Q&T with Michael Kocour (Part I) – São Paulo, Sapporo, Chicago

VJC Q&T podcast host Russell Schmidt (Director, Valley Jazz Cooperative) has known pianist/organist/composer Michael Kocour for more than a dozen years. A nationally-renown educator, Mike is the Director of Jazz Studies at Arizona State University. Additionally, he is a recording artist for Origin Records, releasing a solo piano album, East of the Sun, on that label’s OA2 imprint earlier this year.

In early summer, Mike sat down with Russ to record a Q&T podcast. Their far-ranging discussion was engaging and abundant, so much so that the conversation has been split into two separate podcasts, the second of which will be made available later. But in this, the first of two podcasts together, Mike and Russ addressed the potential dangers a sabbatical can bring, talked about an unlikely mentor for the study of Brazilian music, and even found a point at which Oscar Peterson and Johnny Costa intersect.

Learn more about Michael Kocour here:

http://www.michaelkocour.com/

https://herbergerinstitute.asu.edu/profile/michael-kocour

Listen to Michael Kocour (solo piano) perform his composition Winter’s Spell here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3ceKy9Y0aU

Listen to Michael Kocour (organ quartet) perform his composition Chunky here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SXXrTByxyI&list=OLAK5uy_nftb9Vv4HNX37Li27g2dv1_aiCC6ItNHw

Purchase Michael Kocour’s recordings for the Origin Records/OA2 label here:

http://originarts.com/oa2/artists/artist.php?Artist_ID=138

Learn more about some of the artists and/or concepts mentioned in the podcast here:

John Campbell – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Campbell_(jazz_pianist)

Tony Caramia – https://www.esm.rochester.edu/faculty/caramia_tony/

Johnny Costa – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Costa

Joe Daley – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Daley_(musician)

Bill Evans – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Evans

Red Garland – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Garland

Don Grolnick – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Grolnick

Ian Hobson – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Hobson

Toninho Horta – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toninho_Horta

Antonio Carlos Jôbim – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant%C3%B4nio_Carlos_Jobim

Wynton Kelly – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wynton_Kelly

Jim McNeely – https://www.jim-mcneely.com/

Nicole Pesce – http://www.nicolepesce.com/

Oscar Peterson – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Peterson

Bud Powell – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bud_Powell

Marlene Rosenberg – https://www.marlenemusic.com/

Akio Sasajima – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akio_Sasajima

Wayne Shorter – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Shorter

Art Tatum – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Tatum

McCoy Tyner – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCoy_Tyner

Rayburn Wright – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayburn_Wright

Schillinger System (or Schillinger Method) – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schillinger_System

Learn more about the Valley Jazz Cooperative and VJC Q&T host Russell Schmidt here:

https://www.valleyjazz.org/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuao1b7Ztc7JNpUTzyorXDQ?

Thanks for listening!

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Website:

Link - valleyjazz.org

Social Media:

Facebook - @ValleyJazzCooperative

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Pianist/composer/educator Russell Schmidt has performed with such celebrated artists as Carl Allen, Michael Brecker, Eddie Daniels, Joe Lovano, Gerry Mulligan, Lucas Pino, Arturo Sandoval, and Clark Terry. He has also served as a keyboard soloist with more than 30 professional orchestras, including performances with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center and the San Francisco Symphony. Among his recordings as a leader are Anachromysticism (2012), which highlights Russell’s wide-ranging efforts as a jazz composer, Jazz Triptych, Volume I – The Sacred (2018), a collection of hymns and spirituals reimagined in the jazz language, and his most recent recording, the companion album Jazz Triptych, Volume II – The Secular (2019).

After a distinguished career in academia, Russell joined Music Serving The Word in June 2014 as Coordinator of Education, founding MSW’s Valley Jazz Cooperative program in 2016. Previously, he served as Director of Jazz Studies at Bowling Green State University and the University of Utah. He also held faculty appointments at Northern Arizona University, the University of North Carolina–Asheville, and the Eastman School of Music, where he co-conducted the Eastman Studio Orchestra. A student of Rayburn Wright, Russell holds two degrees from Eastman.

The Questions & Tangents podcast is produced by Caleb Kilian for the Valley Jazz Cooperative, an outreach of MSW Ministries, a 501(c)(3) organization.