Improv Exchange Podcast

Dec 08 2024 164 ep. 46 mins 32

Improv Exchange Podcast artwork

Keeping up with the Jazz world, Leander Young, carries out authentic conversions with and about musicians. Make sure to subscribe, leave a comment, and rating. Connect with us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook @improvexchange #improvexchange www.improvexchange.com

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Episode #164: Donald Vega

Dec 08 2024 62 mins

Donald Vega was trained classically in piano in his native Nicaragua. He emigrated to the United States at age 14 and found a musical home with the Colburn School of Performing Arts (CSPA). He began his studies there in classical piano with Teresa de Jong Pombo and Dr. Louis Lepley. Vega started to learn the language of jazz from mentor Billy Higgins at The World Stage and continue

Episode #163: Corey Bernhard

Dec 01 2024 47 mins

Keyboardist, producer, composer and house musician for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’s band, Corey Bernhard will release his sophomore solo full-length album exploring themes of faith, God, love, and loss, A Blessed Leap into Eternity via Birdbrain Records on January 24, 2025. The seven original songs on the album are a sprawling, experimental, folk jazz suite rooted in Bern

Episode #162: Benjamin Makinen

Nov 24 2024 64 mins

Ben Makinen is an award-winning filmmaker, music producer, composer, and percussionist with over 40 years of experience in film, television, theater, and music production. A voting member of the Recording Academy (GRAMMYS), he is known for his compelling documentaries that explore the rich interplay between music and culture. Ben has produced two acclaimed music documentaries, Jazz

Episode #161: Koki Nakano

Nov 17 2024 28 mins

Koki Nakano is a composer and a pianist, born in 1988 in Fukuoka, Japan. After graduating Music High School at Toho Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo, he enrolled at the composition department of Tokyo University of the Arts. He has performed recitals at the Louvre and the Théâtre du Châtelet (Paris), Cadogan Hall (London), Lincoln Center (New York). He released his first album Li

Episode #160: Tigran Hamasyan

Nov 10 2024 58 mins

Tigran Hamasyan is considered one of the most remarkable and distinctive jazz-meets-rock pianists/composers of his generation. A piano virtuoso with groove power, Hamasyan seamlessly fuses potent jazz improvisation and progressive rock with the rich folkloric music of his native Armenia. Born in Gyumri, Armenia, in 1987, his musical journey began in his childhood home, where he was

Episode #159: Lao Tizer

Nov 03 2024 52 mins

Colorado-bred, LA-based keyboardist Lao Tizer embodies what it means to be a 21st-century musician inhabiting the jazz sphere ¾ that being one who embraces musical diversity and has no fear of crossing boundaries. But Tizer also happens to come by this naturally. As the self-described “child of East Coast Jewish hippies,” he was exposed to and was influenced by his parents' ex

Episode #158: Bill Warfield

Oct 13 2024 59 mins

Bill Warfield, a dynamic and innovative composer, bandleader and trumpeter, has energized audiences, performers and writers for over four decades. Warfield’s most recent accomplishments are two highly regarded recordings including “Mercy Mercy Mercy”, recorded on the BluJazz label by the Hell’s Kitchen Funk Orchestra in 2015 and “Trumpet Story” with Randy Brecker on Pla

Episode #157: Akira Ishiguro

Sep 10 2024 25 mins

Guitarist Akira Ishiguro studied Jazz performance and composition at Berklee College of Music. Since graduating in 2006, he has been entrenched in the New York City jazz scene. Tour life has taken him to Japan, Chile, Coasta Rica, Canada, and much of Europe. He has six albums as a leader or co-leader and has appears in over 20 records. He has shared the stage with Myron Walden

Episode #156: Jonathan Barber

Sep 01 2024 33 mins

International Recorded artist, composer, educator, and bandleader Jonathan Barber was voted the #1 Up-and-Coming Drummer of 2018 in Modern Drummer. Barber has already recorded and toured worldwide with such artists as Pat Metheny, Erykah Badu, Nicholas Payton, Buster Williams, Jimmy Greene, Jeremy Pelt, Wallace Roney, Terrace Martin, Jennifer Holiday, Harold Mabern, Steve Davis, J.

Episode #155: Cestari

Aug 25 2024 47 mins

New York City-based pianist, singer-songwriter, and composer Cestari creates a world that melds the sounds of jazz, pop, classical, latin, and free improvisation together. With rich vocals, vivid lyricism, and a powerful approach to the piano, Cestari's music takes on various inspirations that have merged into one distinct sound. Studying Music Business at NYU, Cestari aims to use