This week Jonesy sits down with the great Skip Heller: composer, guitarist, bandleader, arranger, and one of the most restlessly curious musicians you will ever meet. Skip grew up in Philadelphia a few blocks from Dizzy Gillespie's old house, never took a real music lesson, and built a life in music that runs from bebop to rockabilly to exotica.

They get into his new Dizzy Gillespie project with his band Voodoo 5, why joy is the fuel in the music he loves, growing up on the Smothers Brothers and John Hartford, learning harmony from chord diagrams in a music store, the day Stevie Wonder's "I Wish" turned a Philadelphia block into a dance scene, and a wild year on the road with Yma Sumac that ended at the Montreal Jazz Festival with the copyists still passing music up to the bandstand.

Skip on the heart of it all: "Art doesn't have to be serious and heavy. Art can have a joyous component to it."

Listen to Skip's band Voodoo 5.

This week Jonesy sits down with Michael Jackson: photographer, musician, writer, visual artist, and the guy with his finger on the pulse of every jazz event in Chicago. From playing saxophone at London’s Royal Festival Hall as a kid to graduate school at the School of the Art Institute, from iconic Downbeat shoots to late nights at the Green Mill, Michael has done a bit of everything, and he still never stops.

They dig into his 32 years in Chicago, tracking down von Freeman on a snowy February night, his first big Downbeat piece on Ronnie Scott, recording 15 tracks in 6 hours and cutting a new record with his daughter, why the physical record still matters, and what it means to be an advocate for a music that lives on the fringe.

Michael on his life's work: "I'm interested in every aspect of people and their art form: where people come from, why they get into it, why it means so much to them."

Visit his website: Jackojazz.com 👈

Listen to some of Michael's music 🎶

Chapters

Alex Frank grew up in the room while the music was being made. The son of an LA film composer, he was a kid at recording sessions who traded the clarinet for an upright the moment he heard Ray Brown. Now he's the musical director of Jeff Goldblum's jazz band and one of the most in-demand bassists working the drummerless-trio tradition that ran from Nat Cole to Oscar Peterson. He joins host Mike Jones for a conversation about where that deep time and taste actually come from.

They get into the Australia tour with Goldblum, the thousands of hours it takes to make two strangers sound like they've played together for years, and the trio record Alex, Graham Dechter, and Mike cut in Mike's living room. Alex also tells the John Clayton lesson that shaped him, the night Quincy Jones called him over to say he heard Ray Brown in his playing, and how he found the upright Penn Jillette plays today.

Alex Frank’s Website

Buy Mike Jones With Strings!

Welcome to The Stereo Image, a lighthearted look at how music fits into the lives of creative and interesting people.

Hosted by jazz pianist and Penn & Teller music director Mike Jones, this show trades rigid music theory for great storytelling. Each episode features fascinating guests sharing their wildest musical memories, unexpected histories, and the songs that soundtracked their lives. From backstage antics to personal deep cuts, it is a fun, casual dive into the sonic backstories of exceptional creators.

Subscribe to not miss an episode or follow us on Instagram @the.stereo.image or YouTube at @the-stereo-image

Joe Alterman fell for jazz at his dad's backyard barbecues: Wes Montgomery and Oscar Peterson over the steaks. He's spent his life chasing that same high. A 37-year-old pianist from Atlanta, Alterman talks with Mike Jones about coming up through an internship at the Blue Note, where his first assignment was keeping McCoy Tyner company for two hours, and how that hustle turned into friendships with his heroes.

He tells the story of meeting Les McCann, who took one look at the young player, said "play me some blues, boy," and christened him his "He-Bro" for the next twelve years. He and Jones swap road stories about Ahmad Jamal's advice to "keep your enthusiasm," the magic of sitting down with musicians who grew up on the same records, and why a slow blues still separates the players from everyone else.

Joe Alterman’s Website

The Upside of Jazz with Joe Alterman

For thirty years, if something happened on a Las Vegas stage, John Katsilometes was probably in the room. The entertainment columnist behind "The Kats Report" at the Las Vegas Review-Journal joins host Mike Jones for a conversation about a career built without a journalism degree. From covering the Tyson–Holyfield "bite night" as a young sports writer to becoming the last man standing in a beat that used to belong to Norm Clark and Robin Leach, Johnny Kats has seen it all.

Kats traces the whole arc: an 18-year-old stringer in Chico, getting sober in 2001, launching the column that made him ubiquitous, and learning to appreciate everything from Rush to Baby Keem because covering an artist means getting educated fast. He and Mike get into live music in Vegas, Penn's late-blooming bass playing, and why he still answers the phone like a gentleman.

Kats Entertainment

John Katsilometes at the Las Vegas Review-Journal

Mark Masters writes for the kind of jazz ensemble that barely exists anymore... and most of the time, the finished music ends up in a box in his garage. A composer and arranger on the Capri label alongside host Mike Jones, Masters has spent decades building ambitious large-group records around the voices he loves: Steely Dan reimagined, tributes to Sam Rivers and Billy Harper, a date with Art Baron, the last trombonist Duke Ellington ever hired.

He and Jones get into honoring musicians mostly after they're gone - a Lee Konitz centennial project, a new chamber album for bassist Putter Smith - and what it meant to be among the last players to study with the masters firsthand. Along the way: growing up in Gary, Indiana, the studio scene that dried up in both LA and New York, the best advice he ever got ("never fall in love with anything you write"), and why he still arranges in pencil with an old war movie running on VHS. 

Mark Masters Music

The man who won Lenny Bruce a pardon four decades after his death turns out to be a tuba player who came to jazz through Dave Brubeck. Robert Corn-Revere has spent more than 40 years as a First Amendment attorney, and on this episode he and Mike Jones trade the law for the record store: classic rock, the ritual of dropping eight bucks on an album, and why the music of that era still fills the same bar he drank in back in college.

Then the cases. Bob walks through the posthumous pardon of Lenny Bruce, the FBI's year-and-a-half hunt for dirty words in "Louie Louie," the Tipper Gore "porn rock" hearings where Frank Zappa stole the show, and the eight-year fight over Janet Jackson's nine-sixteenths of a second at the Super Bowl. Subscribe and find the rest at TheStereoImage.com.

FIRE - Robert Corn-Revere

Robert's book: The Mind of the Censor and the Eye of the Beholder

Violinist, violist, composer, producer, and world's first LED string ensemble founder Michelle Jones joins The Stereo Image for a wide-ranging conversation about a remarkable career built on versatility and relationships. Michelle shares the story behind her orchestration work on Maluma's "Botero" (recorded under NDA on Halloween, now with over 4 million streams), the debut of the Robert Kerr Ensemble at Carnegie Hall, and Violectric - the group she founded that plays rock and pop on light-up, wirelessly DMX-controlled instruments.

She also opens up about a legal battle that changed U.S. copyright law for content creators, her 26 years as a Disney seasonal solo musician (one of only seven in the world with that status), a Grammy nomination for a children's album featuring Alice Cooper and Slash, and what it's like recording in her home studio just three miles from the Magic Kingdom - fireworks and all.

Violectric & Cosplay Records

Robert Kerr Ensemble

This week we explore the journey of Rob Zabrecky.  From indie music and the 90's LA scene to magic to his unique performance style.  Mike and Rob discuss his latest project, the Zabrecky Hour, and the thought and creativity that went into it.

Check out his special, The Zabrecky Hour, on Amazon.