Hey everyone welcome back to the Nikhil Hogan Show, the show interviewing the best musicians in the world and what a treat today, I’m so thrilled to introduce my guest, Pianist, Composer, Arranger, and Teacher, Isaac Raz!

Isaac Raz holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Jazz Composition and Music Synthesis from the Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA, and is a recipient of the Duke Ellington Award. He received his Master of Arts in Teaching degree in Music Education from Lehman College, Bronx, NY, and is a recipient of the Joseph Dellicarri fund award.

In 1993 he composed the musical score for the Emmy Award winning documentary film “Pioneer Women”. In 2000 Isaac worked with jazz record producer Teo Macero, playing keyboards and programming tracks for his “Impressions of Miles Davis” album featuring Vernon Reid, David Leibman, Lew Soloff, and Lincoln Goinnes. His arranging skills have been utilized on many pop music recordings, including Zomba Record’s gold selling R&B artist Joe. Isaac continues to work as a composer, creating music for film, TV, and educational applications. His Jazz and pop groups have played throughout the US and abroad featuring his own compositions as well as popular music of all styles.

In the NY Jazz scene, Isaac is an 8 year veteran of Barry Harris’ weekly tuesday workshop and a great proponent of Barry Harris’ method. He is the founder of Whole Music LLC, and runs a fast growing Youtube channel.

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2:07 What’s your musical background? 3:06 Do you have Absolute or Perfect Pitch? 3:57 What was your development like in Berklee leading up to the Barry Harris workshop? 5:26 Are you talking about chord scales and modes? 6:47 What was your first day like in the Barry Harris masterclass? 8:25 Do you remember your first interaction with Barry Harris? 9:45 What happened in that 2nd year of going to the workshop? 10:39 Talking about Barry Harris’s identity 12:02 Does he include hard bop in his style? 13:51 What about the criticism of Barry Harris that he’s old fashioned? 16:28 On there being a whole more music left for people to write 17:34 The breakdown of the 6 hour masterclass and the improvisation section of the class 20:17 How should we break up Cherokee into scales? 22:09 What scales do we need? What kinds of minor do we need to learn? 23:21 What about the major and minor 6th diminished scales? 23:59 Is that the same as the bebop scale? 26:06 Is it used more for a scale outline or for theory and harmony? 26:48 How does he break up a tune with different line building materials? 30:47 On Barry Harris’ method having close parallels with Partimento 31:26 Are you able to listen to the classic bebop recordings and break them down? 32:17 On the criticism that Barry Harris is a Bud Powell clone 33:17 The diminished genealogy and the 4 related dominants 35:29 Altering the diminished chord to get different chords 38:08 How would you use these chords out of the diminished chord? 40:13 Would you thrown in the Dominant Diminished scale with 2 bars of a dominant chord? 41:17 How do you use these scale of chords? 42:52 Taking Cherokee as an example 43:35 Talking about 6th chord rules 45:31 Is this a framework to looking at Harmony? 45:59 What does Barry Harris think of the hard bop pianists like Bobby Timmons and Sonny Clark? 47:25 Funny jive moment at the Barry Harris workshop 48:15 On Barry Harris’ Big Band compositions 53:07 How do you get good at Jazz? 56:12 Talking about discovering Partimento 57:46 On Barry Harris being impressed by Partimento 59:32 Wrapping Up

I’m so happy to introduce my guest today, GRAMMY Award-winning Composer, Arranger, Keyboardist and Record Producer, Michael Abene!

In a prolific career spanning decades, Abene has worked with the biggest names in music.

He produced the Grammy winning projects “Digital Duke” featuring the Duke Ellington Orchestra and “The GRP All-Star Big Band-All Blues.” He also produced the Grammy nominated “The GRP All-Star Big Band” and “The GRP All-Star Big Band Live” and received nominations in the arranging category for all three big band recordings. Michael was also nominated for his arrangement of “America” from “Dave Grusin Presents West Side Story.” Some artists Michael has arranged, composed and/or produced for are Maynard Ferguson, Maceo Parker, Take 6, Billy Cobham, Eddie Daniels, Bireli Lagrene, Chick Corea, Buddy Rich, Dick Oatts, Dizzy Gillespie, The Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra, Dave Taylor, Patti Austin, The Metropole Jazz Orchestra, The Carnegie Hall Jazz Band, New York Voices, Ronnie Cuber, UMO Jazz Orchestra (Helsinki), Jazz Big Band Graz and the BBC Big Band.

In 2008, Abene arranged produced and conducted the music for singer Patti Austin’s album “Avant Gershwin”, celebrating the music of George and Ira Gershwin and picked up his first GRAMMY award for best Jazz Vocal album.

From 2004-2014, Abene was the chief composer and arranger for the WDR big band of Cologne, Germany.

He is the author of the book “Jazz Composition and Arranging in the Digital Age”, a book co-authored with Richard Sussman and published by Oxford University Press.

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2:24 Family background
3:20 Do you have perfect or absolute pitch?
3:29 What records did you grow up listening to?
4:26 Self-teaching sight-reading
5:05 Band experiences as a youth
7:19 Did you have any mentors?
8:25 What sort of advice would they give to you?
9:22 Did you have a sound you wanted to copy or did you strive early on for an original sound?
11:04 Did you see a lot of live music growing up?
13:15 Did you visit NYC to watch the music scene there?
13:51 Describe a vivid musical experience that was formative to your development
15:22 On replacing Jaki Byard in the Maynard Ferguson Band
16:46 On not being happy with the recordings except for the “Blues Roar”
18:22 Was there a compulsion to be a modernist in the 60’s?
19:59 How did you self teach yourself harmony?
21:16 Would you test out your arrangements on the piano?
22:39 On transposed scores
25:09 What is the Michael Abene arranging process?
27:08 How do you grapple with form?
28:39 On integrating great players into your arrangements
30:34 How do you determine if something swings?
31:39 On Drums and the Rhythm section
33:36 What are the common mistakes for new arrangers in the modern age?
36:27 How do you get a Big Band to get the flexibility of a small group like Bill Holman?
39:18 How have you grown as arranger vs 10-20 years ago?
40:37 What is your compositional process?
42:40 Odyssey for Brass
45:20 On Orchestration
46:48 PFP, a Piece for Paquito
48:54 How would you balance an arrangement and a virtuoso player?
51:10 Avant Gershwin
52:24 How long did it take to put all those arrangements together?
54:00 Top 3 Trumpet Players
54:27 Top 3 Saxophone Players
54:46 Top 3 Drummers
54:58 Top 3 Guitar Players
55:05 Top 3 Keyboard/Piano Players
55:34 Top 3 Big Bands
55:51 Top 3 Big Band Arrangers
55:59 Top 3 Classical Composers
56:12 Top 3 Jazz Composers
56:38 Who are some arrangers who are not popularly known but should be known
57:29 Favorite instrument or section to write for?
57:37 Biggest regret in music and proudest musical moment
57:58 If you could work with anyone in history, who would it be?
58:32 What 3 albums should new listeners of yours check out?
59:29 Best advice for a new arranger
1:00:31 Wrapping Up

My guest today is the great Professor of Music, William Caplin!

Caplin specializes in the theories of musical form and musical cadence. His extensive investigations into formal procedures of late-eighteenth-century music culminated in the 1998 book “Classical Form: A Theory of Formal Functions for the Instrumental Music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven (Oxford University Press), which won the 1999 Wallace Berry Book Award from the Society for Music Theory. A textbook version, Analyzing Classical Form: An Approach for the Classroom (Oxford University Press), was published in November 2013.

In addition to writing many scholarly articles, Caplin served as President of the Society for Music Theory from November 2005 to November 2007. In March 2015, he was the Robert M. Trotter Visiting Professor at the School of Music, University of Oregon; In March, 2008, he was Visiting Professor at the University of Rome-Tor Vergata.  

He is currently writing a large-scale book project entitled “Cadence: A Study of Closure in Tonal Music.”

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1:55 How do we make sense of all the different theories of harmony? 3:46 On the lack of analysis on musical form 5:41 The different traditions music theory 8:03 Why did you select the “classical” period as the basis for your theoretical work? 10:04 Why did you not use German functional theory? 12:27 How is fundamental bass theory different from figure bass theory? 13:49 Do chords or bass notes have inner urges or functions to move? 16:42 Does the plagal cadence exist? 19:26 Where did the term plagal cadence come from? 20:03 Is it hard to find this plagal cadence in the 18th century? 22:08 Could you give an example of such a thing? 22:53 What are the different types of cadences? 24:17 Where does an evaded cadence go? 25:39 What about the abandoned cadence? 27:38 Do you depart from Ratz and Schoenberg in your theoretical work? 29:20 How would you analyze a Mozart or Haydn Piano Sonata differently from Ratz or Schoenberg? 30:56 Where have you found difficulty in applying your theory? 32:30 How about examples where the theory works great and one where it’s harder to use 36:10 Could you elaborate on the missing form functionality of Gjerdingen’s Galant Schema theory 38:43 Did Leonard B. Meyer have an influence in your work? 39:54 What are the differences in form between Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven? 41:43 How did Beethoven break the tradition of form? 43:14 What do you find are the common challenges for students tackling your work? 45:13 Does counterpoint have a place in this theoretical framework? 46:09 What music that you like, that has great form? 46:35 What does Sibelius do with form that intrigues you? 47:15 Talking about Simon Sechter 48:02 Talking about Robert Wason’s “Viennese Harmonic Theory from Albrechtsberger to Schenker and Schoenberg” 49:38 Kirnberger’s contradictory position on fundamental bass theory 51:42 Have you dipped into non-German theories of harmony and music analysis? 52:58 If you could reform music education, what would you do? 55:17 Could you recommend any harmony text books? 56:04 Mentioning the Analyzing Classical Form Website 56:56 Wrapping Up

I have a very, very special guest that I’m so excited to introduce, Angela Levey, who is the wife of the late great jazz drummer, Stan Levey!

We talk about how they met, their wonderful marriage, knowing some of the great jazz legends personally, Stan living and playing with Charlie Parker for a long time, Angela chasing Charlie Parker out of a club, being close with Dizzy Gillespie, recording his first record with Art Tatum, being friends with Max Roach, getting into trouble because of Sonny Stitt, Stan's amazing speed and many more amazing stories.

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1:43 Talking about Dr. Joseph Curiale
2:16 How did you meet Stan?
5:50 Being hired at Birdland
6:28 Were you there at the very beginning of Birdland?
7:12 On Bud Powell on being a very snappy dresser
7:56 Did you get to talk to Bud Powell much?
9:47 On chasing Charlie Parker out of Birdland
11:23 More on Charlie Parker
12:33 Stan Levey is the only person who owed money to Charlie Parker
14:23 How long did you work at Birdland before the Sonny Stitt incident?
15:48 The Sonny Stitt snitching incident
16:39 Were your parents discouraging you from seeing Stan?
18:39 On going to jail actually helping Stan quit drugs
19:19 Talking about Dizzy Gillespie and how close they were
21:19 Dizzy Gillespie encouraging Stan to go back some money and leave the band
22:03 On the strange Benny Goodman experience
23:06 Stan being a boxer
24:12 Benny Goodman calling Stan again to perform like nothing happened after decades of no contact
25:07 Stan’s difficult life but stoic attitude to adversity
27:02 Stan’s first recording date being with Art Tatum
27:31 Did Stan recall that date?
29:02 On Stan being the person who’s played the most jam sessions with Charlie Parker
30:07 Dizzy giving Stan an endorsement to work for Oscar Pettiford
30:50 Stan’s friendship with Max Roach
31:41 How did Stan play so fast?
32:47 Victor Feldman’s recording of Bebop with Scott Lafaro and Stan
33:17 Recording “For Musician’s only”
34:02 On meeting Sonny Stitt again, post-jail
34:41 Did Stan’s clean life influence the musicians around him?
36:20 On Stan’s positive attitude towards family
38:31 How does Stan teach himself to learn so many things?
39:32 How long was Stan when he taught himself to sight read?
39:52 Stan reinventing himself as a studio musician in the west coast
40:48 On the amazing trajectory of Stan’s career
41:05 Who were Stan’s heroes?
42:39 The other side of Stan that was “ADD”
45:18 The redemption story of Stan’s life
46:22 Did Stan want his kids to learn music?
47:53 How does it feel to know that thousands of people are so fascinated with that period, that you lived in?
49:05 What albums should people listen to that demonstrate Stan’s playing?
50:28 Dizzy Gillespie complimenting Stan’s time keeping
50:56 Wrapping Up

We have a very special guest here today! Daniel Spreadbury, who is the Dorico Product Marketing Manager is here today to talk about Dorico 3, the latest update to Steinberg’s music notation software program.

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1:01 Talking about condensing 3:19 Do you have a grand plan for features? 4:20 What kind of modern technology is being utilized in Dorico? 6:29 How many people work in the Dorico programming team? 8:00 Will the condensing feature be refined in later updates? 9:41 Soundiron’s Olympus Choir Micro integration 11:20 What’s the state of playback? 13:51 How’s the reception with Note Performer? 15:12 What’s your pitch to someone on Sibelius to switch to Dorico? 18:13 Talking about Alan Silvestri’s interview and are there other composers who use Dorico? 19:34 Is Dorico seeing more adoption in education? 21:01 With the excitement around Partimento, is figured bass on the radar for the next update? 23:12 What sort of learning materials can a new user find to improve their skill with Dorico? 24:57 Are some of the videos on the YouTube channel out of date? 26:10 What’s a common question that you get all the time that’s actually an easy fix? 28:57 When’s the next update? What’s the pipeline for 2020? 30:33 Wrapping Up

So happy to introduce my guest today, Classical Pianist, Music Theorist and Improviser, Professor Karst de Jong!

Karst de Jong studied classical Piano and Music Theory at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. In 1991 he was appointed as a professor of music theoretical subjects at the Conservatory of Amsterdam and the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. He specialized in piano improvisation and the relation between analysis and interpretation of the piano literature. Since 2003 he has been appointed professor of improvisation and composition-techniques at the ESMUC in Barcelona. He regularly gives concerts with classical and jazz improvisations, both as a soloist and with different instrumental combinations. He has performed concerts in various countries in Europe, the US, China and Japan. He published articles on improvisation and music theory and appeared at numerous conferences.

He is a cofounder and board member of the Dutch Belgian society of Music Theory and was an editor of the Dutch Journal of Music Theory. Karst de Jong has taught many masterclasses of improvisation at internationally renowned festivals. As an educator he was closely involved in two important European Erasmus+ strategic partnerships: METRIC, which deals with improvisation in the curricula of higher music education in Europe and NAIP, the European Master of New Audiences and Innovative Practices. He released two CD's with solo-piano improvisations, Improdisiac I & II.

During the first semester of the academic year 2019-2020 Karst de Jong will be a visiting professor at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of the National University of Singapore.

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2:16 What’s your musical background? 3:20 Do you have Absolute or Perfect Pitch? 4:04 Were you always experimenting and improvising from the beginning? 4:48 What sort of things would you improvise? 5:36 What kind of music were you listening to growing up? 6:26 Did you receive a pretty standard approach to learning classical repertoire? 7:10 How many years did you have lessons? How many teachers? 7:57 What’s it like to grow up in Holland, musically? 8:59 Did you keep your improvising going into your teenage years? Did you also play jazz? 9:58 What was your understanding of theory growing up? 11:19 What was your music theory training like? 13:22 Did you agree with all the theory that you were taught? 14:05 What did your teachers do differently from conventional teachers? 15:03 How does the mind work differently in improvisation? 15:56 When did that insight click for you? 17:31 How do you get kids to integrate theory when they’ve never really thought about it? 19:26 What are the common mistakes students make when trying to learn to improvise? 20:03 What would students be trying to hear from you in call and response? 20:28 How would students know what would be the right response, in call and response? 20:47 Would a pianist play two hands? 21:34 As an example, what’s a challenge for another instrument? 22:16 After call and response, what’s next for students? 23:03 More on transposition 23:18 How about changing from the major to the minor? 23:30 Is there any implied bass to the melodic ideas you are playing? 24:21 Do string players imagine the bass while playing? 25:20 Are the counterpoint rules still in place during live playing? 26:05 What advice can you give to other teachers who want to run a classical improvisational model 27:34 What would you do in a 1 hour class with an ensemble? 28:34 Can you give an example of working on 1 idea 29:54 Talk about your new approach to harmonic analysis 32:56 Why did you choose the minor 3rd as a strong progression? 33:31 Is that the same with C to Eb? 34:46 How effective has it been with students? 35:40 How does someone learn music theory with the goal of practical composition and improvisation 37:28 How does this change your perception of traditional harmony 38:01 If a parent wanted to start their child’s music journey correctly, what should they do? 39:36 How should somebody look at a piece they’ve played, break it down and play around with it? 40:25 Would you analyze late romantic music with your new method of analysis? 41:09 What materials someone can check out online about improvisation in classical music? 43:05 Talking about YST Classified where Karst plays 3 jazz standards in a classical virtuoso style 44:09 Were those performances completely improvised? 44:45 Do you still maintain the basso continuo? 45:13 Do you have to maintain the jazz harmony? 46:12 How do you improvise in the style of Bach? 46:48 What kind of ideas do you commonly use? 48:00 Is counterpoint the basis of it all and what’s the best way to learn it? 48:52 What counterpoint resources can you recommend? 49:29 How would we start introducing improvisation into earlier music education? 50:30 How has the culture around classical improvisation changed over the last few decades? 52:18 How does the audience respond to improvisation vs standard repertoire? 53:52 Does the audience listen closer when the performer is improvising? 54:47 What do you see for the future of classical music? 56:02 Wrapping Up

I’m so thrilled to talk to my guest today, 3-Time GRAMMY Jazz Singer and 7-Time EMMY nominated Lyricist, Lorraine Feather!

As an artist she has recorded 12 albums. Her 2010 release, Ages, featured songs with her lyrics, and music by Eddie Arkin, Shelly Berg, Russell Ferrante, Dick Hyman and Béla Fleck. It brought Lorraine her first (2011) Grammy nomination, in the Best Jazz Vocal Album category. In 2013, her album Attachments was nominated for the GRAMMY for Best Jazz Vocal album. In 2015, her album Flirting with Disaster was also nominated for the GRAMMY for best jazz vocal album.

Lorraine has received 7 Emmy nominations writing for Television. Some of her credits include, Disney’s Dinosaurs and Pooh’s Heffalump Halloween, PBS’s Make Way for Noddy, the MGM animated film Babes in Toyland, Hasbro’s My Little Pony series. Some of the Film work she’s done includes The Jungle Book 2, The Princess Diaries 2, All Dogs Go to Heaven, the Lionhearts and much more.

Her latest album is 2018’s Math Camp. It was produced with longtime co-writer Eddie Arkin; with seven of the songs being written with Arkin and three with Shelly Berg.

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2:10 What were some of the records that you grew up listening to that were influential in your development?
5:00 On hanging around famous musicians as a kid
6:20 Were you an avid reader and writer growing up?
7:34 Did you father encourage you to write?
8:42 What was it like studying with John Mehegan?
9:54 How much did you write as a child?
13:24 Did you ever take singing lessons?
14:33 When did you start writing lyrics to songs?
15:55 On writing for Full Swing
16:37 What was it like writing for that first album for Full Swing?
18:34 What notes did Richard Perry give you on your lyrics?
20:25 Did you ever take music theory lessons or study music?
21:17 Talk about writing your first album, “The Body Remembers”
24:39 What is the Lorraine Feather method to writing lyrics?
26:69 How did you write “Smashing Thirds”?
28:10 How long would it take you to write one of the Fats Waller songs?
29:21 When is the best time of day to write a song?
30:29 Do you rewrite a lot?
30:52 What do you look for in a co-writer?
34:28 How do you deal with writer's block?
35:10 What was the writing process behind Math Camp’s “I don’t mean to make a big deal of it”?
36:13 Did you write the lyrics before hearing the music?
38:08 How long did it take to write all the tunes in Math Camp?
39:10 What are the things that are important and interesting to you in lyric writing?
40:14 If you compare your current self to yourself 10-20 years ago, what’s the difference in your writing?
41:40 What was the most difficult song for you to write?
44:14 What was the easiest song for you to write?
46:03 What’s your biggest regret in music?
46:57 What is your proudest musical moment?
47:39 If you could go back in time and co-write with anyone of your choice, who would it be?
48:07 Who is your opinion, are the best lyricists in jazz and pop?
50:15 What 3 albums would you recommend a new listener to start with?
51:09 Can songwriting be learned?
51:52 What’s the best advice for someone who wants to get into the music industry?
52:54 Wrapping up

I’m so happy to introduce my guest today, Concert Pianist, Researcher, and Teacher, Professor David Dolan!

In his solo and chamber music performances, he incorporates improvisation into the relevant concert repertoire in repeats, cadenzas, as well as in preludes, fantasias, and improvises on themes provided by the audience.

In addition to performing worldwide, He is the Professor of Classical Improvisation and its various applications to solo and ensemble performance at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, David has been heading the Centre for Creative Performance & Classical Improvisation since 2005. He also teaches at the Yehudi Menuhin School. Since 2011 David is running a programme of classical improvisation applied to performance at the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM) in Melbourne based on annual intensive residencies.

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1:46 what’s your musical background? 2:14 When did you start playing the piano? 2:48 What were you improvising when young, what kind of music was in the house at the time? 3:06 Did your parents improvise? 3:25 Did your first teacher teach you the basics of playing the piano? 4:37 Do you have Absolute or Perfect pitch? 4:54 Did you still maintain your improvisation while doing your standard piano training? 6:02 Did you listen to traditional Israeli or Arabic music growing up? 7:04 What style of Classical music did you predominantly play in your training? 8:12 Were you the only one growing up that could improvise among your teachers and peers? 9:00 Did Haim Alexander hear you improvise? 10:40 What materials did Haim Alexander use to teach you? 11:20 What was a typical lesson with Haim Alexander look like? 13:24 Was his music theory conventional or did he have his own method? 14:13 Was the ear training Fixed Do or Moveable Do 14:52 What were your Masters and PhD studies about? 17:08 How would describe angry speech in music? 19:01 What year was this research? 19:22 Did you have peers or colleagues that you could relate to and talk to regarding improvisation as a professional, or were you alone? 20:01 Do you know Robert Levin? 20:15 What was it like meeting Robert Levin for the first time? 20:40 Is it very rare to meet another improvising musician? 21:39 Is the scene much different from what it used to be? 22:00 The reason that you’re in the UK is because of Yehudi Menuhin? 22:47 What did you play at that concert, that Yehudi Menuhin watched? 23:54 What did Yehudi Menuhin mean by,”Survive this quartet”? 24:37 What did you make the quartet do, to teach them to improvise? 25:33 Given that you had been teaching classical improvisation since 1990, were you ready for any ensemble teaching situation? 26:41 Do you have set Classical forms or harmonic progressions to get students to improvise with? 27:34 What is a periodic structure? 28:38 How do you tell your students what notes to choose in the response portion of “Call and response”? 29:20 What do you mean by wrong notes? 30:00 Are the bass lines fixed or do you ask them to come up with their own? 31:03 Is this connected with basso continuo? 31:54 Is that how a string player can learn to improvise, by having the bass in their ear or mind? 32:39 Does that enable you to have multiple musicians performing at the same time? 33:34 How would a brand new student, who’s never improvised before, learn to improvise in their first year of Guildhall? 35:07 Let’s say they have no fear in improvising, what would they work on? 38:00 Is this all ensemble or solo? 38:34 Is the singing in solfege? 39:23 How do you distinguish between improvisation and composition? 40:42 What are some differences among the different classical eras? 43:02 So that is a lot of vocabulary to internalize? 44:15 Do you incorporate teaching other non-classical styles of music? 46:54 Has music changed and become more difficult from earlier eras, harmonically? 47:59 As an example, is Messiaen more complex than earlier music? 48:47 What are some common mistakes to learning classical improvisation? 51:38 If a parent is about to start their child learning music, how should they start? 52:52 What would you say to the thousands of children who are practicing for their graded music exams about the pieces they are playing? 54:40 Are there other things culturally that have changed in the music culture compared to previous eras? 56:55 What classical improvisation resources can you recommend for interested people? 58:43 If you could reform music education around the world, what would you do? 1:00:41 Wrapping Up

I’m so pleased to introduce my guest today, 6-time GRAMMY Award winning Trumpeter, Randy Brecker!

Randy’s worked with the biggest names in music, in Blood Sweat & Tears’ Original Line up, the Horace Silver Quintet, Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, Dreams, Hal Galper, and perhaps most notably the celebrated jazz/funk/fusion group: The Brecker Brothers. As a session musician, Randy has appeared on hundreds of albums including James Taylor, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen, Steely Dan, Frank Zappa, Jaco Pastorius and many more.

In 1994, Randy won his first GRAMMY for Best Contemporary Jazz Performance with “Out of the Loop”. This was followed in 1997 with a 2nd GRAMMY for “Into the Sun”. The next GRAMMY was for Best Contemporary Jazz album with 2003’s album “34th N Lex”. He Picked up his 4th GRAMMY, with a win for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album, “Some Skunk Funk” in 2006 and and his 5th for Best Contemporary Jazz album in 2008 “Randy in Brasil”. In 2013, Randy’s album “Night in Calisia” won the GRAMMY for best contemporary Jazz album. Randy is also an 18-time GRAMMY nominee.

As a solo recording artist, he has released over 20 albums. Randy’s latest album is 2019’s “Rocks” with the NDR Big Band, featuring performances by David Sanborn, Ada Rovatti and Frank
Delle.

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2:24 Did your father teach you growing up?
3:55 Do you have Absolute or Perfect Pitch?
4:47 How many hours did you practice a day as a kid?
6:06 How did you learn to improvise? Did you have a teacher?
8:34 Did you use Solfege or numbers when learning melodies?
9:25 Could you name some of the practice books and etudes that you used growing up?
11:10 Did you see a lot of live jazz music growing up in Pennsylvania?
12:34 Any vivid memories of watching the live shows?
13:54 What were your dad’s musical tastes?
15:58 What was it like to study in Stan Keaton’s Band Camp as a teenager?
18:17 Did all of these experiences build up your confidence as a youth?
19:36 What about that story where 30% of students failed a traditional harmony class in Indiana University?
21:22 What’s your opinion of music theory?
24:11 Describe your compositional writing process
26:52 Talking about his experience working with Stevie Wonder
28:26 How did you transition to more of a rock, R&B, funk and pop sound?
31:44 How long did it take you to develop your craft of composition?
33:42 Detailed explanation of how “Some Skunk Funk” was written
40:59 Talking about writing “Sponge”
43:09 How did you come up with groove for “Sponge”?
44:12 Where do you see jazz moving in the future?
46:52 Are you still studying music and what things are you working on?
48:33 HOT SEAT: Top 3 Sax Players
50:32 HOT SEAT: Top 3 Drummers
52:27 HOT SEAT: Top 3 Keyboard/Piano Players
53:09 HOT SEAT: Top 3 Trumpet Players
54:18 HOT SEAT: Top 3 Horn Section Arrangers/Writers
56:22 HOT SEAT: If you could have performed with anyone in history that you haven’t yet, who would it be?
57:04 HOT SEAT: What is your biggest regret in music?
58:54 HOT SEAT: Proudest musical moment?
59:51 How would you reform or change music education?
1:02:04 Upcoming projects
1:03:42 Wrapping up

I’m so pleased today to talk to my guest today, Music theorist, historian, pianist and singer, Dr. Marco Pollaci!

Following his studies as a pianist and singer, he graduated in a "Liberal arts - Music and Performing Arts degree - " from the University of Tor Vergata in Rome with Dr. Giorgio Sanguinetti and went on to receive his PhD in Music from the University of Nottingham in 2018.


Dr. Pollaci's research focuses on eighteenth and nineteenth-century opera and music history. He is interested in sketch studies, music theory and music analysis. Further research interests include Partimento Studies and Italian compositional practice in eighteenth and nineteenth century music.

He is currently working as an assistant researcher for a Partimento project for the Department of Musicology of Pavia. He runs the popular Facebook Group, "The Art of Partimento".

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1:52 What’s your musical background? 4:16 Are these articles and books you mentioned new? 5:13 What were the gaps that people had in understanding before? 6:25 Talking about the German and French influence in the Neapolitan Partimento tradition? 7:57 On the secretiveness of the Neapolitans 9:20 Did Fugal writing lessen as 19th century Romantic harmony took over? 11:46 Was writing Opera the main goal for young Italian composers? 14:15 Who were the “Giovane Scuola” (Young School)? 15:59 Weren’t the Young School more associated with the Milan tradition rather than the Neapolitan tradition? 20:41 The Romantic view of composers and Bellini 22:06 What kind of training did Bellini undergo? 22:45 The famous teachers of Naples 24:58 Can you see traces of Partimento Exercises in Bellini operas? 26:28 On Bellini being greatly admired by his contemporaries 27:28 Talking about the Bellini revival with Maria Callas 29:33 Can Bellini’s famous long melodies be connected with the Partimento tradition 32:53 Does the Paris Conservatory have a similarities to the Partimento tradition? 35:07 How did Germany harmony affect Partimento? 35:58 Talking about the separation of Counterpoint and Harmony 37:46 How did the Partimento tradition change with 19th century Harmony 40:19 Can you analyze 19th century romantic music with a Partimento lens 42:17 Using the Prelude to Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde as an example 43:24 Talking about Giuseppe Verdi 46:15 Was Italian music as or more influential than German music during the 18th and 19th century 47:32 What has surprised you about your research? 48:44 Did non-Italian composers absorb these musical patterns without the Neapolitan training? 50:41 Was it difficult to access the Neapolitan archives because of their secretive reputation? 53:15 How much material is in these archives and is there a lot more left to study? 54:42 Do you have favorite Partimenti exercises? 55:19 What’s appealing about Durante? 56:43 How widespread were Fenaroli’s exercises in Europe? 58:09 On the progressive difficulty of the Fenaroli partimenti 59:28 How can partimento assist in understanding music of the 19th century? 1:01:17 Should we still keep Roman Numerals and traditional tonal analysis 1:02:29 Wrapping up and Upcoming projects/events