Bite-Size Jazz

Deanna Witkowski was first drawn to the pianist Mary Lou Williams in 2000 when she was invited to perform at the Kennedy Center for the Mary Lou Williams Festival. Of course she said yes, but she also realized that she was unfamiliar with Mary Lou’s music. That initial listening dive sparked a 20-year exploration of Mary Lou Williams' life and music, now showcased in a book, Mary Lou Williams: Music for the Soul, and an album, Force of Nature.

Force of Nature is the perfect phrase to describe Mary Lou Williams. She was not only an amazing composer and pianist in her own right — musicians like Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, and Dizzy Gillespie learned harmony and composition from her caring mentorship. The names of her students get thrown around in history classes more often than we hear of Mary Lou. But perhaps she deserves a bit more credit than what’s given — especially when we hear startlingly similar harmonies in the compositions of her pupils. The bridge of Monk's "Well You Needn't" is practically interchangeable with the bridge of Mary Lou’s tune “Gjon Mili Jam,” written years earlier. 

Additionally, Mary Lou described herself as an experimentalist, someone who was always doing something new. While critics sometimes decried her exploratory styles, Mary Lou took it as a badge of honor. When critics said, “The problem with Mary Lou is that we can’t pin her down into one category,” she just said, “That’s the point.”

Deanna Witkowski shares more about Mary Lou’s life and music in this interview with Bite-Size Jazz. Deanna talks about her connection with Mary Lou as a fellow adult convert to Catholicism, their jazz masses, and digs into Mary Lou’s “Zodiac Suite.”

Resources:

Learn more about Mary Lou Williams in Deanna Witkowski’s book, Mary Lou Williams: Music for the Soul. You can find Deanna’s album Force of Nature anywhere you stream music, it’s also available for purchase from Deanna’s website.

Loving the podcast? Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and to follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. We’d love to connect with you!

Everybody has heard solo piano concerts and solo guitar gigs. But how often do you listen to solo trombone music?

After listening to Nick Finzer’s latest album Out of Focus, you'll think about listening to solo trombone more often. Whether it’s a solo arrangement of Duke Ellington’s “A Single Petal of a Rose” or a 15 trombone arrangement of “Mood Indigo” (with all parts except bass trombone played by Finzer), Out of Focus gives the trombone a whole new dimension.

But how do you write for 15 trombones anyways? Or how do you add texture to an arrangement for a single-note instrument? As jazz musicians, it’s easy to fall into a trap of cramming as much as you can into any given song. But the truth is, you probably don’t need to play 17 choruses on that ballad. Nick reminds us that sometimes stripping a song back to the original melody IS unique — and maybe it’s all you really need.

Listen to the full interview with trombonist Nick Finzer to hear his input on great arranging. He also discusses how his company, Outside in Music, is helping artists release music without breaking the bank, and why setting aside time to be creative matters.

Resources

Learn more about Nick Finzer or his company Outside in Music on their websites. You can find Out of Focus wherever you stream music — it’s also available for purchase from Amazon music. 

Enjoying Bite-Size Jazz? You can support the podcast by Buying Me a Coffee! You can also leave a review, subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. I’d love to connect with you!

Drummer Charles Goold has been playing gigs for a long time — since he was 11, in fact. It started with sitting on his father's gigs at Small's Jazz Club. His dad, Ned Goold, is an acclaimed saxophonist, best known for playing in Harry Connick Jr.'s band. When they couldn't find a babysitter, Ned would bring Charles and his brother to the smoke-filled club to watch his gigs with the great jazz musicians of the 90s. Ned let Charles sit in on a tune here and there at first, but by the time he was 13, Charles held the drum chair for those weekly gigs.

Now he's getting ready to release his second album, Rhythm in Contrast. The general concept of the album is exactly how it sounds: music with contrasting rhythms and styles. As you listen through the full album, you’ll notice that no two tracks sound the same, with styles switching between every song — sometimes even switching during the song, like in the tune "Resisting Arrest."

"Resisting Arrest" pulls together multiple styles for a pan-African groove. Charles explains that people within the African diaspora and community tend to draw lines to separate themselves from one another. People from Africa separate themselves from African Americans. Caribbeans separate themselves from Africans and African Americans. Even within the Caribbean, Latinos separate from those with darker skin.

“But at the end of the day when you’re pulled over or you’re going through something with the police, they don’t see all those differences. They just see African, dark skin, Latino — and they’re gonna say, ‘He or she was resisting arrest’”

Charles blends styles like a 6/8 bembe and West African groove, a bluesy, swing groove, and a Caribbean/Latin groove. The song brings a unification of sound and style that he hopes society can find among themselves.

"Lo's Lament" is dedicated to a dear friend and mentor, the late Lawrence "Lo" Leathers. Lawrence was known as the first-call drummer for Cecile McLorin Salvant, a friend to all on the New York jazz scene, and a big brother to Charles. "Some people say, 'What would Jesus do?' I ask myself when I'm on a gig, 'What would Lawrence do?'" "Lo's Lament" captures the cool, smooth vibe that Lawrence brought wherever he went.

Resources

Learn more about Charles Goold on his website, and check out "Lo's Lament" and "Resisting Arrest."

Enjoying Bite-Size Jazz? You can support the podcast by Buying Me a Coffee! You can also leave a review, subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. I’d love to connect with you!

THANK YOU listeners for supporting Bite-Size Jazz and these amazing artists! Thanks for joining the Bite-Size Jazz community and watching the podcast grow over these last 12 months. And THANK YOU to the wonderful artists who opened up about your lives, careers, and compositions and willingly shared your wisdom with listeners around the globe. 

This week's episode shares just a few highlights from the interviews during 2021. It's not even close to capturing all the incredible interviews — but we would love for you to peruse the episodes available and see if there's anyone you missed. Find someone you're not familiar with, check out their music on Spotify or Apple Music. Or better yet, support their music by buying their album! 

The highlights featured are from:

Cyrille Aimée & Michael Valeanu - Episode 40

Lucy Yeghiazaryan & Vanisha Gould - Episode 50

Ulysses Owens Jr. - Episode 36

Jeremy Pelt - Episode 44

Jazzmeia Horn - Episode 51 

Find all our episodes on the Bite-Size Jazz website or your favorite podcast streaming service.

Jazz vocalist Olivia Van Goor says one of the best pieces of advice she’s ever received is, “In the beginning, no one will be asking you to do things, so you just have to do them yourself.” Previously, she was under the impression that she needed to be asked to do things like record, or maybe she would just get a lucky break. This piece of advice gave Olivia the motivation to save up money for studio time, form her own jazz group, experiment with arrangements, line up a recording engineer and a mixing and mastering engineer — and this was just the start. Working as an independent artist isn’t easy, but Olivia knows she’s earned every ounce of praise the album has received.

You hear Olivia’s original imprint most on her arrangement of “Hershey Bar.” She was inspired by Anita O’Day’s recording on the album Cool Heat — and her own sweet tooth. Musicians have a rap for vices like drugs and alcohol. But the only substance Olivia can’t get enough of is chocolate. She says the obsession has toned down a bit over the years, but she still carries some with her at all times. It’s become a running joke at jam sessions. Someone will ask, “Hey, you got some chocolate?” and she immediately starts passing it around. Olivia is the first musician to put lyrics to the tune of “Hershey Bar,” and she says they came pretty easily. The lyrics compare the sweetness of chocolate to the sweetness of love.

Another standout tune on the album is Oliva’s recording of “Lilac Wine.” The song is originally from a failed Broadway musical, but a recorded version by Nina Simone captured Olivia’s attention. While the Broadway interpretation was a quite literal translation of the lyrics, Nina’s version hinted at a deeper, darker meaning. A few weeks before the recording date, Olivia realized that she needed to find her own deeper meaning to the song. She practiced an exercise from Jazzmeia Horn’s book Strive From Within: The Jazzmeia Horn Approach. She read the lyrics like a monologue, recording herself until the meaning of the song seeped into the words and she uncovered her own personal story hidden in the lyrics. Olivia says she can hear herself getting emotional when she listens back to that recording. She carries that story into the music whenever she performs.

Resources

Learn more about Olivia Van Goor on her website. You can find When the Shadows Fall anywhere you stream music. It’s also available for purchase from Amazon Music or Bandcamp. You can stay up to date with Olivia’s musical journey by following her on social media!

Enjoying Bite-Size Jazz? You can support the podcast by Buying Me a Coffee! You can also leave a review, subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. We’d love to connect with you!

Steven Feifke and Benny Benack III don’t have a typical arranger-singer relationship. That’s because they’re not just a typical arranger or singer — Benny also is an incredible trumpet player who writes his own lead sheets for his quartet, and Steven is an incredible pianist and composer (check out his recently released big band album, Kinetic). Thus, it’s not “singer who stands in front and has nothing to do with composing” and “arranger who just cranks out charts without any artist preferences.” Their album, Seasons Swinging Greetings, showcases the intertwining talents of composing, arranging, and writing lyrics.

For instance, Steven tweaked the form on Benny’s original song “My Girlfriend is an Elf.” Normally, he’s much more conservative about changing the form of someone’s song. But because he and Benny are such close friends, he wasn’t afraid to propose the change that made the orchestration line up better. When Steven was hitting a wall for the lyrics on his original composition “When Christmas Time Comes Around,” he turned to Benny. Benny listened to Steven’s idea and found the words to bring the story to life. They help complete each other’s musical ideas without sacrificing the original vision.

This rare musical partnership was forged from years of living as roommates. Benny remembers the days when Steven was so busy writing charts that he would only emerge from his room to make more coffee. Finally, after three days he would sit on the couch with a sigh of relief and say, “I just had to arrange 12 big band charts.” Steven remembers when Benny would come home from a gig and immediately begin practicing again. It’s one thing if you’re getting home from a gig at 7pm. When you get home from a gig at 11pm — that means you’re practicing until two or three in the morning. Clearly, they both have an outstanding drive and work ethic.

Listen to the full interview with Steven Feifke and Benny Benack III to learn more about their latest album, Seasons Swinging Greetings. They talk about the inspiration behind their original tunes, why they were excited about including several Hanukkah songs, and what they love about working together. Plus, they share their favorite holiday traditions and we debate about which Christmas movie is better: Elf or Home Alone.

Resources

Learn more about Benny Benack III and Steven Feifke on their websites. Physical copies of the music are available now. The digital version will be available December 22.

Enjoying Bite-Size Jazz? You can support the podcast by Buying Me a Coffee! You can also leave a review, subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. We’d love to connect with you!

Episode Rewind

Nicolas King - Episode 31 & James Hudson - Episode 29

Todd Mosby’s love for Indian music was born in a small shop near his home. After school he would hang out in the store, smelling the sweet incense and listening to records from great Indian artists. The chance of a lifetime came when the legendary sitarist Imrat Khan moved to Todd’s hometown of St. Louis, Missouri. What Bach’s family did to western classical music — Imrat’s family did to Indian music. They totally changed its course. Todd jumped at the opportunity to take lessons with Imrat, which led to a 13-year intense study of Classical North Indian Music. Todd describes it as a student-disciple model, learning the philosophy, history, spirituality of the music. It may have cost more than any post-graduate education — but Todd wouldn’t trade it for anything.

A few years into these lessons, Todd recognized he needed a new instrument to blend the eastern styles he was learning with the western music he’s always known. Together with Imrat Khan and luthier Kim Schwartz, the trio came up with a new type of instrument to combine the best features of a sitar and a guitar. The new Imrat Guitar has contemporary harp guitar strings pitched above the 1st string, rather than below the 6th string, 11 sympathetic strings, 2 necks, 3 chikara strings, 4 playing strings, and Javari. The result is a beautiful, inspiring sound.

You can hear Todd play the Imrat Guitar on his latest album, Aerial Views. The music was inspired by many hours spent flying with his father, who was a pilot. Songs like “Gliding” and “Into Starlight” lift you into the clouds, soaring effortlessly through the sky without being tied down to earth. Todd reminisces on the breathtaking views from a small plane 10,000 feet up — views we usually miss on the commercial planes, which fly much higher. Aerial Views invites you to let go and freely soar on the wings of Todd's music.

Resources

Learn more about Todd Mosby on his website, You can find Aerial Views anywhere you stream music. It’s also available for purchase from Amazon Music. 

Enjoying Bite-Size Jazz? You can support the podcast by Buying Me a Coffee! You can also leave a review, subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. We’d love to connect with you!

Episode Rewind

Jacques Schwarz-Bart - Episode 32 & Aaron Goldberg/Yes! Trio - Episode 08 

Alex Hamburger’s latest album And She Spoke is inspired by many powerhouse women in history. But first and foremost, And She Spoke is inspired by Alex’s grandmother, a stalwart educator, and activist during the military dictatorship in Paraguay. Her grandmother built a school all by herself at the age of 20 to teach children in a poor, rural community with no other chance for education. She outright refused to teach what the dictator told her to, and when soldiers came to take away teachers, she refused again. Her grandmother started a nationwide movement for academic integrity, which became part of the general movement for social justice in the country. Talk about an incredible woman.

When Alex came across a book of poetry her grandmother had written, she knew she had to do something with it. “La Desesperación es la Pasión Verdaderamente Humana” captures the essence of her grandmother’s poetry: deep and on the edge of being dark. The poem that inspired “La Desesperación” says that desperation is true human passion. Only human beings feel such deep emotion that is so tragic and beautiful at the same time.

Alex’s grandmother’s poetry is joined by words from Maya Angelou, Sylvia Plath, and more. Alex also includes compositions from trailblazing women in jazz such as Mary Lou Williams and Geri Allen. Alex contemplates the parallels between the two: strong, black women from different generations who were THERE, backbones of a scene, and passing on the music through education — and yet so few people know their names. Women like Mary Lou Williams and Geri Allen created a space for jazz musicians to continue creating to this day. Alex pays homage to them through recordings of “What’s Your Story Morning Glory” and “Unconditional Love.”

Listen to the full interview with flutist, composer, and vocalist Alex Hamburger to learn more about the stories and poetry behind her music. She also discusses her year-long artist residency in Switzerland just before recording this album, the incredible musicians in her band, and what it means to her to be a strong woman.

Resources

Learn more about Alex Hamburger on her website, You can find And She Spoke anywhere you stream music. It’s also available for purchase from Amazon Music.

Enjoying Bite-Size Jazz? You can support the podcast by Buying Me a Coffee! You can also leave a review, subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. We’d love to connect with you!

Episode Rewind

Emmet Cohen: Future Stride - Episode 25 & Gretchen Parlato: Flor - Episode 21 

Bassist Michael Feinberg's latest album takes you through the wild ride of the pandemic. Waking up “Every. Damn. Day” to the horrible news cycle of police brutality and out-of-control politicians, feeling a little “Janky in the Middle” of it all, and mostly just hoping you can see the light at the end of these “Hard Times.”

But Michael’s music finds order in the chaos. Take the aforementioned tune “Every. Damn. Day. (Burn it Down Blues)” as an example. It’s forged from two seemingly unrelated themes, which build into a musical mayhem. However, the most chaotic section is also the part that feels the most constant. In between each repetition of the theme, there’s a wide range of emotions: sweet, harsh, or aggressive. But in the end, the music always returns to the same theme. There's a consistency in the disarray — just the same as we must start the day over, and over, and over again amidst the turmoil of life.

Michael explains that there is a constant duality in life. In order for balance to exist, you must have an equal amount of all ingredients. If you have sections of loud dynamics, you need sections of quiet sensitivity. When you have long moments of tonal music, you crave the sound of dissonance. In life, you must taste bitter to know the sweet. And while the album takes us through the ups and downs of life, it ends on a positive note with the title track. This soulful recording celebrates coming to the end of “Hard Times” — making it through the trauma to experience achievement and success. The harder you work for it, the sweeter the reward.

Listen to the full interview with Michael Feinberg to learn more about his album Hard Times. He talks in-depth about his phenomenal band, his compositional process, and why he’s dressed as a cowboy on the album cover.

Resources

Learn more about Michael Feinberg on his website, You can find Hard Times anywhere you stream music. It’s also available for purchase from Amazon Music.

Enjoying Bite-Size Jazz? You can support the podcast by Buying Me a Coffee! You can also leave a review, subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. We’d love to connect with you!

Episode Rewind

Lezlie Harrion: Soul Book Vol. 1 - Episode 33 & Jane Monheit: Come What May - Episode 27

Fame can be a pleasant surprise

When Freda Payne recorded “Band of Gold” for Invictus Records in 1969, she didn’t think much of it — until it catapulted her to the top of the charts in 1970. Even today, it’s still considered one of the top 100 songs of the 70s. But Freda Payne’s roots are in jazz — she recorded her very first album for Impulse! Records (known for recording jazz legends such as John Coltrane and Duke Ellington) and ever since 2014, she’s returned to those roots with her recordings. Her latest album Let There Be Love features jazz masters of today like Kurt Elling and Dee Dee Bridgewater, along with long-time legend Johnny Mathis and R&B, soul, and jazz star Kenny Lattimore.

Arrangements for Let There Be Love were crafted by Grammy Award-winning composer and bandleader Gordon Goodwin, with some suggestions from Freda Payne. When Gordon presented his original arrangement of the title track, Freda said, “This one’s going to be a duet with Kenny Lattimore, a real R&B star. I want it to be FUNKY, put some spice in it.” Gordon re-arranged the tune once more — the way you hear it on the album now. Freda also contributed the idea of piecing together “Moanin” by Bobby Timmons and John Hendricks with “Doodlin” by Horace Silver. The clever interplay comes to life in a duet with jazz vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater. Freda doesn’t shy away from scatting either — “It’s All Right With Me” features Freda trading melodies with the big band, and “Our Love is Here to Stay” showcases a stunning scat battle between Kurt Elling and Freda.

Listen to the full Bite-Size Jazz interview to hear Freda’s stories about coming up on the jazz scene in New York in her early 20s, traveling the world, and the healthy habits that have kept her voice powerful even into her late 70s.

Birdland Jazz Club will present Freda Payne in her album release concert “Let There Be Love” for one show only on Monday, November 22 at 7:00 PM ET. For reservations, please call (212) 581-3080 or visit www.BirdlandJazz.com.

Resources

Learn more about Freda Payne on her website, You can find Let There Be Love anywhere you stream music. It’s also available for purchase from Amazon Music.

Enjoying Bite-Size Jazz? You can support the podcast by Buying Me a Coffee! You can also leave a review, subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. We’d love to connect with you!