Bobby Watson – Fostering the Jazz Continuum
by Dave Popkin
There was almost no way for renowned alto saxophonist Bobby Watson to avoid a life in music. “I was born in Lawrence, Kansas, and my dad played tenor saxophone in church, so we had music and always pianos around the house because he repaired pianos and restored pianos and he was also an instrument repairman,” he says. “We always had musical instruments lying around the house. My earliest experience in public was in my grandfather’s church out in Olathe, Kansas. I played ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic’ [on clarinet] and when I got done everybody said, ‘Amen!’, so that was my first acknowledgement of playing in public. We didn’t have much jazz around, but my dad loved Gene Ammons.”
Bobby’s father soon moved the family to Minneapolis, which was a pivotal moment. “I had an American History teacher, Dave King; he played drums at night,” he says. “He saw us sniffing around and noticed our curiosity and he turned the second half of the year into jazz history. And that’s when I discovered Charlie Parker and all kinds of characters and buying my first jazz records, trying to get into it.”
To read more, visit https://mags.hothousejazzguide.com/d63a8ee486.html#page/6.
Pete Rodriguez Jr.: El Conde Negro
by Chrys L Roney
Pete Rodriguez Jr. did not encounter Afro-Caribbean music as a historical subject. He learned it in the places where the music had to work: on bandstands, in rehearsals, on the road, in family gatherings, and in rooms full of musicians whose artistry had already changed the cultural landscape.
The son of the late Puerto Rican sonero Pete "El Conde" Rodríguez and the godson of Fania Records cofounder Johnny Pacheco, Pete came of age within one of the defining musical networks of the salsa era. By 19, he had become musical director of his father's band—a role that demanded much more than the ability to play trumpet. He organized music, gave cues, sang coro, played hand percussion, supervised the ensemble, and carried the pressure of keeping a major working band ready for the stage. Pianist Oscar Hernández helped coach him for the position.
It was an extraordinary apprenticeship. Pete performed and recorded in the company of artists including Celia Cruz, Tito Puente, Eddie Palmieri, Chico O'Farrill, Bebo Valdés, Rubén Blades, Oscar Hernández, and other central figures in Latin music. He sang on Tito Puente's Grammy-winning Mambo Birdland and performed on the Brian Lynch/Eddie Palmieri Project's Grammy-winning Simpático.
But if Pete's name opens the door to a powerful lineage, his work insists on a distinction at the heart of his artistry: heritage is not imitation.
"My father told me since I was a little kid, if you're gonna do this, you need to look deep down inside and search for your voice," Pete says.
That instruction has guided a career built not on nostalgia but on transformation. Pete's music carries Puerto Rican and Cuban rhythmic knowledge, but it also reflects the Bronx, hip-hop, classical training, modern improvisation, family responsibility, humor, hardship, grief, and a fierce desire to tell the truth.
"My music is life," he says. "It's music."
To read more, visit https://mags.hothousejazzguide.com/d63a8ee486.html#page/10.
Matt Garrison Celebrates His Father at the Coltrane Centennial
by Ronald E. Scott
Matt Garrison built ShapeShifter Lab as a home for experimentation. This month, the Brooklyn venue hosts a more personal project: the John Coltrane Centennial: Celebrating Jimmy Garrison—a two-day festival honoring Matt's father, the powerful anchor of Coltrane's classic quartet. It's a fitting home for the celebration, and no accident. The festival is organized in direct collaboration with The John & Alice Coltrane Home and Jowcol Music, representing a deep family alignment across generations. Fifty years after his father's death, Matt finds himself not just honoring a legacy but actively shaping how the next generation encounters it.
Jimmy Garrison was born in Miami in 1934 and raised in Philadelphia, where he came up through the same fertile scene that produced John Coltrane, Lee Morgan, and McCoy Tyner. He joined the John Coltrane Quartet in 1961, replacing Reggie Workman, and remained with Coltrane until the saxophonist's death in 1967. During those six years, Garrison anchored some of the most transformative recordings in jazz history: A Love Supreme, Crescent, Live at Birdland, Ascension. His bass lines were more than accompaniment—they were architecture, providing the foundation for Coltrane's spiritual and harmonic explorations while Elvin Jones's polyrhythmic thunder swirled above.
Garrison expanded what the bass could do in a jazz ensemble. He developed a signature technique of strumming chords and playing melodic counterlines, turning the instrument into a second voice rather than mere timekeeping. After Coltrane's death, he continued performing and recording with Archie Shepp, Alice Coltrane, and Elvin Jones, but lung cancer cut his career short. He died in 1976 at forty-two.
To read more, visit https://mags.hothousejazzguide.com/d63a8ee486.html#page/16.
Why the Hot Sardines Still Matter
by Chrys L. Roney
In an era of algorithmic playlists and AI-generated music, a band devoted to jazz from the 1920s, '30s, and '40s might seem like a novelty act. But the Hot Sardines, returning to Birdland for five nights this fall, demonstrate that old music is not merely worth preserving. It may offer something contemporary audiences increasingly need: joy, human connection, and the unpredictable energy of people making music together in a room.
The New York-based ensemble has spent nearly two decades proving that jazz from a century ago can still fill clubs and concert halls. Singer Elizabeth Bougerol and pianist Evan Palazzo formed the group in 2007 after meeting at a traditional-jazz jam session they discovered through Craigslist. From Brooklyn's underground parties and neo-speakeasies, the Sardines developed an international following, accumulated more than 70 million Spotify streams, and sold out their 2024 Carnegie Hall debut.
Their success comes from treating early jazz as a living language rather than a museum artifact. Elizabeth and Evan honor the music's vocabulary but refuse to embalm it. Their performances leave room for humor, theatricality, improvisation, and the possibility that something unexpected might happen.
To read more, visit https://mags.hothousejazzguide.com/d63a8ee486.html#page/28.
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