KNKX Studio Sessions

“You gotta have a groove.” That’s where everything starts with the music of saxophonist/vocalist Mindi Abair and her accomplices, the Boneshakers, led by guitarist/vocalist Randy Jacobs. Give these players a good groove and they’re gone. And after all their years of performing, they know a good’un when they hear it. The Boneshakers go all the way back to the 1980s when Jacobs and vocalist, Sweet Pea Atkinson formed the nucleus for the band, Was/Not Was. Meanwhile, over the past couple of decades

From the moment he peeped into the orchestra pit at the Pacific Northwest Ballet's annual "Nutcracker" performance, Eric Verlinde has been driven with the desire to play music. These days, he's doing just that — and lots of it. Boasting one of the busiest gigs calendars in town, you'll find Eric working Sunday nights at El Gaucho with singer Josephine Howell, Monday nights on the same stage playing solo, and every Tuesday night he leads one of the city's favorite jam sessions at the Owl &

The Phil Sparks/Adam Kessler band has been playing live jazz at the Barca Lounge on Capitol Hill for more than 10 years now, and just released "Live at Barca, Vol 1" to celebrate. The album features live recordings from Kessler and bassist Phil Sparks, along with lots of their friends who join them on this long running regular Thursday-night gig. Though Sparks was unable to play our studio session this time around, Kessler built his band with Geoff Harper, the "other" bassist on the new release,

Tim Kennedy is one of the shining stars of the current Northwest jazz scene, and jazz is just the beginning. You’ll find him playing classic rock in the group Hot Rod, electric keys in the modern jazz trio Gravity, doing solo gigs as pianist, guitarist and/or singer, and often embracing electronic dance music as his alter ego Richie Aldente. He’s also on electric keys alongside organist Joe Doria in one of Seattle’s hottest young groups, The Happy Orchestra, and featured two of those players –

Singer Nancy Erickson recently received her masters in music education, but live in the knkx studios, she was anything but a reserved academic. She told us about singing in her early days, taking time off to raise a family, and a return to form inspired by audiences in a Woodinville club that led her back to a life in jazz. Thanks, Woodinville! Starting her session with her own tune, "New Years Eve" - a song written for her parents' anniversary transformed into jazzy pop magic - then into Duke

The KNKX studios got a Danish treat when we welcomed singer Sinne Eeg and her pianist friend Jacob Christoffersen. Traveling through the Seattle area for a third time for a series of intimate house concerts, Sinne told us she enjoys an intimate concert setting, and shared a funny story about primitive conditions at a remote Chinese jazz club she worked early in her career. Though Sinne's English seemed fluent, she told us that when writing songs, she still mostly leaves lyrics to others, and had

No wonder they do a lot of wedding gigs - Sundae + Mr. Goessl (the stage act name for singer Kate Voss and her guitarist/songwriter husband Jason Goessl) have a natural romantic chemistry that comes through in the throw-back songs of a time long past. In fact, we learned in our interview that it was their considerable musical talent that first attracted them to each other. Hot on the heels of their recent Christmas album "Santa, Won't You Bring Me a Ring," they skipped the holiday tunes for

For at least a decade, gypsy jazz group, Pearl Django, has performed at Seattle’s Jazz Alley on the first days (well — evenings) of the new year. For the past few years, the groups’ guest has been Seattle vocalist, Gail Pettis. Also for the past few years, 88.5 has had these folks in for a ‘first of the new year’ live studio session. Is this the beginning of knkx New Year's tradition? We hope so. In this ‘first of 2017’ session, Pearl Django, Gail, and drummer D’Vonne Lewis had a great time,

KNKX welcomed a second performance of the trio Tyrant Lizard , just as the band released their self-titled debut album, and the new release from the group's guitarist Gregg Belisle-Chi, "I Sang To You and the Moon." It was also the last few days for two-thirds of the band here in the Northwest - bass player Carmen Rothwell was returning to New York City and Belisle-Chi was days away from making the move himself. This left trumpet player Raymond Larsen to reassure us, a few thousand miles doesn't

One of the leading flugelhorn players in jazz dropped into the knkx studios to celebrate his recent album "Jazz Noir," and to play three cool tunes with his now-Northwest neighbors. We hope to see and hear a lot of Dmitri Matheny since he relocated to Centralia, Wash. recently. Teaming with Seattle stalwarts Jay Thomas, Bill Anschell, Phil Sparks and D'Vonne Lewis, we were treated to a beautiful and dramatic medley of film music from his latest, as well as his original tune "Perfect Peaches" and