Japanese pianist Makoto Kuriya

Diaa Bekheet | Washington, DC – Japanese pianist Makoto Kuriya has released a new album called Art for Life. The release coincides with the 20^th anniversary of his homecoming. “It’s a summary of what I have been doing for the past 20 years in Japan,” American-educated Makoto tells Jazz Beat. “It’s been 20 years already ever since I came back here to Tokyo after living in the [United] States for 11 years. Time does fly.”  Here’s the album’s title cut:  Art for Life. [audio:http://www.voanews.com/MediaAssets2/english/2011_06/ArtForLife_jazzbeat_voa_2011.mp3]

Makoto graduated from West Virginia University with a major in linguistics, but he was attracted to studying music. During his 11-year stay in the U.S., he frequented American classic and modern jazz clubs in Washington, DC, including the world-famous Blues Alley in Georgetown and One Step Down near the US Congress headquarters on “Capitol Hill”.  While there, Makoto had the opportunity to talk with jazz legends like pianist McCoy Tyner, saxophonist Dexter Gordon and others. When he became a professional musician, he regularly performed gigs at those clubs.

Makoto mainly performed on the East coast of the United States with famous jazz artists. He toured with Grammy award-winning trumpeter Chuck Mangione in the late 80’s, and performed with Panamanian American jazz bandleader Billy Cobham. When he returned to Japan, he did an ensemble with jazz-legend and pianist Herbie Hancock at the Tokyo Jazz Festival, one of the biggest festivals in Japan. The country now boasts many popular jazz clubs including Blues Alley Tokyo, Sweet Basel, Billboard Live Tokyo and Blue Note Tokyo.

Makoto Kuriya

Listen to the Interview in Full:
Jazz Beat talked to Makoto Kuriya about his American jazz experience, and how he felt as a Japanese playing American jazz while wanting to maintain Japan’s jazz identity. Makoto also told Jazz Beat about his Latin, Western and Japanese jazz fusion, his memorable visit to Cairo, Egypt, his Nile cruise surprise, and performance at the TanJazz Festival in Gibraltar, Morocco. You will have a chance to listen to some of Makoto’s songs in full here on Jazz Beat. [audio:http://www.voanews.com/MediaAssets2/english/2011_06/Makoto_Kuriya_Japanese_Pianist_Jazz_Beat_June2011.mp3]

Makoto studied and taught music with his mentor, American professor and music historian Nathan Davis, at the University of Pittsburgh. “He taught me how to play, how to listen, how to swing. I owe him a lot,” the musician said.  Makoto praised Davis for launching an outreach music program that included tours in many countries, including Ghana, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Jordan.

Localizing Jazz in Japan:
Makoto is one of a few Japanese artists who are trying to put their own cultural imprint on the music. He is now devoting his efforts to authenticating Japanese jazz, maintaining a distinctive cultural identity and bringing a Western-free localized Japanese jazz music from Nippon, the Land of the Rising Sun, to the world.

During the past 10 years, Makoto has performed in many countries, especially in Europe, but he noticed that people wonder how a Japanese man came to play American jazz. He says he didn’t want to people to see him as copying his American influences.

[audio:http://www.voanews.com/MediaAssets2/english/2011_06/Makoto_Kuriya_LocalizingJazz_JazzBeat_June2011.mp3]“Whenever I play in Paris, London … you just name it … in Germany, in Spain, in Rome whatever, you know, people ask you are Japanese, how come you’re playing Jazz, American music! ” he explained.

“The more I play in Japan, the more I come to notice that I have to do something really special that only Japanese people can make, like Japanese jazz,” he said. “I’m really fortunate to be able to go abroad, not just to the United States, but to European countries and elsewhere to play American [jazz] music for those people out there. And that makes me realize that I’m a Japanese man, my identity as a Japanese man and I have to play something really original,” Makoto said.

His “Fly Me To The Moon”, the end theme for the widely-popular Japanese TV animation “Evangelion” is a big hit.

Makoto in ‘Cairo, Hollywood of Arabia’

Makoto Kuriya at Cairo Jazz Festival 2010

Makoto has also played his music in Arab countries, including Egypt and Morocco. Jazz fans at the second Cairo International Jazz Festival in particular were “crazy” about his music. “Cairo is believed to be like a Hollywood of Arabian culture … the palace was packed. I loved the people.  [audio:http://www.voanews.com/MediaAssets2/english/2011_06/Makoto_Kuriya_cairofestival_jazzbeat.mp3]It was such a memorable experience,” said Makoto who was fascinated by the young Egyptians who seemed to love his music. “ I really respect the energy of those young people in Cairo. They are so fantastic. [If there’s] anything I can do for them, I’ll love to do it,” he said. Makoto says he was surprised to hear his hit, “Fly Me To The Moon” being sung by sightseers doing Karaoke on a Nile Cruise.

Makoto has played at the jazz festival in Gibraltar, Morocco too, where many famous jazz artists including Cameroonian saxophonist Mano De Bank have performed.

“I believe in the power of music. People can be friends, and people can transmit their thoughts to each other, and can share thoughts … and that’s why a lot of artists are writing charity music,” said Makoto. He donated the proceeds of a recent performance in London to the victims of earthquake and tsunami in Japan. The show was broadcast live on BBC channel 3 a few days ago.

For more on jazz music, listen to VOA’s Jazz America

Nat King Cole in London (AP)

Diaa Bekheet | Washington, DC – Banjo music always makes me think of jazz icon Nat King Cole, the American Wild West, the vast and flat sagebrush plains, the majestic Rocky Mountains and the Marlboro Man. It makes me want to go to Montana, Arizona or Texas to ride a horse on a mountain range, where the sky is so big that you must see it to believe it.

But WHY BANJO? Well, because it evokes memories of the first Wild West movie I ever watched at Salma Movie Theater in Zagazig, Egypt when I was 14. The movie starts with Nat King Cole and Stubby Kaye playing banjo and singing.

The box-office hit movie, Cat Ballou, was one of the best western comedies ever made. It starred the talented Lee Marvin and Jane Fonda — two of my favorite Hollywood stars. Cole later became one of my favorite jazz artists. The legendary singer-pianist-composer was the first to be profiled on my Jazz Club USA radio show in 1992. Two years later, his romantic, hit “Autumn Leaves” (that I highlighted on my show) was the first song played at my wedding on a Nile cruise boat in Cairo. [audio:http://www.voanews.com/MediaAssets2/english/2011_06/Jazz_Nat_Autumn_Leaves_30sec.mp3]

VOA’s Diaa Bekheet

Many articles have been written about Cole, who made it big as a singer after Cat Ballou. His grainy but smooth baritone voice made it unimaginable for anyone else to sing “Mona Lisa”, “Autumn Leaves” or “Unforgettable” as far as I was concerned. I talked about Cole, his life and those three songs in  particular, during a 1996 live show here with my fellow broadcaster Nermine Mahmoud. [audio:http://www.voanews.com/MediaAssets2/english/2011_06/Nat_King_Cole_db_nermine_june1996.mp3]

In Cat Ballou, the utterly brilliant, Oscar-winning dual-role Lee Marvin — in one hilarious scene — was leaning on a pub wall, dead-drunk in the saddle with his horse cross-legged. Former Academy Awards director and filmmaker, Robert Wise, who made the West Side Story and The Sound of Music, once told me in Cairo that Marvin’s unrepeatable act was not only comedic, but iconic.

Those are the comedic performances and images that click into my mental view-masters when velvet-voiced Nat King Cole is mentioned or when I listen to banjo music.  Such wonderful memories made me want to come to the United States to ride a horse across landscapes, drive a horse-drawn wagon and herd cattle to get the feeling of a cowboy, although not the real McCoy.

Cole, Marvin and Fonda bring to mind all those fantasies about cowboys and the old Wild West. How I wished I had lived with them at the time! I was fascinated (and still I am) by American cowboys and classic cowboy movies. In 1989, 10 months after I came to the U.S.,I had the chance to see the Great Centennial Cattle Drive in Montana. It was a great time to recapture those memories and get a feel for what was it like to be a cowboy.  I thought the Marlboro Man had never really existed, but I was wrong. There are many guys like him in Montana.

For more on jazz music, listen to VOA’s Jazz America

Saxophonist Boney James (Reuters)

Diaa Bekheet | Washington, DC – Grammy-nominated saxophonist Boney James made a full and strong comeback after a car crash that kept him from performing for several months. He is currently crisscrossing the United States on a year-long whirlwind tour of concerts and appearances. James and other award-winning artists performed last week in Washington and Alabama, where music fans braved hot summer temperatures to enjoy smooth and cool jazz fused with R&B (Rhythm and blues).

Boney James talks with VOA’s Jazz Beat about his tour, his new album and the car crash. Here’s the interview in full:

The accomplished saxophonist was driving home from a performance at the Newport Beach Jazz Festival in California last year, when he was stopped on a Los Angeles highway in traffic. “I got rear-ended by a drunk driver going at full speed. It was a terrible crash,” recalled James. “I couldn’t play my horn for two months, but once I got back into it I’m just happy to be alive,” he said.

James suffered a fractured jaw and two missing front teeth in the accident. He also received 14 stitches on his face. “I’m fully recovered now, and so grateful it’s a fading memory.” He had to undergo a plastic surgery. But all in all, the accident didn’t have any effect on his playing. “You know, I think I’m playing better,” the musician joked. He says the experience has actually had a positive effect on his shows and it was a great influence on the new album, Contact.

James plays a variety of music, although some are trying to typecast him as a jazz artist. “I don’t even really consider myself a jazz musician. You know, people would see you with your saxophone and think what you love is jazz,” James said. “My music has elements of jazz, but it’s also mixed up with R&B and pop music, and Latin music and all kind of things mixed up together; so hopefully it’s something original sounding.”

Boney James was born in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1961, and raised in New Rochelle, New York. Although he started on clarinet at the age of eight, he switched to saxophone at 10. He studied history at the University of California at Los Angeles, and began playing music full-time after graduation. He’s married to actress and filmmaker Lily Mariye, who is best-known as ‘Nurse Lily Jarvik’ on the popular 90s TV series “ER” (Emergency Room).

Considered one of the most prolific American saxophonists, James has released 14 albums since 1992 that have sold over three million copies each.  His latest album, Contact, is still number one after eight weeks on the jazz charts. Eight other albums also ranked number one on the Billboard Contemporary Jazz Chart. He has four Gold albums, and 3 Grammy nominations.

“It’s all very exciting. You know, whenever you have a number one record or a gold record or you get Grammy nominations, of course it’s a dream come true for every musician,” said James who turns 50 next September. “All that stuff is sort of affirming. It’s makes you feel that you are on the right path.”

Boney James cites Grover Washington Jr. as an influence. “When I was about 13, I heard Grover Washington Jr. for the first time,” he explained. “He was the first guy I heard that was combining the R&B that I loved with the saxophone that I also loved. So, that’s the sort of the tradition that I’m still playing today.”

Grover Washington Jr.

James says his new album, Contact, is kind of special to him. “It’s reflective of where I am right now… all original music, and it’s featuring some wonderful guest vocalists,” he said.

Contact was released late last March. It features high-profile vocal guest appearances, including platinum-selling singer and former member of Destiny’s Child, LeToya Luckett who sings “When I had The Chance”, R&B superstars Mario who sings “That Look On Your Face,”  and Donnell Jones, and Grammy and Tony Award winner Heather Headley.

Earlier, Boney James and Latoya Luckett performed “When I had the Chance” on the Mo’Nique Show in Atlanta. He said the show will air on BET channel on June 22.

Some critics consider Boney James one of the most influential jazz artists of his generation.  Billboard magazine named him “The No. 3 Top Contemporary Jazz Artist of the Decade.”  But James prefers to not be labeled, saying, “I am just a saxophone player whose music has several different influences. Jazz is only one of them.” Here’s more in this report by VOA’s by Doug Levine:

For more on jazz music, listen to VOA’s Jazz America

Diaa Bekheet

Diaa Bekheet | Washington, DC – At the foot of the Cheops [Khufu] pyramid in Giza, Egypt in 2007, I ran into a young man wearing a T-shirt stamped with the picture of a familiar American musician. I approached him and asked if he knew the man on the T-shirt because there was no written name on it.  “Of course I printed it myself,” he said. “It’s Omar Hakim, the best American drummer. He’s my hero.” The young Egyptian turned out to be a drummer with a startup band in the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria.  “I first learned about Omar Hakim from a jazz fan club in Alexandria where we listened to Jazz Club USA on the Voice of America in 1996,” the young Egyptian drummer recalled. He was in Cairo to perform at Al-Azhar Park.

Here’s a clip from an old show about the Weather Report and I mentioned Omar Hakim at 1:08.  In fact, the drum-legend was mentioned on several of my old Jazz Club USA shows in the 1990s. Many of our listeners sent feedback asking about Hakim. The station ID on that VOA show was done earlier by jazz great Louis Armstrong.

Legendary American drummer Omar Hakim

Hakim played drums for jazz legends like Miles Davis. He’s now planning to release another “Omar Hakim” album in the fall, titled We Are One.

“The idea of We Are One is just to speak about the spiritual oneness of all people, and to connect with the source of music and life and positive energy,” said the versatile and hi-tech drummer who was kind enough to speak with Jazz Beat about his new projects.

Hakim has played the hi-tech V-drums for International Pop Superstar Madonna. In fact he toured with her and with Lionel Richie for eight years in the 1990s. He also played drums for David Bowie and Sting and has collaborated with other renowned artists including Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, Anita Baker, Bobby McFerrin, George Benson, Chaka Khan, John Scofield, Urban Knight‘s, Bruce Springsteen, Jewel, J-Lo, and D‘Angelo.

Omar Hakim

Hakim was born in the Big Apple (New York City) in 1959, and grew up listening to famed jazz musicians of the time. His father played trombone for Duke Ellington and Count Basie.  “ My father, a trombonist named Hasan, used to  play records around the house all the time when I was young by Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers, by Miles Davis, the Buddy Rich Big Band,” said Hakim who was a founding member of the Jazz Super Band Urban Knights along with Ramsey Lewis, Grover Washington Jr. and bassist Victor Bailey. The band featured Hakim’s songwriting and vocal talents.

His first encounter with an audience was in 1969 when he was 10 years old. His father wanted him to play in his band, the Nomads. Young Omar Hakim was shy but his father encouraged him. “He recognized my talents but I was very shy. He put me into that band and he was like … you can do it, you are the new drummer in the band, let’s go” he recalled. “It was a pretty amazing experience for me.”

Thanks to his father’s friendship with the legendary saxophonist John Coltrane, young Hakim had a chance to spend time with jazz greats like, drummers Elvin Jones and Art Blakey. At the age of 15, Hakim did his first tour after he formulated his improvisational drumming techniques.

The Trio of OZ (O for Omar, Z for pianist Rachel Z)

Omar Hakim is married to the brilliant, post-modern jazz pianist Rachel Z who worked for award-winning jazz vibraphonist Mike Mainieri.  She also played piano for some of the best artists in the music industry, including the British rock star Peter Gabriel whose song “Games without Frontiers” was a hit single in the UK and the USA in 1980. It was an iconic part of my college years, and number one on Radio Cairo chart in Egypt in 1980 and 1981.

Hakim and Rachel Z teamed up to form a new group called The Trio of OZ a few years after they met in a session with the famous jazz guitarist AL De Meola. “I’m very excited about it,” said Hakim whose famous solo album Rhythm Deep — a fusion of jazz, R&B, and pop– earned him his first Grammy nomination in 1989.  In 2000, he released another solo record titled Groovesmith, featuring his songwriting, arranging, singing and hi-tech drumming skills

His new group, The Trio of OZ, released its first album last year featuring Hakim on drums, Rachel Z on Piano and Maeve Royce on bass.  The group was joined at live shows by the new bassist Solomon Dorsey who’s been touring with the band lately. They are now working on a new album to be released later this year.

More on Omar Hakim and the Trio of of OZ here. And for more on jazz music, listen to VOA’s Jazz America

American guitarist John Pizzarelli (Courtsey his web site)

[audio:http://www.voanews.com/MediaAssets2/english/2011_05/pizzarelli_Avalon_sample.mp3]Diaa Bekheet | Washington, DC – In the fall of 1980, a college friend introduced me to the music of some famous American and British guitarists who were making big headlines at the time. While he made mint tea for us at his home, I spotted a guitar catalog on his desk. I started flipping through the pages and looking at photos.  I was introduced to the work of Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Page, Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, the Bellamy Brothers, and the Who’s Pete Townshend, an artist known for smashing his guitars on stage many times.  At the time I was looking for a picture of Elvis Presley, America’s world famous guitarist-singer-actor.  I was spellbound by the way he shook his legs on stage. I found nothing, unfortunately!

But in one of the catalog’s photos, a young guitarist was sitting next to American guitar legend Bucky Pizzarelli. That’s how I learned about John Pizzarelli.  “He looks Italian to me, not American” I said.

Egyptian guitarist Ahmed el-Gebali

My friend Ahmed el-Gebali, now Egypt’s top guitarist, said he cared about his guitar style not his nationality.

“Music knows no boundaries, dude. We’re talking about guitar skills here. John Pizzeralli has them in spades,” he said. “One of the keys to success in guitar is to study someone who has gone before you and learn from his styles or often follow his footsteps,” explained Gebali who has tasteful, yet blisteringly fast, guitar skills.

John Pizzarelli is an American musician who sings in English while playing the guitar. “You are always stuck to the guitar no matter what. It’s always sealed to my shoulder,” said Pizzarelli who turned 51 last month. He spoke briefly with VOA’s Jazz America.

[audio:http://www.voanews.com/MediaAssets2/english/2011_05/John_Pizzarelli_Jazz_America_Jazz_beat_may11.mp3]

John is the son of acclaimed guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli, who played a custom seven-string guitar with some of the biggest names in jazz in the 1930s and 1940s. The extra-low A-string, introduced by jazz guitarist George Van Eps, expands the guitar’s range to include bass lines.

Egyptian guitarist Ahmed el-Gebali

Ahmed el-Gebali is a guitar maestro who sings in English and Arabic thousands of miles away in Egypt. He’s known for fusing jazz with rock, classical and Arabic music for the first time at a live show in London. The style was so popular that he released it on a special album titled “Gebali Show.”

“My past experience and guitar studies abroad harnessed my skills that I was able to come up with this music mix,” he said. “I loved American music, jazz, rock n’ roll, hard rock and heavy metal [stars], and I wanted to play guitar like them until I developed my own style,” said Gebali who bought his first guitar during a visit to Syria while in middle school. [audio:http://www.voanews.com/MediaAssets2/english/2011_05/Gebali_02mix.mp3]“I learned a lot from my guitar lessons in Canada and Germany, where I rubbed shoulders with professional guitarists,” said Gebali as he recounted challenges he’d had during a composing and arranging project in 1993. He has released more than a dozen albums since 1990.

[audio:http://www.voanews.com/MediaAssets2/english/2011_05/beatles_1.mp3]What do Pizzarelli and Gebali have in common? Both guitar virtuosos grew up in the 1960s and 1970s listening to the Beatles. In fact, the Beatles’ popular music culture was immense at the time. Their all-time hit, “Hey Jude,” inspired musicians around the world. I used to sing “Hey Jude” in the corridors of VOA when I first came to the United States in 1989. The song stuck with me since I had first listened to it at Gebali’s home in the Nile Delta city of Zagazig, Egypt in 1979.

I learned to play acoustic guitar at school, but I never wanted to be a star. From the time I was a little kid, it always baffled me how just a box and six strings could produce different kinds of music, including jazz, blues, classical, flamenco, rock, folk and more.

For more on jazz music, listen to VOA’s Jazz America

Pianist and composer Amina Figarova (photo by Joke Schot)

Diaa Bekheet | Washington, DC – Pianist Amina Figarova recently moved to the “Big Apple” — New York City, — fulfilling a dream of playing her music in the city that doesn’t sleep. Figarova also wanted to be close to New Orleans, the southern US city known as the “cradle” of Jazz. “Great amount of jazz … (American) Audience is very very sophisticated, very appreciative,” explains the internationally-acclaimed pianist-composer.

Figarova grew up in Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic, listening to jazz greats like Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong on Voice of America radio.

The quite cosmopolitan, accomplished artist was only two years old when she learned to play piano with her mother in Baku. At three, Figarova had composed her fist melody. At six, she was admitted to a school for gifted children where she studied classical piano and composition. As a teenager, Amina Figarova got into Motown music, and now she is a renowned pianist, composer and bandleader.

After Figarova graduated from the State Conservatory of Baku, she traveled to the Netherlands to study composition, piano, and voice at the Rotterdam Conservatory. She also studied at the Berklee School of Music in Boston.  She says her music captures the big band sound “always in my head.” Figarova created an album of original songs that refresh the classic post-bop idiom established by labels such as Blue Note, Prestige and Impulse in the 1950s and 1960s.

Amina Figarova, one of Europe’s most impressive and sophisticated jazz pianists and bandleader, tells her story to VOA’s Jazz Beat.

Figarova is currently touring the United States, playing at jazz festivals in Virginia, Florida, Mississippi and several other states.  She has recorded a dozen CDs. Figarova’s 1994 debut album, Attraction, was selected for play in the prestigious Thelonious Monk Jazz Colony in Aspen, Colorado in 1998.

For more on jazz music, listen to VOA’s Jazz America



Diaa Bekheet | Washington, DC – I was sipping tea in the famous Al-Fishawy coffee shop in old Cairo, when a young man next to me said to a tourist: “Anwar Wagdi is as famous as Miles Davis!” He was pointing to an Egyptian movie star who was playing trumpet in a 1949 movie showing on a wall-mounted television set. Wagdi’s trumpet solo was brilliant.  I asked the man if he had ever listened to Miles Davis. “Never,” he responded. “But who doesn’t know Miles Davis? The greatest trumpeter of all time.” My face reflected my surprise. [audio:http://www.voanews.com/MediaAssets2/english/2011_05/MilesDavis.mp3]

Huge Impact on Jazz:
Davis is known worldwide – even by those who have never heard his music – for what he did to revolutionize jazz music between the 1940’s and 1970’s. He helped create Cool Jazz in New York in the late 1940’s when he played with saxophonist Charlie Parker, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and other big bandleaders of the era. In 1949 Davis recorded his first hit album Birth of the Cool. In the 1959, he introduced Modal Jazz. And in 1969, Davis mixed jazz with rock music to create Jazz Fusion. Despite all those achievements, he wanted to be called Miles Davis without labels.

Miles Davis holds a glass of orange juice after receiving the Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur award medal in Paris from the French government, July 16, 1991 (AP)

The eight-time Grammy winner was one of the prime movers of jazz; a “Chameleon of Jazz” who changed the direction of jazz music multiple times. John Edward Hasse, curator of American music at the Smithsonian, gives us some thoughts about Miles Davis. [audio:http://www.voanews.com/MediaAssets2/english/2011_05/Russ_Miles_David_28apr11.mp3]

I grew up listening to jazz-rock fusion and compositions like “Nefertiti” or “Pharaoh’s Dance” from Davis’ definitive electric, Grammy-winning album Bitches Brew. I fell in love with his style the minute I saw him perform in a  documentary on Egyptian television in the early 1970’s. Davis’ style attracted me, because at the time I had just started learning how to play the trumpet. I was 14.  I remember he used to say “there’s a need to move, change and grow.”

The Last Award:
Miles Davis later became one of the true giants of jazz. He received many awards; the last one was in July 1991, when the French government awarded him the Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur medal.  Two months later, Davis died in a southern California hospital of pneumonia and heart failure. He was 65.

Davis is also considered one of the most important musicians in jazz history, an icon who created the jazz language and helped define its repertoire.  He is also called “The Picasso of Jazz” for his abstract music style.

A Funny Story From Herbie Hancock on Miles Davis: [audio:http://www.voanews.com/MediaAssets2/english/2011_05/MilesDavis_Herbie_may11.mp3]

The Dark Side:
Many books described by critics as “Concise, compelling, elegant, and evocative” have been written about the legacy of Miles Davis. Among the many authors is his son, Gregory Davis Jr., who wrote an “honest” account of his father’s “brilliant DOCTOR JEKYLL and dark MR HYDE personality.”

For more on jazz music, listen to VOA’s Jazz America

Jon Metzger

Diaa Bekheet | Washington, DC – Ask any Jon Metzger fan and they’ll tell you his music appeals to the heart.  The majority of his compositions are relaxing. Metzger has played jazz on vibes and marimba in concerts and festivals across America and in over 20 countries.

Early on, Metzger fell in love with teaching — he found it inspiring to teach music to college students.  His book, The Art and Language of Jazz Vibes, is great for learning, listening and understanding the nature of playing jazz vibraphone.

“What led me to teaching was that I saw how clearly here at home in the United States we need a larger more improved, better educated audience,” he explained.

I recently interviewed Metzger.  As you listen to our conversation, you will hear the songs “Ode to Life” and “Brown Skin Girl”, two titles from The Jon Metzger Quartet’s Teach Me Tonight album.

(The Quartet features band leader Jon Metzger on vibes and marimba, Keith Waters on piano, James King on bass and Tony Martucci on drums and percussion.)

Bridging cultures musically:

Metzger served as a Cultural Envoy for the United States Embassy in Ankara, Turkey. The one-month mission in May 2009 allowed him to work with the music faculty of the Conservatory at Hacettepe State University on the formation of their new Jazz Studies Program. While in Turkey, he gave improvisation and jazz pedagogy workshops, jazz performance master classes, and numerous concerts at the Conservatories in Ankara and in Izmir.

In the 1990’s, the former United States Information Agency’s Arts America Program selected Metzger as a Jazz Ambassador. He visited more than 20 countries in Central America, Europe, the Middle East, the Near East, and Northern and Sub-Saharan Africa. His music was very well received in many countries, including Syria, Jordan, Oman and Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately, the tours didn’t include Egypt, home of Middle Eastern jazz and the region’s top vibraphonist Nesma Abdel Aziz.

Among his other noteworthy accomplishments, Jon Metzger teamed up with three other musicians to play the music of jazz and clarinet great Benny Goodman. The group recorded a CD titled Times Fly, the Music of Benny Goodman. It has 13 compositions arranged by Metzger on vibes, Gregg Gelb on clarinet, Ed Paolantonio on piano and John Hanks on drums. From Times Fly here’s After You’ve Gone:

Jon Metzger is now the Artist in Residence and an Associate Professor of Music at Elon University in North Carolina.

For more on jazz music, listen to VOA’s Jazz America

[audio:http://www.voanews.com/MediaAssets2/english/2011_04/timeline-30sec_yellowjackets.mp3]Diaa Bekheet | Washington, DC – The Yellowjackets Quartet is one of the most popular modern jazz bands in America. The group just released its new album “Timeline” to celebrate 30 years of achievements as one of the premiere jazz fusion/smooth jazz groups of our time.

Last year, when the Jackets were preparing to record their album, my colleague Russ Davis was in Detroit, Michigan. Russ was having breakfast in a restaurant on the sidelines of the Detroit Jazz Festival, when he saw Russell Ferrante of the Yellow jackets across the way. Here’s a recap of their conversation:

The Yellowjackets have recorded 24 albums, so far. The quartet is currently made up of Russell Ferrante on keyboards and synthesizers, Jimmy Haslip on bass, Will Kennedy on drums and percussions, and Bob Mintzer on saxophones and bass clarinet.

The group has won two Grammy Awards. One was for Best R&B Instrumental Performance for “And You Know That” in 1986:

And the second was for Best Jazz Fusion Performance for “Politics” in 1988.

For more on jazz music, listen to VOA’s Jazz America