Gerry Bryant is a brilliant classically-trained pianist, composer, and arranger. He came from a poor inner-city Cleveland neighbourhood, and was givin an opportunity to attend the prestigious Phillips Academy, then Harvard university. He went on to get an MBA and a law degree, all the while continuing the expansion of his knowledge of different styles of music, and forming his jazz group Pocketwatch. This episode partly focuses on his Composers album, with music of Florence Price and Thomas Wiggins who was known as Blind Tom to his slave masters. Gerry reflects on how access to a musical education changed his life, and how wonderful it has been to discover and champion Black composers. One of the musicians that Gerry has collaborated with many times is the wonderful and versatile violinist Mark Cargill, whose playing is also featured in this episode. Like all my episodes, you can watch this on my YouTube channel or listen to the podcast, and I’ve also linked the transcript.

Avi Kishna is a Dutch sarod player based in Amsterdam, of Indo-Surinamese heritage. You’ll get to know the sarod as an instrument and hear Avi’s perspectives on Dutch society and his interesting collaborations. Among his mentors is his inspiring father, Ramdew Kishna, a multi-talented musician, director, and painter, who played a pivotal role in shaping Avi's musical journey along with his guru, Koustuv Ray. As a young man, Avi embarked on a successful career as in sales and marketing, but during this time he pushed music aside, and I found it deeply touching to hear how he was able to come back to music with the wisdom of having left such an important part of himself behind. You’ll hear about Avi’s project working with schools in Amsterdam to help provide music programs in underserved communities and this episode features some of his sarod music.

Edison Herbert: “The three of them, George Benson, Wes Montgomery, Grant Green were my favorite options mainly because they really, in my opinion, they really knew how to connect with an audience and they choice of repertoire was always, it was accessible. And I think it's quite easy to forget that you can increase your audience if you think about what you put in front of them, because everyone, it's like food. Everyone doesn't eat the same thing. So if you mix it up and put different ingredients in, then you are more likely to increase your audience.”

This episode is a special Catch-Up episode with the Dutch guitarist and composer Marc van Vugt, who was previously featured in Season 2 with his album The Lonely Coyote. Today you’ll hear a selection of highlights from his new solo guitar album, The Curious Badger. We caught up on some of his recent projects, and he also shared some wonderful insights into his creative process, and different ways for independent musicians to find audiences for their music.

This episode is unusual because 4 musicians are featured, the members of the Euclid Quartet. They are a world-class string quartet celebrating their 25th anniversary with a fantastic album of short pieces, entitled Breve, and we are featuring several pieces from that album as part of this episode. I was curious to learn more about the many roles the quartet plays in their capacities as performers, educators and collaborators, and to hear them speak about the special joys and challenges of being members of a full-time quartet.