Anat Cohen with Chris Cortez
New York clarinetist and saxophonist Anat Cohen (from Tel Aviv, Israel) made her debut in 2005 with the release of "Place in Time" (Anzic Records) and has consistently earned accolades year after year for her stunning virtuosity. As a recording artist she has been nominated for several Grammy Awards in the Latin Jazz and Large Jazz Ensemble categories.

Bob Dorough with Alisa Clancy
Celebrated for his timeless collaborations with Miles Davis and Blossom Dearie, vocalist and pianist Bob Dorough made his debut in 1956 remaining creatively active for the next six decades. His inimitable and endearing vocal style has been immortalized in the ABC Schoolhouse Rock series and acknowledged by the Library of Congress for its cultural and historical significance.

Johnny Griffin with Dick Conte
Nicknamed "the Little Giant" for his diminutive stature and ferocious playing, Johnny Griffin began in the early 1940's playing in Lionel Hampton's band and continued to perform throughout his life. As a pioneering figure in bebop, he worked with Thelonious Monk and Art Blakey and has amassed an immense discography as a leader recording for the Blue Note, Riverside and Verve labels.

Take 6 with Chris Cortez
Co-founders of the Grammy Award winning acapella group Take 6, Claude McKnight and Joey Kibble started the group while attending Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama in 1980. Integrating jazz and spiritual, inspirational lyrics the band has garnered worldwide fame earning 23 Grammy nominations and 8 Grammy Awards.

Louis Hayes with Lee Thomas
Throughout the 1950's and 1960's prolific drummer and bandleader Louis Hayes expertly drove the bands of Cannonball Adderley, Horace Silver and McCoy Tyner among other leading figures in jazz. His work on countless recordings over the years remain important documents of the hard bop era.

Long Player Special Edition
In The Soul Kitchen kicks off 2021 with a freestyle Long Player Special Edition featuring longer-than-usual tracks plus rare live tracks from artists like Curtis Mayfield,Tower of Power, Sly and The Family Stone, James Brown, Jill Scott, The Staple Singers, Ann Peebles, Bootsy Collins, Chuck Brown and The Soul Searchers, William DeVaughn and more.

Crate Digging: Cedar Walton and Mulgrew Miller
In this edition of Jazz Night in America's Crate Digging series, we hear two concerts by two piano masters: Cedar Walton and Mulgrew Miller. Host Christian McBride recounts personal memories with both musicians and shares a bootleg recording from his personal vault.

The Newport Jazz Festival: The Golden Age Encore Presentation
Until we can all get back on the bandstand in 2021, Jazz Night in America brings you a January full of thrilling past live performances from the Newport Jazz Festival.

The Newport Jazz Festival was just one year old when the Clifford Brown/Max Roach Quintet blazed onto its stage in 1955. By 1960, when pianists Dave Brubeck and Horace Silver each played a rollicking set, the event was an institution, known all over the world. And so it remains today - though there's something to be said about the fest in that formative era, when every step forward was historic.

For all of us at Jazz Night in America, the Newport Jazz Festival is both hallowed ground and a cherished hang. Our host, Christian McBride, is the festival's artistic director. (Call that a disclosure, if you like; we think of it as a heavy asset.) Last summer, in the absence of a physical gathering, we set out to lovingly recreate the festival experience, Jazz Night-style.

Our three-part series begins with The Golden Age - a jump back to the mid-to-late '50s, featuring McBride's selection of rare and unreleased Newport recordings by Brown and Roach, Brubeck and Silver, along with a killer festival house band. (Will there also be a taste of Muddy Waters? You'll have to listen to know for sure.)

Newport Jazz Festival: From Duke Ellington to Ray Charles Encore Presentation
Until we can all get back on the bandstand in 2021, Jazz Night in America brings you a January full of thrilling past live performances from the Newport Jazz Festival.

he Newport Jazz Festival was in full, glorious stride during the 1960s, featuring top-shelf talent not only from jazz but also the realms of soul, rock and more. That's the backdrop for The Stars Shine, episode two of our three-part Newport special.

We'll hear festive sounds from both Ray Charles and saxophonist Cannonball Adderley in 1960; peerless jazz singer Sarah Vaughan in 1964; the incomparable Duke Ellington Orchestra in 1968; and Pops himself, Louis Armstrong, during a special birthday tribute in 1970.

For all of us at Jazz Night in America, the Newport Jazz Festival is both hallowed ground and a cherished hang. Our host, Christian McBride, is the festival's artistic director. (Call that a disclosure, if you like; we think of it as a heavy asset.) So last summer, in the absence of a physical gathering, we've set out to lovingly recreate the festival experience, Jazz Night-style.

The Newport Jazz Festival: The Modern All Stars Encore Presentation
Until we can all get back on the bandstand in 2021, Jazz Night in America brings you a January full of thrilling past live performances from the Newport Jazz Festival.

Christian McBride was 19, a vigorous young bassist just making his name on the scene, when he paid his first visit to the Newport Jazz Festival as a member of Jazz Futures. Skip ahead some 30 years, and McBride is the artistic director of the festival, as well as our esteemed host at Jazz Night in America. It's in these dual capacities that he helped curate the music in our three-part Newport Jazz Festival Special.

We're calling this third episode The Modern All-Stars, and the name really fits. We'll be hearing from several stellar performances at Fort Adams State Park - everything from an acoustic Herbie Hancock Trio in 1988 to singer Cecile McLorin Salvant with Artemis in 2018. Also in the mix: a 2001 set by the late trumpeter Roy Hargrove, and even a bit of that Jazz Futures hit, which featured Hargrove alongside McBride and others.

It's a fun and fitting conclusion to our series, which began with a celebration of the Newport Jazz Festival's first decade (The Golden Age) and continued with a look at its spectacular second phase (The Stars Shine). And as McBride would say, it's also a reminder that this story is still ongoing. Newport Jazz Lives! See you out there next summer.

Adam Shulman
Adam Shulman has been a staple of the San Francisco Jazz scene since he moved to the city in 2002. Before the move, Adam was a student at UC Santa Cruz where he received a degree in classical performance. While at UCSC he studied jazz piano with Smith Dobson.

Adam can also be seen as a sideman with countless bay area musicians and vocalists such as, Marcus Shelby, Anton Schwartz, Andrew Speight, Erik Jekabson, Ed Reed, Mike Olmos, Gary Brown, Patrick Wolff, John Wiitala, Vince Lateano, Faye Carol, Kellye Gray, Ian Carey, and Mike Zilber among many others.

Jaz Sawyer
Drummer/Educator Dr. Jaz Sawyer began playing drums at age of 2 in the Haight Ashbury district of San Francisco, California. His musical studies have taken him through music programs at the Ruth Asawa School of The Arts, SF Conservatory of Music, Stanford Jazz Workshop, and the Michael Carvin School of Drumming.