The play opens with Wong recounting a real moment: her July 2022 interview with a Broadway producer to write the musical adaptation of Crazy Rich Asians, just two months after being named a Pulitzer Prize finalist for her seventh solo show Kristina Wong: Sweatshop Overlord. In retelling the experience, she pitches an exaggerated, Cinderella-style story about wealth, romance, and upward mobility.

The framing is intentionally absurd. Wong, a self-described activist artist with a history of working with marginalized communities, is painfully aware that she does not fit the mold of a mainstream Broadway storyteller. Her comedic desperation — “I can give you crazy and Asian” — sets up one of the central tensions of the piece: the pull between artistic integrity and the desire for financial security and recognition.

When she fails to land the job, Wong pivots. If she cannot write a glossy musical about wealth and aspiration, she will write her own musical — one that reflects her real life. In a clever structural move, she adopts the conventions of a romantic comedy (meet-cute, complications, resolution) and casts an unexpected love interest: her local food bank. This conceit becomes the organizing metaphor of the show. The “relationship” allows Wong to explore not only her personal history with food insecurity, but also the broader systems that shape access to food in the United States.

Hunger, Shame and a Struggle to Survive
Wong’s early adulthood as a struggling artist provides emotional grounding. In her twenties, she juggles low-paying jobs and inconsistent income, often relying on work that provided meals or improvising ways to get by.

Shame plays a central role. Cultural expectations and personal pride made it difficult for her to seek help. Even when assistance programs existed, they felt inaccessible and stigmatized. Through humor, Wong illustrates how people hide food insecurity, masking it with resourcefulness and silence.

Her story highlights a broader truth: hunger in America is often invisible, shaped as much by social stigma as by economic hardship.

The Meet-Cute: Discovering World Harvest Food Bank
The narrative shifts when Wong discovers the World Harvest Food Bank, a non-traditional food bank that operates like a grocery store. Unlike more institutional models, it offers flexibility and dignity — people pay what they can, volunteer, or simply receive food.

Wong describes this as a romantic “meet-cute.” For the first time, she experiences abundance without shame. The space redefines what food aid can look like, offering not just sustenance but autonomy.

Her affection for World Harvest extends to its founder, Glenn Curado, whom she portrays as an unconventional, almost mythic figure. Unlike leaders of large nonprofit food banks, he refuses restrictive funding, avoids bureaucratic oversight, and prioritizes accessibility for undocumented people and others who might be excluded from formal systems. Wong contrasts this model with the larger Feeding America network, highlighting tensions between scale, regulation, and flexibility. Through humor — comparing food banks to the Kardashian sisters — she critiques the hierarchies and branding within the nonprofit world.

Yet the play does not romanticize food banks uncritically. As the “relationship” deepens, Wong introduces complications. She examines the language of “hunger” versus “food insecurity,” noting how emotional appeals are often used in fundraising while obscuring systemic causes.

Dating the System: When Aid Programs Become Characters
Expanding beyond her own experience, Wong connects food insecurity to larger structural issues. She traces the history of U.S. food assistance, emphasizing that the country does not guarantee food as a basic right.

Stories from communities like the Navajo Nation illustrate “food apartheid,” where geography, race, and policy limit access to nutritious food. These examples reinforce that hunger is not accidental but systemic.

Wong critiques how food banks function politically. They offer powerful imagery for politicians while allowing deeper issues — low wages, housing costs, healthcare — to remain unaddressed. She suggests food banks act as a “Band-Aid,” providing relief without solving root causes. This dual role makes them both essential and problematic.

At the emotional peak, Wong realizes the food bank cannot be her “forever love.” While necessary, it cannot end hunger. This realization is framed as a romantic breakup. Food banks address immediate need but not systemic inequality. By dramatizing this, Wong captures the tension between gratitude and frustration.

The play ends with a vision of a world where food banks are no longer needed because basic needs are guaranteed. Wong imagines a society where food, housing, and healthcare are accessible to all.

This vision is aspirational but grounded in critique. It challenges audiences to think beyond temporary solutions and toward systemic change.

Comedy as a Call to Action
What makes Food Bank Influencer so compelling is its ability to hold multiple truths at once. It celebrates the lifesaving work of food banks while critiquing their limitations. It uses humor to make difficult topics accessible without diminishing their seriousness. And it transforms a deeply personal story into a broader call for systemic change.

In the end, Wong’s “love story” is less about a single institution than about a shift in perspective. By moving from charity to community, from scarcity to dignity, she challenges audiences to rethink not only how we feed people, but how we value them.

For more information, visit kristinawong.com

Kaju Roberto is an accomplished musician, singer/ songwriter, journalist, and an award-winning producer. He is the artist Rad Jet.

The post A Love Story About Hunger: Inside Kristina Wong’s Food Bank Influencer appeared first on Rad Jet's Historic Jazz Walking Tours.

Portaro and I crossed paths by an extraordinary twist of fate at a late-night restaurant during my recent trip to London, and we instantly hit it off. He graciously invited us to join him as his guests for the band’s performance the very next evening.

On February 24, we experienced Whiplash live at the legendary Electric Ballroom in Camden, sharing the stage with Napalm Death during the iconic Campaign for Musical Destruction Tour. The show was absolutely electrifying — the energy was off the charts, the riffs were relentless, and Portaro’s vocals tore through the venue with ferocity. What excitement! It was some of the tightest, most savage and exhilarating thrash metal I’ve ever witnessed.

After arriving back in NYC, I caught up with Portaro in the West Village.

Portaro’s gear has always been as legendary as his riffs. Long before he endorsed Jackson guitars, he was devoted to BC Rich, particularly his Red Rich Bitch — fondly nicknamed The Bitch. “Only the red one. That was it,” he recalled. After years away from it, he recently reclaimed the guitar from a collector, restoring its original electronics. “It’s like reuniting with an old girlfriend,” he joked, noting that longtime fans will recognize the guitar’s return on stage.

Though he once endorsed Jackson, Portaro stopped pursuing sponsorship after Fender acquired the brand, deciding instead to invest in the guitars he wanted. “I spent $4,500 on the Kelly before all of that. I already had one, so I wanted my Red Bitch back,” he said. He also revealed an eye-catching Blue Mockingbird that has tempted him, highlighting his ongoing love for rare and unique instruments.

A move from the Tri-State area to North Carolina during the pandemic has had a profound impact. “It’s so peaceful here,” he said, describing friendly neighbors, relaxed traffic, and a lifestyle that allows him to focus on family and music. “In New Jersey, if you see a cop behind you, you get tense. Down here, it’s a different pace, and it’s been amazing for us.”

This calmer environment has provided a fertile ground for creativity and reflection, reinforcing the connection between personal well-being and artistic output.

Despite thrash metal being considered a niche genre, Portaro is optimistic about its future. “I think it’s going to break through as soon as I release this new album,” he said. With fans ranging from those who have followed Whiplash since the ’80s to younger listeners discovering the band for the first time, he sees an opportunity for a renaissance.

Portaro hinted at an ambitious plan for the rest of 2026, including new music and tours, with major festival appearances expected in 2027. “The younger fans are on Instagram, but we still have a loyal base on Facebook,” he noted, emphasizing the band’s ability to engage multiple generations.

Beyond music, Portaro has developed a passion for painting. He started during a financial rough patch, learning through YouTube tutorials, and quickly discovered a talent for large-scale canvases. “I never painted before. I just watched tutorials and started,” he said. Painting, he explained, is both stress relief and a creative driver: “It really influenced my songwriting. I let the paint tell me where to go, then the music takes over.”

Some of his tutorials are online, blending painting techniques with audio narration. The intersection of visual and musical art exemplifies Portaro’s holistic approach to creativity.

Portaro is equally devoted to teaching. His YouTube series, Tony Pat’s Bloody Licks with Midnight, “focuses on his thrash metal guitar leads, with close-ups, tabs, and notation. He emphasizes teaching his own work rather than generic lessons, cultivating a personal connection with students and fans.

While he is cautious about monetizing content, Portaro considers premium material as a possible future step. “I only want to teach my own leads. I feel weird taking money from my followers for that,” he explained, reflecting a sincere dedication to his audience.

The interview highlights Portaro’s playful, candid personality. From joking about guitars as old girlfriends to recounting serendipitous McDonald’s encounters, he balances intensity with humor. Even technical discussions about gear are punctuated with anecdotes about naming guitars, sharing band memories, and interacting with fans.

The future for Whiplash is bright. With a new album nearly complete, Portaro anticipates an energizing period of touring and engagement. He hinted at a special project scheduled for July 2026, though details remain under wraps. “2027 will be even better than 2026,” he said confidently.

Portaro’s message to fans is simple: enjoy the music, explore creativity, and stay connected.

With two generations of fans, a commitment to teaching, and a renewed creative drive, Tony Portaro is positioning Whiplash for a resurgence. He remains deeply committed to his craft, his instruments, and the thrash metal community. “I hope everyone likes the new album,” he said. “We’re going to be out there pushing it and playing shows again.”

For fans and newcomers alike, Tony Portaro embodies the essence of thrash metal: relentless energy, creative exploration, and an unwavering connection to both music and audience.

Here are Whiplash’s social media accounts, including the band’s Instagram handle and website to stay updated with new Whiplash releases and performances. 

@whiplash_thrash

https://officialwhiplash.com

The post Whiplash Guitarist Tony Portaro appeared first on Rad Jet's Historic Jazz Walking Tours.

Gypsy jazz requires a pick and relies on powerful downstrokes and precise alternate picking. Classical guitar, by contrast, is played fingerstyle, demanding intricate coordination of four fingers and refined nail technique. The muscle memory required for each style is distinct and most musicians devote their lives to mastering just one.

Boyer began playing at age six, immersing himself first in gypsy jazz. As a teenager, he entered the conservatory to study classical guitar. His interpretations of the demanding works of Domenico Scarlatti have drawn praise. Scarlatti’s complex counterpoint, originally written for keyboard, is formidable on guitar. Yet Boyer moves through it with clarity and ease before pivoting back to improvisation with leading gypsy jazz players.

Boyer explained his musical development to me during our recent interview. Musicianship is only part of his story. It also led to something deeply personal ─ a cross-cultural love story between virtuosic musicians that began in Taiwan.

Meeting at a Taiwan Festival
In 2018, Boyer met Korean harmonica player Yeore Kim at a gypsy jazz festival in Taipei. He had traveled from France to give masterclasses and perform concerts. She attended at a friend’s suggestion, despite knowing little about gypsy jazz. The festival unfolded over several days, filled with concerts, lessons and late-night jam sessions where they first played together.

There was an immediate complication ─ they did not share a spoken language. Boyer did not speak Korean. Kim spoke limited English and French was not an option. “So we played,” Boyer recalls. “The more music we played, the more we talked.” Music became their shared vocabulary.

Both describe that first collaboration as a moment of recognition. Boyer says he often senses a musician’s personality through tone — the way they hold an instrument, shape a phrase or connect with an audience. When he heard Kim’s harmonica, he was struck by her “powerful, honest, vibrant sound.”

Kim remembers feeling that Boyer possessed something she did not — and at the same time, that they shared something essential. That feeling deepened as they continued playing together. Taipei left a lasting impression ─ especially the relaxed atmosphere, the friendly people and the food. The city now holds a special significance: it is where their relationship began.

Today they are a happily married couple.

Growing Up With Music
Kim grew up in a musical household; her mother was a piano teacher. As a child, she studied piano, cello, trumpet and drums before gravitating toward harmonica. She describes the instrument as uniquely close to the human voice — intimate, expressive and capable of subtle shading. Her first paid work came at 20, playing trumpet at weddings in Korea — a vibrant industry there.

Boyer’s father, an amateur pianist, encouraged him to take up guitar so they could play together. They began lessons at the same time, studying with the same teacher when Boyer was six. By 11 or 12, he was already performing concerts and earning money. His father managed logistics while they toured as a duet.

Neither Boyer nor Kim recalls a single turning point when they chose music as a profession. Music chose them.

Their influences span genres. For Boyer, gypsy jazz traces back to Django Reinhardt, the genre’s pioneering figure. Classical studies opened doors to a broader repertoire. Kim cites harmonica legend Toots Thielemans and jazz trumpeters Chet Baker and Miles Davis as formative inspirations.

Love and Collaboration
Today, Boyer and Kim share both a life and a stage. However, that dual partnership required adjustment. “In the beginning, it was difficult to find the balance,” Kim says. The roles of life partner and musical partner are not identical. Over seven years together, they have learned each other’s rhythms — emotional patterns, stress responses and working styles. Structure helps. So does space.

“When you spend so much time together, you also need time alone,” Boyer explains. Recognizing when the other is stressed — and understanding that it is temporary — has been crucial. Not taking professional tension personally allows both the relationship and the music to flourish.

Artistically, they describe each other in poetic terms. Kim compares Boyer’s playing to a Monet impressionist painting — layered and nuanced. Boyer admires Kim’s ability to make a single note resonate deeply, creating an emotional impact that lingers.

The Album: You and I
After years of performing in various group settings, the couple released their duet album, You and I. Though they had long intended to record as a duo, other collaborations delayed the project. Last year, they decided the time was right.

Recorded in Korea and released last May, the album features interpretations of existing compositions spanning jazz standards and classically inspired works. Rather than follow a rigid theme, they selected pieces based on a simple principle: the music had to suit their combined sound.

Some songs they loved individually did not translate effectively as a duet. Others flourished after careful arrangement. The pair recorded and mixed the album themselves, maintaining creative control, with outside assistance only for mastering.

Looking ahead, they plan to continue touring as a duo with performances scheduled across Europe and the United States.

From a chance jam session in Taipei to concert stages around the world, their journey underscores a simple truth: sometimes music speaks first — and says everything words cannot.

WATCH my full interview with Gypsy jazz and classical guitar virtuoso Antoine Boyer on YouTube at the link below:

Read my article about the Gypsy jazz and classical guitar virtuoso Antoine Boyer where I originally wrote it in The Village View:

Antoine Boyer and Yeore Kim: A Love Story in Taipei Told Through Music

Kaju Roberto is an accomplished musician, singer/ songwriter, journalist, and an award-winning producer. He is the artist Rad Jet.

The post Antoine Boyer and Yeore Kim: A Love Story in Taipei Told Through Music appeared first on Rad Jet's Historic Jazz Walking Tours.

This Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration featured musical performances by Atiba Kwabena Wilson with Kiyoko Yamaoka-Layne, Thelma Thomas, Judy Gorman, Gary Allard, and Lindsey Wilson, adding layers of inspiration and community expression throughout the night.

Elijah Dixon Owens: A Letter Across Generations
Opening with a warm acknowledgment from the event’s host, Owens immediately set a tone of intimacy and sincerity. “This is a letter that I wrote for Dr. Martin Luther King,” he began, bridging past and present. His words carried the dual spirit of homage and accountability, tracing the arc of American militarism from Vietnam to Iraq, Afghanistan, and beyond. Through his reflections, the audience felt the deep frustration of repeated cycles of war driven by profit and power, highlighting King’s prophetic warnings about the “giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism.”

Yet this was not a speech of despair. Its power came from its honesty combined with an unwavering moral clarity. Owens’ voice carried a steady indignation at injustice, but also a persistent hope that action — even small, sustained acts of solidarity — matters. He detailed the efforts of his generation: marches, advocacy, and participation in concerned committees, emphasizing that words alone are insufficient, but that they can inspire necessary action.

Reflections on History and Resilience
The program wove together history, music, and personal testimony. Drawing from a civil rights tour through the American South, Owens shared vivid experiences of slavery museums, the haunting symbolism of the sea, and the extraordinary resilience of both Jewish and African American communities. He reflected on the similarities and differences between these histories, emphasizing the lessons of courage, resistance, and moral perseverance that emerge when communities stand firm against oppression.

Music punctuated the evening, bringing the audience into collective affirmation. The chorus of Brian Claflin and Ellie Grace’s activist song invited listeners to join in with the line, “I’m gonna walk it with you,” transforming the café into a space of shared commitment and mutual support. The act of singing became a metaphor for solidarity across time, space, and struggle — an embodied reminder of King’s insistence that justice requires participation, not passivity.

Owens also invoked the words of historical figures and poets, from Harry T. Moore’s tireless investigation of lynchings to Langston Hughes’ guidance from mother to son. Each voice reinforced a central theme: resilience is not simply survival, but the continuous effort to carry others forward, to lift one another in the face of systemic cruelty and fear.

Bracha Lieberman: Kindness, Action, and Hope
Throughout the evening, the tone balanced reflection with moral resolve. The message was clear: the fight for justice is ongoing, often exhausting, and sometimes terrifying — but it is also meaningful, shared, and redemptive. The audience left with a sense of both the weight of history and the power of collective human action.

Following Owens, Bracha Lieberman brought a complementary perspective, infusing the evening with personal reflection and lived experience. Drawing on her background in social work and faith-based activism, she highlighted the imperative of resilience in daily life: the small acts of kindness, solidarity, and moral courage that sustain communities even when systemic injustices persist. Lieberman shared stories from her own engagement with voting rights, immigration advocacy, and civil rights history tours, connecting them to contemporary struggles. 

With warmth, humor, and deep humanity, she emphasized the call to act not out of despair, but out of hope — a hope grounded in the belief that collective effort and moral persistence can bend the arc of history toward justice. Her presence and words reminded the audience that Dr. King’s legacy lives not only in grand gestures but in daily, determined commitment to one another.

Music, Solidarity and a Night to Remember
In celebrating Dr. King, the event at People’s Voice Cafe did more than honor memory — it challenged those present to consider their own roles in shaping a more just and compassionate world. As Owens and Lieberman reminded the audience repeatedly, “It looks like it might be a hard road, but I’m gonna walk it with you.” The phrase became a mantra for the night, a promise of solidarity and hope that resonates far beyond the walls of the café.

The MLK Celebration concluded on a joyous and unifying note with a rousing Freedom Song sing-along led by soulful singer-songwriters Gary David Allard and Lindsey Wilson, highlighted by the classic song This Little Light of Mine. The performance was made even more special by an impromptu accompaniment on upright piano by composer Chris Oledude, who happened to be in the audience, creating a spontaneous and electrifying moment of communal celebration.

As the evening wound down, I ran into the “old-fashioned folk singer” and Village local music legend Steve Suffet. We had an animated conversation, sharing and reliving vivid music tales of the Village music scene in the 60s and recalling Suffet’s impromptu jams on his Harmony guitar. 

It was a perfect nostalgic capstone to an MLK Celebration at People’s Voice Cafe that had been poignant, powerful, and deeply moving.

Kaju Roberto is an accomplished musician, singer/ songwriter, journalist, and an award-winning producer. He is the artist Rad Jet on Spotify.

The post Walking Together through History and Hope: A Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration at People’s Voice Café appeared first on Rad Jet's Historic Jazz Walking Tours.

It’s hard to believe that Friedman has now lived in Japan for almost 23 years. 

“The problem with paying your dues is that it never ends,” Friedman eloquently opines in his 2024 autobiography Dreaming Japanese. “You never stop paying your dues. Every single day.” 

From his riveting book, I’ve gathered Friedman’s life has always been about recurring reinvention and adaptability. He gets knocked down repeatedly and has to get up and completely start over again, followed by feelings of isolation and deep reflection, which ultimately leads to a resolution of an improbable reinvention that propels him to greater heights.

Through his relentless perseverance Friedman struggles to start again from nothing, going from tasting local band success as a teenager in rural Maryland, to the verge of homelessness in L.A., to ubiquitous rock superstardom followed by a near nervous breakdown, to a radical reinvention as an American living in Japan as a mainstream TV celebrity and J-Pop musician.  

I interviewed Friedman about his extraordinary life and career that continues to be an open book while visiting City Winery in the West Village. Earlier this year, I’d seen Friedman perform in this same venue with his eponymous band during their U.S. Tour.

Friedman’s Early Life

Born in Washington, D.C. in 1962 and raised in rural Maryland in a Jewish household, Friedman was destined to live and thrive in an unorthodox lifestyle, whether through his social interactions with his peers or fledgling music career. 

Friedman admittedly grew up from a place of privilege and security compared to other big-league musicians. His father was a National Security Agency (NSA) executive working on highly classified projects. Friedman often moved to different parts of the world for years at a time with his family due to his dad’s assignments, adjusting to life in Germany and later forming and performing in bands in Maryland, Hawaii, California, and Japan.

While life moved on, Friedman lacked motivation until accidentally discovering the guitar at the age of 14 inspired by his enthusiasm for the band KISS. 

Here are some excerpts from our interview. 

KR: I went to see you at City Winery in New York City on February 4th. What a fun show! One thing I totally loved is your onstage vibe with your band. You always have another great guitar player in the band, and you not only unselfishly pass the baton and allow them to shine, you turn it into a hilarious comedy act, especially during the call response solo of Tornado of Souls. You constantly badger him. It’s funny, dude. How did that shtick start? 

MF: You know, it’s one of those things you never know what people are gonna like about any parts of your career. People still bring up that song, Tornado of Souls, and they really connect to it. So instead of me playing it, he plays it and then I stop him. I get pissed off at him for playing my solo. Then we argue on stage and everyone loves it. You know, like you said, it was really funny!

We do that in every country in the world. And the language barrier or lack of language barrier just makes it a completely different, hilarious experience. I think the funniest has to be in Japan because Naoki doesn’t speak English, but I speak Japanese to him and he’s from Kobe, which is in Osaka.

So we argue and when I speak in his dialect, it just sounds completely ridiculous. It kind of adds to the whole craziness of the situation. We have fun with it and bring the audience into it!

KR: Joking around about stuff with your buddy guitarist Jason Becker was also a big thing back in Cacophony. I can feel that special camaraderie you guys had when you did that U.S. tour in 1988 having extracurricular activity after the concerts. You met a Latino one night in one of the southwestern states and he really teased you about that. 

MF: Ha ha. That was funny. I put all that kind of lowbrow humor in the book. People like to think if I’m a musician or someone they admire that I’m somehow like a really classy guy. I’m just like everybody else — just as crude as the next guy. 

I like to disarm people in that way. We’re all the same, and we all think about the same things, and we all kid each other about the same things. So I put a lot of that stuff in the book.

KR: What do you think of the younger generation of shredders today? Ichika Nito, Marcin, Tim Henson and Max Ostro. Do you think they’re missing something despite their technical proficiency? 

MF: Absolutely not. I’m friends with all these guys and have worked with all of them. I’m here to tell you that they’re all fantastic.

I’ve done the most work with Ichika. We’re ready to put something out together in the next couple of days. He’s the real deal. Marcin is just mind blowing and Tim Henson is really great. I’m very happy that these guys came up because it revives interest in guitar. 

For more information visit: Martyfriedman.com

WATCH my full interview with prog rock and metal guitar hero and Dreaming Japanese author Marty Friedman on YouTube at the link below:

Marty Friedman on His Life as a Guitar Hero: Dreaming Japanese to a New Reality 

Kaju Roberto is an accomplished musician, singer/ songwriter, journalist, and an award-winning producer. He is the artist Rad Jet on Spotify.

The post Marty Friedman on His Life as a Guitar Hero: Dreaming Japanese to a New Reality appeared first on Rad Jet's Historic Jazz Walking Tours.

However with Stanley, this term is absolutely truly accurate. He is indubitably the real deal. He has always been the real deal guitar genius ever since I started following him in the early ‘80s when he was busking in New York City before the term even became fashionable.

Go to YouTube and check out his live renditions of Eleanor Rigby and Stairway to Heaven, and you will know why.

Legendary Playing Style and World Record
Back in the early ‘80s, Stanley established a two-handed tapping technique with multiple chord voicings using multiple fingers simultaneously that was far ahead of its time, expanding on the instruments’ vocabularies, and capabilities where Van Halen and others left off.

In 1985, his first album, Magic Touch, debuted on a revamped Blue Note Records and remained on the Billboard Jazz chart for 51 consecutive weeks—a record that still stands. Today after years of performing solo shows—and with a variety of the music elite—he has created a must-see live tour. It is an intriguing project called Stanley Jordan Plays Jimi, where he has envisioned what Jimi Hendrix would sound like if he were still living and touring today

Stanley performs Jimi’s full catalog with his incredible trio of Kenwood Dennard on drums and West Wirth on electric bass. I can’t think of a more worthy player and trio more equipped and qualified to honor the great Jimi Hendrix’s vision.

Interview Excerpts
As a fan of all the great virtuoso guitarists and a guitarist myself, I was truly humbled to interview the great Stanley Jordan recently at Washington Square Diner in Greenwich Village. Here are a few excerpts.

Welcome to the one and only Stanley Jordan. What do Yngwie Malmsteen and Stanley Jordan have in common?
Um, we both know the harmonic minor scale? (laughter)

That’s a good second guess. I would say you certainly do know neoclassical. But, the real answer is that you both first picked up the guitar on the day that Jimi Hendrix died. September 18, 1970.
Wow. Well, in my case, it’s close. When I got the news that he died, that’s when I made up my mind for sure that I was going to play a guitar.

Because my whole life as a guitar player in a sense is a kind of a footnote to Jimi, and when you look at how I started, I wanted to basically continue his legacy. But the most important thing that I got from Jimi is that the guitar is a personal instrument and you can find your own voice.

That’s amazing. I take it that your parents really supported your creative sparks?
They did. And I feel really blessed about that. You know, especially thinking back on where we were positioned in the society. We were an upwardly mobile Black family living in the suburbs in the area that is now called Silicon Valley.

A lot of people were moving there because they were part of the high tech boom. They had dreams of success in their careers. And certainly we had lived on the East Coast. We moved there because my father got a job. He was actually the first personnel manager at Hewlett Packard, and he hired Roy Clay, who we just lost last year.

Does it take both the right side and the left side of your brain to come up with a new way of playing the guitar?
That’s a good point. Because it was very scientific in how I went about it, and I knew what I was trying to accomplish. I tried a bunch of different things, tried this and that and I worked it out. 

I wanted to touch upon how you approach reworking classics like Eleanor Rigby.
Wow. What a great question. Going back to Keith Jarrett, his solo piano improvisations, where he just sits at the piano totally open with no idea what he’s going to do, he just lets the music flow through him.

The other extreme is I’m a sheet music originalist. There’s some people who say that you don’t have any rights that aren’t explicitly enumerated in the Constitution. I’m always somewhere in-between on that continuum. 

I was fascinated by your Jimi show.  Explain your thought process for how you envisioned Hendrix’s sound and musical choices would’ve changed if he were performing today?
Well, the main thing is that late in life he was moving into jazz and jazz influenced things and kind of fusion influenced things. He also was doing a lot of Middle Eastern scales with the augmented seconds and stuff. He was also a fan of Dick Dale, the surf guitar guy. And Dick Dale, turns out, is from Lebanon.

I really enjoyed listening to your fascinating stories Stanley, you’re such an intellect. 

www.stanleyjordan.com/en/ 

WATCH my full interview with legendary guitar innovator Stanley Jordan on YouTube at the link below:

Read my article about the legendary guitar innovator Stanley Jordan where I originally wrote it in The Village View:

Stanley Jordan: The Guitar Genius with the Magic Touch Plays Jimi

Kaju Roberto is an accomplished musician, singer/ songwriter, journalist, and an award-winning producer. He is the artist Rad Jet on Spotify.

The post Stanley Jordan: The Guitar Genius with the Magic Touch Plays Jimi appeared first on Rad Jet's Historic Jazz Walking Tours.

This fascinating two-hour tour centered on the history of NYC particularly from the southern tip of Manhattan to where the north Greenwich Village ends. 

Mark is a walking encyclopedia of historical knowledge about New York City.

From 17th Century New Amsterdam to The Village Today
From how the Dutch first arrived in 1624 and named this land New Amsterdam, to how the Lenape traded goods, to the yellow fever epidemics that in the 19th century caused the land where Washington Square Park is today to be a grave site, to how Millionaire’s Row began, and how Canal Street was once an actual canal, Mark did not miss a single beat. For example, on Center Street where housing court is today, there was once a big fresh water pond that became so polluted it had to be drained into the canal now known as “Canal Street.”

Another intriguing fact Mark mentioned is that people would come to the west side in the early 1800s (where Hudson River Park is now located), and rent small cottages to escape the “bad air of yellow fever” of the central city. Supposedly, this early strain of yellow fever was so strong, you could be fine in the morning and dead by the afternoon. This was a time before sanitation existed, where pigs roamed the city streets and people threw their garbage out of their windows.

Under Dutch rule, there were slaves in Greenwich Village brought to the city by Sephardic Jewish traders and others. Eventually some slaves were allowed to buy their freedom by working. Some were even given fertile land on Thompson Street, which was known as “Little Africa” well into the 19th century.

In 1811, the grid pattern of the city streets we know today began with city legislation named “The Commissioner’s Plan.” There was no altruistic motive for this; it was purely devised to sell housing lots. Avenues running uptown and downtown and numbered streets starting from Houston Street began here. Until 1830 the north end of Washington Square Park was the northern edge of the city. Writers and artists were opposed to this plan, since the city at that time was filled with beautiful rolling hills, small lakes, and waterfalls.

Charles Street Prison and the Birth of Fifth Avenue
In the early 19th century, there was a prison on Charles Street. From there some inmates were sent up the Hudson River to Sing Sing, hence the origins of the saying “being sent up the river.” Work on Fifth Avenue started in 1830, but only reached as north as 23rd Street by the early 1840s. This is about the time the super-rich started moving to the lower completed part of Fifth Avenue.

The First Artists Settle in Greenwich Village
By the beginning of the 20th century, artists and poets began moving into the Village as rent was cheap. As early as the 1890s, there was an Arts Student League and the National Academy on 57th Street. 

Around this time, a group of artist pals from Philadelphia (which included John Sloan and Everett Shinn and led by Robert Henri) settled in Greenwich Village. They were later dubbed “The Ash Can School” painters since Henri encouraged them to paint what they would see, rather than the romantic depictions of nature scenes. This was a novel art concept at the time.

The Republic of Greenwich Village
We finally worked our way toward Sixth Avenue and turned east on 8th Street. Here Mark showed us a brick building with small windows where the Dadaist artist Man Ray lived in 1915. He was romantically involved with the American photographer Lee Miller. By accident, they discovered the surrealist photographic technique called “solarisation,” although Ray would take full credit for it. This caused their inevitable breakup.

We next moved on to MacDougal Alley where Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney purchased her art studio, which later became the first Whitney Museum.

Moving further along Fifth Avenue, we had come full circle back to the park. In 1889, the first Washington Square Arch was erected near its current location. This wooden structure was so beloved by the Greenwich Village community, that in 1893 it was rebuilt larger in its current location. Many years later would become the beacon for one of the most important Greenwich Village events.

January 23, 1917 witnessed the creation of the Republic of Greenwich Village. The French conceptual artist Marcel Duchamp had moved to NYC from France in 1915 to avoid conscription following his highly successful NYC Armory Show in 1913 – the first art show to expose European artists to American audiences. His showing of his radical painting Nude Descending the Staircase made Duchamp an international sensation.

The artist perpetrators led by Duchamp broke into the side door of the Washington Square Arch and climbed to the top. They partied there for 24 hours, bringing sandwiches, balloons, Japanese lanterns, and wine where the group declared Greenwich Village to be the Republic of Greenwich Village. It was a place of radical thinking, a place to be free and to create.

The Republic of Greenwich Village Walking Tour was the perfect way to learn so much about the history of the New York City and Greenwich Village. Definitely look up Mark Kehoe and take one of his walking tours.

For more information: thevillagetrip.com

Read this article Republic of Greenwich Village Walking Tour: A Seasonal Gem of NYC History where I originally wrote it in The Village View:

Republic of Greenwich Village Walking Tour: A Seasonal Gem of NYC History

Kaju Roberto is an accomplished musician, singer/ songwriter, journalist, and an award-winning producer. He is the artist Rad Jet on Spotify.

The post Republic of Greenwich Village Walking Tour: A Seasonal Gem of NYC History appeared first on Rad Jet's Historic Jazz Walking Tours.

Primus, headed by Les Claypool, returned this summer to stages nationwide with their Onward & Upward tour—an expansive, coast-to-coast trek marking an exciting new chapter for the band. As lead singer, bassist, and primary songwriter, Claypool has been ranked as one of the greatest bassists of all time by Rolling Stone magazine, developing a unique playing style that “mixes tapping, flamenco-like strumming, whammy bar bends, and slapping.”

This tour follows Primus’ electrifying run on the Sessanta tour alongside the bands A Perfect Circle and Puscifer. Onward & Upward not only brings the trio’s signature blend of musical innovation back but also introduces fans to drummer John “Hoffer” Hoffman, whose recent addition to the lineup brings a renewed sense of energy, experimentation, and groove to the legendary outfit.

Kicking off on July 5 in Paso Robles, CA, the tour hit 24 cities across the U.S., making stops at iconic venues like Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado, The Salt Shed in Chicago, The Rooftop at Pier 17 in New York, and The Greek Theatre in Los Angeles. On select dates, Primus was joined by a pair of equally bold and idiosyncratic artists—Ty Segall and MonoNeon. It all culminated in a celebratory two-night stand at Channel 24 in Sacramento on August 7 and 8.

A Spirit of Constant Evolution
The Onward & Upward tour borrows its name from the ever-mutating DNA of Primus itself—a band that’s never been content to sit still or play it straight. That spirit of constant evolution has now hurtled forward with the addition of Hoffman, whose arrival marks a bold new chapter for the trio. Selected from more than 6,200 global applicants during the band’s wide-open audition process, Hoffman’s deep pocket, wild musical mind, and immediate chemistry with Claypool and Larry “Ler” LaLonde made him the clear choice.

This search for a new drummer was recently chronicled in the band’s newly launched YouTube series, Interstellar Drum Derby, which gave fans an inside look at the journey that led to Hoffman’s selection.

Claypool shared the following statement about the tour and the band’s newest member: “Hitting the road this summer with Hoffer at the helm! This fiery, cheerful, octopus-like drummer from Shreveport, Louisiana has breathed a very potent breath of freshness into this band we all call Primus.”

While splitting the drum duties of his first gig with the mighty Danny Carey in the Dominican Republic, Hoffman launched himself into the Primus world with all ‘guns-a-blazin’.

New Drummer May be Their Greatest
Fresh from their spring jaunt around the states with Sessanta Part 2, Hoffer, Ler and The Ol’ Colonel performed full length Primus sets at choice venues across the U.S., dipping into material (mainly at the request of Hoffer) that have not been performed in many years. After witnessing close up the Pier 17 concert, I can attest why this amazing fellow was able to rise above 6,200 applicants to win the Interstellar Drum Derby and become the latest, and possibly the greatest, drummer to sit on the Primus drum throne!

Claypool himself stood up to the gargantuan reputation he has long earned – a master technician, true innovator and iconoclast on the bass, and simply one of the greatest to ever do it. I was truly spellbound. Watching Claypool play both on the stage and on the gigantic immersive screen at Pier 17 was a thunderous visceral experience.

Onward & Upward!
For more information about Primus and tour dates, visit: https://primusville.com

Read this article Legendary Rock Trio Primus Introduces New Drummer at Pier 17 where I originally wrote it in The Village View:

Legendary Rock Trio Primus Introduces New Drummer at Pier 17

Kaju Roberto is an accomplished musician, singer/ songwriter, journalist, and an award-winning producer. He is the artist Rad Jet on Spotify

The post Legendary Rock Trio Primus Introduces New Drummer at Pier 17 appeared first on Rad Jet's Historic Jazz Walking Tours.

Wrembel is a master jazz guitarist, Grammy-award winning composer, author, and notably the astute music impresario of the Django a Go-Go Festival and Guitar Camp. The New York Times wrote, “Perhaps the most creative improviser in Gypsy jazz today, Mr. Wrembel plays the guitar with a rich and colorful lyricism.”

His composition Bistro Fada was on the Grammy-winning soundtrack for Midnight In Paris, and was the theme song for this same 2011 Oscar winning film by director Woody Allen. He has also composed other pieces for Allen, including Big Brother for 2008’s Vicki Cristina Barcelona and contributed the original score for 2020’s Rifkin’s Festival. He is also the author of Getting into Gypsy Jazz published in 2004.

Early Years and Development
Wrembel was born in Paris but raised in Fontenbleau, France, the birthplace of Impressionism, and the city where Django passed away in the early 1950s. He studied classical piano beginning at age 4 at the behest of his mother, but never was really keen about the instrument. Still, he won two major competitions as a youngster, the Lucien Wurmser competition and at the National Conservatory of Aubervilliers. This would later all change when he first discovered and fell in love with the guitar at age 15. He would spend countless hours learning songs from his favorite rock bands, Pink Floyd, The Police, Led Zeppelin and early Genesis. He knew immediately the guitar was the instrument for him.

When I interviewed Wrembel in the Washington Square Diner in Greenwich Village, he told me that although he loved rock as a teenager, once he discovered Django’s music there was no turning back. He fell in love with the strong Impressionist feel. 

Transition to Django’s Music
When he was 17 and attending the American School of Modern Music in Paris, Wrembel was introduced to Django’s music, and his entire world changed. He immersed himself in the Sinti culture (a Roma group from Western Europe, which Django was part of) spending six or seven years going to the guitar camps. When he was 19, he would play with other great Gypsy jazz players. Soon Wrembel made a local name for himself on the Gypsy jazz circuit. However, he was not satisfied.

Wrembel immigrated to the United States in the late 90s after being awarded a full scholarship to the Berklee College of Music. He graduated summa cum laude in 2002. That same year, he released his debut album.

While Wrembel was a student at Berklee, few knew who Django was.  At this time, he found the organizer for a Django music festival in Boston, and offered to perform for free. However, the organizer turned him down. So Wrembel was determined to start his own Django festival, and knew he could do it much better.

Django a Go-Go Music Festival and Guitar Camp
In 2003, Wrembel created his inaugural Django a Go-Go Music Festival in Maplewood, NJ, bringing together some of the finest musicians in the world to celebrate the Sinti guitar style. Soon he would secure prestigious events at Carnegie Hall, Joe’s Pub, and The Town Hall. The weeklong event, held in his hometown of Maplewood and NYC consisting of several live concerts in different venues, later expanded to Los Angelas, Canada, and beyond. 

By 2017, in its 15th year, Wrembel realized his dream by adding a guitar camp to the festival where everyone from the most advanced players to early beginners could sign up for a reasonable weeklong conference fee and learn from the greatest jazz masters in the world. Truly a guitar player’s dream. Over the years, masters such as Angelo DeBarre, Simba Baumgartner (Django’s great-grandson), Josh Kaye, Al DiMeola, Stochelo Rosenberg, and Antoine Boyer have taught at Wrembel’s camps as well as performed at the festival.

Upcoming New York Shows
With Django a Go-Go now in its 23rd year in NYC, Wrembel has earned well-deserved accolades and reputation on many fronts. The shows at Dizzy’s 10/30-11/2 are with his 9-piece specialty group, Django New Orleans.  Stephane will be celebrating the release of a new recording, Django New Orleans II: Hors-Série. If you love the music of Django Reinhardt, definitely try to make it to one of Stephane Wrembel’s upcoming Dizzy shows!

WATCH my full interview with Gypsy jazz Grmmy-Award winner Stephane Wrembel on YouTube at the link below:

Read this article Stephane Wrembel: Gypsy Jazz Master, and Music Impresario where I originally wrote it in The Village View:

Stephane Wrembel: Gypsy Jazz Master and Music Impresario

Check out my interview on YouTube with Stephane Wrembel.
For tickets to Stephane Wrembel shows: stephanewrembel.com

Kaju Roberto is an accomplished musician, singer/ songwriter, journalist, and an award-winning producer. He is the artist Rad Jet on Spotify

The post Stephane Wrembel: Gypsy Jazz Master, and Music Impresario appeared first on Rad Jet's Historic Jazz Walking Tours.

This is part of the Taiwanese American Art Council’s (TAAC) Eco Art on Island, a series of exhibitions in which artists, curators, medical professionals, and environmental experts respond to island and terrestrial ecologies. The exhibitions will be running through early November in House 17 on Governors Island and is free to the public.

Eco Art on Island, in association with Tenri Culture Institute, invites artists to observe, experience, and respond to island ecologies through cross-disciplinary creative practice, recognizing that no one is external to the social, cultural, and ecological systems shaping today’s climate crisis.

Recently I met with artists Marisa De Las Nieves Delgado and Jia-Jen Lin for interesting conversations about their exhibitions.

Marisa De Las Nieves Delgado
How Antarctica Chose Her

In Antarctica, there are no worlds to divide us, as it is covered by the Antarctica Treaty, an agreement shared between all participating countries which states that this land will only be used for scientific research and exploration.

Throughout history, only been 11 people have been born on the Antarctica continent, the coldest and most inhospitable place on earth. In 1978, Marisa became the first female to born on the Argentine military base of Esperanza where her father was stationed as a scientific team assistant on the Antarctica peninsula. It was his third station to Antarctica, and one where Marisa’s mother reluctantly agreed to accompany him.

Today Marisa travels the world and speaks about how being born at the bottom of the earth has shaped her life philosophy and her relationship to fragile ecosystems. Even in a seemingly uninhabitable and harsh place, life finds a way to flourish.

Facilities in Antarctica
Marisa told me that in 1978, there was only one building on base which served as a medical facility staffed by one doctor. In 1979, a fire destroyed that building. It has since been rebuilt, and there are now several medical facilities with doctors and nurses, a church, a post office, a museum, a school, and even a radio station in Esperanza, which is the only operating radio station on the entire continent.

Antarctica as Art
Marisa explained the relationship between art and Antarctica as the search for truth in silence. Art is a place where we are forced to confront ourselves. Antarctica is like standing in front of a blank canvas, where we confront the infinite — just as when we are standing at the edge of the world in front of the ever-expansive polar landscape. Both challenge us to find beauty where others see emptiness. To find connection where others see isolation — just as the severe winter Antarctica storms sculpt ice into ever-changing forms.

Marisa has expressed that her life has been a bridge between these two worlds – the silence of ice and the voice of art. Through her work, she tries to bring the invisible stories of Antarctica to life.

Preserving the Heartbeat of Antarctica
Together with the ten other Antarctica-born people, Marisa created and is the president/founder of the organization Native Antarcticans. Their mission is five-fold:

– To protect the symbolic power of Antarctica as a beacon of peace

– To remind the world that people have lived and loved in desolate beauty 

-To inspire new generations that Antarctica is a vital part of our shared story, a place that exemplifies when nations choose cooperation over conflict

-To show that in Antarctica the impossible is possible, through education, culture projects, art exhibitions, and environmental initiatives

-To show a place with no borders can unite a world divided

To stand for the preservation of the continent’s natural purity, and that a fragile earth must be cared with the same tenderness that brought life to this distant frozen placeAntarctica is The Heartbeat of our Planet
Antarctica has been ravaged by climate change in recent decades like many other places in the world, particularly at the northern and southern extremes of the world. Marisa wants the world to know that Antarctica is the heartbeat of our planet, with its glaciers holding the majority of earth’s fresh water. Its cold currents regulate the oceans. Its storms shape the weather patterns of the earth. When Antarctica suffers, the whole world does.

To follow the work Marisa De Las Nieves Delgado: Facebook: Native_Antarcticans, Instagram: @native_antarticans,
Website: taac-us.org

Jia-Jen Lin
Interdisciplinary Artist

Jia-Jen Lin is a Taiwanese artist born in Taichung. She was traditionally trained as a painter and holds a BFA from the National Taiwan University, before later receiving her MFA in Sculpture, Installation, and Multimedia from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University in Boston. She moved to New York City in 2007.
As an artist specializing in an interdisciplinary approach, Jia-Jen has drawn upon her diverse training and has carved out a unique career by creating installations spanning several media, including sculpture, photography, video, sound, text, and performance art. Her practice explores human experiences and conditions. She creates visual presentations to investigate the human body and its surroundings as a reflection of our psyche.

Since the start of the pandemic, Jia-Jen has been deeply disturbed by the destruction and social violence that has plagued New York City. With climate change, social movements like Black Lives Matter, and Asian hate crimes all happening at the same time, she was compelled to express her feelings through her art. This includes employing the concept of “landscape” visualized as a battleground and extension of the human body, while exploring the concept of “post-landscape” where nature, human activities, digital media, and materiality intersect.

Treading on Thin Ice
These concurrent events beginning in 2020 inspired Jia-Jen to create a series called Treading on Thin Ice, her collection contemplating human conditions under progressive catastrophes resulting from social issues and climate change. This deep reflection, inquisitiveness and exploration into her own interdisciplinary work is what has guided Jia-Jen to pursue her two fascinating trips to the Arctic. These were important art research trips in 2022 and 2024 to the world’s northernmost inhabited lands of Svalbard, which is an isolated Norwegian island archipelago hundreds of miles north of the Arctic Circle.

Both trips were made possible by the Arctic Circle, a program bringing artists, scientists, environmentalists, writers, and performers together on the same boat to sail around Svalbard. However, her first scheduled trip to Svalbard was postponed in October 2020 due to Covid-19 travel restrictions. Meanwhile, Jia-Jen continued to work on her concept of Treading on Thin Ice.

In 2022, she secured a new art show in Miami which was her first Treading on Thin Ice exhibition. She presented a man-made environment which juxtaposed the familiar and unfamiliar, including a backyard-like installation resembling sculptures of concrete pavers and artificial grass. During this time, Jia-Jen also collaborated with laboratory scientists and actors to create natural and artificial landscapes which culminated in her video of a scenic panorama captured on Mars!

Breaking New Ground
Jia-Jen finally received clearance to sail with her group around Svalbard after her Miami show in 2022. Thirty to forty scientists, artists, actors, writers, and performers lived in close quarters on a large sailboat for two weeks. They started out in the central west near the town of Longyearbyen and set sail to uninhabited Bear Island, the northernmost island on the archipelago.

On her first visit to Svalbard, during hiking trips while on polar in-field research, the group was required to carry a rifle at all times. This is by law, as on Svalbard it is a common occurrence to see polar bears. Based on this amazing trip Jia-Jen was able to create a three-channel generative visual called Collapsing Landscape, which employed video, sound, generative visual, sculpture, and text to reimagine where we, as humans, stand amid our changing land. It was shown around Taipei in 2023 as part of the Video Bi-Annual.

Her second trip in 2024 was a vastly different experience; it was a Special Circumnavigation Expedition. She was on a large ship with over 100 people onboard. Borne from this Svalbard trip Jia-Jin, in collaboration with a writer and music composer, produced a virtual mixed reality work in 2025 which showed in Berlin. It was centered about the trash in Svalbard!

Read this article on the Art Journey to the Extremes of the Earth where I originally wrote it in The Village View:

From South Pole to North Pole: An Art Journey to the Extremes of the Earth

To view Jia-Jin’s work, visit Governors Island House 17. Website: taac-us.org

Kaju Roberto is an accomplished musician, singer/ songwriter, journalist, and an award-winning producer. He is the artist Rad Jet on Spotify

The post From South Pole to North Pole: An Art Journey to the Extremes of the Earth appeared first on Rad Jet's Historic Jazz Walking Tours.