It was a great pleasure to talk to the amazing guitarist, orchestrator & educator Ella Feingold on the podcast. She contacted me a couple of years ago after I released the Blake Mills/Chris Weisman episodes and said she’d love to talk. I started checking out her amazing work and became an instant fan. I’ve learned a lot from watching her videos and even more from this wonderful conversation, which I’m delighted to be able to share with you all.

I’m very thankful to be on the the road with Tineke Postma quite often. She is an amazing saxophonist & composer, I’m learning a lot from her and she’s so much fun to be around. We talk all the time when we’re on tour with the band Re:Calamari and this conversation actually happened between gigs. We could basically continue where we left off the day before.

Naturally, we focussed on many of the things I often ask Tineke about: her process as a bandleader & composer, her experiences with Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Esperanza Spalding, Kris Davis & Terri Lynne Carrington, ideas & approaches for improvisation, finding your voice as an artist and much more.

As always it was a big pleasure to hang out together and I’m very excited to share this with you all now.

Talking to the legendary Eddie Henderson was a dream come true for me. As I tell Eddie in the beginning of this episode, I’ve been listening to him for all my life: My father played Herbie Hancock’s “Mwandishi” albums for me as a kid and when I was 13 I saw Eddie with Herbie’s “Gershwin’s World” band in Düsseldorf. I’ll never forget it. Throughout the years I got more deeply into Eddie’s own catalog of records and learned a lot from listening to him. His sound alway touches me and I admire him on many levels.

So to finally get to talk to him about his time with Herbie, about what he learned from Miles Davis, about practicing with Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard and Woody Shaw, and how it was to play with Joe Henderson was an absolute honor.

In this music theres a deep tradition of passing on knowledge orally. This way future generations can learn from the elders. Eddie Henderson is not only a “witness to history” (the name of his latest album), he’s also very generous with sharing his wisdom. I’m glad we can all learn from maestro Eddie together now.

The day before our interview I had the big pleasure of playing with Kanoa Mendenhall for the first time. After a long time of admiring her from afar, I finally got to know her through making music and hanging out together, which was really special for me. We zoomed in on Kanoa’s creative process, we re-evaluated what happened during our concert and we even played some more. It was a beautiful conversation and I’m glad I get to share it with you now.

A few years ago I took inspiring composition lessons with pianist/composer/arranger Guillermo Klein, which still resonate with me to this day. Guillermo helped me to break free from habits and find new pathways to starting the compositional process. Now I finally got to interview on the podcast, which, in a way, turned out to be another incredible composition lesson – but this time I get to share it with you!
Listening to Guillermo’s unique music always uplifts and inspires me – the same thing happens when we talk.

Anders Jormin is one of my favorite bassists and composers. I got the chance to play with him in 2016, where we celebrated the music of my late teacher, the great John Taylor. Now, we continue where we left off and talk in-depth about his life in music.

It was so great to pick Anders’ brain about his view on composition, voice leading, interplay, how we deal with influences, memories of playing with drum masters Paul Motian, Elvin Jones and Billy Hart, writing a symphony, his bass heroes and… we also played a bit for each other!

Talking to singer, multi-instrumentalist, composer and interdisciplinary artist Jen Shyu was immensely inspiring and invigorating! After admiring Jen’s work for a long time from afar, getting to pick her brain for almost 3 hours was a big deal for me. As you know, I always love it when the artists bring there instruments and perform on the episode- Jen was all for that and brought a few traditional instruments like the moon lute and the gayageum and of course she sang quite a bit. You’ll see, this conversation went to all kinds of places. I’m very grateful to Jen for letting us into her unique world.

Talking to Joe Lovano was a dream come true. After so many years of listening to him I finally got to ask him about his process and get deeper insights into his musical journey. When our conversation ended I felt totally inspired and eager to dive into music– that’s exactly like we feel after we’ve taken a lesson with a great teacher, right? I’m glad we can all learn from maestro Joe together now. 

Many thanks to the great Joe Lovano for taking the time to talk to me and to all of you for listening to our conversation. 

The great John Scofield returns to the podcast – and this time he brought his guitar!
I absolutely love talking with Sco. To get ask him about his time with Paul Bley, Miles Davis, Elvin Jones and Jaco still is like a dream come true for me. And when he then takes out his guitar to demonstrate things from the music we talk about, like Carla Bley’s classic ‘Ida Lupino’ or a couple of my favorite Sco tunes, I’m in total fan-boy mode!

I’m glad I get to share these moments with you. Thanks for watching & listening!

Savannah Harris is an incredible drummer & great person. I not only admire her musicality & playing, but also her honesty and her rare no-BS-mentality, which is so apparent both in her playing and when you talk to her.

We bonded right away when we first played and hung out in 2023. (Both of us were on the jury & the accompanying band for the GJC auditions in Mainz) Plans were made to do an interview then and it finally happened a month ago. Now I’ll get to share it with you and we can all learn collectively from one of the great drummers of our time!

Heartfelt thanks to my Patreon community for their support & enthusiasm for this podcast! We’ve come a long way since I started this podcast in 2018: Now, I’m on my way to fully fund this podcast through Patreon subscriptions!

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