Debbie Burke is the author of The Poconos in B Flat and the upcoming Glissando: A Story of Love, Lust and Jazz (Waldorf Publishing, February 2018). She lives in northeastern Pennsylvania.
Somehow, smiling while keeping his embouchure as he plays sax, Audley Reid is a sight to behold and a feast for the ears. The groove and funk spilling from his horn catches the audience in an acoustic vise.
He’s performed internationally including in his native Jamaica. A strong figure in the Chicago smooth jazz scene, he can easily slide from smooth to Caribbean to R&B or from Christian to straight-ahead. His CD titled “A Plays E” was ranked #3 by Smooth Jazz and More internet radio.
With an octopus-like grasp into the performing arts world, Bianca Rossini has done so much already: acting in films and TV dramas, and hosting her own TV talk show; writing, composing and performing music heavily influenced by her Brazilian roots; publishing a poetry book; dancing and even puppetry. The creative flow is unstoppable and her energy is infectious. She has just released the new CD “Vento do Norte” and this north wind is about to bring the jazz world much more hot music.
Jamey Aebersold is responsible for all those fantastic play-a-longs, those books with exercises and scales and arpeggios. He is also a very accomplished and respected sax player and educator.
Having just finished two back-to-back weeks running his annual Summer Jazz Workshops in Louisville, KY, Jamey was happy to report over 500 lucky instrumentalists came from all over the globe to participate.
It can be the cool “So What” by Miles Davis or the thoughtful jazz chestnut “On Green Dolphin Street” or something fast and spicy. No matter: Claudio Roditi’s trumpet speaks in a way that fills a room with sweet honey sounds. He left his native Rio de Janeiro while in his early 20s to study at Boston’s Berklee College of Music, and played with greats like Herbie Mann and Paquito D’Rivera. His Brazilian-informed understanding of the horn puts audiences in awe, as well they should be.
Claudio Roditi first came to the US via Boston in September of 1970. “I had a dear friend from high school, Victor Assis Brasil, who had come to Berklee the year before, and he was influential in my coming to Boston to study. I also knew pianist Nelson Ayres, so I had a couple of friends.”
Christian McBride is a bassist, composer and arranger, and jazz commentator/host. He tours and travels the world with the energy of a man constantly pumped up on the spirit of the music.
It is from listening to him play that you feel his joy for the art form. His tight musical sense of connection with other artists is strikingly apparent in the very rich and easy-going “Conversations with Christian,” his interview show now on Sirius XM’s “Real Jazz.”
What he likes about the changes in the music instrument are that the world of sound has become a lot smaller since early 1980s. “In an instant, you can pull out your smartphone and immediately find out what somebody’s doing halfway around the world. You can put music out there and anyone can access it,” he says.