Mike Jeffers Audio Experience

Mike Jeffers Audio Experience

By Mike JeffersMusicMusic CommentaryMusic Interviews
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Mike Jeffers Audio Experience episodes

  • Episode 078 Chicago Music Revealed with Michael Olatuja
    Bassist Michael Olatuja releases Lagos Pepper Soup: his spectacular blend of West African Afrobeats and jazz, backed by a string orchestra, arranged by iconic film music arranger Dave Metzger, the top orchestrator for Disney, with an International All-Star cast featuring: Angelique Kidjo, Dianne Reeves, Brandee Younger, Lionel Loueke, Regina Carter, Joe Lovano, Laura Mvula, Gregoire Maret, and Becca Stevens.
     
    The London-born, Lagos, Nigeria-raised, New York-based electric and acoustic bassist/composer/bandleader Michael Olatuja has been one of the most inventive and in-demand bassists since the early part of this century. He’s worked and recorded with one hundred artists, from Terence Blanchard, Kurt Elling and Jose James to Stevie Wonder, Shakira, and Bebe Winans, and recorded two CD’s as a leader, Speak (2009), which the website All About Jazz proclaimed was “a propulsive and pleasing record,” and The Promise by The Olatuja Project - a duo with Alicia Olatuja (2011). Nearly five years in the making, Olatuja’s new, twelve-track CD, Lagos Pepper Soup, named after a zesty, West African meal, with lyrics mostly in Yoruba and English, and recorded in London and New York, is his most comprehensive and compelling album to date.
    44 min
  • Episode 077 Chicago Music Revealed with Rudy Royston

    First-call drummer Rudy Royston (Bill Frisell, JD Allen, Dave Douglas) has honed a thoroughly engaging voice as a composer and bandleader. His releases include his compelling debut '303' (2014), the raw and bracing trio follow-up 'Rise of Orion' (2016) and the chamber quintet release 'Flatbed Buggy' (2018). 

    41 min
  • 076 Chicago Music Revealed with Kenny "Beedy Eyes" Smith

    Kenny Smith was unquestionably born into blues royalty. He grew up in the same house where Muddy Waters once lived in Chicago, the home of the blues. Throughout his childhood, Kenny was surrounded by Muddy and his friends, which included his own father, Willie “Big Eyes” Smith (1936-2011). These same blues icons helped mold him into the person and drummer he is today and later in life asked him to provide his famous backbeat on some of the largest and most respected stages and recordings in the world. Kenny has played thousands of live performances to date and has earned the right to wear that royal blues crown. His father, Willie “Big Eyes” Smith, played drums for the Muddy Waters’ Band in the early 1960’s and then again from 1968 through 1980 and was featured on all of Muddy’s Grammy winning albums. Kenny “Beedy Eyes” Smith, one of the best known living blues drummers today, learned 99% of what he knows about drumming from his father and was also inspired by acclaimed drummers: Odie Payne, Fred Below, Earl Phillips, Louie Bellson, S.P. Leary, Francis Clay and Art Blakey, Sonny Payne, Clifton James and many others who paved the way. And with those experiences Kenny has revitalized and created new interpretations of the blues drummers as he pushes blues drumming to new innovative and tradition styles.

    50 min
  • Episode 075 Chicago Music Revealed with Special Guest Greg Dudzienski
    Saxophonist and composer Gregory Dudzienski lives a life of constant motion. After years of travel, he has become a member of Chicago’s strong community of musicians and improvisers. His original music has been featured on the Anagram Series at The Elastic Arts Foundation, the Actual Jazz Series at Cafe Mustache, and the Chicago Jazz Composers Collective At The Green Mill as well as the Is This Jazz Series at AS200 in Providence, Rhode Island, the International Saxophone Symposium in Fairfax, Virginia, and the Salerno Jazz Festival in Salerno Italy.
    Dudzienski was inspired during his youth by the jazz of the late 1950s and 1960s and has since then continued to be influenced by the melodic, harmonic and rhythmic language of that era. Seeking new ways to navigate the spirit of the mid-century jazz language, his music results in a modern aesthetic with strong roots in primary sources.
    26 min
  • Episode 075 Chicago Music Revealed with Special Guest Greg Dudzienski
    Saxophonist and composer Gregory Dudzienski lives a life of constant motion. After years of travel, he has become a member of Chicago’s strong community of musicians and improvisers. His original music has been featured on the Anagram Series at The Elastic Arts Foundation, the Actual Jazz Series at Cafe Mustache, and the Chicago Jazz Composers Collective At The Green Mill as well as the Is This Jazz Series at AS200 in Providence, Rhode Island, the International Saxophone Symposium in Fairfax, Virginia, and the Salerno Jazz Festival in Salerno Italy.
    Dudzienski was inspired during his youth by the jazz of the late 1950s and 1960s and has since then continued to be influenced by the melodic, harmonic and rhythmic language of that era. Seeking new ways to navigate the spirit of the mid-century jazz language, his music results in a modern aesthetic with strong roots in primary sources.
    26 min
  • Episode 073 Chicago Music Revealed with Special Guest Ivy Ford
    Ivy Ford, singer, musician, entertainer. Waukegan born and raised, at 26 she is quite the up and coming artist of the Chicago blues and live music scene. Ivy Ford started performing live with Kenosha based band The Real Deal, managed by Steve Rainey at 13 and since then continues to nurture her niche and calling to the music. She plays piano, alto saxophone, drums, bass guitar and guitar which are primarily self taught. In late 2012, Ford joined a local blues band which in time evolved into Ivy Ford and The Cadillacs and gained fair amounts of popularity.
    46 min
  • Episode 072 Chicago Music Revealed with Special Guest Jerry Roche
    In 2015, Dot Time records launched its “Legends Series” featuring previously unreleased historical recordings from many of the greatest legends of the jazz genre. Dot Time Records believes that these recordings form an important part of the history of jazz and it is our goal to make these recordings available to jazz lovers around the globe. All recordings are painstakingly restored and newly re-mastered with the goal of presenting these recordings in a modern format while striving to keep the original atmosphere of the recordings intact.
    Heading up the Dot Time Records “Legends Series” is jazz historian Jerry Roche. Jerry has a long established track record in the Jazz world. Jerry worked for 13 years with Blue Note subsidiary Mosaic Records, the preeminent Jazz reissue company. During his time at Mosaic, Jerry was involved with the selection of projects and assisted with research, production and packaging. Notable releases included the Grammy Nominated Mosaic Bix Beiderbecke Set (Best Historical Recording) as well as the Venuti/Lang & Prima/Manone sets.
    Releases under the “Legends Series” are available on CD, Vinyl and as digital downloads and come with a comprehensive digital booklet that includes extensive liner notes and images.
    29 min
  • Episode 071 Chicago Music Revealed with Special Guest Orbert Davis
    One of Chicago’s “most admired jazz artists” (Howard Reich, Chicago Tribune), Orbert Davis was named by Chicago Magazine as “Y2k Best Trumpeter in Chicago” and “Chicagoan of the Year for 2002.” In September 2011, Davis was named Artist-In-Residence for the Chicago Jazz Festival, an honor held by only one other Chicagoan in its history.
    29 min
  • Episode 070 Chicago Music Revealed with Special Guest Billy Flynn
    Born in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Flynn is an American Chicago blues and electric blues guitarist, singer and songwriter.
     
    In addition to his own work and works mentioned later, he has worked and recorded with Bryan Lee, Little Smokey Smothers, Mark Hummel, Willie Kent, Snooky Pryor, Big Bill Morganfield, John Brim, Jody Williams, Little Arthur Duncan, Deitra Farr, and Billy Boy Arnold.
     
    In 1970, a local blues club opened and Flynn was inspired by the music provided there by Luther Allison, Johnny Littlejohn and Mighty Joe Young. Flynn was fortunate to be spotted playing outside the venue by Jimmy Dawkins, who arranged for Flynn to play with him on stage. Flynn joined Dawkins's backing band in 1975, and he played and toured with them until the end of the decade.
    44 min

About Mike Jeffers Audio Experience

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Interviews and show previews with national, international and local jazz artists