Grammy nominated pianist/vocalist Judy Carmichael is one of the world’s leading interpreters of stride piano and swing. Count Basie nicknamed her “Stride," acknowledging the command with which she plays this technically and physically demanding jazz piano style. Judy has written two music books on stride piano and her memoir, Swinger! A Jazz Girl’s Adventures From Hollywood To Harlem was published in 2018.
Judy is celebrating her 25th year producing and hosting Judy Carmichael’s Jazz Inspired, broadcast on over 170 stations throughout North America and abroad and podcast on all platforms.
Visit www.judycarmichael.com for more information and events.
General Manager of KVRS FM Radford University, the first station to air Jazz Inspired, turned the tables on Judy and interviewed HER for a very special episode of Jazz Inspired. Listen below.
Actor Jeff Goldblum is a distinctive presence in every role he plays, from his early portrayals in The Fly, Jurassic Park and The Big Chill, to recent turns in Law and Order: Criminal Intent and The Grand Budapest Hotel. Now Jeff brings his unique character, curiosity and enthusiasm to his newest adventure, as a jazz pianist and singer, releasing his second CD, I Shouldn’t Be Telling You This.
Family Guy creator, Seth MacFarlane and I met in Hollywood (well, not really, but I don’t want to tell you where his house is, which is where we did meet) to talk about his first CD (which went on to win a Grammy) and his favorite jazz recordings. Stewie and Peter dropped by to add their thoughts as well. Brian brought the martinis.
Swedish multi-instrumentalist/vocalist, Gunhild Carling had a childhood filled with books, music, and magical adventures. I first met Gunhild in Brazil when we were both part of a music festival for which I served as Artistic Director.
I caught up with Gunhild Carling in April 2023 during her tour with Post Modern Jukebox.
Julie Andrews and her daughter Emma Walton Hamilton have individually and collectively won, Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and on and on. Emma’s father, costume, set and production designer, Tony Walton (who passed away in 2022) won three Tonys, an Academy Award and an Emmy. Yes, it’s a talented family.
Emma and Julie have written thirty-five children’s books, many illustrated by Tony. Their latest, Waiting in the Wings, is based on a family of ducks who took up residence outside Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor, NY, the theater Emma started with her husband Steven Hamilton and Cybil Christopher in 1991.
Tony Walton generously agreed to be my first guest on Jazz Inspired, twenty-five years ago, so having Emma and Julie on now is a wonderful way for me to celebrate Waiting in the Wings, and 25 years--so far--of Jazz Inspired.
My two part conversation with the vocal virtuoso, Kurt Elling about his inspirations, the jazz world and philosophy of life as an artist. I planned on one hour with Kurt but the conversation was so interesting and hilarious that we continued for two. We find out why everyone is better looking after listening to or performing jazz and solve the truth behind Yoda’s weird word order: he’s GERMAN!
Musician, singer/songwriter/actor, activist, Willie Nelson is, and always has been a busy, passionate man. While he is much celebrated for his Country Music, he loves and continues to be influenced by the Great American Standards he heard growing up and the jazz musicians he admires. His CD, That’s Life, celebrates his favorite singer, Frank Sinatra, who like Willie, was known for his soulful phrasing and deep connection to the heart. Willie Nelson talked to me from his home in Austin, Texas about his admiration for Sinatra, his memoir, written with his sister Bobbie and how his positive attitude and faith have kept him going forward all these years with optimism. It looks like it could be cropped to fit in that spot at the bottom.
Actress Jane Lynch is a hilarious presence in the Christopher Guest films, Best In Show, A Mighty Wind and For Your Consideration. Although she was initially reluctant to dive into Guest’s improvisational approach to character development in these films, she loved the process and feels it pushed her forward as an actress. Now, with her Emmy winning roles on Glee, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and numerous other programs expanding her audience even further, she is, among other projects, doing what she loves most: group singing, with her tours A Swinging’ Little Christmas with Tim Davis and Kate Flannery, and Two Lost Souls, her duo show with Kate.
Jane and I talked about it all last month while she was in Vancouver filming the movie Ivy and Bean.
Pianist, composer, Jon Batiste, is an exuberant presence, whether playing music or talking about the importance of putting good energy and meaningful work into the world. His band, Stay Human, is named to honor the belief that human interaction during a live musical performance can uplift humanity in the midst of the “plug in/tune out” nature of modern society.
Stephen Colbert, like Jon Batiste, has a commitment to social engagement, making Batiste a natural choice to lead the band on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. Jon and I talked about his work with Colbert, his commitment to positivity and his new CD, Anatomy of Angels. Jon was also the musical advisor for the new Pixar film, Soul.
Musician Billy Joel discusses his studies with jazz great Lennie Tristano and how jazz influences his own music.
Vocalist Hannah Gill, unlike most twenty-something jazz musicians on the scene, doesn’t have a music degree or any of the usual notions of how one pursues a jazz career.
Her debut album, Everybody Loves a Lover, features swing-era songs from the 1920s through the ‘50s and reflects Hannah’s deep love for Ella Fitzgerald, Anita O’Day and Blossom Dearie, her biggest inspirations.
The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival returned last month with a bang after a two-year pandemic hiatus. This joyful moment was followed by the release of the new documentary, Jazz Fest: A New Orleans Story, which honors the festival’s 50 years of celebrating New Orleans music, food and culture.
I talked with five-time Academy Award nominee Frank Marshall, who co-directed Jazz Fest: A New Orleans Story with Ryan Suffern, and with Jimmy Buffett, who is an executive producer on the film, along with Quint Davis.
Jazz singer/songwriter, Nicole Zuraitis refers to herself as a recovering opera singer, which her beautiful tone and effortless vocal style reflect.
On her Grammy-winning CD How Love Begins, co-produced with bassist Christian McBride explores the dark and light sides of love--romantic and otherwise--and the tug between those states that always exists.
On the new CD Transformation: Personal Stories of Change, Acceptance and Evolution, Glenn Close joins forces with composer Ted Nash and members of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra on a series of pieces that integrate spoken word segments selected by Close, with compositions by Nash. This is the second collaboration for Glenn Close and Ted Nash, with this one being especially personal, as the spoken segments range from Ted Hughes’s Tales From Ovid,” one of Glenn’s favorites, to a letter in which Ted Nash’s son comes out as transgender. Each piece focuses on change being positive, an attitude Ted Nash and Glenn Close share and encourage others to embrace.
Robert Redford talks about designing his life and work at Sundance around a jazz model and how improvisation is a key to his creative process. We recorded this conversation in 2005 when Redford brought me to Sundance to perform with my trio as part of the Sundance Film Festival.
Vocalist Megg Farrell or as she is often called, Sweet Megg, has been a jazz singer, a country singer and river boat tour guide, an athelete, and now, to her delight and surprise, she’s a circus performer. Yes, all her talents have combined to get her a gig with Cirque de Soleil. Her actor parents encouraged her to live an interesting life and that she’s certainly done.
Comedy writer Mike Reiss has enjoyed a long career making people laugh, from his early years with National Lampoon, Johnny Carson and The Gary Shandling Show, to his continuing work with the animated series, The Simpsons.
Mike was one of the original writers for The Simpsons, a show he still contributes to 35 years on between writing children’s stories, traveling with his excursion-loving wife Denise and publishing his most recent book, What Am I Doing Here? A Simpsons’ Writer Visits the World’s Hellholes So You Don’t Have To.”
Mike Reiss is one of those deliciously cranky people who love to rail against various notions while keeping you laughing and somehow delighted throughout. Mike and I met in Panama on the elegant Silver Shadow cruise ship where he was lecturing on The Simpsons and I was flown in to play a concert. Knowing the many connections The Simpsons has with jazz, I asked Mike if he’s a jazz fan to which he enthusiastically responded, “I hate jazz!” Naturally, I had to have him on my show.
Pianist/composer/bandleader/educator Arturo O’Farrill’s latest recording, Legacies celebrates his many inspirations, including his father, Chico O’Farrill. In Downbeat Magazine’s review of Legacies, they say, Arturo O’Farrill is one of our greatest living pianists, a review that surprises and delights this six-time Grammy winner, as making a jazz piano recording at this stage of his career was not something he anticipated.
Arturo is the least jaded musician I know and the most positive. He consciously works at making the world a better place and bringing people together through his music.
As a child, Oscar winning, Animation Director John Musker became fascinated with animation and the music that surrounds it, and still gets almost giddy talking about it. His work with partner Ron Clements on The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Princess and the Frog and their many other films, reflects his enthusiasm for classic musicals and early animation. To Ron, music is always an integral part of the action. John and other animators I know have convinced me that animators are definitely having more fun than the rest of us. You’ll see what I mean listening to this conversation!
Comedian Paula Poundstone talks with Judy about her new book The Totally Unscientific Study of The Search for Human Happiness, her passion of '20s and'30s jazz, and her forays into swing dancing and tae kwon do!
Astrophysicist and director of the Hayden Planetarium in NYC Neil deGrasse Tyson discusses his love of blues and the connection between science and music.
As part of our 25th anniversary celebration, we re-visit my conversation with the late Blossom Dearie who delighted audiences with her tasty piano playing, hip vocal interpretations and sly humor. Blossom talks about her inspirations and favorite younger musicians.
Singer/songwriter Rickie Lee Jones has always been hard to pin down-- stylistically, geographically and in most other ways--as her fascinating memoir, Last Chance Texaco, makes clear.
While Rickie has always thought of herself as a jazz singer—and was voted best jazz singer in Playboy and Rolling Stone polls two years in a row—she has not always been embraced by the jazz community. And while some of her past CDs have included jazz, her latest, Pieces of Treasure, is her first focusing completely on jazz as she celebrates some of her favorite standards from the Great American Songbook.
Oscar winning actor (Best Actor, “Amadeus”) F. Murray Abraham discusses improvisation, spontaneity and jazz as great theater.
Director, producer and occasional actor, Roger Corman, has been called "The Pope of Pop Cinema" and is celebrated as a trailblazer in the world of independent film. He is known for his cycle of low-budget cult films adapted from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe and many other horror classics, including Little Shop of Horrors and The Man With the X Ray Eyes. In Hollywood, Corman is equally celebrated for mentoring and giving a start to many young film directors and actors, from Francis Ford Coppola, Ron Howard and Martin Scorsese to William Shatner, Bruce Dern, Jack Nicholson and many more.
Roger passed away May 9, 2024.
Tony Award winning actress Blythe Danner joins Judy on stage at the Tanglewood Jazz Festival and connects with her early jazz roots. Blythe was a jazz singer in college and discusses with Judy how jazz has continued to influence her acting career.
Recorded live at the Ascona Jazz Festival, New Orleans drummers Herlin Riley and Shannon Powell regale Judy with anecdotes of their adventures together and independently demonstrate authentic NOLA style drumming.
Tony Bennett talks about his long career, early inspirations, iconic sessions with Bill Evans and his recent Grammy-winning Duets II CD with an all-star cast.
Opera star Renee Fleming talks about singing jazz in college and her jazz CD, Haunted Heart.
Bassist/composer Kyle Eastwood has a wide range of creative influences, including a passion for cinema and great film scores, a love nurtured by his father, Clint Eastwood, who in addition to directing and acting, has written the music for several of his movies. Clint introduced Kyle to jazz early on and encouraged his composing pursuits by asking Kyle to contribute themes for many of his films, including Gran Torino, Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, Letters from Iwo Jima and Invictus.
Kyle’s latest tour celebrates his CD, Eastwood Symphonic, quintet and symphony arrangements of some of the best-known themes from his father’s movies.
Nashville vocalist, Mandy Barnett first gained national prominence as the original star of the musical Always Patsy Cline at Nashville’s famed Ryman Auditorium. While her Country singing has been much celebrated, Mandy has a soft spot for the Great American Songbook and always includes a standard or two in her concert performances.
Mandy celebrates her love for this repertoire on her most recent CD, Every Star Above, which was inspired by Billie Holiday’s 1958 Lady in Satin album. Every Star Above was a special project on multiple levels.
Stage and screen star John Lithgow talks about his love for classic jazz and his recent children’s record, which featured a wild swing band and a Betty Boop tune.
The late Roy Scheider was inspired to be an actor by the collaborative creativity he saw with the jazz groups he heard as a young man. Roy discusses how jazz continued to inspire him throughout his stage and screen career.
Raiders of the Lost Arc star Karen Allen discusses growing up with jazz, her love for Fats Waller and how jazz influences her acting choices.
Banjoist Béla Fleck, discusses his work with Chick Corea and those 11 Grammies and 27 nominations!
Frank Gehry explores how architecture, like jazz, is a dynamic art that absorbs the times and culture it inhabits constantly reinventing itself while retaining its historic connection.
Writer/Director/Actor ("Best in Show", "Waiting for Guffman", "This is Spinal Tap") Christopher Guest equates his movie-making process with jazz performance.
I met with actor and New Orleans native in his home in that fabulous city to discuss Bryan's time on Mad Men, his book about his mother, She's Not Heavy, She's My Mother, and his continuing love for the city of his birth.
British blues and boogie pianist, Jools Holland has collaborated with everyone from Sting to Eric Clapton to Norah Jones after jumping into a musical career at the age of fifteen with the band, Squeeze. Jools is a popular TV and radio presenter as well and his BBC Television show, Later with Jools Holland is now in its 25th year. This is the first of Judy’s two conversations with Jools Holland, which were recorded in his London home in June 2017. He talked about his varied career and his most recent CD, Piano.
Vocalist Maud Hixson is a cool, swinging Minnesota gal whose clear sound and unencumbered delivery lets her virtuosity sneak up on you, in contrast to so many jazz singers today who make sure you hear their vocal chops at hello.
This is Maud’s second appearance on the show and this time we discuss her latest CD, Permanent Moonlight, which celebrates the songs of Sir Richard Rodney Bennett, which won a Bistro Award shortly after its release.
The comedian Chevy Chase talks about jazz and comedy and his own Bill Evans-influenced piano playing.
Celebrated American novelist, the late E.L. Doctorow and I met on a tennis court in Sag Harbor, NY in the mid-1990s and became a doubles team for a while--he the tall terror at the net and I the whirling dervish covering the rest of the court. One of my great thrills was occasionally being included in his long-running weekly men’s doubles game with the late writer Peter Matthiessen and one of several other celebrated writers, playing on Peter’s court in nearby Sagaponack, another gorgeous Hamptons village. These men were great players but much older than I, so I was included not for my riveting repartee (they provided plenty) but for my spry legs and forehand crosscourt.
Doctorow was an early supporter of my idea for Jazz Inspired and generously agreed to be in my initial group of thirteen interviewees.
I spoke with E.L. Doctorow in 2000, shortly after the publication of his novel City of God in his home in Sag Harbor.
Saxophonist Jeff Rupert spent the early years of his career playing, touring and recording with everyone from Maynard Ferguson and Mel Torme to Diane Schurr and Benny Carter. While continuing his busy performing schedule, since 1995, Rupert has served as Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Central Florida where he is committed to inspiring young jazz musicians and helping them not only develop musically, but learn the skills to develop a lasting career, a conversation often skipped in university programs.
Former New York City Ballet Principal dancer, Robert Fairchild, who was nominated for a Tony for the lead role of Jerry Mulligan in An American In Paris on Broadway. He starred in the London and Paris productions as well. I got to see him in the London show and it was breathtaking!
Catherine has enjoyed a long career as a back up singer with everyone from David Bowie to Jackson Browne but is now focusing on the music of her father, Luis Russell, who was music director for Louis Armstrong and led his own bands in the 20's and 30's. Catherine discusses her love of New Orleans music and early jazz and what it means to come to this music at this stage of her career.
I’m pictured here with Catherine Russell on tour in Brazil!
Two time Grammy winner Alan Broadbent left his native New Zealand at the age of 19 to study at the Berklee College of Music in Boston after receiving a scholarship from Downbeat Magazine. Alan went on to work as pianist and arranger for Woody Herman’s band, then to stints with Nelson Riddle, Natalie Cole and studio work with Johnny Mandel and David Rose and for many years now he’s conducted and arranged for Diana Krall. In this two part conversation, Alan discusses his continuing love for Mahler, finally finding a lyricist he adores and his orchestral jazz CD Developing Story.
Animator David Silverman is best known for his work on The Simpsons but he is also a passionate musician, playing his tuba anytime he gets a chance, including asking me to jam a bit after we recorded our conversation!
Guitarist Duke Robillard’s blues playing and singing have been honored with numerous awards, including a Grammy nomination. Duke is also a fan and swinging exponent of early jazz, which he celebrates on his latest CD, Duke Robillard and His Dames of Rhythm, which includes vocals by his longtime musical collaborator, Sunny Crownover, bluesy Cat Russell, sultry Maria Muldaur and a surprise appearance by Downton Abbey’sElizabeth McGovern. Duke brings it all together with his some of his favorite musicians celebrating well-known standards and lesser-known gems.
Comedian Steve Allen’s professional life was always steeped in jazz. On film he played Benny Goodman, on piano he improvised behind Jack Kerouac’s poetry and as the creator and first host of NBC’s The Tonight Show, he turned the studio orchestra into a jazz band. Judy talked with Steve right before his death in 2000, and Steve revealed how jazz inspired every aspect of his creativity.
Stage, film and television actor, Bruce McGill, first came to fame as the motorcycle-riding, bad boy character, D-Day, in National Lampoon’s Animal House. McGill’s rugged looks led to more tough guy roles, but also to a wide range of everything from Shakespeare to voice acting on Family Guy, to long runs on MacGyver, Shades of Blue and Rizzoli and Isles.
Bruce McGill is an accomplished musician and golfer as well, and has used these skills to enhance or influence his take on multiple characters through the years, most notably, playing golf great, Walter Hagen in the film The Legend of Badger Vance.
Bruce and Judy met on Crystal Symphony on a Hollywood-themed cruise, where Judy was there to play a concert and Bruce to lecture about his long film career. One thing led to another and this fascinating conversation was recorded.
Don Hahn produced Beauty and the Beast in 1991, the first animated film to receive a Best Picture Academy Award nomination, as well as receive more nominations than any animated movie in Oscar history. In 1994, he went on to produce The Lion King, the top-grossing traditionally animated film of all time.
Don’s most recent project is his documentary celebrating the life and genius of the lyricist Howard Ashman, who along with Alan Menken wrote the music for Little Shop of Horrors, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and many other shows. This was only my second interview conducted during the pandemic and my first done virtually.
Grammy-winner and Academy Award-nominated pianist/composer Roger Kellaway has worked with everyone from Ellington to Elvis and Carmen McCrae to Barbra Streisand. Roger covers classical, jazz and everything in-between, including his theme for NPR's Selected Shorts series and Roger's Remembering You, the closing theme for the '70s hit show, All In The Family.
With Roger's wide range of musical influences and abilities it makes sense that I started my conversation with Roger in Manhattan and continued it at his beautiful home in Ojai, California. There was a lot to discuss!
My two part conversation with the vocal virtuoso, Kurt Elling about his inspirations and his philosophy on living a creative life. I planned on one hour with Kurt but the conversation was so interesting and hilarious we continued for two!
Among other things, we find out why everyone is better looking after listening to jazz and solve the truth behind Yoda’s weird word order: he’s GERMAN!
