Hank Williams

Sunday 6/14/2015 Show: Antonio Sanchez

Photo: Antonio Sanchez @ North Sea Jazz Festival, 2007. | Credit: Geneviève Ruocco via Flickr. Creative Commons/ Some rights reserved.

The next show will air on Sunday, June 14, 2015 from 11:00 PM – 1:00 AM Monday Eastern Standard Time on WBAI, 99.5 FM in the NYC metro area or streaming online at wbai.org. This broadcast will feature an interview with drummer Antonio Sanchez.

Four time Grammy Award winner Antonio Sanchez is considered by many critics and musicians alike as one of the most prominent drummers, bandleaders and composers of his generation.

Born in Mexico City on November 1st, 1971, he started playing drums at the age of 5 and began performing professionally early in his teens.

Sanchez pursued a degree in classical piano at Mexico’s National Conservatory and in 1993 he moved to Boston to enroll at Berklee College of Music and New England Conservatory. He graduated Magna Cum Laude in Jazz Studies.

Since his move to New York City in 1999, Sanchez has become one of the most sought after drummers in the international jazz scene. His playing is featured in over a hundred albums and has performed and recorded with some of the biggest names in jazz including Chick Corea, Michael Brecker, Charlie Haden, Gary Burton and Toots Thielmans.

He has been the drummer of choice for 20-time Grammy winner Pat Metheny and has been part of virtually every project the famed guitarist has put together since 2000. They’ve recorded 8 albums together and 3 of them have been awarded the Grammy.

He regularly collaborates with some of the today’s most prominent jazz musicians such as Joshua Redman, Chris Potter, Christian McBride, John Patitucci, Donny McCaslin, Danilo Perez, David Sanchez, Paquito D’Rivera, Kenny Werner, Marcus Roberts, Avishai Cohen, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Dianne Reeves, Miguel Zenon, Scott Colley, Dave Samuels, Luciana Souza, Billy Childs, and Claudia Acuña just to name a few.

Sanchez’s continuous search as an artist has pushed him to compose and lead his own bands and ensembles. He has released 4 critically acclaimed albums under his name. His first one, Migration was called “one of the best new releases of 2007” by All About Jazz and features a star studded cast which includes Pat Metheny, Chick Corea, Chris Potter, David Sanchez and Scott Colley. His second solo effort Live in New York was recored during a 4 day run at the prestigious Jazz Standard in New York City and features saxophone greats David Sanchez and Miguel Zenon as well as bassist Scott Colley.

Antonio’s 2013 album New Life was made entirely of his own compositions and was widely received by critics all over the world. It was the winner of the prestigious German Echo Jazz Award in 2014. Downbeat Magazine said: “New Life is that rare combination of great composing, great players and great musicianship” 2015 will see the release of two very distinct projects that are important milestones in Sanchez’s solo career: Three Times Three, a double album which features three stellar trios: Brad Mehldau and Matt Brewer, John Scofield and Christian McBride and last but not least Joe Lovano and John Patitucci. This record includes six original compositions and three standards arranged by Antonio.

The second 2015 release will be with Migration, his working band since 2011. This edition of the band will feature Seamus Blake on saxophone, John Escreet on piano and Matt Brewer on bass. This album will feature a 60 minute long piece written by Sanchez called “The Meridian Suite” which pushes his compositional skills in a way that no other project has done before.

His writing is also featured on two of Gary Burton’s latest releases. Common Ground and Guided Tour include four of Antonio’s original compositions and the earlier album was named after his tune of the same name.

In 2013 Sanchez was invited by acclaimed filmmaker Alejandro Gonzales Iñarritu (Amores Perros, 21 Grams, Babel, Biutiful) to create the original film score for his 2014 release Birdman (Fox Searchlight) featuring Michael Keaton, Edward Norton, Naomi Watts and Emma Thompson. This is a very unique project that features Sanchez’s drumming as the main musical ingredient in Iñarritu’s film. It won the Sound Stars Award for best Film Score at the 2014 Venice Film Festival and got nominated for the 2014 Hollywood Music in Media Awards for best original Film Score.

Sanchez’s interest in education has taken him around the globe performing clinics, drum festivals and master classes. Some of these festivals include the “Modern Drummer Festival Weekend”, “Zildjian Day” and the “Montreal Drum Festival” among many others. He was also a professor at the prestigious New York University from 2006-2009 but had to stop due to his hectic touring schedule.

Show engineered, produced, hosted, and edited by Joyce Jones. Listen for our On the Bandstand segment with NYC metro area appearances of Suga’ guests at the end of the first hour with Associate Producer Hank Williams.

Web Extras:

Watch Sanchez’s Migration band perform “New Life” live.



Watch Sanchez and guitarist Pat Metheny collabote on “Go Get It” in this short live clip.



Watch Sanchez demonstrate the Birdman composition process to BBC Radio.

Sunday 5/17/2015 Show: Marc Cary

Photo: Marc Cary.| Credit: Rebecca Meeks.

The next show will air on Sunday, May 17, 2015 from 11:00 PM – 1:00 AM Monday Eastern Standard Time on WBAI, 99.5 FM in the NYC metro area or streaming online at wbai.org. This broadcast will feature an interview with will feature an interview with pianist, keyboardist, producer and composer Marc Cary.

Marc Cary holds tight to his roots in Washington, D.C.’s go-go music scene, but they represent only one element among the myriad. Cary’s interests run from Indian classical to Malian music to hip-hop. He started his career working with Betty Carter, a legendary vocalist famous for drawing soul and sincerity out of her bands, and went on to work with Roy Hargrove, Dizzy Gillespie, Erykah Badu, Shirley Horn, Stefon Harris, Q-Tip and – most influential of all – Abbey Lincoln.

Marc Cary was born in New York City in 1967, but moved to D.C. as a young child. Growing up in a neglected city during the 1970s and ’80s, it was easy to run into trouble – but music remained a steadying force. At 14 he joined the High Integrity Band, a group that practiced the native D.C. art form of go-go, a dance music blending funk, hip-hop, Afro-Caribbean drumming and traditional call-and-response elements. With the help of a city-run public arts program, Let ’Em Play, he learned jazz piano from some of D.C.’s most esteemed musicians and performed professionally during summers.

For high school Cary attended the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, and played in the Dizzy Gillespie Youth Orchestra, based at the storied D.C. jazz club Blues Alley. When Cary took a standout solo during a performance of “A Night in Tunisia,” it caught the ear of Gillespie himself, and from then on the trumpet legend let Cary sit in whenever his band came through D.C.

A fledgling Cary soon came under the wing of that group’s pianist, Walter Davis, Jr., who encouraged him to move to New York City. And after two years of studying at the University of the District of Columbia under the tutelage of renowned trombonist and educator Calvin Jones, Cary did relocate in 1988. Within months of arriving in the jazz capital, he was playing in bands led by Arthur Taylor, Mickey Bass and Betty Carter, all major figures from jazz’s mid-century heyday.

He went on to perform with the Abraham Burton Quartet, then rejoined Betty Carter, and finally ended up alongside Abbey Lincoln. “Going from Betty to Abbey was like going from the street to the theater,” Cary says. With Lincoln, “you had to have that same skill as you needed with Betty, but it was supposed to allow you to not have to do any of the kinds of things Betty always demanded.” From Lincoln he learned the power of simplicity, focus and soul-baring musical poetry.

In 1995, Cary released his debut, Cary On, a striking record that introduced his songwriting talents with grooving originals like “The Vibe” and “So Gracefully.” The album featured an all-star cast including Hargrove and saxophonist Ron Blake. He followed it with 1997’s Listen, then The Antidote in 1998 – both strong displays of Cary’s developing skills as a broad-minded pianist and bandleader. Trillium, released in 1999, found Cary working with longtime collaborators Nasheet Waits on drums and Tarus Mateen on bass (the rhythm section that would soon become the foundation of Jason Moran’s award-winning Bandwagon trio). On Trillium, the only official document of the Cary-Mateen-Waits trio, they pummel past the blues, playing with joy, conviction and heavy-stepping strength over originals and covers of tunes by Miles Davis and Duke Pearson.

By the mid-2000s, Cary had developed a new jazz trio with an intimate rapport. He called it the Focus Trio, and it featured David Ewell on bass and Sameer Gupta on drums and tablas. With this group Cary found a new way to juxtapose his improvisational calmness and equipoise with a pulsing urgency and a sense of searching.

He has kept that curiosity and quest for peace at the forefront of his work with the trio, which released exploratory live albums in 2008 and 2009. And the same spirit has permeated his other projects, from For the Love of Abbey to Cosmic Indigenous. The latest incarnation of the Indigenous People ensemble, Cosmic Indigenous blends Indian classical, go-go and Malian music to form an infectious, danceable, electronically throbbing whole. As a sideman, Cary continues to tour with Stefon Harris, Cindy Blackman, Will Calhoun and other preeminent jazz musicians.

Show engineered, produced, hosted, and edited by Joyce Jones. Listen for our On the Bandstand segment with NYC metro area appearances of Suga’ guests at the end of the first hour with Associate Producer Hank Williams.

WBAI Radio is in the middle of our Spring Fund Drive. Don’t worry: you’ll be getting the same great show as always! But please head on over to WBAI’s Pledge Page and support the station that allows us to do this work.

Web Extras:

Watch Cary’s Focus Trio perform “King Tut Strut” live.



Watch Marc in this live performance with legendary vocalist Abbey Lincoln.



Watch Marc perform “Afro Blue” live at NYC’s Blue Note with drummer Will Calhoun and bassist Charnett Moffett.

Sunday 4/19/2015 show: Vijay Iyer

Photo: Vijay Iyer.| Credit: Bob Doran via Flickr. Creative Commons licensed by photographer.

The next show will air on Sunday, April 19, 2015 from 11:00 PM – 1:00 AM Monday Eastern Standard Time on WBAI, 99.5 FM in the NYC metro area or streaming online at wbai.org. This broadcast will feature an interview with pianist, composer, and educator Vijay Iyer.

Grammy-nominated composer-pianist Vijay Iyer (pronounced “VID-jay EYE-yer”) was described by Pitchfork. as “one of the most interesting and vital young pianists in jazz today,” by the Los Angeles Weekly as “a boundless and deeply important young star,” and by Minnesota Public Radio as “an American treasure.” He was named DownBeat Magazine‘s 2014 Pianist of the Year, a 2013 MacArthur Fellow, and a 2012 Doris Duke Performing Artist. In 2014 he began a permanent appointment as the Franklin D. and Florence Rosenblatt Professor of the Arts in the Department of Music at Harvard University.

The New York Times observes, “There’s probably no frame wide enough to encompass the creative output of the pianist Vijay Iyer.” Iyer has released twenty albums covering remarkably diverse terrain, most recently for the ECM label. The latest include Break Stuff (2015), with a coveted five-star rating in DownBeat Magazine, featuring the Vijay Iyer Trio, hailed by PopMatters as “the best band in jazz”; Mutations (2014), featuring Iyer’s music for piano, string quartet and electronics, which “extends and deepens his range… showing a delicate, shimmering, translucent side of his playing” (Chicago Tribune); and Radhe Radhe: Rites of Holi (2014), “his most challenging and impressive work, the scintillating score to a compelling film by Prashant Bhargava” (DownBeat), performed by International Contemporary Ensemble and released on DVD and BluRay.

Iyer’s trio (Iyer, piano; Marcus Gilmore, drums; Stephan Crump, bass) made its name with two tremendously acclaimed and influential albums, Accelerando (2012) and Historicity (2009). Accelerando was voted #1 Jazz Album of the Year for 2012 in three separate critics polls surveying hundreds of critics worldwide, hosted by DownBeat, Jazz Times, and Rhapsody, respectively, and also was chosen as jazz album of the year by NPR, the Los Angeles Times, PopMatters, and Amazon.com. Iyer received an unprecedented “quintuple crown” in the 2012 DownBeat International Critics Poll (winning Jazz Artist of the Year, Pianist of the Year, Jazz Album of the Year, Jazz Group of the Year, and Rising Star Composer categories), a “quadruple crown” in the JazzTimes extended critics poll (winning Artist of the Year, Acoustic/Mainstream Group of the Year, Pianist of the Year, and Album of the Year), the 2012 and 2013 Pianist of the Year Awards and the 2010 Musician of the Year Award from the Jazz Journalists Association, and the 2013 ECHO Award (the “German Grammy”) for best international pianist. Historicity was a 2010 Grammy Nominee for Best Instrumental Jazz Album, and was named #1 Jazz Album of 2009 in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Detroit Metro Times, National Public Radio, PopMatters.com, the Village Voice Jazz Critics Poll, and the Downbeat International Critics Poll, and the trio won the 2010 ECHO Award for best international ensemble.

Iyer’s 2013 collaboration with poet Mike Ladd, Holding It Down: The Veterans’ Dreams Project, based on the dreams of veterans of color from America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, was hailed as #1 Jazz Album of the Year by the Los Angeles Times and described in JazzTimes as “impassioned, haunting, [and] affecting.” Along with their previous projects In What Language? (2004) and Still Life with Commentator (2007), Holding It Down rounded out a trilogy of politically searing albums about post-9/11 American life. These projects were hailed as “unfailingly imaginative and significant” (JazzTimes) and praised for their “powerful narrative invention and ravishing trance-jazz… an eloquent tribute to the stubborn, regenerative powers of the human spirit” (Rolling Stone).

Iyer’s accomplishments extend well beyond his recordings. His recent composer commissions include “Playlist for an Extreme Occasion” (2012) written for Silk Road Ensemble (and released on their 2013 album A Playlist without Borders); “Dig The Say,” written for Brooklyn Rider and released on their 2014 album Almanac; “Mozart Effects” (2011) and “Time, Place, Action” (2014) for Brentano String Quartet; “Bruits” (2014) for Imani Winds and pianist Cory Smythe; “Rimpa Transcriptions” (2012) written for Bang on a Can All-Stars; “UnEasy” (2011) commissioned by NYC’s Summerstage in collaboration with choreographer Karole Armitage; “Three Fragments” (2011) for Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society. His orchestral work Interventions was commissioned and premiered by the American Composers Orchestra in 2007 under the baton of Dennis Russell Davies. It was praised by The New York Times as “all spiky and sonorous,” and by the Philadelphia City Paper for its “heft and dramatic vision and a daring sense of soundscape.” Other works include Mutations I-X (2005) commissioned and premiered by the string quartet ETHEL; “Three Episodes for Wind Quintet” (1999) written for Imani Winds; a “ravishing” (Variety) score for the original theater/dance work Betrothed (2007); the award-winning film score for Teza (2008) by legendary filmmaker Haile Gerima; a suite of acoustic jazz cues for the sports channel ESPN (2009); and the prize-winning audiovisual installation Release (2010) in collaboration with filmmaker Bill Morrison. Forthcoming commissions include pieces for Jennifer Koh, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and So Percussion. His concert works are published by Schott Music. An active electronic musician and producer, Iyer displays his digital audio artistry on his own recordings Still Life with Commentator, Holding it Down, Mutations, and Radhe Radhe, and in his remixes for British Asian electronica pioneer Talvin Singh, Islamic punk band The Kominas, and composer-performer Meredith Monk.

Iyer was voted the 2010 Musician of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association, and named one of 2011’s “50 Most Influential Global Indians” by GQ India. Other honors include the Greenfield Prize, the Alpert Award in the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, the India Abroad Publisher’s Special Award for Excellence, and numerous critics’ prizes.

Iyer’s many collaborators include creative music pioneers Steve Coleman, Wadada Leo Smith, Roscoe Mitchell, Butch Morris, George Lewis, Amina Claudine Myers, William Parker, Graham Haynes, Miya Masaoka, Pamela Z, John Zorn; next-generation artists Rudresh Mahanthappa, Rez Abbasi, Craig Taborn, Ambrose Akinmusire, Liberty Ellman, Steve Lehman, Matana Roberts, Tyshawn Sorey; Dead Prez, DJ Spooky, Himanshu Suri of Das Racist, High Priest of Antipop Consortium, DJ Val Jeanty, Karsh Kale, Suphala, Imani Uzuri, and Talvin Singh; filmmakers Haile Gerima, Prashant Bhargava, and Bill Morrison; choreographer Karole Armitage; and poets Mike Ladd, Amiri Baraka, Charles Simic, and Robert Pinsky.

A polymath whose career has spanned the sciences, the humanities and the arts, Iyer received an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in the cognitive science of music from the University of California, Berkeley. He has published in Journal of Consciousness Studies, Wire, Music Perception, JazzTimes, Journal of the Society for American Music, Critical Studies in Improvisation, in the anthologies Arcana IV, Sound Unbound, Uptown Conversation, The Best Writing on Mathematics: 2010, and in the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies. Iyer has taught at Manhattan School of Music, New York University, and the New School, and he is the Director of The Banff Centre’s International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music, an annual 3-week program in Alberta, Canada. Iyer recently finished a multi-year residency with San Francisco Performances, cultivating new audiences and working with schools and community organizations. He is a Steinway artist and uses Ableton Live software.

Show engineered, produced, hosted, and edited by Joyce Jones. Listen for our On the Bandstand segment with NYC metro area appearances of Suga’ guests at the end of the first hour with Associate Producer Hank Williams.

Listen to the show for a chance to win a pair of tickets for one of the Vijay Iyer Trio shows at the Jazz Standard during the week of April 22-26th.

Web Extras:

Watch the Vijay Iyer Trio play “Actions Speak” live at the 2012 Winter Jazz Fest!



Watch Vijay Iyer Trio play their fantastic cover of “Human Nature” live for National Public Radio!



Watch Iyer play with TRIO3 in a live set at the 2015 Winter Jazz Fest!

Sunday 4/5/2015 Show: Billie Holiday Centennial!

This show aired on Sunday, April 5, 2015 from 11:00 PM – 1:00 AM Monday Eastern Standard Time on WBAI, 99.5 FM in the NYC metro area or streaming online at wbai.org. This broadcast focused on the life and career of Billie Holiday in celebration of what would have been her 100th birthday and featured interviews with filmmaker Phyllis M. Croom, author and Columbia University professor Farah Jasmine Griffin, and vocalist Nona Hendryx. You can hear a short preview below.

We speak with Dr. Farah Jasmine Griffin, Professor of English and Comparative Literature and African American Studies at Columbia University, the author of If You Can’t Be Free, Be a Mystery – In Search Of Billie Holiday.

We revisit a discussion with Director Phyllis M. Croom of a documentary titled Being Billie: Re-Imagining Billie Holiday. We include an additional discussion with Ms. Croom before she hosted a premiere screening of her film that took place the airing of tonight’s broadcast.

We also spend a little time with composer and vocalist Nona Hendryx as she prepares for an event she’s curating at Harlem Stage titled “Parallel Lives: Billie Holiday & Edith Piaf.”

Billie Holiday was born Eleanora Fagan Gough on Apr 7, 1915 in Baltimore, MD. Billie Holiday’s highly stylized reading of this blues tradition revolutionized traditional pop, ripping the decades-long tradition of song plugging in two by refusing to compromise her artistry for either the song or the band. She made clear her debts to Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong (in her autobiography she admitted, “I always wanted Bessie’s big sound and Pops’ feeling”), but in truth her style was virtually her own, quite a shock in an age of interchangeable crooners and band singers.

Show engineered, produced, hosted, and edited by Joyce Jones. Listen for our On the Bandstand segment with NYC metro area appearances of Suga’ guests at the end of the first hour with Associate Producer Hank Williams.

Sunday 3/22/2015 Show: Carmen Lundy

Photo: Carmen Lundy.| Credit: Sarit Photography via Flickr. Creative Commons licensed by protographer.

The next show will air on Sunday, March 22, 2015 from 11:00 PM – 1:00 AM Monday Eastern Standard Time on WBAI, 99.5 FM in the NYC metro area or streaming online at wbai.org. This broadcast features will feature an interview with composer, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Carmen Lundy. You can hear a short preview below.

Carmen Lundy began her professional career in Miami, FL as a jazz vocalist and composer when there were very few young, gifted and aspiring jazz vocalists on the horizon. Over four decades later, Ms. Lundy is celebrated throughout the world for her vocal artistry and is highly regarded for her jazz innovation.

Currently on the Afrasia Productions label, Lundy released her 14th album in the Fall of 2014. Almost two years in the making, it consists of new original songs by Lundy, and a few very special collaborations. The album features legendary artists – specialists on their respective instruments – including Patrice Rushen, Geri Allen, Randy Brecker, Ada Rovatti, Warren Wolf, Bennie Maupin, harpist Carol Robbins, and Simphiwe Dana, a stunning South African vocalist and composer, among others. Soul To Soul is on several Top Ten Albums of 2014 lists, including Downbeat.

Lundy’s original vocal track of “Show Me A Sign” from her album Solamente was remixed and featured on Terri Lyne Carrington’s Grammy-winning 2011 Mosaic Project.

Lundy has had several Top Ten albums on JazzWeek (Jazz and the New Songbook-Live at The Madrid, Come Home, and Changes) and a #3 spot on Billboard’s Jazz Chart for 23 weeks with her debut album “Good Morning Kiss”. Among her other awards and recognitions, especially rewarding was Miami-Dade’s County Office of the Mayor and Board of County Commissioners proclaiming January 25th “Carmen Lundy Day”, along with handing Ms. Lundy the keys to the City of Miami.

Having recorded more than twelve albums as a leader, Lundy’s far-reaching discography also includes performances and recordings with such musicians as brother and bassist Curtis Lundy, Ray Barretto, Kenny Barron, Bruce Hornsby, Mulgrew Miller, Terri Lyne Carrington, Kip Hanrahan, Courtney Pine, Roy Hargrove, Jimmy Cobb, Ron Carter, Marian McPartland, Regina Carter, Steve Turre, Geri Allen, Robert Glasper, Jamison Ross, Kenny Davis, Darryl Hall, Patrice Rushen and the late Kenny Kirkland. Ms. Lundy’s 2005 release, the hugely successful Jazz and The New Songbook-Live at The Madrid, features some of the jazz world’s best known musicians paying tribute to Ms. Lundy.

Lundy’s work as a vocalist and composer has been critically acclaimed by The New York Times, The Village Voice, The Los Angeles Times, Variety, The Washington Post, Jazz Times, Jazziz, Downbeat and Vanity Fair among many others, as well as numerous foreign publications.

As a composer, Lundy’s catalogue numbers over 100 published songs, one of the few jazz vocalists in history to accomplish such a distinction, and has led to the first publication of The Carmen Lundy Songbook (2007). Her songs have been recorded by such artists as Kenny Barron (“Quiet Times”), Ernie Watts (“At The End Of My Rope”), and Straight Ahead (“Never Gonna Let You Go”). Lundy continues to compose and expand her vast catalogue.

Her own recordings consist of 1985’s Good Morning Kiss (CLR/Afrasia Productions), Moment To Moment (Arabesque/Afrasia Productions), Night And Day (CBS/SONY and re-issued by Afrasia in 2011), Old Devil Moon (JVC), Self Portrait (JVC), Something To Believe In and This Is Carmen Lundy (both for Justin Time), Jazz and The New Songbook – Live at The Madrid (2-disc set and DVD, Afrasia Productions), Come Home (Afrasia), Solamente and the 2012 release Changes (Afrasia Productions). Her newest recording Soul To Soul was almost 2 years in the making, and was released in the Fall of 2014 on Afrasia Productions.

A native of Miami, Florida, Lundy’s path to being one of today’s most talented, respected and sophisticated jazz singers began at age six, with her first piano lessons. She was deeply inspired by her mother who was then lead singer in the gospel group, The Apostolic Singers. Lundy attended The University of Miami as an Opera major, but soon discovered that jazz was where her talent really shone. While working steadily in the Miami Jazz scene, she graduated with a degree in Studio Music and Jazz – one of the first singers to do so. Lundy then moved to New York City in the spring of ’78 and immediately began working in jazz circles throughout the Tri-State area, and from Harlem to Greenwich Village, quickly impressing the notoriously critical jazz cognoscenti and audiences alike.

Teaching, too, is an important activity for Lundy; she’s given Master Classes in Australia, Denmark, Russia, Japan, Switzerland, New York, Washington, D.C., Northern California, Los Angeles and other cities around the world. Since its inception in 1998, Lundy has and continues to participate in Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead Program at The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., as Resident Clinician and guest artist. She has also worked with the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz as guest artist and clinician.

Ms. Lundy is also a gifted actress active in theatre. “Acting,” as she told Dr. Billy Taylor in 2006, “helps me to get more comfortable and acquainted with the art of performance.” She performed the lead role as Billie Holiday in the Off-Off Broadway play “They Were All Gardenias” by Lawrence Holder, as well as the lead role in the Broadway show, Duke Ellington’s “Sophisticated Ladies,” and she made her television debut as the star of the CBS Pilot-Special “Shangri-La Plaza” in the role of Geneva, after which she relocated to Los Angeles, where she currently resides.

Carmen Lundy is also a celebrated mixed media artist and painter, and her works have been exhibited in New York at The Jazz Gallery in Soho, at The Jazz Bakery in Los Angeles, and at a month-long exhibition at the Madrid Theatre in Los Angeles, CA.

Lundy resides in Los Angeles, CA.

We’ll begin the show with a short interview with vocalist Thana Alexa to celebrate her Ode to Heroes CD release event at Subculture in Manhattan on Monday March 23rd.

Show engineered, produced, hosted, and edited by Joyce Jones. Listen for our On the Bandstand segment with NYC metro area appearances of Suga’ guests at the end of the first hour with Associate Producer Hank Williams.

Listen to the show and watch our blog for details on a ticket giveaway for the Schomburg’s Women in Jazz Festival on Mondays March 23rd and 30th.

Web Extras:

Watch Lundy perform “One More River to Cross” live with Steve Turre!



Watch Lundy perform live with pianist Geri Allen at Dizzy’s Club!

Sunday 3/8/2015 show: Sheila Anderson

Photo: Sheila Anderson.

The next show will air on Sunday, March 8, 2015 from 11:00 PM – 1:00 AM Monday Eastern Standard Time on WBAI, 99.5 FM in the NYC metro area or streaming online at wbai.org. This broadcast features an interview with radio host, writer, and promoter Sheila Anderson. You can hear a short preview below.

A native of Buffalo, NY, Sheila Anderson’s unique individual career path began in 1973 at the age of 16 when she was elected New York State Youth President of the NAACP, a position she held for four years under the regime of Roy Wilkins. She then continued on, in 1977, to become a member of the NAACP’s National Board of Directors, staying on until 1981. These fecund years in her young life set the precedent for the leadership and cultural and artistic awareness that she would later unveil in her present career status as a ground breaker in her field.

Anderson moved to New York City in the 1980s to complete a degree at Baruch College and began working in the book publishing field to support herself financially. She began volunteering at Newark, NJ-based WBGO radio, began to spend more time hanging out at the station, and got to meet the staff.

Looking to immerse herself further into Jazz culture, Anderson created “The Art of Jazz,” a weekly 30-minute TV program for Time Warner Cable in New York City. The show earned her a Manhattan Neighborhood Network (MNN) Award for Community Media and featured Jazz luminaries like Ron Carter, Eric Reed, Russell Malone, Regina Carter, Mark Murphy, the late Leon Thomas, Javon Jackson, T. S. Monk, Monty Alexander and Benny Golson. Anderson produced approximately 60 shows during the show’s run.

In 1995, Anderson was hired as an on-air host at WBGO, where she currently hosts “Weekend Jazz After Hours,” airing from 1-6 AM on Saturdays and Sundays. For nine years she hosted “Sunday Morning Harmony” and then “Late Night Jazz” on Saturday evening. Anderson has learned from the musicians whom she plays, “I feel as though radio programming should function much like a live performance. For example one would not want to hear a performance where the group played all ballads. My best shows happen when I am feeling completely free to move with a certain flow and program according to my emotions,” Anderson explains.

Anderson also worked for the Newark Museum, where she worked on their long-running Jazz concert series. She has also been a consultant for Jazzmobile and became known as the emcee for their wildly popular Wednesday evening Grant’s Tomb concerts.

Anderson’s first book, The Quotable Musician: From Bach to Tupac (2003, Allworth Press) features more than one thousand quotations from both famous and obscure musicians from every genre of music, including classical, rock, Latin, country, blues, and hip hop. Special sections pay particular attention to the words of Ron Carter, T.S. Monk, the Beatles, and Benny Golson.

Anderson’s second book, How to Grow As A Musician: What all Musicians Must Know To Succeed (2005, Allworth Press), features interviews with musicians on five topics: personal growth, artistic growth, composing, performing, and the music business. Musicians interviewed include the late Oscar Brown, Jr., the late Ruth Brown, Al Jarreau, Dr. Billy Taylor, Michael Wolff and Eric Reed.

Anderson is on a fellowship at Columbia University in 2015 where she is developing her next book project on the culture and politics of the 1970s.

Show engineered, produced, hosted, and edited by Joyce Jones. Listen for our On the Bandstand segment with NYC metro area appearances of Suga’ guests at the end of the first hour with Associate Producer Hank Williams.

Anderson can be heard most weekends on the WBGO radio airwaves from 1-6 AM Saturday and Sunday mornings. She’ll also be appearing at the 92nd St. Y’s Latin on Lex event on March 12.

Sunday 2/8/2015 show: Marc Ribot

Photo: Marc Ribot at the 2015 Winter Jazz Fest.| Hank Williams. Creative Commons licensed. Some Rights Reserved.

The next show will air on Sunday, February 8, 2014 from 11:00 PM – 1:00 AM Monday Eastern Standard Time on WBAI, 99.5 FM in the NYC metro area or streaming online at wbai.org. This broadcast features an interview with guitarist Marc Ribot. You can hear a short preview below.

Marc Ribot (pronounced REE-bow) was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1954. As a teen, he played guitar in various garage bands while studying with his mentor, Haitian classical guitarist and composer Frantz Casseus. After moving to New York City in 1978, Ribot was a member of the soul/punk Realtones, and from 1984 – 1989, of John Lurie’s Lounge Lizards. Between 1979 and 1985, Ribot also worked as a side musician with Brother Jack McDuff, Wilson Pickett, Carla Thomas, Rufus Thomas, Chuck Berry, and many others.

Rolling Stone points out that “Guitarist Marc Ribot helped Tom Waits refine a new, weird Americana on 1985’s “Rain Dogs”, and since then he’s become the go-to guitar guy for all kinds of roots-music adventurers: Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Elvis Costello, John Mellencamp.” Additional recording credits include Soloman Burke, Neko Case, Diana Krall, Beth Orton, Marianne Faithful, Arto Lindsay, Caetano Veloso, Laurie Anderson, Susana Baca, McCoy Tyner, The Jazz Passengers, Medeski, Martin & Wood, Cibo Matto, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, James Carter, Vinicio Capposella (Italy), Auktyon (Russia), Vinicius Cantuaria, Sierra Maestra (Cuba), Alain Bashung (France), Marisa Monte, Allen Ginsburg, Madeleine Peyroux, Sam Phillips, and more recently Joe Henry, Allen Toussaint, Norah Jones, Akiko Yano, The Black Keys, Jeff Bridges, Jolie Holland, Elton John/Leon Russell and many others. Ribot frequently collaborates with producer T Bone Burnett, most notably on Alison Krauss and Robert Plant’s Grammy Award winning “Raising Sand” and regularly works with composer John Zorn.

Ribot has released over 20 albums under his own name over a 35-year career, exploring everything from the pioneering jazz of Albert Ayler with his group Spiritual Unity (Pi Recordings), to the Cuban son of Arsenio Rodríguez with two critically acclaimed releases on Atlantic Records under Marc Ribot Y Los Cubanos Postizos. His avant power trio/post-rock band, Marc Ribot’s Ceramic Dog (Pi Recordings), continues the lineage of his earlier experimental no-wave/punk/noise groups Rootless Cosmopolitans (Island Antilles) and Shrek (Tzadik). Ribot’s solo recordings include Marc Ribot Plays The Complete Works of Frantz Casseus (Les Disques Du Crepuscule), John Zorn’s The Book of Heads (Tzadik), Don’t Blame Me (DIW), Saints (Atlantic), Exercises in Futility (Tzadik), and his latest Silent Movies released in 2010 on Pi Recordings was described as a “down-in-mouth-near master piece” by the Village Voice and has landed on several Best of 2010 lists including the LA Times and critical praise across the board. 2013 saw the release of “Your Turn” (Northern Spy), the sophomore effort from Ribot’s post-rock/noise trio Ceramic Dog, and 2014 saw the monumental release: Marc Ribot Trio Live at the Village Vanguard (Pi Recordings), documenting Ribot’s first headline and the return of Henry Grimes at the historical venue in 2012 already included on Best of 2014 lists including Downbeat Magazine and NPR’s 50 Favorites.

Ribot has performed on scores such as “The Kids Are All Right,” “Where the Wild Things Are,” “Walk The Line (Mangold),” “Everything is Illuminated,” and “The Departed” (Scorcese).” Marc has also composed original scores including the French film Gare du Nord (Simon), the PBS documentary “Revolucion: Cinco Miradas,” the film “Drunkboat,” starring John Malkovich and John Goodman, a documentary film by Greg Feldman titled “Joe Schmoe,” a feature film by director Joe Brewster titled “The Killing Zone”, and dance pieces “In as Much as Life is Borrowed”, by famed Belgian choreographer, Wim Vandekeybus, and Yoshiko Chuma’s “Altogether Different”. Marc is also currently touring his live solo guitar score to Charlie Chaplin’s “The Kid”, which was commissioned by the NY Guitar Festival and premiered Jan 2010 at Merkin Hall, as well as a program of new arrangements of classic Film Noir scores commissioned by the New School Noir Arts Festival 2011.

Ribot is currently touring with several projects including the Marc Ribot Trio, a free jazz group featuring legendary bassist Henry Grimes and Chad Taylor on drums, his power trio Ceramic Dog with bassist Shahzad Ismaily and drummer Ches Smith, the Philly soul meets the harmolodics of Ornette Coleman’s The Young Philadelphians with Jamaaladeen Tacuma and Calvin Weston, and with Caged Funk, a project of funk arrangements of John Cage’s music featuring Bernie Worrell of Parliament Funkadelic fame.

Show engineered, produced, hosted, and edited by Joyce Jones. Listen for our On the Bandstand segment with NYC metro area appearances of Suga’ guests at the end of the first hour with Associate Producer Hank Williams.

Ribot will be appearing at the Village Vanguard on February 11, 13, and 15th with a variety of ensembles, including John Zorn.

Announcement: Suga’ in My Bowl’s live event–Who Owns Music?–lands the Raw Space in Harlem at 2031 Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard (between 121-122nd Sts.) on Wednesday February 18th 2015. Bassist William Parker, Grammy nominated vocalist René Marie, Jazzmobile and WBGO Radio’s Sheila Anderson, writer/poet Quincy Troupe, and saxophonist/Sista’s Place musical director Ahmed Abdullah converge to answer the question of who owns music and what that means for the future of jazz. It’s a WBAI fundraiser and entry is $15 at the door or a $25 pledge including a year’s WBAI membership! More details on the site soon, but save that date!

Web Extras:

Read our review of the 2015 Winter Jazz Fest with coverage of Ribot and the Young Philadelphians on our blog.

Read the info on the Content Creator’s Coalition mentioned by Marc Ribot on tonight’s show and Zoe Keating’s fight against Google/YouTube’s attempt to strongarm musicians with their new policies.

Watch the Ribot Trio with Henry Grimes and Chad Taylor live in London.



Watch Ribot and the Young Philadelphians tear the roof off the sucka’ live at the 2015 Winter Jazz Fest!



Watch Ribot and Caged Funk live in this short clip from European TV.

Sunday 1/25/2015 Show: Ravi Coltrane

Photo: Ravi Coltrane.| Flickr User Josep Tomás. Creative Commons licensed by photographer. Some Rights Reserved.

The next show will air on Sunday, January 25, 2014 from 11:00 PM – 1:00 AM Monday Eastern Standard Time on WBAI, 99.5 FM in the NYC metro area or streaming online at wbai.org. This broadcast features an interview with critically acclaimed Grammy™ nominated saxophonist Ravi Coltrane. Join us as we discuss Coltrane’s career and his upcoming dates at the Jazz Standard from February 3-8. You can hear a short preview below.

In the course of a twenty plus year career, Coltrane has worked as a sideman to many, recorded noteworthy albums for himself and others and founded a prominent independent record label, RKM.

Born in Long Island, the second son of John Coltrane and Alice Coltrane, Ravi was named after Indian sitar legend Ravi Shankar. He was raised in Los Angeles where his family moved after his father’s death in 1967. His mother, Alice Coltrane, was a significant influence on Ravi and it was he who encouraged Alice to return to performance and the recording studio after a long absence. Subsequently, Ravi produced and played on Alice Coltrane’s powerful, Translinear Light, which was released in 2004.

Ravi has released six albums as a leader. His latest, Spirit Fiction, was released in June of 2012 for the Blue Note label. Additional credits include performances as well as recordings with Elvin Jones, Terence Blanchard, Kenny Baron, Steve Coleman, McCoy Tyner, Jack DeJohnette, Matt Garrison, Jeff ‘Tain’ Watts, Geri Allen, Joanne Brackeem, The Blue Note 7, among others. He is a co-leader of the Saxophone Summit with Joe Lovano and Dave Liebman.

Coltrane lives in Brooklyn, NY and maintains a fast paced touring, recording, composing and performance schedule. He leads the effort to restore the John Coltrane Home in Dix Hills, Long Island and presides over important reissues of his parent’s recordings.

Show engineered, produced, hosted, and edited by Joyce Jones. Listen for our On the Bandstand segment with NYC metro area appearances of Suga’ guests at the end of the first hour with Associate Producer Hank Williams.

Ravi will be leading a quintet at NYC’s Jazz Standard from February 3rd-8th including drummer Jeff “Tain” Watts. There will be a ticket giveaway during the this segment, so don’t miss this opportunity to see this artist LIVE in action. Tune in to the show for a chance to win.

Web Extras:

Watch Ravi play John Coltrane’s “Expression” live with the Saxophone Summit.



Watch Ravi play with McCoy Tyner in this 2012 live version of Tyner’s classic “Fly With the Wind”.

Sunday 1/11/2015 Show: Geri Allen

Photo: Geri Allen.

The next show will air on Sunday, January 11, 2014 from 11:00 PM – 1:00 AM Monday Eastern Standard Time on WBAI, 99.5 FM in the NYC metro area or streaming online at wbai.org. This broadcast features an interview with pianist Geri Allen conducted by special guest host Dr. Farah Jasmine Griffin. This is a rebroadcast of a 2009 show. You can hear a short preview below.

Who is Geri Allen? Just an award winning pianist and composer who is also an Associate Professor at the University of Michigan. “Suga’ In My Bowl” will explore the life and incredible talent of Geri Allen with guest host Farah Jasmine Griffin.

Professor Allen is currently Director of the Jazz Studies Department at the University of Pittsburgh, where she earned a master’s degree in ethnomusicology.

Geri Allen, pianist/composer, bandleader, educator and Guggenheim Fellow, is the first recipient of the Soul Train, Lady of Soul Award for Jazz. In 2011 Geri Allen, was nominated for an NAACP Award for her Timeline, Tap Quartet Project. Allen is the first woman, and youngest person to receive the Danish Jazz Par Prize. She is a cutting edge performing artist, and continues to concertize internationally.

She is a product of the Detroit Public School System, Howard University and the University of Pittsburgh. Allen moved to NYC in 1982 after completing an advanced degree in ethnomusicology from the University of Pittsburgh, and for the past thirty years has recorded, performed and collaborated with some of the most important artists of our time including Ornette Coleman, Ravi Coltrane, George Shirley, Dewey Redman, Jimmy Cobb, Sandra Turner-Barnes, Charles Lloyd, Marcus Belgrave, Betty Carter, Jason Moran, Lizz Wright, Marian McPartland, Roy Brooks, Vijay Iyer, Charlie Haden and Paul Motion, Laurie Anderson, Terri Lynn Carrington and Esperanza Spalding, Hal Wilner, Ron Carter, Tony Williams, Dianne Reeves, Joe Lovano, Dr. Billy Taylor, Carrie Mae Weems, Angelique Kidjo, Mary Wilson and the Supremes, S. Epatha Merkerson, Farah Jasmin Griffin, Howard University’s Afro-Blue and many others.

Allen is a recent recipient of the Howard University Pinnacle Award presented by Professor Connaitre Miller and Afro Blue. Ms. Allen has been a faculty member at Howard University, the New England Conservatory, and the University of Michigan where she taught for ten years.

In 2014, Allen was presented with an Honorary Doctorate of Music Degree by Berklee College of Music in Boston. The Honorable Congressman John Conyers Jr. presented the 2014 Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Jazz Legacy Award to Ms. Allen.

The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra commissioned Geri Allen in 2013, to compose new works for the 50th Anniversary celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King’s iconic “I Have a Dream” speech. She composed a piece “Stones & Streams” a work for orchestra, chorus, piano and narrator.

She is the musical director of the Mary Lou Williams Collective, recording and performing the music of the great Mary Lou Williams, including her sacred work, Mass For Peace. Allen collaborated with S. Epatha Merkerson and Farah Jasmin Griffin on two music theatre projects, “Great Apollo Women”, which premiered at the legendary Apollo Theatre, and “A Conversation with Mary Lou”, which premiered at the Harlem Stage, as an educational component for the Harlem Stage collaboration. The featured artist was Carmen Lundy, and Allen’s long time trio members Kenny Davis and Kassa Overall). The University of Pittsburgh hosted the first ever Mary Lou Williams Cyber Symposium where ViJay Iyer, Jason Moran, and Allen performed a three piano improvisation from Harvard, Columbia and the University of Pittsburgh, in real time using Internet 2 technology.

Geri Allen is the product of a family of educators. Her father Mount V. Allen Jr is a retired Detroit Public School Principal, and her mother Barbara Jean was a defense contract administrator for the U.S. Government. “Our parents insisted my brother and I go to college. We took their advice. I pursued a career as a jazz performer, and completed my undergrad degree at Howard, and my master’s at Pitt. Mount pursued a career as a jazz advocate and presented, completing his masters at Lehigh University. He is currently Director of Operations, at the San Francisco Jazz Center.”

Geri Allen, a mother of three, acknowledges her family for making it possible for her to sustain longevity in a sometimes challenging and always changing field of the music industry.

Allen has enjoyed a very successful over thirty-year performing career as a NYC jazz musician. She has now returned to Pittsburgh to continue her legacy as a cutting edge pianist/composer, recording and performing artist. Allen is just as passionate about her work with her undergrad and graduate students at the University of Pittsburgh, and she firmly believes that “meaningful access to music is one of the keys to success in any field, and music informs our sensitivity to others”. She is a fierce advocate for all children of all ages to have direct hands on access to music, and the creative and empowering process jazz inspires.

Unfortunately, you might have missed the next opportunity to see Ms. Allen at NYC Winter Jazzfest 2015 on January 9 with other former Suga’ guests David Murray and Terri Lyne Carrington. However, you could catch the remainder of the performance of other former Suga’ guests at the JazzFest. Also check our Suga’ blog for the JazzFest cheat sheet and review coverage.

Farah Jasmine Griffin is the William B. Ransford Professor of English, Comparative Literature, and African American Studies at Columbia University, and also served as the Director of the Institute for Research in African American Studies. The author of Clawing at the Limits of Cool, If You Can’t Be Free, Be a Mystery, and Beloved Sisters and Loving Friends, for which she was nominated for an NAACP Image Award. Dr. Griffin previously appeared on the show to talk about Clawing at the Limits of Cool on John Coltrane and Miles Davis’s musical collaboration and as guest co-host for our show with pianist Geri Allen (audio in our archive).

Show engineered, produced, hosted, and edited by Joyce Jones. Listen for our On the Bandstand segment with NYC metro area appearances of Suga’ guests at the end of the first hour with Associate Producer Hank Williams.

Web Extras:

Watch Allen perform live.

Sunday 12/28/14 Show: David Murray

Photo: David Murray plays Nat King Cole “En Español”, Antwerp, Belgium, 2009. | Bruno Bollaert/Flickr. Creative Commons licensed. Some Rights Reserved by photographer.

The next show will air on Sunday, December 28, 2014 from 11:00 PM – 1:00 AM Monday Eastern Standard Time on WBAI, 99.5 FM in the NYC metro area or streaming online at wbai.org. This broadcast features an interview with tenor saxophonist and bass clarinetist David Murray. You can hear a short preview below.

Few musicians in jazz history have proven more vigorously productive and resourceful than David Murray. During the past 40 years, from the moment he first visited New York as a 20-year-old student, playing in a walkup loft, in 1975, Murray has careened forward in a cool, collected, rocket-fueled streak. He has released over 150 albums under his own name and appears on around a hundred other recordings as a guest artist. Yet more impressive than the numbers is the constancy of two abiding achievements: as a tenor saxophonist, he has perfected an instantly recognizable approach to improvisation that even in its freest flights acknowledges the gravity of a tradition he honors more than most; and he has altered the context for his improvisations as an infinite mosaic of musical challenges and explorations. David Murray goes down as a worthy successor for some of the biggest names in jazz, and he is now contributing to the rise of young talents such as Lafayette Gilchrist, Nasheet Waits, and Orrin Evans.

The son of Baptist parents, Murray discovered the Negro spiritual style in the time of Coltrane and during Albert Ayler’s best period. Before setting off on his musical journey, Murray jumped the gun somewhat for a jazz musician. Born in Oakland, he grew up in Berkeley and studied with Catherine Murray (his mother, an organist), Bobby Bradford, Arthur Blythe, Stanley Crouch, and many others until 1975 when he left Ponoma College in Los Angeles for New York, which he made his base.

In New York, he met many new musicians and musical styles: Anthony Braxton, Don Cherry, Julius Hemphill … Within Ted Daniels’ Energy Band, he worked with Hamiett Bluiett, Lester Bowie and Frank Lowe. In 1976, after a first European tour, Murray set up one of his mythical groups, the World Saxophone Quartet with Oliver Lake, Hamiett Bluiett and Julius Hemphill. From Jerry Garcia to Max Roach, via Randy Weston and Elvin Jones, David Murray continued working with ever more artists and making ever more recordings. From 1978 onwards, he entered into a period of intense creativity, one flexible grouping of musicians following on from another.

By the end of the 1990′s, Murray was referred to in terms of fusion, of world music, and even of Pan-Africanism, ever since he took on a backwards tour through the Caribbean and the ‘little’ Americas, via South Africa and Senegal.

At the same time, he was writing film music (W Dubois (1989), Dernier Stade (1996), and Karmen Gaye in 2000), working with the ‘Urban Bush Women’ dance company (Crossing Into Our Promise Land, 1998) and regularly working with Joseph Papp of the New York Public Theatre (Photograph, 1978 and Spell Number in 1979) and with Bob Thiele, founder of Impulse and Red Baron, who became his producer in 1988 and signed him with Columbia. Thiele produced more than ten of Murray’s albums on Red Baron up until his death in 1997.

Murray also likes rearranging the works of great composers, as in his 1997 project The Obscure Work of Duke Ellington (arranged for a big band and a 25-piece string orchestra) or his 1990 re-transcription of a Paul Gonsalves solo work in Tribute to Paul Gonsalves (with the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra).

In addition to this, he has written two operas: The Blackamoor of Peter the Great in 2004 for strings and voices, based on a selection of twenty poems by Pushkin, and The Sysiphus Revue, his 2008 bop opera sung by a gospel choir on an Amiri Baraka libretto.

In 2006, his Black Saint Quartet was reborn with Sacred Ground, featuring vocals by Cassandra Wilson. The album’s compositions pay tribute to one of his most auspicious periods with the mythical Italian label Black Saint, and to the republishing of this entire catalogue in digital format on the major digital download sites.

The Devil Tried to Kill Me (2007) with the Gwo Ka Masters features Blues great Taj Mahal.

David Murray Plays Nat King Cole En Espanol (Motema, 2011) is one of his most improbable and effective projects: an interpretation of two albums that Nat King Cole recorded in Spanish in 1958 and 1962, performing melodies from Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Rio de Janeiro, and Buenos Aires. It demonstrated a tremendous leap in his approach to a world of music that has long fascinated him. The arrangements are imaginative, compelling, and wily, especially in the integration between winds and stings. The band is as tight as a fist and the recording is a high spot in his massive discography.

Murray’s career has been documented on screen in Speaking in Tongues, which follows him for ten years from 1978 to 1988; Jazzman (1997); and Saxophone Man (2007), which follows a year in his life from New York to Pointe-à-Pitre, via Oakland and Paris that reflects the David Murray of today: a citizen of the world.

Murray’s most recent work is a collaboration with Macy Gray. Following their work within the musical project Questlove Afro-Picks (including Tony Allen, Questlove from The Roots, Amp Fiddler), Gray asked David Murray to rearrange a cover song (“Love Lockdown”) from Kanye West for her album Covered. Murray reciprocated by inviting Macy Gray to sing with his big band on Be My Monster Love (Motema Records).

Show engineered, produced, hosted, and edited by Joyce Jones. Listen for our On the Bandstand segment with NYC metro area appearances of Suga’ guests at the end of the first hour with Associate Producer Hank Williams.

The next opportunity to see David Murray LIVE will happen during the marathon nights of the 2015 Winter Jazz Festival on January 9-10, 2015. We’ll have a preview and will be covering the fest on our blog.

Web Extras:

Watch Murray perform live in Poland with the World Sax Quartet in 1998.



Watch Murray and the Black Saint Quartet perform live in Berlin in 2007.



Watch Murray and his Infinity Quartet perform Duke Ellington’s “Solitude” live with Macy Gray.