Violinist Jenny Scheinman grew up along Northern California’s so-called Lost Coast, and she carries its rustic charm and mystique in her music — even when it assumes a form as elegant as the songs on All Species Parade, her recent double album. She talks with Josh Jackson about the album and other matters before a recent performance with her band at Solar Myth.

Few events embody the act of listening and receiving quite like the Big Ears Festival. In this episode, Nate reports back from the fest, and shares an interview with two artists who performed there: trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and pianist Vijay Iyer, who have a new duo album called Defiant Life.

The jazz vocal tradition is always evolving, but rarely does that notion feel truer than in the output of Michael Mayo, who stopped by our studio to talk about his dynamic second album, Fly.

As Thanksgiving rolls around, it’s a good time to ask: what are we grateful for? Here at The Late Set, our first answer is you, our listener. So we decided to spend this holiday episode answering your questions.

“I’m a jazz musician first, I feel,” says Bilal. Maybe this comes as news to the many admirers who know him as an ethereal singer with a shape-shifting R&B profile, or as one of the original catalysts for neo-soul. On a compelling new album, Adjust Brightness — his first studio release in almost a decade — Bilal explores a galactic sweep of sound, making genre distinctions feel all the more irrelevant to any conversation.

“Dreams do come true.” That’s how Greg sums up this episode, as he and Nate talk with master drummer Jack DeJohnette about an incredible recording made in the spring of 1966. Featuring a ferocious quartet co-led by pianist McCoy Tyner and tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson, it captures each of those giants at a turning point in his career. Blue Note Records will release this album, Forces of Nature: Live at Slugs’, on Nov. 22.

WRTI’s Josh Jackson subs in for Greg, talking with Nate about their rich experience at the Pittsburgh International Jazz Festival. Their guests are saxophonist Chris Coles and trumpeter Sean Jones, who had just performed a powerful suite titled Nine Lives. Coles composed the suite in response to a 2015 church shooting in Charleston. This conversation touches on the power of grace, the call to forgiveness — and a quietly thriving jazz scene in Akron, Ohio.Submit your questions and voice memos for our Mailbag episode here: editor@wrti.org

Urgency is a currency for Isaiah Collier, an ambitious young saxophonist from the South Side of Chicago. During a recent visit to Philly, he sat down with us to talk about stirring emotions, channeling energies, and his problem with the term “spiritual jazz.”

Feel that rumble underfoot? It might be the stampeding onrush of new music this fall. This episode, we’re throwing a spotlight on the most anticipated albums among them — including 'Odyssey,' by tenor saxophonist Nubya Garcia.

For esperanza spalding, the iconic Brazilian troubadour Milton Nascimento exerts a magical influence. So it makes sense that she describes their luminous new album, Milton + esperanza, as the realization of a dream.

What should the omnivorous young jazz mainstream sound like today? One beguiling answer can be found in the music of Julius Rodriguez, a brilliant multi-instrumentalist who just released Evergreen, his second album for Verve, which synthesizes elements of jazz, R&B, gospel, funk, even electro-pop.

Cornetist Ron Miles left us too soon — but also left a lot to remember him by. Two of his closest friends, guitarist Bill Frisell and drummer Rudy Royston, do just that in this episode, which follows the release of a gorgeous archival album, Old Main Chapel.

As a kickoff to Jazz Appreciation Month, we're looking ahead to Record Store Day. There's another great haul of archival releases dropping on April 12. Two of our favorites were recorded in the same room in 1967 by two amazing trumpeters, Kenny Dorham and Freddie Hubbard.

Pianist Renee Rosnes has loved Brazilian music for ages, but hadn't devoted an album to it until 'Crossing Paths.' It landed in the same season as a new effort from Artemis, which she founded almost a decade ago. In this episode, Rosnes talks about both projects, and her own path from rural Canada to the heart of modern jazz.

Bassist Endea Owens specializes in the kind of buoyant uplift that just won’t quit. You can see her putting it into practice on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, or with her band The Cookout. At the 2025 Winter Jazzfest, we talked about her TV gig, her sense of mission, and her resilient journey.

Aja Monet has lately breathed new life into the rich exchange between spoken word poetry and jazz. We sat down with her at the 2025 Winter Jazzfest performance, to talk about poetic practice, political necessity, and musical imperatives. Don’t miss some deep truths from one of our most committed truth-tellers.

What was up with the jazz field at this year’s Grammy Awards? A big win by a legend who died three years ago? Two major awards for a Christmas release? Here to talk it all down with Nate is the esteemed critic Natalie Weiner. You won’t find a more swinging recap of Music’s Biggest Night.

Bassist and bandleader John Clayton was in New York to receive an award when he learned that the Eaton wildfire had destroyed his home of 40 years, along with his daughter’s home and many others. He lost everything, including irreplaceable heirloom instruments. But as he tells The Late Set, speaking from temporary living quarters in L.A., he is focused on what lies ahead, and the overwhelming love and support that has flowed in from all corners.

For our first episode of 2025, Nate and Josh talk through a few New Year’s resolutions. And we’re sharing one of our favorite interviews in recent memory: a sit-down with Samara Joy, her father and her grandfather at Mother Bethel AME Church.

We're looking back at the stories, themes and other highlights from a jam-packed year — including Blues Blood, an album by our guest, alto saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins.

The spiritual and the sensual find common cause in the music of harpist Brandee Younger. Before a recent show at Solar Myth, she sat down with The Late Set to talk about her instrument, her cohort, and her third Impulse! release, Gadabout Season, which finds her in exceptional form.

"Running and listening can illuminate each other,” argues critic Ben Ratliff in a new book, Run the Song: Writing About Running About Listening. He recently sat down to talk about the book, its back story and his listening practice with friend and colleague Nate Chinen at Solar Myth.

What does it mean to pick a winner in jazz? We're considering that question in this episode of The Late Set — with an assist from Joshua Redman, whose career got off to a big start when he won the Thelonious Monk Jazz Saxophone Competition precisely 30 years ago.

On the first episode of The Late Set, hosts Greg Bryant and Nate Chinen compare notes on Philadelphia's jazz legacy and state of play — with some help from an absolute authority, pianist Orrin Evans.

Jazz is a conversation — and that’s what The Late Set is all about.

Trumpet great Lee Morgan now has a historical marker in West Philly, at the site of his final hometown gig. We were there for the ceremony, so we could bring you this report.

When Shabaka hung up his tenor saxophone in favor of bamboo flutes, the world reacted with a mix of admiration and puzzlement. In this episode, we talk with him about his remarkable new album, Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace, and the challenge of making such a decisive pivot.

In this episode of The Late Set, tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana talks about absorbing influences, and her path to a personal sound. And she reflects on the process of refinement that can be heard on her captivating new album, Echoes of the Inner Prophet.

Ahead of his induction as an NEA Jazz Master, alto saxophonist Gary Bartz joins us on The Late Set to share some profound musical insights.

Marcus Roberts was recently in town to perform Gershwin's 'Rhapsody in Blue' with The Philadelphia Orchestra, and he stopped by our studio to talk about it. In this bonus episode of The Late Set, we feature that interview along with our own thoughts about the 'Rhapsody,' which can still inspire heated debate.

For a Max Roach centenary, there's no better guest than Nasheet Waits.

For our final episode of 2023, we’re talking about the albums we can’t let go. One of them was Rivers in Our Veins, by drummer and composer Allison Miller, who joins us in conversation.

The holidays are upon us, and so are the holiday tunes. Who better to join us than a pair of sublime vocalists with soulful new Christmas albums, Gregory Porter and Samara Joy?

Pianist-composer Amaro Freitas creates music with a vivid sense of place. His native Brazil pulses through his most recent album, Y'Y, which mixes jazz with Afro-Brazilian and indigenous music, and the sounds of the Amazon. Freitas discusses this and more with Josh Jackson, in a deeply searching conversation recorded backstage at New York's Winter Jazzfest earlier this year.

We’ve reached the midpoint of 2025, and listened our way through well over a hundred albums. In this episode, we’re sharing half a dozen of our favorites.

Louis Armstrong belonged to the world. But for more than half of his illustrious career, he made his home in Corona, Queens — where we recently paid a visit to the Louis Armstrong House Museum. There we sat down with Ricky Riccardi — the museum's Director of Research Collections, and a celebrated Armstrong biographer — to discuss Satchmo's life and career.

Painter of the Invisible is Jaleel Shaw's first full-band album in more than a dozen years. But it's not as if Shaw, an alto and soprano saxophonist from Philadelphia, has been slacking; as he explains in this revealing episode of The Late Set, the pause had more to do with high standards and pure convictions.

Jaleel Shaw's elegy "Tamir" is vividly rendered in this exclusive live performance at Solar Myth, available exclusively on The Late Set.

On his fine new Blue Note album, Words Fall Short, saxophonist Joshua Redman introduces a band full of up-and-comers, including Philly’s own Nazir Ebo. This young cohort reminded us of a conversation The Late Set had with Redman in the fall of 2023. We're sharing it again with you now.

"Live at the Village Vanguard" is one of the most familiar phrases in the jazz discography, a marker of place and a point of pride. But why? Together we’ve logged hundreds of hours in the club, so let's talk about it. Tumble down those stairs with us and listen up!

Sonny Rollins is turning 95: a great excuse to toast one of our finest living jazz artists. So in this special episode of The Late Set, Josh Jackson and Nate Chinen are joined by a handful of WRTI’s on-air hosts

Kassa Overall's smart new album, CREAM, is a celebration of 1990s hip-hop and its classic source material within the framework of small-group acoustic jazz. He joined Nate and WRTI Evening Jazz host Nicole Sweeney to talk about it before a front-to-back performance at Solar Myth.

Terence Blanchard's career has brought him to many posts, including the executive artistic director of SFJAZZ and the first Black composer at The Metropolitan opera. To each of these and beyond, he's carried his perspectives on culture and how it operates. Just before his performance at the Exit Zero Jazz Fest, Blanchard sat down with The Late Set to discuss how culture flows, and what it means to lead from a place of service.

Now both in their 40s, brothers Zaccai and Luques Curtis have amassed a wealth of experience, and the mentorship of elders ranging from Jackie McLean to Eddie Palmieri to Ralph Peterson, Jr..In this lively conversation at the Exit Zero Jazz Festival, the two open up about their upbringing in Hartford, Conn.; the hidden circuitries of so-called Latin Jazz; and the industrious spark that led to Zaccai’s Grammy Award-winning album Cubop Lives!

Growing up in the Ramblewood area of northeast Baltimore, Brandon Woody could hardly have envisioned a future as one of the most heralded young trumpeter-bandleaders in jazz. But he dared to dream beyond what he could see — even after dropping out of college in New York. His 2025 Blue Note debut, For the Love of It All, introduces a powerfully emotive artist and a committed working band, Upendo, primed to represent their hometown. Woody sat down with The Late Set just after a set at the Exit Zero Jazz Festival, ready to open up and dig in.

We're reposting Nate Chinen’s illuminating conversation with esperanza spalding, which will be featured in the inaugural episode of The Late Set Radio Hour. Tune in on Oct. 26 — Milton Nascimento's 83rd birthday.

To coincide with this Sunday’s Late Set Radio Hour (airing Sunday at 8 p.m. ET) we’re reposting our interview with Gary Bartz. More on The Late Set Radio Hour here: wrti.org/the-late-set-radio-hour

Gary Bartz turned 85 this fall, and has shown no signs of slowing down. In fact, he released his first studio album in more than a decade: Damage Control, a riff on classic soul from Curtis Mayfield, Earth Wind & Fire and others, played by his band Ntu.

Our interview was taped in Brooklyn during the 2024 Winter Jazzfest featuring the original Late Set hosts Nate Chinen and Greg Bryant. The conversation spans Bartz’s apprenticeship years (with everyone from Max to Mingus to Miles), his journeyman period (notably at the helm of Ntu Troop), and his master eminence as a 2024 NEA Jazz Master. The man who gave us “Music is My Sanctuary” is still out along the front line with insights to share.

More to explore:
NEA: arts.gov/honors/jazz/gary-bartz
NPR: npr.org/2022/06/23/1106723714...
KQED: kqed.org/arts/13935159/8-over-80-gary-bartz

More on the 2026 Winter Jazz Fest: winterjazzfest.com

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Subscribe to our YouTube: youtube.com/@WRTImusic

Write us an email: editor@wrti.org

About Ghosts is the latest album from Mary Halvorson's Amaryllis, and on our short list for Album of the Year. Before a recent show at Solar Myth, Halvorson sat down with Josh Jackson to talk about her approach to composing for the group, her inspirations, and her fondness for mixology.

Before our chat with Mary Halvorson drops Tuesday, here’s a treat — a live recording from Solar Myth with her band Amaryllis, including a brand-new WRTI exclusive: “Florid Waning.”

Johnathan Blake makes music as an extension of life. It’s one reason his alert and expressive drumming has lifted so many leading bands, from the Kenny Barron Quartet to the Maria Schneider Orchestra to the Kris Davis Trio.

And it’s the animating principle behind his output as a solo artist, whether he’s honoring his late father on Passage or speaking out about injustice on My Life Matters, his latest release.

Johnathan, born and raised in Philly, recently stopped by WRTI for a conversation with Josh Jackson about family legacy, musical priorities, and an artist’s obligation in trying times.

Chapters:
00:00 Intro
04:51 Interview
38:32 Recap
41:45 This I Dig

Want to support The Late Set? Become a WRTI member: wrti.org/donate

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Write us an email: editor@wrti.org