Mike Jeffers Audio Experience

The Future Is Now PODCAST: Isaiah Spencer

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Episode 075 Chicago Music Revealed with Special Guest Greg Dudzienski

Saxophonist and composer Gregory Dudzienski lives a life of constant motion. After years of travel, he has become a member of Chicago’s strong community of musicians and improvisers. His original music has been featured on the Anagram Series at The Elastic Arts Foundation, the Actual Jazz Series at Cafe Mustache, and the Chicago Jazz Composers Collective At The Green Mill as well as the Is This Jazz Series at AS200 in Providence, Rhode Island, the International Saxophone Symposium in Fairfax, Virginia, and the Salerno Jazz Festival in Salerno Italy.

Dudzienski was inspired during his youth by the jazz of the late 1950s and 1960s and has since then continued to be influenced by the melodic, harmonic and rhythmic language of that era. Seeking new ways to navigate the spirit of the mid-century jazz language, his music results in a modern aesthetic with strong roots in primary sources.

Episode 073 Chicago Music Revealed with Special Guest Ivy Ford

Ivy Ford, singer, musician, entertainer. Waukegan born and raised, at 26 she is quite the up and coming artist of the Chicago blues and live music scene. Ivy Ford started performing live with Kenosha based band The Real Deal, managed by Steve Rainey at 13 and since then continues to nurture her niche and calling to the music. She plays piano, alto saxophone, drums, bass guitar and guitar which are primarily self taught. In late 2012, Ford joined a local blues band which in time evolved into Ivy Ford and The Cadillacs and gained fair amounts of popularity.

Episode 072 Chicago Music Revealed with Special Guest Jerry Roche

In 2015, Dot Time records launched its “Legends Series” featuring previously unreleased historical recordings from many of the greatest legends of the jazz genre. Dot Time Records believes that these recordings form an important part of the history of jazz and it is our goal to make these recordings available to jazz lovers around the globe. All recordings are painstakingly restored and newly re-mastered with the goal of presenting these recordings in a modern format while striving to keep the original atmosphere of the recordings intact.

Heading up the Dot Time Records “Legends Series” is jazz historian Jerry Roche. Jerry has a long established track record in the Jazz world. Jerry worked for 13 years with Blue Note subsidiary Mosaic Records, the preeminent Jazz reissue company. During his time at Mosaic, Jerry was involved with the selection of projects and assisted with research, production and packaging. Notable releases included the Grammy Nominated Mosaic Bix Beiderbecke Set (Best Historical Recording) as well as the Venuti/Lang & Prima/Manone sets.

Releases under the “Legends Series” are available on CD, Vinyl and as digital downloads and come with a comprehensive digital booklet that includes extensive liner notes and images.

Episode 071 Chicago Music Revealed with Special Guest Orbert Davis

One of Chicago’s “most admired jazz artists” (Howard Reich, Chicago Tribune), Orbert Davis was named by Chicago Magazine as “Y2k Best Trumpeter in Chicago” and “Chicagoan of the Year for 2002.” In September 2011, Davis was named Artist-In-Residence for the Chicago Jazz Festival, an honor held by only one other Chicagoan in its history.

Episode 070 Chicago Music Revealed with Special Guest Billy Flynn

Born in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Flynn is an American Chicago blues and electric blues guitarist, singer and songwriter.

 

In addition to his own work and works mentioned later, he has worked and recorded with Bryan Lee, Little Smokey Smothers, Mark Hummel, Willie Kent, Snooky Pryor, Big Bill Morganfield, John Brim, Jody Williams, Little Arthur Duncan, Deitra Farr, and Billy Boy Arnold.

 

In 1970, a local blues club opened and Flynn was inspired by the music provided there by Luther Allison, Johnny Littlejohn and Mighty Joe Young. Flynn was fortunate to be spotted playing outside the venue by Jimmy Dawkins, who arranged for Flynn to play with him on stage. Flynn joined Dawkins's backing band in 1975, and he played and toured with them until the end of the decade.

069 Chicago Music Revealed with Special Guest Dave Bryant

Keyboardist and composer Dave Bryant is best known for his work as a member of Ornette Coleman’s Prime Time group. Bryant’s addition to the group marked Ornette Coleman’s first extended work with a keyboard instrument in decades.

Starting in 1990, Bryant toured as part of the group and performed on the Prime Time “Tone Dialing” CD. During Bryant’s tenure with Prime Time, the band also performed with Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson, and numerous symphony orchestras throughout the world, including the New York Philharmonic Orchestra under conductor Kurt Mazur.

068 Chicago Music Revealed with Special Guest Derrick Gardner

Big dig! Band is set to release their debut studio recording Still I Rise on July 10th, 2020. Under the direction of trumpeter, composer, and arranger Derrick Gardner, Big dig! Band is a classic jazz orchestra - spectacular saxophone, trombone, and trumpet sections, studded with world-class musicians are anchored by a rock-solid rhythm section.

 

For Still I Rise, Gardner has gathered musicians from all over North America, and together their depth of experience delivers this seven-track collection of originals with dazzling energy, skill and sophistication. Derrick—an alumnus of the Count Basie Orchestra and an heir apparent to Frank Foster—is joined by his brother Vincent Gardner on trombone, alongside saxophonists Mark Gross, Greg Gatien, Rob Dixon, Tristan Martinuson and Ken Gold; trumpeters Bijon Watson, Jeff Johnson, Curtis Taylor and Andrew Littleford; trombonists Joel Green, Anthony Bryson and Bill Green; pianist Zen Zadravec, bassist Luke Sellick, guitarist Kasey Kurtz and drummer Curtis Nowosad.

 

First dreamed up in 2014 with co-leader Steve Kirby, the Big dig! Band takes its name—and its retro black-and-white aesthetic—from dig! magazine, a bi-monthly publication designed by John Funk which thrived under Steve’s care for over a dozen years.

067 Chicago Music Revealed with Special Guest Frank Catalano

No stranger to adversity, Frank cut off his right middle finger in an automobile accident. After several surgeries and much effort, Catalano relearned his signature technique, making him one of the most in-demand musicians today. He regularly donates his musical services to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

Also an entrepreneur, Frank has patented a devise that allows him to control his saxophone via midi components. Yamaha acquired the patent rights and in 2007 they received a Special Merit Grammy Award for Technical Achievement. Frank is a spokesperson/clinician/performing artist for companies such as Yamaha, Rico/D’Addario, and JodyJazz. He can be seen in their Print Ads worldwide. Catalano’s songs have been used in the ad campaigns of Motorola, Jaguar, Land Rover, and Drambuie as well as numerous TV and Film productions.

066 Chicago Music Revealed with Special Guest John Dorhauer

JOHN DORHAUER

HEISENBERG UNCERTAINTY PLAYERS

 

Heisenberg Uncertainty Players HUP is a 17-piece new music ensemble with jazz big band instrumentation that is quickly becoming known as one of the most ambitious and creative ensembles in Chicago. Formed in 2011 and playing exclusively original compositions and arrangements from founder and director John Dorhauer, HUP has performed at venues like The Jazz Showcase, Wire, Fulton Street Collective, Martyrs’, Fitzgerald’s Night Club, The Logan Center for the Arts, Reggie’s, and WGN-TV, and they were nominated for Best Jazz Band in Chicago Reader’s Best of Chicago 2017 and 2019 Polls.

 

Recent projects for HUP include performances of original arrangements of The Beatles’ Abbey Road and Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy albums in their entireties; HUP the Third, in which they perform original arrangements of movements from the third symphonies of Beethoven, Brahms, and Mahler; We Tear Down Our Coliseums, which is a nine-movement multimedia suite in which each movement is written as an homage to a baseball stadium that has been destroyed; and a collaboration with hip-hop collective Hitmakuzz Productions. HUP currently holds monthly residencies at Wicker Park’s Phyllis’ Musical Inn and Chicago Magic Lounge.