Six Degrees of Jazz

Six Degrees of Jazz Tuesday from 7:00-8:00 am ET
WXOX 97.1 FM Louisville, KY

Tuesday’s show will spotlight pianist/keyboardist Craig Taborn. The press video for his very recent MacArthur Fellowship...
10/12/2025

Tuesday’s show will spotlight pianist/keyboardist Craig Taborn. The press video for his very recent MacArthur Fellowship award focuses more on his craft than his career trajectory, but he has a significant body of side work, as well as celebrated leader/co-leader dates. We’ll only scratch the surface, but it will be tons of fun with great music and art. Tune in!

Meet Craig Taborn, an improvising musician, composer, and 2025 creating singular soundscapes through a virtuosic command of piano and expansive kn...

Tuesday’s show will feature bassist Steve Swallow, who celebrated a birthday on Saturday, with common associates Carla B...
10/05/2025

Tuesday’s show will feature bassist Steve Swallow, who celebrated a birthday on Saturday, with common associates Carla Bley, Gary Burton, and John Scofield as well as with such diverse figures as Thelonious Monk, the late-great Sheila Jordan (Nov. 18, 1928 – Aug. 11, 2025), a punk icon, and more. You will not want to miss it. Tune in!

Gary Burton: vibraphonePat Metheny: guitarSteve Swallow: bassDanny Gottlieb - drumsLive at Club 7, Oslo, NorwayNovember 25, 1976

I have enjoyed drummer Brian Blade for decades. The first time I heard him live was at the 1994 NOLA Jazz & Heritage Fes...
09/27/2025

I have enjoyed drummer Brian Blade for decades. The first time I heard him live was at the 1994 NOLA Jazz & Heritage Festival with Joshua Redman (sax), Brad Mehldau (piano), and Christian McBride (bass). The next/most recent time was two weekends ago at the Nashville Jazz Workshop with the Jon Cowherd Trio (Cowherd on piano and Tony Scherr on bass). Tuesday’s show will feature Blade with these common associates, work done with producer Daniel Lanois, and more. It’s going to be fun. Tune in!

Daniel Lanois' band Black Dub rocked it live to music industry professionals at Michele Clark’s Sunset Sessions event at La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad Ca...

🎶 Did you know that at least three jazz classics were named for the daughters of composers and/or musicians?Thelonious M...
09/21/2025

🎶 Did you know that at least three jazz classics were named for the daughters of composers and/or musicians?

Thelonious Monk’s late-career composition “Boo Boo’s Birthday” was written for his daughter, Barbara. John Coltrane’s “Syeeda’s Song Flute” honors Syeeda, the daughter of his wife Naima, whom he adopted. And the bebop staple “Donna Lee”—often credited to Charlie Parker—is named for the daughter of Tuesday’s spotlight artist: bassist Curley Russell.
Although Russell didn’t play on the original Savoy recording (that was Tommy Potter on bass), Tuesday’s show will feature him on plenty of era-defining tracks alongside Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Monk, and more. Tune in!

Charlie Parker All Stars-Harry Smith Studios,New York,8/5/1947Miles Davis(trumpet),Charlie Parker(alto sax),Bud Powell(piano),Tommy Potter(bass),MaxRoach(dru...

Not going to reveal the spotlight artist for Tuesday until showtime, but I will say that this person played the beat tha...
09/13/2025

Not going to reveal the spotlight artist for Tuesday until showtime, but I will say that this person played the beat that is the most instantly recognizable drum intro to a pop song on the planet. Yep, that’s right. This person once subbed for Jack DeJohnette in the Miles Davis band that featured Keith Jarrett, was in Weather Report, Santana, and Herbie Hancock’s Mwandishi band, and did other side work with artists like Joe Henderson, Patrice Rushen, and more. It’s going to be a great show for the week of Give for Good (Sept. 18). Tune in!

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Got a short-notice sub shift coming up on Friday, Sept. 12 from 7-8 am. Sitting in for Justin Brown/Kind of Bird. Not to...
09/11/2025

Got a short-notice sub shift coming up on Friday, Sept. 12 from 7-8 am. Sitting in for Justin Brown/Kind of Bird. Not to ruin any element of surprise, but I'm going to build the show from a mix CD I made for my brother probably 20 years ago (may sub a song if time requires). I wasn't sure how Hanson spelled the title of their hit single, but, yeah, I had that in mind.

🎶 WXOX/Art FM 97.1 is gearing up for the Community Foundation of Louisville’s Give for Good campaign on Sept. 18—a day t...
09/07/2025

🎶 WXOX/Art FM 97.1 is gearing up for the Community Foundation of Louisville’s Give for Good campaign on Sept. 18—a day that makes a huge difference for our nonprofit station. Last year, we raised over $54K in just one day and covered most of our annual expenses.

This kind of support is vital—not just financially, but logistically. Because CFL handles the paperwork and sends us one check, XOX can focus on programming, licensing, keeping the studio humming, and serving our community.

To gear up for Give for Good, Six Degrees of Jazz is going into sweeps mode for the next two weeks. On Sept. 9, SDOJ will showcase Joe Henderson’s 1963 side work on Blue Note, featuring stone-cold classics and choice deep cuts, and the Sept. 16 show is going to try to top that!

Until then, treat yourself to one of the finest moments in side-player history: Henderson’s solo on “Song for My Father” (rec. 1964).
🎷 Info on how to give on Sept. 18 is in the comments

Song for my FatherAlbum:Song for my Father (1964)Written by:Horace SilverPersonnel:Horace Silver — piano Carmell Jones — trumpet Joe Henderson — tenor saxoph...

Tuesday’s show spotlights British pianist and composer Alexander Hawkins. While prolific as leader/co-leader, he is just...
08/31/2025

Tuesday’s show spotlights British pianist and composer Alexander Hawkins. While prolific as leader/co-leader, he is just as frequent as a band member. As he performs mainly in Europe, I was excited to catch him live over the 2017 Labor Day weekend at the Chicago Jazz Festival as member of drummer Louis Moholo-Moholo’s Five Blokes (pictured here, and down a bloke due to an illness.) With passing of the legendary Moholo-Moholo in June and a fantastic July release from a London-based artist with Hawkins in the band, this seemed like a good time for the Hawkins show I knew I had in me. Tune in!

Tuesday’s show will spotlight drummer Lex Humphries. Humphries worked alongside and appeared on shows devoted to two oth...
08/24/2025

Tuesday’s show will spotlight drummer Lex Humphries. Humphries worked alongside and appeared on shows devoted to two other SDOJ-profiled artists: bassist Ron Carter (“Something Like Bags” from Wes Montgomery’s So Much Guitar) and bassist Butch Warren (“Chant” from Donald Byrd’s A New Perspective). This edition will include more of Humphries’ work on those classic albums as well as other side work with The Jazztet, John Coltrane, Sun Ra, and more. It’s going to be great!

Track from the Wes Montgomery album "SO Much Guitar!", originally released on Riverside in 1961.Subscribe to Wes Montgomery on YouTube: https://www.youtube.c...

08/23/2025

Happy to see April 15, 2025’s featured artist as a clue in today’s NYT crossword. 18 Across: Rapper whose father is the jazz musician Olu Dara. Here’s to the day when Dara will be a a Monday clue - not a Saturday one!

Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl Halftime show gave me the idea to do an episode devoted to jazz created and performed by art...
08/17/2025

Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl Halftime show gave me the idea to do an episode devoted to jazz created and performed by artists in Lamar’s orbit. So, tune in Tuesday for a show that spotlights drummer Ronald Bruner, Jr. Bruner played on To Pimp A Butterfly, as did his brother bassist Thundercat and saxophonist Kamasi Washington, whose hit jazz album The Epic also features the Bruner brothers. And, of course, Ronald Bruner, Jr. has been on several Kenny Garrett albums I have enjoyed for years -- unaware of his work with Lamar, Washington, and even Stanley Clarke. It’s going to be fun

Watch hip-hop’s MVP put on an epic performance at the Apple Music Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show. Enjoy one free month of Apple Music and listen to Kendrick La...

Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue was released on August 17, 1959. For those newer to jazz who know KoB and want ideas of great ...
08/17/2025

Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue was released on August 17, 1959. For those newer to jazz who know KoB and want ideas of great follow ups, this is a take on things I wrote several years ago.

What Next After Kind of Blue? article by Steve Cook, published on June 2, 2022 at All About Jazz. Find more Building a Jazz Library articles

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