Conversation Starter - February 11th, 2024

On New Year's Eve 2023, I tuned by mid-century Zenith crystal radio to NPR's Toast of the Nation. They were playing live jazz (Which, I learned after the fact, they do every New Year's Eve) and in this one, Hiromi Uehara was playing music from her Sonic Wonderland album. I loved the whimsical, wavy, brightness of it.

Going into this year, I started discovering more of Hiromi's music, as well as that of her contemporaries: Esperanza Spalding, Samara Joy, Nao Yoshioka, amongst others. I've also started digging into older Jazz music from the likes of Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Ella Fitzgerald, Bill Evans, and Fred Hersch.

In years past I largely ignored Jazz, even if I listened to some of it or some music that is Jazz Adjacent. I don't really know why. There's so many kinds of Jazz and it has such a deep and rich history. I will just leave you with a link to this interview with Wynton Marsalis and Ken Burns.