"Don't call it jazz! This is social music!" Miles Davis gave us that gem of a quote as he was admonishing a reporter for using "that dirty word, jazz" in an interview. What is a confusing remark at first becomes clear when you dive deeper into the mind of a professional musician. All great musicians are poly-genre, meaning they care less about the style of music than the quality of it, and its cultural resonance.
Host Jon Armstrong is a professional musician, and a professor of jazz music and recording technology at Idaho State University. Before moving to Idaho, Armstrong worked in Los Angeles for seven years as a player, composer, and educator. He's performed jazz, rock, funk, hip-hop, R&B, bluegrass, country, folk, reggae, and everything in between. He still gigs and writes a lot of music and is constantly checking out recordings from every corner of the creative music world.
Each show, Armstrong will play tunes that have caught his ear over the years, while telling fun stories and informative anecdotes from his unique perspective. On special occasions, he will also bring in a guest musician to do an in-studio live interview and performance!
Don't Call it Jazz. First and final Saturdays of every month at 7pm.
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For this week's episode of Don't Call it Jazz, Jon sits down with Dan Simms, founder and producer of the inaugural Meadowlark Music Festival, which will run from June 2nd-4th at his ranch just outside of Aberdeen. We'll also listen to the performance by the ISU big band from our recent spring performance at Jensen Hall. -
Continuing our theme from last week, we listen to recent recordings that have caught my ear, some really incredible music being released by wonderful contemporary artists.
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This week and next we'll hear recent recordings that have caught my ear, some really incredible music being released by wonderful contemporary artists.
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City Creek Records is the innovative new record label run out of ISU’s commercial music program and co-run by program director Jon Armstrong and his CM students. In this episode, Jon discusses the new label and plays some tracks from the albums City Creek Records has launched thus far.
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On this week’s episode, Jon dives into video game music with Ryker Reese, a talented sophomore in the commercial music program at ISU. Ryker is a young expert in video game music who has opened up Jon’s eyes and ears to this burgeoning artistic movement.
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Don't Call it Jazz is proud to host Bad Goode, an amazing jazz musician who was kind enough to sit down with our host Jon Armstrong for an interview and to listen to three of Goode's own recordings.
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Don’t Call it Jazz is thrilled to host Bay Area musician Saxreligious (Eli Maliwan) to listen to and celebrate his new album Elysia Marginata, out on Hot Record Societe.
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This episode of Don't Call it Jazz, join us in celebrating the life and honor the accomplishments of recently passed Jazz legend, Jaimie Branch.
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Don't Call it Jazz is proud to present ISU alum, Mal Layne in studio to discuss her new album, Integration by Parts, released on City Creek Records, ISU's new record label. Mal was a graduate of the music department in 2022 and is now studying in graduate school at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City on trombone.
