It’s birds of feather in this episode–Gary Peacock joins us to talk about a live date from 1999 featuring his long-time colleagues, the late great Paul Bley and Paul Motian. But first is Brandee Younger, one of the bright lights in today’s music vanguard, and the hippest harpist since Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane.
From leader, to side gigs, and mix tape compilations, it’s an endless list that proves how in demand Younger is. She’s paid her dues with the likes of Clark Terry, Jackie McLean, and Quincy Jones, and cut her teeth with John Legend, Makaya McCraven, and Postmodern Jukebox. Her Soul Awakening is a wake up call to anyone craving something from the celestial crossroads–its somewhere in-between hip-hop in the classical world, but with the backdrop of jazz.Continue Reading …
Music without borders is the name of the game for Jon Lampley. When not showing the trumpet and tuba some love with the Stay Human Band on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, or touring with O.A.R., he’s leading the Huntertones–making a multi-culti noise from the Emerald Isles to Zimbabwe and back to the Buckeye State. This is also another link in the chain in The Major Scale’s look into the talent-rich late night talk show scene, along with the previously covered Grace Kelly, Doc Severinsen, and Allison Miller.
The word “mother” gets used a lot in this episode of The Major Scale, and we don’t just mean it in the maternal way. When we heard Dwight Trible’s stunning take on the Beatles psychedelic anthem “Tomorrow Never Knows,” the song wasn’t even half over before we were reaching out for an interview request. His Mothership album blows wigs back as we’ve come to expect from an artist who’s as legendary as his colleagues; ranging from Pharaoh Sanders and Charles Lloyd, to J Dilla and Kamasi Washington, and whom we’ll hear play on the segment.
Keyboardist and multi-instrumentalist, Jamie Saft is exactly the type of musician we love to talk about here on the Major Scale. He’s prolific, and leaves no musical territory unexplored–from rock to punk, and the experimental to all that Jazz. His work with Bernard Purdie, John Zorn, Bad Brains, the Beastie Boys, and Bill Laswell, to name a few, have put Saft into the Musician’s Musician club–a very good place to be. His latest efforts have found him in good company with fellow heavyweights Steve Swallow and Bobby Previte, not to mention the incomparable punk icon Iggy Pop on the mic, all of which you’ll hear.