Jazz Northwest

This week's Jazz Northwest features some of our favorite CD releases from 2019 by resident Northwest Jazz artists. Included on the show are selections by Kiki Valera, Xavier Lecouturier, Kelley Johnson, Chuck Deardorf, Marina Albero, and others. Jazz Northwest is recorded and produced by host Jim Wilke and airs Sundays at 2 p.m. Listeners may also subscribe to the podcast at KNKX, NPR, Apple , Google or Spotify .

One of the Seattle area's best-known singers, Greta Matassa is featured in concert from the Seattle Art Museum on this episode of Jazz Northwest. Named to the Seattle Jazz Hall of Fame and seven times Earshot Vocalist of the Year, Greta Matassa has produced 11 CDs. She tours nationally and has also performed abroad. She sings several songs from her most recent CD "Portrait" on this concert. Greta Matassa is in demand as a jazz vocal teacher as well and provides an opportunity for deserving young

Holiday music by regional jazz artists and some highlights from The Sacred Music of Duke Ellington as performed by The Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra last year at St. Mark's Cathedral in Seattle. The SRJO with chorus and soloists will perform the Ellington Sacred Music again on December 28 this year at Town Hall Seattle. This week's Jazz Northwest also includes seasonal music by Don Lanphere, B3 Kings, Karin Plato, Greta Matassa, Anton Schwartz and Dave Peterson and best bets for live jazz in

In November concerts, The Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra played big band Jazz of the Harlem Renaissance. This is music created by some of the greatest African-American jazz orchestras led by Jimmy Lunceford, Horace Henderson, Fletcher Henderson, Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington and others. It comes from a period in the 1920s and 30s known as The Harlem Renaissance, a great flowering of the arts in Harlem, NYC, including music, poetry, literature, painting, and dance. Jazz Big Bands regularly

Live Seattle radio broadcasts by Johnny Griffin and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis from 1962 provide source material for a new release on the Reel to Real label from Vancouver BC. The broadcasts were part of a long-running weekly radio series featuring major touring jazz artists from the Pioneer Square jazz club. Two complete half-hour broadcasts are presented back to back on the new release "OW!" which was just released on a limited edition double vinyl LP on Record Store Day/Black Friday, and the

Singer Gillian Margot and pianist Geoffrey Keezer performed as a duo on the last night of the 2019 Centrum's Jazz Port Townsend and their concert will air on this week’s episode of Jazz Northwest. Together, they performed a selection of songs including some of their original songs as well as popular standards by Jimmy Webb, Michel LeGrand and Stevie Wonder. Gillian Margot and Geoffrey Keezer included some songs from their 2018 album "On My Way To You." Both were on the jazz faculty for the Jazz

On the eve of what would be her 91st birthday, Ernestine Anderson is remembered with a selection of early, middle and late career recordings this Sunday on Jazz Northwest. In a career spanning more than six decades, she made over 30 albums and received four Grammy nominations. She began in Seattle at Garfield High School with Bumps Blackwell's Youth band which included Quincy Jones and Ray Charles. She went on to perform at the greatest jazz venues, Concord and Monterey Jazz Festivals in

Tenor sax "battles" have been a tradition in jazz since the late 30s and pairing tenor saxophonists with contrasting styles has continued to the present day. Usually, more of a friendly exchange than a battle per se, two examples recorded in Seattle in 1962 and 2009 are featured on this week's episode of Jazz Northwest .

Pianist and composer Ann Reynolds has been traveling to Cuba since 2000, engaging with the music, dance, culture and the people. Return trips have fueled her creativity and she has now produced two albums of her original music inspired by her travels. She brought her quintet Clave Gringa to the Art of Jazz series at the Seattle Art Museum this month.

The Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra opened its 25th anniversary season with concerts in Seattle's Benaroya Hall and the Kirkland Performance Center last weekend. The program in both locations featured music from a 1961 album that brought the Count Basie Orchestra and the Duke Ellington Orchestra together in a recording studio for the first and only time. They shared repertoire and soloists from both bands and many selections recorded that day were performed in these concerts by the SRJO.