learning harmony from chord diagrams in a music store, the day Stevie Wonder's "I Wish" turned a Philadelphia block into a dance scene, and a wild year on the road with Yma Sumac that ended at the Montreal Jazz Festival with the copyists still passing music up to the bandstand. Skip on the heart of it all: "Art doesn't have to be serious and heavy. Art can have a joyous component to it." Listen to Skip's band Voodoo 5.