Few events embody the act of listening and receiving quite like the Big Ears Festival, which happens every spring in Knoxville, Tennessee. Nate was there this year, conducting artist interviews and taking in as much music as he could handle. He reports back with some highlights, and shares an interview he conducted just before heading down -- with trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and pianist Vijay Iyer, who have a new duo album, Defiant Life, and performed together at Big Ears. Their ideal of spontaneous creative communion, and engagement with the state of the world, feels right on time.
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1:01:32
Jazz Appreciation Month / Record Store Day
April is Jazz Appreciation Month, and we’re celebrating just as we always do, by chasing down live music and supporting the scene. But we’re also looking ahead to Record Store Day, which falls on April 12. It will bring a fresh bounty of new releases —including a customary haul of archival discoveries in deluxe editions. So for this episode, we’re talking all about RSD: the ins and outs, the ups and downs. We’ll get into this year’s bonanza, with a particular focus on two amazing albums recorded by leading trumpeters at the Blue Morocco in 1967: Kenny Dorham’s Blue Bossa in the Bronx and Freddie Hubbard’s On Fire. This episode might just put a dent in your record budget. Don’t say we didn’t warn you!
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57:13
Branches and Paths, with Renee Rosnes
Renee Rosnes has traced a momentous musical trajectory over the last 40 years. A pianist and composer of exceptional insight, she’s served apprenticeships with Joe Henderson, Wayne Shorter and Ron Carter, and earned rare stature among her peers. Almost a decade ago, she formed Artemis, an all-women cohort that just released its third album, Arboresque. Rosnes also has a new solo release, Crossing Paths — her first full-length album of Brazilian music, a longtime source of inspiration. (She enlisted two certified legends, Edu Lobo and Joyce Moreno, for the project.) In this conversation, Rosnes opens up about all of the above, as well as the “concrete ceiling” that female instrumentalists are forced to contend with, even now.
Renee Rosnes: Brazilian Dreams Come True (DownBeat)
A Jazz Quintet Bubbling With Good Vibes? Meet the Women of Artemis (NY Times)
Renee Rosnes on Piano Jazz (NPR)
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53:11
Let Her Cook, with Endea Owens
Endea Owens knew what she meant when she called her 2023 debut Feel Good Music. As a bassist, a bandleader and an organizer, she specializes in the kind of buoyant uplift that just won’t quit. You can see her putting this into practice most weeknights on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, as an engine of the house band. And you can feel it in her work with The Cookout, which has been both a working band and a model of community outreach. We talked about all of this and more with Endea at the 2025 Winter Jazzfest in New York. Stick around after the interview to hear Nate and Josh reflect on the legacy of jazz on late-night television, with a focus on Saturday Night Live as that show marks its 50th anniversary.
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1:02:18
Poetry is the Process, with Aja Monet
There’s a heartstopping moment in “for sonia,” Aja Monet’s ruminative elegy for the revolutionary poet Sonia Sanchez, when she recalls uttering the word “poetry” at a community organizing meeting, only to be met with flustered refusal. “Who’s got time for poems when the world’s on fire?” she asks, either quoting a naysayer or posing the question to herself. The answer, of course, lies in the poems themselves — especially as Monet embodies and delivers them in partnership with a corps of intuitive improvisers. We sat down with her in New York the morning after her 2025 Winter Jazzfest performance, to talk about poetic practice, political necessity, musical imperatives — and the fires that were literally consuming her adopted city of Los Angeles. Don’t miss some deep truths from one of our most committed truth-tellers.
Jazz is a conversation — and that’s what The Late Set is all about. Originated by critic Nate Chinen and broadcaster Greg Bryant, the show now convenes Chinen and Josh Jackson twice a month for perceptive variations on a theme, and their related interview with a special guest. Just like a hang at the end of the gig, in the back of the club, it’s direct, unfiltered and illuminating, revealing the music and its culture in a deeper light.
México