Josh Jackson
Josh Jackson is the associate general manager for content at WRTI in Philadelphia.
Prior to joining WRTI, he was program director and content manager of WVTF in Virginia and special projects producer at WBGO in Newark, N.J. While at WBGO, Josh hosted Live at the Village Vanguard, a monthly concert series from the legendary New York jazz club. He was also the creator and host of Living With Music, a multimedia riff about jazz, discovery and other big ideas.
He started with a full-time gig and volunteer host position at WWOZ in New Orleans, landed a temporary production assistant job at American Routes and attended public radio boot camp at Murray Street Productions in New York. He has produced award-winning documentaries and more than 250 live concert recordings while at WBGO.
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Jazz being the esoteric art that it is, many of its major artists were similarly obsessed with other forms of divining — numerology, tarot readings, enneagrams and especially astrology. Here are five jazz songs that might inspire you to ask your fellow jazz fan, "What's your sign?" -
In this session, saxophonist JD Allen performs songs from Shine, his second consecutive trio recording featuring bassist Gregg August and drummer Rudy Royston. The songs all feature Allen's calling card: a forceful tenor saxophone that blows mightily.
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Nearly every jazz musician today comes from an institutional program, but Claudia Acuna took an alternate route that started in her native Chile. In a session from WBGO, the jazz vocalist performs the music of a Chilean freedom singer and Cole Porter.
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Jazz has no shortage of celebrated masters. Every year brings an abundance of new milestones for record labels to celebrate. With that in mind, we present songs by six American jazz musicians who would have become centenarians in 2009, including Lester Young. -
After more than a decade of jamming, improvising and experimenting with sound, Benevento has discovered his own way into music by combining the thrust of rock, the questing of jazz and the experimental ecstasy of jam. Hear his trio cover Deerhoof and Leonard Cohen in a session.
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Even with his contributions to the instrument, not even Coleman Hawkins could have predicted how the tenor saxophone would become so centrally identifiable with jazz. Five of today's leading tenor players have new releases in 2009, each with his own take on the shape of jazz to come. -
Notes from an unamplified double bass rank among the most beautiful man-made sounds; in jazz, the creator of those notes is always in the middle of the action, charting the harmonic direction of a band and plotting the rhythmic narrative as both an accompanist and a soloist. It's no small task, but here are five musicians who performed the duty with aplomb. -
Lionel Gilles Loueke (GIL), Ferenc Nemeth (FE) and Massimo Biolcati (MA) form the core of Gilfema, a cross-border collaboration with a jazz foundation. In a session from WBGO, the band displays an egalitarian aesthetic rooted in finding common ground as musicians.
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Pianist Robert Glasper is an example of the freedom principle at work; walking proof that art is forever the great (small-d) democrat. A soon-to-be father, Glasper says he's excited about the world his child will soon enter, and he describes what Obama's presidency means for jazz.
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Pianist Robert Glasper wrote the hypnotic "Enoch's Meditation" years ago, for his 2005 album Canvas. He conceived it as a tribute to his colleague, drummer Enoch Jamal Strickland, but reconditioned it in time for Inauguration Day 2009. Hear Glasper perform the repurposed song at the studios of WBGO.
