Jawanza Kobie’s Weekly Wednesday Jazz Playlist June 8, 2022

Born in Italy and now based in New York City, Pasquale Grasso the 30-year- old guitarist has developed an astounding technique and concept informed not by jazz guitarists so much as by bebop pioneers like Powell, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie and the classical-guitar tradition. In 2015, he won the Wes Montgomery International Jazz Guitar Competition in New York City, taking home a $5,000 prize and performing with guitar legend Pat Martino’s organ trio. These days, Grasso teaches and maintains a packed gig schedule around New York, including frequent solo performances at the popular Greenwich Village haunt Mezzrow. Here is his track playing the Dizzy Gillespie classic ‘Night In Tunisia’ from his latest Album Be-Bop.

Nikolai Mischenko: This young pianist composer recently graduated from Berklee College of Music in December 2021 and already released two albums prior to graduation. Not a lot of information on this twenty one year old, but here is the track ‘Dawn’ from his soon to be released album of the same name.

Kresten Osgood  (born 1976) is a composer multi-instrumentalist, communicator. He plays drums and has done so with several internationally famous musicians in as many constellations. He was born in West Jutland Lemvig and musically educated in Holstebro Music School conservatories education MGK from 1993 to 1996. An extraordinary drummer and improviser who with the fullest respect to tradition, challenges it at any given moment of his creative endeavors. He has about a 100 albums to his credit, toured practically everywhere, has been performing and/or recording with legends like Roscoe Mitchell, Paul Bley, Lee Scratch Perry, William Parker, Masabumi Kikuchi, Derek Bailey, Wadada Leo Smith, Jason Moran, Michael Blake, Oliver Lake, Kurt Rosenwinkel, John Tchicai, Tim Berne, Justin Vernon, Peter Brötzman, Joshua Redman, Eugene Chadbourne, Billy Preston, Alan Silva, Brad Mehldau, Mats Gustafsson, Bennie Maupin, The National, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Sam Rivers, Henry Grimes, Dr. Yusef Lateef, Warren Smith, and many many others. Here is his track ‘Nar lyset breeder frem’ from his most recent album Kresten Osgood Plays The Organ For You.

Xavier Amin Dphrepaulezz, better known by his stage name Fantastic Negrito, is an American singer-songwriter whose music spans blues, R&B, and roots music. His 2016 album The Last Days of Oakland won a Grammy award for Best Contemporary Blues Album at the 59th Grammy Awards. His 2020 Have You Lost Your Mind Yet? won Fantastic Negrito his 3rd consecutive Best Contemporary Blues Album Grammy at the 63rd Grammy Awards.

He became inspired to teach himself how to play music after listening to Prince’s album Dirty Mind and hearing that Prince was a self-taught musician. He learned to play music by sneaking into music classrooms at the University of California Berkeley despite not being a student there. This is ‘Venomous Dogma’ from his latest release.

With a confidence reflecting an instrumental and compositional maturity that both belie his age and announce the arrival of a remarkable talent, Bryan Carter exudes what promises a highly successful career. Carter attended The Juilliard School as a Jazz Studies major and studied with Carl Allen and Kenny Washington. He was the recipient of the Irene Diamond Scholarship as well as the Samuel L Jackson Scholarship. While at Juilliard, Carter took a strong interest in composition, orchestration and interdivisional cross-collaborative performance. Bryan is currently touring across the world with his band, “The Swangers”, a diverse semi-acoustic band built upon a foundation of brash eclecticism as well as it’s expanded “concert-driven” counterpart, "The Swangers Orchestra”. He served as the house drummer for NBC’S “Maya & Marty” starring Maya Rudolph, Keenan Thompson and Martin Short. ‘I Believe’ is a track from his newly released album of the same name.

Lettuce is a funk band that originated in Boston, Massachusetts in 1992. Its members are guitarist Adam "Shmeeans" Smirnoff, Nigel Hall, Adam Deitch, Erick "Jesus" Coomes, Ryan Zoidis and trumpeter Eric "Benny" Bloom. Lettuce began in the summer of 1992, when all of its members attended a music program at Berklee College Of Music in Boston, MA as teenagers. Brought together by the influence of various funk bands including Herbie Hancock, Earth Wind & Fire and Tower of Power, the band jammed throughout that summer before going their separate ways. In the fall of 1994, the band reconvened as undergrads at Berklee and attempted to play at various Boston jazz clubs, walking in and asking the club owners and other musicians if they would "let us play", giving birth to the name Lettuce. In 2020, Lettuce's album Elevate was nominated at Grammy's for Instrumental Album of the Year. Here is their track ‘RVA Dance’ from their latest release.

Julius Rodriguez, also known as "Orange Julius", is an American pianist, drummer and composer. He began to study classical piano at an early age. He was exposed to jazz, particularly music by Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington, Lois Armstrong, John Coltrane through his father. He attended the Manhattan School of Music at the age of twelve college division and later studied at Julliard School of Music. He has worked as a sideman with Roy Hargrove, Wynton Marsalis, to name but a few. Here is his latest track ‘All I Do’ from his latest release.

Not much information on this young saxophonist Binker Golding. Here is his latest track ‘Take Me To The Wide Open Lows’

‘Webb T’s Blues’ from my album Feels Better Than It Sounds

I hope you enjoy

JK