Pals with Bill Wadman

Frank Basile is one of the great baritone sax players in NYC today. We discuss his upbringing in the midwest, going to school at North Texas' famous jazz program, and what it's like to play with the best in the world in bands like the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra.

Karen recently released her new album "Love These Days". It's a lovely, meditative, and often deeply personal record that I've had on repeat for the past few weeks. You should to. Find it on all the streaming platforms, or better yet, to to her her site or bandcamp and buy a copy.

Links:

• Karen Dahlstrom Website

Photographer Clay Williams is well known in culinary circles. He's spent much of the last decade photographing food and the people who make it in NYC and around the world. We discuss how he got his start photographing food carts and restaurants for websites, why he's back into the world of film photography for the joy of it, and how the group Black Food Folks he co-founded connects people within the New York food world.

Today we're in Matt Carr's kitchen discussing his beginnings in photojournalism in the midwest, how photography took him to Alaska and Prague and London, and what happens in the photo press rooms at Sundance.

Noah Prince has worked as a gaffer, best boy, and electrician in the TV and film industry for more than a quarter century. We discuss lighting for movies, growing up in Cambridge, making career decisions when your first dream doesn't lead where you thought it would. Noah also has some great anecdotes from his years on set.

Ben Brush is interested in just about everything, just like me, except that he's got the bona fides to back it up. Having worked in research labs on brain machine interfaces and then spent the last 10 years between Harvard Medical School, Mass General Brigham, and NYU hospitals becoming a board-certified Neurologist. Oh and he's also hiked all 2184 miles of the Appalachian Trail solo in 135 days. I have so many questions.

Back for his second episode. Slate magazine's resident rock critic & chart analyst Chris Molanphy chats with me about the definition of a "Smash", why the demographics of the artists on the charts have changed over time, and how much he hates most Diane Warren penned songs. Always great to talk to Chris.

The rare Skype episode of Pals with art teacher Sandi Robertson from the UK. We discuss Sandi's deep love of the color darkroom, her early beginnings as a young artist in Scotland, and her belief that a student's understanding of photography is as vital as maths and sciences.

My good friend Eran isn't just one of the best modern dancers working today, she's also an accomplished home sewer. That's right, she's makes most of her own clothes and some for other people too. I just had to know how she got into the hobby!

I've been trying to get lighting designer Keri Thibodeau in front of my microphone for a couple of years now, but working at The Metropolitan Opera means that she doesn't have any free time. What she does have is a great story and a whole lot of fun nerdy insider information about the process of modern stage lighting.