The Checkout

Marie Incontrera is the pianist, composer and leader behind the Eco-Music Big Band, a multigenerational, socially conscious ensemble determined to leave a positive stamp on society. She's a student and protégé of Fred Ho, the baritone saxophonist who founded the Afro-Asian Music Ensemble, and who succumbed to cancer in 2014. In this Checkout podcast, Incontrera talks about learning the ways of the Ho — the underground, self-proclaimed revolutionary artist — and why it's important to nurture a

The Philly-based collective Killiam Shakespeare is a little hard to categorize, and they're happy about that. Drummer Steve McKie and keyboardist Corey Bernhard say their sound is a seamless blend of jazz, rock, hip-hop and other modern vibrations — styles they picked up while backing genre-blurring artists like Bilal, Talib Kweli, and Questlove, among others. Hear them describe their unique sound on another edition of The Checkout series My Music.

A bundle of discarded wood on a New York City sidewalk, and a piece of advice from a close friend, inspired the artist Cooper-Moore to become an inventor of instruments. In the 1970s, he was an integral part of the loft-jazz scene, along with his old college buddy, saxophonist David S. Ware. As Cooper-Moore explains in this Checkout podcast, he played the piano more than proficiently, but wanted to set himself apart further.

Dan Tepfer is a unique combination of things — a jazz pianist, a scientist with a degree in astrophysics, a computer programmer, even an occasional book reviewer for The New York Times. You'd never think a man of his talent and determination would also be prone to being locked up — figuratively, or, as he reveals in this Checkout podcast, literally.

For more than a few musicians based in New York City, the path to Cuba has been facilitated by one extraordinary human, saxophonist and composer Steve Coleman. Trumpeter Jonathan Finlayson, who appears with Coleman's Five Elements at the Village Vanguard through Sunday, is among the artists to partake in such a pilgrimage.

For those who know harpist and keyboardist Alice Coltrane as a recording artist, notably in a series of albums on the Impulse! label, there's a stretch from the late-1970s to the mid-2000s that might reasonably be described as a hiatus. But this period was joyously full of music — a fact known to her followers but only recently shared with the public in sanctioned form.

Tyshawn Sorey is more than one of the most highly-recruited drummers among the jazz intelligentsia (like pianist Vijay Iyer, with whom he plays through Sunday at the Village Vanguard). On this podcast episode of The Checkout, the multi-instrumentalist, composer and Newark native opens up about his unusual past, his early influences and his most ambitious recording to date, The Inner Spectrum of Variables.

Layth Sidiq, a musician born in Baghdad and raised in Jordan, has a story to tell. He's a "Son of Tigris," as he tells it, yet he was schooled in the United Kingdom and United States. Through his travels he has soaked up an abundance of sounds, from Egyptian singer Oum Kalthoum to Johannes Sebastian Bach to American jazz, his newfound love.

Tim Conley, who goes by MAST, was reluctant to chronicle a painful story from his personal life and translate it into an expansive suite of music, Love and War . But as this multi-instrumentalist tells us in this podcast, sometimes the best art comes from suffering, and out of the darkness can come light, redemption and growth.

French singer Camille Bertault's life changed almost overnight after she posted a video of her singing John Coltrane's "Giant Steps." After the video was shared by thousands, she became an internet darling for her whimsical sing-a-longs with artists across the musical spectrum: Hermeto Pascoal , Cory Henry , even Glenn Gould's Goldberg Variations (performed as she prepares dinner). In this podcast, she tells us about her viral moment, her debut album, and her major-label deal with Sony.

You've probably heard John Hébert's bass behind a jazz heavyweight or two — late legends like pianists Andrew Hill and Paul Bley, as well as present-day figures like guitarist Mary Halvorson and pianist Fred Hersch. In this brief podcast, Hébert shares the story behind "70's and 80's Remix," an original tune from from his album Rambling Confessions.

Vinicius Cantuária, the singer and guitarist from Brazil, has gone through many musical phases during his lifetime. He was a loud prog-rocker in his teens and early 20s, then a pop star in his 30s — writing songs for Caetano Veloso. These days, he's a Brooklynite who whispers the soft, sophisticated melodies of the genius composer Antonio Carlos Jobim.

In the jazz world, the name O'Farrill is synonymous with Afro-Latin jazz royalty. Trumpeter Adam O'Farrill is the third generation of that royal family. He is the grandson of Chico O'Farrill — the legendary composer and arranger, one of the primary creators of Afro-Cuban jazz. His father, pianist Arturo O’Farrill, is a Grammy-winning artist, and founder of the Afro Latin Jazz Alliance. But our focus here is on Adam, who recently released an acclaimed debut album, Stranger Days.

Sofia Rei's pan-American ambitions are inspiring. A singer born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina, she was exposed to the African and Andean musical inventions native to her continent: folklore from Peru, Colombia, and Uruguay. Then she settled in New York City to surround herself with artists sculpting the downtown jazz scene, like composer John Zorn and guitarist Marc Ribot. In our studio session, Rei weaves all of these influences into one compelling tapestry not beholden to any tradition

It was a trip to West Africa that set the career trajectory for Daniel Freedman. A drummer-bandleader born and raised in New York City, Freedman has a deep affinity for all things Afrobeat. But even though he's studied with djembe musicians and Gnawa masters, those traditions don't explicitly inform the music he makes. His African influences, Freedman suggests, are much more ambiguous and subtle.