Jazz Beat

Tom Reney spoke with drummer Joe Farnsworth about his new album, TIME TO SWING. In his liner note essay for the album, veteran drummer Billy Hart describes Farnsworth as "one of the rhythm philosophers.” Listen here for the South Hadley, Massachusetts native discussing his experiences working with Junior Cook, Harold Mabern, Lou Donaldson, Cecil Payne, Eric Alexander and Wynton Marsalis.

Tom Reney interviewed Sonny Rollins in August 2020 for a project honoring Yusef Lateef’s centennial. Sonny enjoyed a long friendship with Yusef, and he considers the late saxophonist a mentor and spiritual inspiration. The 90-year-old Saxophone Colossus also discusses his groundbreaking work of 1958, THE FREEDOM SUITE, and elaborates on interviews he’s recently given The New York Times and The New Yorker about living by the Golden Rule.

Tom Reney spoke with Paul Arslanian on May 6 about his career in jazz. Paul is a veteran pianist who's been a highly visible figure in jazz in Western Massachusetts since 1984. In 2010, he was a co-founder of the Northampton Jazz Workshop, and since then, he's produced a series of weekly performances that feature a guest artist who plays with the Northampton-based Green Street Trio. Arslanian is the Trio's pianist, which also includes bassist George Kaye and drummer Jon Fisher.

Jazz a la Mode host Tom Reney interviewed Lee Konitz in 2004 before concerts he was playing in Northampton and Cambridge. Konitz died from Covid-19 related pneumonia on April 15 at age 92. He was still touring and recording until social distancing began in March. A major figure in his own right, the Chicago-born saxophonist was associated over the course of his 75-year-long career with the jazz greats Miles Davis, Lennie Tristano, Stan Kenton, Bill Evans, and Brad Mehldau.

Champian Fulton was hailed by Francis Davis in the Village Voice in 2007, the year of her debut recording, as "the best new singer I've heard this year-- make that several years." Mark Stryker in the Detroit Free Press called her "the most gifted pure jazz singer of her generation." And Nate Chinen in the New York Times said, "she's a charming young steward of the mainstream jazz tradition." Jazz a la Mode co-host Bex Taylor said of the Norman, Oklahoma, native's recent concert in South Hadley, MA, "I loved her set. She was so charming and told some great stories."

Tom Reney spoke with Bennie Wallace for Jazz Beat a few days before concerts that the veteran tenor saxophonist was scheduled to play in Connecticut in October 2019.

Jazz Beat host Tom Reney appeared on Open Source with Christopher Lydon on WBUR. They discuss jazz and r&b and classical music and Tom Reney reveals eight essential recordings and one book that he would take to a desert island.

Jazz Beat 44 is devoted to Tom Reney's appreciation of the blues singer and guitarist T-Bone Walker.

As with many of you, my Aretha Franklin vigil began with the news of August 13 that she'd entered hospice, and for the next two days I posted some reflections on Lady Soul on Facebook. Then on what proved to be the eve of her death, I listened to her throughout a three-hour drive to Cape Cod and could hardly contain myself. Hers is simply the most powerful-- and versatile-- voice of my lifetime. The line that's resonated most for me over the past ten days is from her 1968 song, "Since You've Been Gone (Sweet Sweet Baby)," where Aretha pleads, "If you walk in that door, I can get up off my knees." For as deeply and inexorably as she was tied to the civil rights and women's liberation movements (Martin Luther King was a family friend at whose funeral she sang "Precious Lord, Take My Hand;" "Respect" galvanized feminists), her music was mostly about the wages of love and the pain of abandonment. A simple note of appreciation sent last week by a 70-year-old female friend underscored what made Ree's pleas so universal: "Boy, did she ever get me through some tough times."

Tom Reney pays memorial tribute to Charles Neville on this edition of Jazz Beat.