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.

Twenty-three Taiwanese ladies from NATWA (the North American Taiwanese Women’s Association), most of whom were visiting the Big Apple for the first time, were now waiting patiently for me under the famous Vanguard awning.

This would be our ground zero meeting place to embark upon a unique NYC experience I planned for them that they could not likely get elsewhere in America. Thus, I felt a tremendous burden of responsibility, and I didn’t want to ruin their first trip to New York City ever, much less the Village!

This all happened on Friday, October 17, the first date of my inaugural Historic Greenwich Village Jazz Walking Tour. Originally set for October 18, to my delight it turned out that the date being changed to the 17th would be very serendipitous.

The famous Mingus Dynasty band had established a new residency with one of my favorite Greenwich Village jazz clubs, Zinc Bar, every third Friday of the month. Incredibly, they just happened to be playing at Zinc Bar on October 17! Jackpot!

Mingus Dynasty is an American jazz ensemble formed in 1979 by Charles Mingus’ widow Sue Mingus, just after his death. Mingus is considered one of the greatest jazz musicians of the 20th century. He was a renowned double bassist, pianist, composer, activist, and author.

The band has featured many musicians Mingus recorded or played with. Over 46 years, there still remains three Mingus repertory groups: Mingus Dynasty, Mingus Big Band and the Mingus Orchestra. All three have toured extensively worldwide and until only recently, made a “home” on Monday nights at DROM in New York.

We barely made it to Zinc Bar on time, but the owner was waiting for us. Somehow, they squeezed in 23 ladies and myself altogether in chairs and banquette seating.

Mingus Dynasty Hits Hard
Mingus Dynasty is a band where every single member is a decorated world class musician. The talent and experience on that stage at Zinc Bar was staggering.

Their set started fast and furious, with the band’s incendiary version of Mingus’ Gunslinging Bird, a song that pays homage to the late great alto saxophonist and one of the fathers of jazz improvisation, Charlie Parker.

As Grammy Award-winning tenor saxophonist and band leader for the evening Wayne Escoffery said shortly of the song, “The real full length title is ‘If Charlie Parker were a gunslinger, there would be a lot of dead copycats!’ ”

Mingus wrote many pieces to honor musicians he revered and respected. However, he also wrote pieces to dishonor and remind us of atrocities that happened during his time.

The second piece the band played was Mingus’ protest piece called Fables of Faubus to dishonor the Governor of Arkansas who in 1957 called out the National Guard to prevent the racial integration of schools. Mingus was a dedicated activist and was highly vocal towards the good and bad acts of the world around him.

Parts swung really hard, while others sounded satirical and even whimsical. The most noticeable “glue” of this piece were the band members’ vocal chants throughout the song. Brandon Wright on alto sax, and Tatum Greenblatt on trumpet both went off on exploratory solos.

The third song was Mingus’ beautiful ballad Portrait featuring the great trombonist Conrad Herwig who played a breath-taking, gorgeous solo. His beautiful yet precise rapid-fire fluttering of notes and total command of tone certainly makes him one of the best trombonists on the planet.

Their acclaimed pianist, Helen Sung, began the piece with a cascading introduction so splendid that it transported me to a peaceful place depicting a beautiful “portrait.” It is no wonder Sung has won many prestigious awards, notably the Kennedy Center’s Mary Lou Williams Jazz Piano Competition.

The last piece played was Mingus’ exuberant multi-layered Three or Four Shades of the Blues where Wayne Escoffery began in a tongue-in-cheek manner reciting 11 specific instructions by Mingus of how to play the blues!

After a whipping start, Sung completely diverged by playing a whimsical childlike improvisation solo which soon morphed into ragtime, atonal music, and back to the blues. Her versatility on the instrument is astounding.

Mark Lewandowsky on the double bass filled those Mingus double bass shoes nicely, by playing swingin’ lines while Sung continued playing the blues. The entire band came in swingin’, but quickly Lewandowsky switched to an Afro-Cuban rhythm!

Everyone on the bandstand had a chance to solo on this piece. Long-time drummer and veteran of the Mingus Big Band, Adam Cruz, got to solo too.

Wayne Escoffery had been holding back until the end all along. When it was his time to go, he simply “blew the doors off” with this fluttering in-and-out Byrd-like solo, at times fast angular lines, then returning home. What also really impressed me is how effective Escoffery was as a band leader.

End of the Night
After Mingus Dynasty’s flaming set had ended, Escoffery and the entire band were super nice, and allowed our entire group to take a photo with the full band after that set, an amazing rare treat for everyone!

I had a chance to speak separately with Herwig and Sung by the bar. That’s when I found out Sung was from Taiwan and introduced her to our 23 Taiwanese ladies on the tour. More photos. What a beautiful ending!

One of the best shows I’ve seen this year, and we were very lucky to have our inaugural Jazz Tour experience it. Thanks to Alex at Zinc Bar for accommodating us.

Read this article Mingus Dynasty on Fire at Zinc Bar where I originally wrote it in The Village View:

Mingus Dynasty on Fire at Zinc Bar

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

The post Mingus Dynasty on Fire at Zinc Bar appeared first on Rad Jet's Historic Jazz Walking Tours.

The musical poetry event was separated into two parts with a 20 minute intermission. Most of the pieces were played on piano, guitar, harp, and mandolin.

Eight Rhythms

The opening piece called Eight Rhythms was composed by music director William Anderson. Anderson’s Djuna Barnes Settings were commissioned by Zaidee Parkinson in 2015.

This entire work was composed of eight poems in six songs, with the first and fifth songs set to two poems at once. The cycle appears on the Furious Artisans CD, Der Weg Ins Feie. The original version featured a theorbo, but for this performance it was replaced by a harp.

This night’s instrumentation featured Sharon Harms, soprano, William Anderson on mandolin, Oren Fader on guitar, and June Han on harp.

Barnes once called her poems “rhythms,” therefore two songs are polyrhythmic. In her novel Ryder, and no less in her short stories, Barnes takes comfort in animals. This cycle treats a panoply of Barnes’ primal scenes and arch double-takes, in rhythm, before concluding with animals in “pastoral.”

This multi-layered piece composed by Anderson is contemporary classical music with interesting dissonances, harmonics, and exotic sounding intervals, showcasing the brilliant guitar work by Fader. Anderson and Han complimented on their respective instruments very nicely. Lyrically, Harms emphasized “animals” such as cats, frogs, and horses.

Leopold Bloom’s Homecoming

The second piece, Leopold Bloom’s Homecoming composed by internationally acclaimed composer and conductor Victoria Bond, is a technically demanding yet hilarious, dry and factual dramatic and operatic treatment (sung and acted by Michael Kelly, baritone) with an external narrator (played and acted by accompanying pianist John Arida) asking questions.

The work was inspired by Molly Bloom’s monologue at the end of the book Ulysses where Bond first composed a work called Molly ManyBloom. The current work is part of a larger plan to set other sections of the book as separate works.

Bond set many of the passages as recitative or spoken in rhythm, which Kelly executed very well with both vocal power and comedy. The best way this mood could be described is Kelly’s first line after the piano introduction begins –

He kissed the plump, mellow yellow, smell-o, mellow rump!

Kelly continues with a series of humorous -ation rhymes – some of which are not even words in the English dictionary — after pianist John Adria narrates the sentence “the visible signs of post satisfaction.”

In an operatic voice Kelly replies with powerful words such as contemplation, elation, recog-nation, excitation, modification, interrogation, erection, and ejaculation!

This was indeed a powerful operatic yet tongue-in-cheek vocal performance by Kelly and Adria.

Chansons Innocentes

Part Two of the program began with Chansons Innocentes. This piece was composed by Laura Schwendinger, composer of Artemisa, and the winner of the 2023 American Academy of Arts and Letters Opera Award.

The Chansons Innocentes are dedicated to Dawn Upshaw who performed In Just-Spring in her Carnegie Hall debut in 1997 and subsequently recorded it for a TDK Naxos DVD, Voice of Our Time.

Chansons Innocentes featured Zoe Allen, soprano and Christopher Allen on piano.

Oceans Always Lead to Some Great Good Place

The final piece of the night was composed by Nehemiah Luckett called Oceans Always Lead to Some Great Good Place. Inspired by James Baldwin’s Another Country, this piece has four vignettes, where the composer claims that for each he draws upon Baldwin’s texts as both anchor and compass.

Luckett is a composer working at the intersection of sacred and secular music. For over 30 years he has performed, composed, music directed, and conducted in genres ranging from pop/rock to choral and orchestral pieces.

On this night baritone Luckett performed his own composition vocally. Music director William Anderson accompanied on electric guitar with Joan Forsyth on piano. This piece was commissioned by The Village Trip for the James Baldwin Centennial.

The first vignette, Stranger, is a brooding piece where the protagonist repeatedly pleads in a somber voice, “I’m a stranger, don’t drive me away.”

The second vignette What Were Their Terrors is a contemplative poem set to music where Luckett speaks the words while the music played on piano vacillates between somber modern classical music and jazz.

The third vignette A Wall Between Them and the World begins with a single guitar line by Anderson. Luckett here is once again singing. The piano and guitar interplay lines in a call/response and then the vignette concludes with quizzical dissonances.

The fourth and final vignette A Vast and Friendly Ocean is hymn-like where Luckett powerfully sings completely in archipelago. This last vignette clearly showcased Luckett’s powerful and rich baritone voice and thus received the biggest ovation of the evening.

Read this article Poets of Patchin Place: Village Poets Set to Music where I originally wrote it in The Village View:

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

The post Poets of Patchin Place: Village Poets Set to Music 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.

The cafe is run as a non-profit collective without any political affiliation. The People’s Choice Cafe is an alcohol-free space supported in part by the generosity of the Folk Music Society of New York and the Judson Memorial Church.

Introducing Two Wonderful Singer-Songwriters

The performance room had the feel of a large classroom with a makeshift stage. There were about 20 people in attendance, many of whom were songwriters, musicians, and filmmakers. Outside in the corridor, the staff was selling coffee and chocolate chip cookies. The event’s host Judy Gorman, a singer-songwriter guitarist who has been hailed by Pete Seeger, kept us entertained with humor in between the performances.

This  main performances highlighted two very awesome New York City-based Latino singer-songwriters. They both performed in English and Spanish.

Mario Cancel-Bigay: The Humorous Poet and Professor

Mario Cancel-Bigay (pronounced Big Eye) is a Puerto Rican singer-songwriter, poet, translator, and ethnomusicologist who happens to be a virtuoso on the Puerto Rican 10-string cuatro, the island’s national guitar. Mario is also a professor at New York University where he teaches courses on Latin American cultures and global works.

The cuatro itself is an instrument that resembles an American 12-string guitar; with its five main strings each doubling one octave apart, giving its ten strings a characteristic “chime” when ringing out with sustain, producing a beautiful legato sound.

He performed several of his heartfelt musical compositions on his cuatro. Mario is not only a great musician, he is an excellent lyricist with a rich baritone voice. Here’s more about three of his highly memorable originals with engaging stories.

Roses for Me is a beautiful lullaby characterized by open altered chords, with an augmented turn around. Lyrically, this is a gorgeous song about an unrequited longing for love with a mood of introspection by the protagonist.

The next song Gabriela and Grace is an upbeat happy tune about his young daughter Gabriela and her best friend Grace, and their carefree existence of fun and giggles. The lyrics are witty, full of wonderful visual imagery, and in the end Mario, as a parent, clearly states he needs a break from these girls driving him crazy!

Following this song was a humorous ditty he would often play in class to his students about an NYU card and an EBT card. Here Mario’s lyrics are both intellectual and humorous, and the music has the feel and cadence of an off Broadway play.

Ruben Gonzalez: Socio-Political Commentator with a World Vision

Ruben Gonzalez is a singer-songwriter guitarist who emigrated from his native Argentina. His music has a “hand-made” feel to it, where he often invites his audiences to participate with his performances. Due to his musical ingenuity, and as an example of a new direction in music, world-renowned composer Philip Glass invited Ruben to perform at the Tune In Festival.

With his eclectic mix of South American, classical, rock, jazz, and African influences, Ruben is a great storyteller through his compositions, with lyrical themes that often point to socio-political commentary. He has three albums to his credit, and is currently working on his fourth with a talented griot balafon player from Guinea, Famoro Dioubate.

Before starting his set, Ruben invited a talented percussion player to join him. His first song about a “very hungry caterpillar” is a metaphorical folk-song with a deeper lyrical message: how abject greed can lead to one’s demise.

Ruben’s third song was a beautiful melodious tune. He explained beforehand it is a song he wrote about his leaving behind the “old country” (Argentina) and embracing his “new country” (United States). This song was a breezy samba replete with gorgeous-sounding jazz chords played in fingerstyle on the acoustic guitar. I swear, while listening to Ruben perform this beautiful tune I could not help imagining Antonio Carlos-Jobim was playing it in the room.

I heard an eclectic mix of samba, bossa nova, folk and choro in Ruben’s originals, but I still would not place a single category of genre to describe his music.

To close out this review, both performers laid out their own personal stamps to their musical performances that rang as sincere and true to my ears as the beautiful chords emanating from their instruments.

If you are looking for voices of authenticity, check out the People’s Voice Café. They run shows weekly at 239 Thompson Street.

For upcoming shows:
https://www.peoplesvoicecafe.org

Read this article The People’s Voice Cafe: Alternative Coffee House for Emerging Singer-Songwriters where I originally wrote it in The Village View:

Alternative Coffee House for Emerging Singer-Songwriters

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

The post The People’s Voice Cafe: Alternative Coffee House for Emerging Singer-Songwriters 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.