The Jazz Podcast

Professor of the Practice in the Department of Music at Duke University, Anthony Kelley joined the Duke faculty in 2000 after serving as Composer-in-Residence with the Richmond Symphony for three years under a grant from Meet the Composer, Inc. He received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Duke University, and he earned a Ph.D. in Musical Composition from the University of California at Berkeley.In 2021, Kelley was appointed as Composer in Residence for the North Carolina Symphony. His major works for symphony orchestra include: Spirituals of Liberation (commissioned and  premiered in 2022 by the North Carolina Symphony, with Evan Feldman and Michelle Di Russo, conducting); the piano concerto, Africamerica (premiered in 1999, by the Richmond Symphony with piano soloist, Donal Fox and George Manahan, conducting); and The Breaks (commissioned and premiered in 1998 by The American Composers Orchestra under the direction of Gerard Schwartz). The Baltimore, Detroit, Atlanta, Oakland East Bay, Marin (CA) and San Antonio symphony orchestras have also performed Kelley’s symphonic music.Among his awards and honors are the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Institute and Academy of Arts and Letters, and composition fellowships from the North Carolina Arts Council, the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation.  Some of his other work includes his soundtracks to the H. Lee Waters/Tom Whiteside film, Conjuring Bearden, (2006), and Dante James’s film, The Doll (2007), explores music as linked with other media, arts, and sociological phenomena. A recording of Kelley’s work, Grist for the Mill (commissioned by the Mallarme Chamber Players), was released in August, 2009 and is available for purchase on iTunes.Support the Show.

Our guest host Martin Hummel interviews Rob Cope about his new album, Gemini which is out now. Rob chats about his influences and inspirations and Martin does a stunning job in the captains chair. Support the Show.

Music has been an integral part of Martin’s entire life. Since his early days as a musician, Martin staged concerts as a teenager (featuring Elton John), worked in various music clubs and was a DJ/Music Director in professional radio.  For 17 years, he was responsible for Pepsi-Cola’s international communications, where he worked with the likes of Michael Jackson, Madonna, Tina Turner, The Spice Girls, Britney Spears, Beyoncé, Robbie Williams and Pink, amongst many others. He's founded Ubuntu Music, one of the great labels for new music and jazz and today he shares his thoughts on running the label with us. You will often find him at live shows, whatever the time of the day or night, looking for the next Bird, Dizzy, Esperanza, Charlie, Miles, Ron, Ella, Art or Chet.Support the Show.

As a band leader and co-leader he is responsible for much of the output of the groups; Lammas, The Underground Orchestra, Storms / Nocturnes (feat. Joe Locke and Geoffrey Keezer), Acoustic Triangle, the last few years of Bill Bruford’s Earthworks, and The Lighthouse Trio, (feat; Gwilym Simcock and Asaf Sirkis). This final group makes a 20th anniversary come-back tour and release during 2024! Today we chat to Tim about his new album, Moment of Departure. Support the Show.

Kirk is a musician and writer based in Portland, as well as being a multi-instrumentalist he makes a music podcast, Strong Songs and produces and co-hosts the Triple Click video game podcast.Today he joins the show to chat to Rob Cope about all things podcasts, jazz as well as a look into music in video games. Support the Show.

Simon’s latest project features his recently formed U.S. Jazz Octet with three front line horns and vocals. There are special guest appearances by leading U.K. jazz artists, including Tim Garland and Paul Booth and, for the first time, Simon’s arrangements appear alongside his original compositions. Simon explains his thinking behind For the Dreamers: “I think that, deep down, I always knew (hoped!) that I would spend some time in America one day; form a band there; do some concerts; and record an album. My only surprise is that it took me until my mid-forties to do it! I wanted to harness my love for many genres of American music, utilise local American musicians and compose music for that particularly confident way they have of playing. This is the resulting album!Support the Show.

Mark joins the show to chat about his new album, Smiling. Joining the show is Olivia Cuttill as a guest host. Saxophonist and composer Mark Lockheart first came to prominence in the mid 1980s with the influential big band Loose Tubes. In 1992 Mark formed the eclectic co-led quartet Perfect Houseplants, a group that released six albums and collaborated with classical artists such as the Orlando Consort, Andrew Manze and Pamela Thorby. The mid-90s saw Mark recording and performing with many jazz, folk and pop artists, including Django Bates, Kenny Wheeler, Norma Winstone, June Tabor, Stereolab, Jah Wobble, Robert Wyatt, Prefab Sprout, Don Um Romao, Thomas Dolby and Radiohead.In 2003 Mark joined Seb Rochford’s Polar Bear, which over a period of 12 years recorded six ground-breaking albums. The band’s second album, Held On The Tips Of Fingers, was nominated for the 2005 Mercury Award and later appeared in Jazzwise's 100 Albums That Shook the World. The band's fifth album, In Each And Every Way, was also nominated for a Mercury Award in 2013. In 2007 Mark was a featured soloist (along with John Pattitucci and Gwilym Simcock) in Mark Anthony Turnage's About Water, which premiered on the Southbank in June 2007. Mark collaborated several times more with Turnage, performing his A Man Descending with the Southbank Sinfonia in 2008 and more recently as one of the featured musicians in Turnage's opera Anna Nicole, which premiered at the Royal Opera House in London in 2011. In 2009 Mark's quintet album In Deep was released to critical acclaim. The following year saw the release of Mark's first big band album Days Like These with the Hamburg-based NDR big band. That same year Mark was awarded APPJC Parliamentary Jazz Musician of the Year 2010. In 2013 Mark released Ellington In Anticipation, a radical reworking of Ellington melodies with an all-star line up including Seb Rochford and Liam Noble. The album received numerous four and five-star reviews and was MOJO magazine’s Jazz Album of 2013 and nominated as Best Jazz CD of 2013 by the APPJC at the 2014 Parliamentary Awards.  An invitation to perform at the New York Rochester Jazz Festival in 2014 led to the formation of Mark's trio, Malija, with bassist Jasper Hoiby and pianist Liam Noble. Malija's debut album The Day I Had Everything was released in December 2015 to critical acclaim. The group's second album Instinct was released in 2017 followed by a 21-date tour.  In 2016 Mark was awarded Jazz FM Instrumentalist of the Year and also nominated for the British Composer Awards for his composition With One Voice. A few years later saw the birth of two very contrasting projects , the jazz/orchestral work titled Days On Earth for jazz sextet and 30-piece orchestra, released on Edition Records in January 2019 and a set of English Renaissance music ‘Salvator Mundi’ recorded at Temple church in London with organist Roger Sayer.Support the Show.

Rob Cope chats to Olivia about her brand new album, The Whole Damn Plan, featuring guest host and long time friend of the show, Mark Lockheart. Our 7th birthday celebrated in style with one of the finest musicians of the next generation.Support the Show.

Swedish jazz vocalist and composer Clara Green talks to Tara Minton about her new record, "Being Green."Support the Show.

Jamil joins the show today to chat about his new album, Red Kite. He has recorded and collaborated with many artists and recorded four albums of his own music, each of which have received national and international accolades. Jazz UK writes about Jamil: His music is both swinging and sophisticated, Sheriff showing himself to be a constantly inventive arranger. Just when you think you’ve heard it all, he’ll come up with something fresh. As a composer, arranger and pianist Jamil has toured extensively throughout the UK and performed at national and international jazz festivals. Described by The Guardian as "someone who has made a real difference to the vitality of the jazz scene in the North of England.Support the Show.

Born in Detroit, raised in London and now based in Kraków, Alex Roth is a composer, guitarist, producer and interdisciplinary collaborator who over the last decade has earned a reputation as “one of contemporary music’s most innovative and impressive talents” (musicOMH). His diverse body of work encompasses improvised performances; a wide range of concert music from solo to orchestral compositions; scores for dance, theatre and film; leading numerous bands; and producing electronic music. He has collaborated with some of Europe’s leading experimental musicians, such as John Butcher, Arve Henriksen, Savina Yannatou, Kit Downes, Mikolaj Trzaska and Olga Szwajgier.Alex leads the acclaimed improvising trio Cut The Sky (whose debut album, with Waclaw Zimpel and Hubert Zemler, was selected by Polityka as one of 2023's best releases); produces experimental electronic music as Supersigil; co-directs Sephardic music group Sefiroth (for whom he also directed the multimedia performance Arvoles Lloran por Luvia); and founded the networked ensemble MultiTraction Orchestra, whose debut album Reactor One was hailed by The Guardian as "a remarkable sonic collage by an A-list of international improvisers.”Support the Show.

Today a living legend joins the show! Even for a successful composer and arranger in Hollywood, Gordon Goodwin’s numbers are impressive: A 2006 GRAMMY Award for his Instrumental Arrangement of “Incredits” from the Pixar film The Incredibles, three Emmy Awards, and thirteen GRAMMY nominations.Support the Show.

Multi-award winner as best jazz vocalist - BBC Jazz Awards 2007 and 2004 and Parliamentary Jazz Awards 2018,alongside nominations from the Jazz FM Awards 2013 and Downbeat Magazine 2017 - Ian Shaw has amassed a number of highly acclaimed internationally released albums and is a popular performer both in the UK and the US. He has been cited, along with Mark Murphy and Kurt Elling, as one of the world’s finest male jazz vocalists.Support the Show.

Jamie Cullum (born 20 August 1979)[1] is an English jazz-pop singer, songwriter and radio presenter. Although primarily a vocalist and pianist, he also accompanies himself on other instruments, including guitar and drums. He has recorded nine studio albums, three compilation albums, one live album and twenty-four singles. Since April 2010, he has presented a weekly Tuesday evening jazz show on BBC Radio 2.Today he comes on The Jazz Podcast to chat to Rob Cope.Support the Show.

Face to Face, Nikki’s new album is out today! As a founder member of the hugely innovative Creative Jazz Orchestra in the early 90s, Nikki Iles came to prominence working with musicians such as Anthony Braxton, Vince Mendoza, Mark Anthony Turnage, Kenny Wheeler and Mike Gibbs.Mike subsequently booked her for one of her first recording dates with great American musicians, Steve Swallow and Bob Moses on the CD “By The Way” on AH HUM records. For many years, Nikki served a lengthy apprenticeship in the North of England playing with the cream of British and American jazz such as Peter King, Iain Ballamy, Art Farmer, Peter King ,Tina May ,Tim Garland and Jim Mullen.Many of these relationships were re- kindled later ,when after a car accident, Nikki finally decided to make the move to London in 1998. Here she joined the groups and toured and recorded with musicians such as Steve Arguelles, Mick Hutton, Martin Speake, Stan Sulzmann and Julian Arguelles and Norma Winstone .Several awards followed with the BT British Jazz Award and an IAJE Award in America for services to Jazz. Although well known as a pianist, composition still remains a major part of her musical life.The breadth of Nikki’s artistic vision has led her to disregard the arbitrary boundaries of the jazz scene and most notably, commissions have included a collaboration with American dancer Mimi Cichanowicz , the UMO Jazz Orchestra in Finland, “A Gentle Prayer “ - London Sinfonietta , “Red Ellen” - Tim Garland’s Northern Underground Band, “Carillion – The LPO’s Renga ensemble and this year “The Caged Bird” from the International Society of Jazz Arrangers and Composers.Nikki was honoured to have her piece HUSH commissioned by the National Youth Jazz Orchestra featured at the 2012 Proms ( BBC TV) and more recently write for the great American singer, Kurt Elling and The Scottish National Jazz Orchestra.Recently she has been particularly busy - she was awarded the prestigious Ivors Academy Gold Badge and the Ivor Novello Award - winning the best large ensemble composition in 2021.Support the Show.

Nicky Schrire is a multitalented and inventive British-South African vocalist and composer based in Toronto, Canada. Her work has seen her likened to vocalists Joni Mitchell, Norma Winstone, and Esperanza Spalding with The BostonGlobe’s Jon Garelick noting that “though her approach has earned her comparisons to Gretchen Parlato and Becca Stevens, the similarities are superficial…she’s got her own thing, and it’s very much worth listening to.”A graduate of the South African College of Music and New York’s Manhattan School of Music, she studied with Anthea Haupt, Peter Eldridge, Theo Bleckmann, and Dave Liebman. Schrire has performed in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, London, Dublin and South Africa, with musicians including Ben Wendel, Gerald Clayton, Fabian Almazan, Nir Felder, and Taylor Eigsti. She released three critically acclaimed jazz albums-2012's "Freedom Flight", 2013's "Space and Time", and the 2014 EP "To The Spring"-which earned her comparisons to songwriters like Joan Baez and Mary Chapin Carpenter. Her duo album “Space & Time” featured Grammy-nominated pianists Gerald Clayton, Gil Goldstein and Fabian Almazan. The Ottawa Citizen’s Peter Hum described the recording as “fifty minutes of emotionally eventful, richly crafted music”.Support the Show.

Mária talks about her creative process and new album, Topol'ana.Support the Show.

Nils Petter Molvær, Norwegian trumpet player, composer and producer, who takes multiple music styles – jazz, ambient, house, electronic and break beats, as well as elements from hip hop, rock and pop music – and effortlessly reshapes them into unique and dramatic soundscapes of deep intensity.Support the Show.

Neset made an astonishingly powerful impression when he first emerged onto the European jazz scene as a young saxophonist of protean gifts more than a decade ago.Django Bates, who was a teacher and a significant mentor at the Rhythmic Conservatory in Copenhagen, had Neset in several of his band, and also appeared on Neset’s breakthrough album, Golden Xplosion (Edition, 2011).Support the Show.

Greek born with Egyptian roots, electric jazz harpist and composer Maria-Christina Harper is reinventing the sound of the harp in the jazz world. With her anarchic spirit and an interest in exploring what the harp can do, rather than exploring its traditional sounds, she presents her instrument in new and exciting ways. Combining her traditional music roots with free jazz she creates an irresistible, compelling sound cosmos. It’s where East meets West.Based in the UK, Maria-Christina collaborates with two outstanding, highly acclaimed players to form the Harper Trio featuring drummer’s-drummer Evan Jenkins and the dynamic saxophonist Josephine Davies (Instrumentalist Of the Year, 2019 Parliamentary Jazz Awards).Support the Show.