Gary Bartz on Miles Davis, Jazz is Dead, and why 'improvisation' is a banned word
To celebrate the 85th birthday of Gary Bartz, we're sharing this freewheeling wide-ranging, previously unpublished interview for the first time. Hear the legend recount his career in his own words: from early sessions with Art Blakey to his charged Ntu Troupe records, working with McCoy Tyner and Donald Byrd, and of course, his years on the road with Miles Davis, immortalised on the sprawling masterpiece Live-Evil. We also chat about his recent collaborations with Maisha and Jazz is Dead.Most fascinating however are Bartz's insights into the American art form he's devoted his life to, and why he finds use of the word "improvisation" deeply offensive.
--------
1:03:08
--------
1:03:08
Sérgio Mendes on working with WIll.i.am, Antônio Carlos Jobim, Frank Sinatra, and the eternal bossa nova beat
To celebrate the life of Sérgio Mendes – one year after his death aged 83, on September 5, 2024, from complications associated with long Covid – I’m sharing this archive interview with the world’s greatest populariser of Brazilian music. Every time you hear a bad bossa nova cover of a rock song in a hotel lobby, you probably have this guy to blame. Because while Antônio Carlos Jobim gave Brazilian music its songbook, Mendes’ Brasil '66 band brought bossa’s irresistibly breezy beat to the world.I’ve made minor cuts for flow and focus, but otherwise this is just a fly-on-the-wall recording of an encounter I never intended to share with the world. In 30 short minutes we traced Mendes’ musical journey, from discovering jazz through Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five” and making his US debut with Cannonball Adderley, to touring with Frank Sinatra and playing the White House, to finding his music back in the limelight after collaborating with Will.i.am on the hip-hop-flavoured comeback LP Timeless.The cover picture of this podcast is Sérgio Mendes backstage in Abu Dhabi, holding the cover story of the profile feature this interview resulted in.
--------
29:42
--------
29:42
Certified ‘Genius’ Mary Halvorson on About Ghosts, Bill Frisell, freaky guitar pedals and her practise routine
In the wake of winning more Downbeat awards than even the magazine can count*, we called Mary Halvorson at home in Brooklyn, at 8pm on a Saturday night, to discuss the new artistic heights reached on About Ghosts – her fourth fantastic Nonesuch Records release utilising the peerless Amaryllis sextet. We traced her formative experiences, from falling under the tutelage of Anthony Braxton, to her early Firehouse 12 albums recorded while she still had an office job, through to solo masterpiece Meltframe, the vocal-led Code Girl project, and pinch-me collaborations with Bill Frisell and John Zorn. For the six-string nerds, we enticed Halvorson to talk through how she conjures that trademark whiiinng effect only she knows how to make on guitar, and discussed learning her instrument as an ambidextrous human, and how much she really practises.*In 2023 Downbeat reported Halvorson had won guitarist of the year for seven consecutive polls. She definitely won again in 2024 and 2025 -- yet this year's write-up only acknowledges Halvorson winning "several times since 2017". Was the 2023 writer wrong, or the 2025 writer just lazy?
--------
47:51
--------
47:51
Angélique Kidjo’s 5 most important albums, in her own words
To celebrate the 65th birthday of the first Black African women to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, we asked Angélique Kidjo to talk through the five of her most influential and life-changing recordings, starting with 1981 debut Pretty in Paris, recorded aged 20 with legendary Cameroonian artist Ekambi Brillant at the helm.A decade later she hit the mainstream with the commercial breakthrough Logozo, released in 1991 after the intervention of Island Records founder Chris Blackwell; and we just had to discuss the ambitious trio of conceptual root-tracing records begun with 1998’s Oremi. And of course, we couldn't avoid asking Kidjo how she recruited legends including Carlos Santana, Alicia Keys, Peter Gabriel and Ziggy Marley for 2007’s Grammy-winning Djin Djin; before finally moving onto late-career orchestral masterpiece Sings (2015), and the subsequent collaboration with Philip Glass it sparked.An incredible life, incredibly told, from the back of a taxi, by the singular human who lived it all.
--------
30:28
--------
30:28
Antonio Sánchez on Birdman at 10, being discovered by Pat Metheny – and why Whiplash sucks
As Antonio Sánchez releases an incredible new album with the BEATrio supergroup – alongside American banjo legend Bela Fleck and Colombian harp maestro Edmar Castañeda – the Mexican drumming powerhouse looks back on his incredible jazz journey. It’s a story of serendipity. Sánchez discovered jazz when Alejandro González Iñárritu played a Pat Metheny tune on his Mexican radio show; when the film director saw the drummer onstage with Metheney a few years later, he got the idea for the a radical score of nothing but drums for 2014 offbeat cinema smash Birdman – which went on to win four Oscars. He may be a humble guy, but even Sanchez admits after playing with Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Gary Burton and Ron Carter – and spending 20 years on the road with Metheney – his bucket list is complete.In this podcast, Sanchez also talks about how he got Trent Reznor and Dave Matthews to guest on his last solo album, Shift (Bad Hombre Vol. II) – and reveals that John Scofield, Bill Frisell, Chris Potter, Joel Ross and Fleck have already recorded parts for its sequel. Before that, he has another supergroup trio album coming out: Ellipsis, alongside Snarky Puppy founder Michael League, and Cuban percussionist Pedrito Martínez. Seriously, this guy doesn't stop. He also opens up about sharing the stage with his wife, vocalist Thana Alexa, and talks about why Damien Chazelle’s controversial jazz drumming movie Whiplash just isn’t the real deal. All in barely half an hour!
Colombia