ALEX SKOLNICK, THRASH METAL GUITAR LEGEND FROM TESTAMENT, shows his other side by performing with his jazz trio at the inaugural Brooklyn Guitar Festival at Arlo Williamsburg. Photo by Kaju Roberto.

Few guitarists have traveled as boldly between musical worlds as Alex Skolnick, the Testament veteran who transformed himself from a teenage thrash-metal prodigy into an accomplished jazz guitarist without ever abandoning the music that made him famous.

I interviewed Alex Skolnick while visiting the Washington Square Diner in Greenwich Village, and our conversation revealed a musician whose career has been anything but conventional. Best known as the guitarist for Testament, the pioneering Bay Area thrash-metal band, Skolnick has spent much of his life moving between musical worlds — metal, jazz, fusion and classical music — without ever completely abandoning any of them.

His transformation from teenage metal prodigy to sophisticated jazz guitarist was a gradual process of curiosity, hard work and a willingness to put himself in situations where he knew he had more to learn.

The Satriani Connection
One of the important early chapters in Skolnick’s development was his private study with Joe Satriani. Rather than attending Berklee, Skolnick studied with Satriani and began absorbing a more systematic approach to the guitar. Satriani introduced him to concepts such as modes, melodic minor and advanced harmony, as well as the discipline of learning music thoroughly — playing material in every key and understanding every note. Skolnick admits that the theory did not come naturally at first. He was not a star student, but he was determined, practiced hard and gradually began connecting the dots.

Years later, he would deepen that education through private study with the late jazz pianist and educator Charlie Banacos, whose own musical lineage connected back to the influential Lennie Tristano school. Banacos helped Skolnick further develop his understanding of jazz harmony and improvisation.

Discovering Jazz
Jazz was not initially a major part of Skolnick’s musical vocabulary. As a teenager, his world revolved around hard rock and heavy metal. Jazz musicians seemed to inhabit an entirely different scene.

His interest developed gradually. He read about jazz guitarists in Guitar Player magazine and heard musicians such as Eric Johnson discussing Wes Montgomery. Eventually, he found the recording that made everything click: Wes Montgomery’s The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery. “Sometimes you just need to hear the right thing,” Skolnick explained. The right Wes Montgomery album suddenly made jazz accessible.

Following the Holdsworth Trail
Fusion entered the picture through another unlikely route: Eddie Van Halen. When Skolnick discovered that Van Halen regarded Allan Holdsworth as one of his major influences, he began investigating Holdsworth’s playing.

That led to Al Di Meola, Jean-Luc Ponty, Bill Bruford and Tony Williams. Skolnick became fascinated by Holdsworth’s earlier work, particularly his performances with Tony Williams Lifetime and Soft Machine.

The connections kept multiplying. Miles Davis led him to John Scofield, Mike Stern and Robben Ford. Di Meola led him back to Chick Corea and Return to Forever. John McLaughlin connected these musicians to an even broader history of jazz fusion.

Leaving Testament in 1992
By 1992, Skolnick was increasingly restless within the confines of thrash metal. He had begun incorporating melodic-minor ideas and other harmonic concepts that were unusual in the genre, but he wanted a larger musical canvas.

He left Testament that year, beginning a period in which he explored music beyond the band. The decision was not simply a rejection of thrash. Rather, Skolnick wanted to continue growing as a musician at a time when guitar-oriented rock itself was changing dramatically.

The mid-1990s were also the era of the “shred is dead” mentality, when guitar solos were disappearing from mainstream rock. Instead of allowing the changing market to determine his direction, Skolnick chose to pursue the music that interested him.

The New School and a New Musical Education
In 1998, Skolnick enrolled at The New School in New York, where he immersed himself in jazz. This was a crucial stage in his development. For several years, he was surrounded by professional jazz musicians and educators and received the constructive criticism he had been seeking. He wanted teachers to tell him what was wrong with his playing — not simply reassure him that everything sounded good.

The Alex Skolnick Trio
The Alex Skolnick Trio, formed in the early 2000s, became the clearest expression of Skolnick’s two musical identities. Rather than simply playing jazz standards with a rock attitude, the trio frequently turns the formula upside down.

Songs by Kiss, Aerosmith, Scorpions and Tom Petty have been transformed into sophisticated jazz arrangements. The trio’s approach demonstrates how deeply Skolnick understands both traditions: he can retain the character of a rock composition while opening it up to jazz harmony, improvisation and interaction.

His debut trio album in 2002 included a striking jazz interpretation of Kiss’ Detroit Rock City, while later recordings continued to explore the territory between rock and jazz.

A Lifetime of Connecting the Dots
Another pivotal discovery came while Testament was recording Practice at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. Fantasy Records was reissuing classic jazz recordings, and Skolnick heard newly remastered recordings of John Coltrane through the studio’s powerful monitors. Hearing Coltrane’s live playing at that volume was overwhelming. It opened Skolnick’s ears to the intensity and freedom of jazz improvisation and became another turning point in his musical education.

Today, Skolnick continues to perform with Testament while maintaining the Alex Skolnick Trio and pursuing other musical projects. His career demonstrates that musical identity does not have to be a choice between genres.

From private lessons with Joe Satriani, through his years with Testament to his studies at The New School, and the creation of his jazz trio, Skolnick’s journey has been defined by an appetite for discovery. Rather than leaving metal behind, he expanded his musical vocabulary. The result is a guitarist who can move convincingly from a Testament riff to a Coltrane-inspired improvisation — and make both sound unmistakably like Alex Skolnick.

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

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As co-founder and organizer, Suarez Paz created an event that extended beyond honoring Piazzolla’s music. The festival served as a cultural bridge between Buenos Aires and New York through concerts, educational workshops, film screenings, dance programs, and traditional milongas.

Held June 18–21, the festival opened with two performances at the K&J Theater in Union Square. Educational workshops followed at Times Square Studios, offering instruction for string players, bandoneon performers, pianists, guitarists, singers, and ensemble musicians.

Rediscovering the Guitar’s Role in Tango

One of the festival’s highlights was its guitar program, led by renowned Argentine guitarist Alejo de los Reyes. Suarez Paz emphasized that while many people viewed the bandoneon as tango’s defining instrument, the genre’s origins were rooted in the guitar.

He traced those roots to Gabino Ezeiza, the 19th-century payador, poet, and improvisational musician widely credited with creating the milonga, one of tango’s foundational musical forms. Performing with guitar while improvising lyrics and melodies, Ezeiza helped establish traditions that evolved into modern tango.

The connection was also personal. Suarez Paz is directly related to Ezeiza and considers the musician’s legacy part of his family heritage. Ezeiza’s original guitar is now displayed at the National Academy of Tango in Buenos Aires, serving as a symbol of tango’s beginnings. The guitar remained central throughout tango’s evolution. Even Carlos Gardel, history’s most celebrated tango singer, performed and recorded with guitar ensembles. Gardel’s career intersected with Piazzolla’s in a remarkable twist of fate.

The Twist of Fate That Changed Tango Forever

During the 1930s, Gardel was working in New York, where he made films and built an international following. There he met a young Piazzolla, then an Argentine immigrant growing up in the city. Although Piazzolla spoke limited Spanish, Gardel recognized his talent and invited him to join an upcoming concert tour.

Piazzolla’s father refused, insisting his son stay in school. That decision proved historic. Soon afterward, Gardel and his musicians died in a plane crash in Colombia. Had Piazzolla joined the tour, he might have been among the victims.

Instead, Piazzolla went on to revolutionize tango through nuevo tango, blending traditional forms with jazz and classical influences. His innovative style transformed the genre and expanded its global reach. Suarez Paz believes New York played an important role in shaping Piazzolla’s artistic vision, making the city an especially meaningful place to celebrate his legacy.

The festival grew out of Suarez Paz’s own experiences as a contractor for Broadway productions. Because few American musicians had the specialized training needed to perform authentic tango, he often brought artists from Argentina. Recognizing the need to develop local talent, he set out to build educational opportunities that would cultivate a new generation of tango musicians in the United States.

His connection to Piazzolla began in childhood. Suarez Paz’s father served as Piazzolla’s violinist and the youngster frequently attended rehearsals and performances, observing the composer at work. Those experiences profoundly shaped his musical career.

Piazzolla became a lasting artistic influence. Suarez Paz recalled that the composer always encouraged innovation, viewing tango as a living, evolving art form rather than a fixed tradition. That philosophy inspired the creation of the festival during the celebrations marking Piazzolla’s centennial.

Tango: More Than a Dance

Beyond celebrating Piazzolla’s achievements, the festival aimed to deepen public understanding of tango itself. Outside Argentina, tango is often associated primarily with dance. Suarez Paz argued that it represented something much broader — a complete cultural tradition.

In Buenos Aires, tango lives in neighborhood cafés, literature, poetry, conversations about politics and society, and everyday community life. It reflects the hopes, struggles, and emotions of generations of Argentines. Understanding tango, Suarez Paz said, meant understanding an entire cultural ecosystem.

The festival reflected that philosophy through performances, workshops, discussions, film presentations, and traditional milongas, giving both newcomers and longtime enthusiasts a deeper appreciation of the art form.

Education remained one of the festival’s central missions. Its tango orchestra — featuring bandoneons, strings, piano, bass, and guitar — gave musicians the opportunity to perform both classic and contemporary repertoire within a traditional orchestral setting. Introduced in earlier editions of the festival, the orchestra had become one of its most popular features.

For guitarists, the festival also offered a unique experience. Workshops focused on the stylistic foundations of tango performance, teaching the rhythms, phrasing, vibrato, and tonal colors that define the genre. Participants gained insight into techniques passed down through generations of Argentine musicians.

Keeping Tango Alive

Ultimately, the Piazzolla100 Festival celebrated both tradition and innovation. Through music, education, and cultural exchange, Suarez Paz continued the work of preserving tango’s heritage while encouraging its future evolution. His efforts ensured audiences in New York and beyond could experience a musical tradition that remains as vibrant and relevant today as ever.

By connecting tango’s historical roots with contemporary artistic expression, the festival honored Astor Piazzolla’s enduring legacy while reaffirming tango’s place as one of the world’s most dynamic cultural traditions.

Preserving the Spirit of Tango: Leonardo Suarez Paz and the Piazzolla100 Festival Bringing Buenos Aires to New York

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

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Against a minimalist stage where movement and light carried as much meaning as words, eight dancers from Taiwan’s Hung Dance transformed long pheasant feathers into extensions of their bodies, creating an unforgettable visual meditation on freedom, identity, and transformation. The company’s acclaimed contemporary dance work, BIRDY, opened at NYU Skirball on July 17 as part of the 35th anniversary celebration of the Taipei Cultural Center in New York.

“It’s a really special opportunity that we can be here,” said Lai Hung-Chung, choreographer and artistic director of Hung Dance. “We’re very grateful that Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture brought us here, and it’s the first time we’ve presented BIRDY in New York.”

Blending contemporary dance with tai chi, traditional Peking opera, martial arts, and elements of street dance, BIRDY presents a distinctly Taiwanese artistic voice while exploring universal themes of freedom, limitation, and identity.

A Personal Journey Becomes a Universal Story

For Lai, BIRDY grew from his own struggle to become an internationally recognized choreographer after beginning his career as a high school dance teacher. At the same time, he says the work reflects Taiwan’s ongoing search for identity and freedom. “It’s actually like my portrait,” he explained. “When I wanted to become a choreographer internationally, there were so many limitations and struggles. I wanted to break through those limitations.”

The production also draws inspiration from Alan Parker’s 1984 film Birdy, about a young man whose dream of becoming a bird allows him to transcend reality. Lai connected that story with his own artistic ambitions, seeing the desire to fly as a metaphor for pursuing seemingly impossible dreams.

From an Intimate Duet to an International Production

The piece has evolved considerably since Hung Dance was founded in 2017. According to Operations Director Wei-Ping Chen, BIRDY began as an intimate duet — the company’s very first creation. “The duet was much more personal,” Chen said. As the work matured, it expanded into the current eight-dancer version that has toured internationally while preserving its emotional core.

While the ensemble version has become Hung Dance’s signature production, the original duet is still performed at select venues. The company returns to the United States and Canada this fall for a nine city tour.

The Feather That Becomes Part of the Body

One of BIRDY’s most unforgettable visual elements is the long pheasant-tail feather worn by each dancer. In traditional Peking opera, paired feathers attached to a performer’s headdress symbolize rank and are often associated with military generals and heroic characters. Lai reimagines the centuries-old prop, transforming it from a symbol of status into an extension of the dancer’s body. At roughly five feet long, each feather ripples through the air, making invisible forces visible and adding another dimension to the choreography.

“We actually travel with many feathers,” Chen said. “They’re very delicate, so we transport them inside long protective pipes.” The feathers are also among the production’s greatest technical challenges. Because even the slightest movement causes them to sway, dancers must develop extraordinary control over their necks, posture, and timing. Fast movements create dramatic motion, while slow movements produce a sense of stillness and emotional balance.

“The dancers have to control not only their bodies but also the direction and emotion of the feather,” Lai said. “Every performance, their necks are really sore.”

The audience’s fascination with the feathers has become one of the company’s most common experiences on tour. “The question we get most often is whether they’re real feathers,” Chen said. “People can’t imagine how the dancers wear them and make them feel like part of their bodies.”

A Distinctive Taiwanese Movement Language

That seamless integration reflects Hung Dance’s distinctive movement vocabulary. Taiwan’s dance education emphasizes versatility, with students studying ballet, contemporary dance, tai chi dao yin, martial arts, and movements derived from traditional opera. Lai’s dancers absorb these disciplines from an early age, allowing them to merge traditions naturally rather than treating them as separate styles.

“Tai chi is already part of the dancers’ bodies,” Chen explained. “Even when they’re dancing contemporary choreography, that spirit and those techniques naturally come out.”

Lai’s own path was equally unconventional. He began as a middle school street dancer, learning popping before a teacher encouraged him to pursue formal dance training in ballet and contemporary dance, influences he later fused into his own choreographic language.

Traditional opera continues to shape BIRDY beyond the feathers. The production incorporates rattan poles inspired by Chinese opera props, while gestures and movement vocabulary drawn from opera are transformed into abstract contemporary imagery. Rather than recreating tradition, Lai uses familiar cultural symbols to invite audiences to discover new meanings.

Poetry Before Choreography

Lai’s creative process begins not with movement, but with language. “Before I go into the studio, I write paragraphs,” he explained. “Each paragraph is an idea, almost like poetry. The words are more important to me than the choreography at first.”

Movement and music emerge afterward. Composer and choreographer developed the score collaboratively, blending traditional Chinese instrumental colors with deep bass and contemporary textures into a soundscape that feels both ancient and modern.

For Lai, leaving space for interpretation is essential. “When people hear the music, they might feel something traditional, but it’s actually something new,” he said. “We want to give the audience space to think.”

An Invitation to Reflect

That openness ultimately defines BIRDY. While rooted in Taiwanese culture, the work speaks to experiences shared across borders: confronting limitations, pursuing aspirations, and discovering one’s identity through continual transformation. As Hung Dance made its New York debut, BIRDY offered not only an impressive display of physical artistry but also a poetic reminder that freedom is rarely a destination — it is an ongoing journey.

Hung Dance’s BIRDY Takes Flight in New York with a Powerful Meditation on Freedom and Identity

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

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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

Read my article about Kristina Wong Food Bank Influencer where I originally wrote it in The Village View:

Inside Kristina Wong’s Food Bank Influencer

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

Read my article about Whiplash founder and master guitarist Tony Portaro where I originally wrote it in The Village View:

Whiplash Guitarist Tony Portaro

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

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.

The Tunisia88 Alumni Choir was born out of a revolution. In the years following Tunisia’s 2011 Arab Spring uprising, these students launched music clubs that are now in all 590 public high schools across 24 regions in Tunisia – places where student voices had rarely been encouraged. They wrote original songs, staged concerts, and created something lasting in a system that wasn’t built for them. Now, they’ve brought those stories, songs, and that spirit to American audiences for the first time.

Tunisia88, with 2,500 active members, is a Non-governmental Organization (NGO) started in 2015 by Juilliard-trained concert pianist Kimball Gallagher. Gallagher had been teaching music to high school students in Tunisia for a few years when he was approached by the Minister of Education of Tunisia who said, “I want to see a piano in every school.” The goal was to revive all the cultural clubs.

The tour was led by Gallagher, who founded 88 International, the nonprofit that helped support this movement. His own journey – crowdfunding his first piano (88 keys, 88 donors), performing at distinguished venues in 30 countries across seven continents – and turning performance into purpose – led to the founding of 88 International.

88 International’s Humble Beginnings
This all started when Gallagher – upon graduating from Juilliard – didn’t have a piano. One of his mentors said, “Why don’t you ask 88 people to sponsor each one of the keys?” The money raised from each key on the piano became an effort to buy a piano. It was the first time Gallagher really saw music, not only as something for performance and concerts, but as something that could build community.

88 International has become a global nonprofit that uses music to help young people essentially find their voice, build community, and lead their own positive change where they themselves live. That’s really why Gallagher built 88 International, to turn a sort of sense of personal impact and occasional intimate moments in concerts into more of a movement at some scale.

During an epiphany, Gallagher realized that as an individual artist, he could touch only a few lives at a time. But if he wanted to reach thousands at a much larger scale and to make a lasting change, it required structural partners, institutional partnerships, and some kind of vision that was far beyond one person.

“I had been working in Tunisia before the Arab Spring Revolution, and then throughout the revolution. I taught piano and songwriting. The classic way of having music clubs in Tunisia was with the teacher as the director of the club. We wanted to put the teacher as the facilitator – which in Tunisia was a big deal – and allow the students lead the clubs.” Gallagher said.

One or two particular songs became a spark for a national movement. With the Ministry of Education wanting to promote this program, Gallagher was able to bring in support and shape the curriculum.

How Tunisia88 became a Transformational Youth Music Program
Gallagher explained how Tunisia88 became a transformational youth music program. He said, “88 International needed an NGO partner for financial support. And through the Ministry of Education we did get that NGO partner – a Tunisian NGO called Action Solidarity Development. Then the European Investment Bank, and the U.S. State Department became involved, followed by the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Canadian Foreign Service and many private Tunisian supporters.”

“One of the very interesting things about this program, which is part of its self-sustaining mechanism, is that the alumni of the clubs run the majority of the content of our program. Now the old club members, who became university students, were trained to give training,” he continued.

“It took about three or four years. We started with a pilot program and then had a huge acceleration from 2019 through COVID to early 2021 where we went from something like 100 to 500 schools in about a year and a half. We have 78 training sessions a year all the different regions. We have song contests on a national scale. All of these activities are managed in a large part by a group called the Executive Alumni. It’s actually the Tunisian youth who are driving the engine of this.”

Washington Square Park and The Yale Club
It was a beautiful experience to be part of the outdoor and indoor concerts held at Washington Square Park and The Yale Club of New York.;

Gallagher and a small team of musicians and conductors guided 26 alumni choir members from Tunisia, Morocco, Senegal, Myanmar, and the Gambia. They sang songs represented by these countries in English and native languages. Gallagher accompanied songs in Swahili on piano. On at least one song, the choir was joined by a percussion player. The night ended with alumni from Yale joining the choir to sing the Yale alma mater. 

Tunisia88 toured universities in eight U.S. East Coast cities from October 30 through November 10 on its highly successful inaugural U.S. tour.  

WATCH my full interview with internationally recognized Juilliard-trained concert pianist and 88 International founder  Kimball Gallagher on YouTube at the link below:

Read this article on Tunisia88 where I originally wrote it in The Village View:

Tunisia88: Transforming Youth Groups One Concert at a Time

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

The post Tunisia88: Transforming Youth Groups One Concert at a Time appeared first on Rad Jet's Historic Jazz Walking Tours.