| Melissa Aldana
11 Mar Ron E. Beck 29 Apr Pascal Bokar 07 Oct Shanna Carlson 18 Mar Sara Caswell 25 Mar Carlos D'l Puerto 22 Jul Kellye Gray 15 Jul David Hart 04 Nov Bruce Jenkins 09 Dec Ellen Johnson 17 Jun Steffen Kuehn 02 Dec | Paul McCandless
08 Jul Allison Miller 15 Apr Melissa Morgan 29 Jul Linda Oh 05 Aug Dafnis Prieto 24 Jun Jim Pugh 30 Sep Fred Randolph 05 Feb Harvie S 03 Jun Jake Shapiro 10 Jun Marcus Shelby 15 Jan Bria Skonberg 04 Mar | Paul Smith
16 Dec Mark Soskin 20 May Leslie Stoval 19 Aug John Stowell 08 Apr Toots Thielemans 02 Sep Roseanna Vitro 26 Feb Paul VornHagen 14 Oct Don Was 12 Aug Danielle Wertz 27 May Howard Wiley 28 Oct |
| David Benoit (2019) | |
|---|---|
| Born in Bakersfield and raised in Los Angeles, David Benoit is a multiple Grammy-nominated pianist, composer and arranger. He has long rained supreme as one of the founding fathers of contemporary jazz.
David got sucked into jazz in the same way as did many of his contemporaries, watching "Peanuts" specials in the 1960s, hearing Vince Guaraldi, and wondering—Charlie Brown-like—whether he could play like that. By age 13 he was studying privately. Later, he started working on his music theory and composition, then studied film scoring at UCLA, and continued to conducting. During the 1970s, he was music director for Lainie Kazan, and it was with her that he had his first professional experience as a conductor: his having begun as her pianist, eventually she asked him whether he'd ever conducted, and he didn't exactly lie. David has charted over two dozen albums since 1980. He's also the music director for the Asia-American Symphony Orchestra and the Asia-American Youth Orchestra. He's a radio guy, too, with a morning jazz show at KKJZ in Long Beach. |
| Pick | Artist | Album | Song | Label |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| # 1 | Stan Getz and João Gilberto | Getz/Gilberto | So Danço Samba | Verve |
| # 2 | Dave Brubeck | Time Out | Kathy's Waltz | Columbia |
| # 3 | Bill Charlap | Somewhere: The Songs of Leonard Bernstein | Glitter and Be Gay | Blue Note |
| # 4 | Sergio Mendes | Pure Bossa Nova: A View on the Music of Sergio Mendes | Desafinado | Universal |
| # 5 | Bill Evans | Trio '64 | Little Lulu | Verve |
| # 6 | Diana Krall | Love Scenes | Peel Me a Grape | Impulse |
| # 7 | Kenny Burrell | Midnight Blue | Chitlins Con Carne | Blue Note |
| # 8 | Miles Davis | Relaxin' | If I Were a Bell | Prestige |
| Book | Dean Koontz, "Forbidden Door" | |||
| Luxury Item | "A little Martini kit, with Tito's vodka" | |||