A composer, conductor, and journalist, and the founder, publisher, and principal writer of EarRelevant.net, Mark Gresham has been writing about classical and post-classical music and other arts for more than 35 years. He co-founded the monthly publication Chorus! in 1989 and edited it through 1995. Thirteen of his interviews from the magazine were published in 1997 as the book, Choral Conversations. Before founding EarRelevant, he was a contributing writer for Creative Loafing from 2002 to 2011 and then for ArtsATL until mid-February 2019. In this episode of Music Life & Times, Mark discusses his life-long involvement with music in multiple capacities, how music has shaped his life, and its impact on all of us.

Lisa Campbell Albert sings and teaches others to do the same. For more than 30 years she has been singing and playing keyboard, leading her and her husband’s blues band, Uncle Albert, performing in and around St. Louis as well as nationally and internationally, including regular annual appearances in Germany. She has also channeled her knowledge from her academic studies as well as her professional experience into a career as an educator, currently as a professor at the Webster University Conservatory Theatre. Her book on singing, co-authored with fellow professor Bill Lynch, is titled The Moment Before the Music Begins. In our podcast, she talks about her work coaching all types of singers and, most importantly, that each must find their own voice. It was the turning point of her career, she notes: “I’m going to sound like Lisa” and her audiences would have to “take me as I am.” Now nearing 60 and still “singin’ the blues,” she reflects on the key life lessons being a musician has taught her, that “Every time I take a new step I find a different part of me that lets me exhale,” and that music has allowed her to find herself as “a person who’s authentic and happy.”

Mark Rapp’s resume as a performing artist is impressive enough. He has performed in jazz clubs and festivals around the world from Croatia, Brasil, Austria, Switzerland, and the US, including back-to-back appearances at the 2017 and 2018 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. His celebrated 2009 debut release “Token Tales” earned him DownBeat magazine’s recognition as a “Top Emerging Trumpeter,” a sold-out Blue Note appearance, and a spot in the famed Newport Jazz Festival. Moreover, he is the founder of the ColaJazz Foundation, an initiative in his adopted home of Columbia, South Carolina, which hosts a premier annual jazz festival as well as ongoing performances by leading jazz figures, and an outreach program that includes three Summer Camps and jazz-based education sessions at schools throughout the state.

This extended episode of Music Life & Times pays tribute to Sam Yi, “the guiding light of jazz in Atlanta,” who ran the Churchill Grounds jazz club in Midtown for two decades. Sam passed away on February 3. “His steadfast promotion of jazz music helped artists maintain a sense of belonging and provided listeners with a spot to hear the latest talent, among shifting venues and interest,” noted the ArtsATL website upon his passing. The podcast features comments from friends and musicians, just a handful of the many whose lives he blessed. Podcast participants include trumpeter and educator Gordon Vernick, saxophonist David Sanchéz, and Sam’s longtime close friend John Hammond. Their memories of a loyal friend and supporter and stellar human being are here to enjoy.

The recent deaths of jazz promoters and club owners Johnny Scatena and Sam Yi were followed by extensive tributes from the musicians whose careers they enabled and lives they changed. Unique to the music profession, and in particular to jazz, is how the most beloved of their time are sent off with performances of the music they played, or in these two cases, the music they so ably and enthusiastically promoted.

The versatile Dave Frackenpohl has played in the widest range of groups, from symphonies to nightclub duos, and formats, from commercial rock bands to big bands to touring Broadway musicals to jazz festivals. His life in jazz took off during his 10 years in Rochester, NY, and his reputation as a premier jazz guitarist has grown steadily over more than 25 years of being based in Atlanta. In the tradition of the finest jazz musicians, Dave is an educator, teaching jazz guitar, jazz history, and arranging, and directing the University’s jazz combos and guitar ensembles.

James Casto is a singer-songwriter who expanded his passion beyond his own music to create and continue an annual series of concerts featuring singer-songwriters. Inspired by his time in Nashville, and in particular by a song performed one night by Vince Gill, Casto began developing the concept that has matured into a five-month program annually of indoor and outdoor, paid and free, sing-songwriter performances. The program is now 19 years old and draws thousands of attendees, many of whom purchase season tickets so as not to miss a single performer or performance.

If you were putting together a jazz combo for the evening—or for the ages—you’d be well served by Justin Varnes on drums. And if you wanted your son or daughter to study with someone who will help them learn to love music as well as play it, again there is Justin Varnes. Based in Atlanta, Justin studied at the University of North Florida and the New School in New York. He has played with a long list of jazz greats, including our host Kevin Bales, and teaches at Georgia State University. In 2015, he created a program called the Jazz Legacy Project that combines education with entertainment. In Episode 53 of Music Life and Times, Justin talks with Kevin and Mike about the Jazz Legacy Project, as well as about learning to play, his approach to helping others do the same, and how learning to play has impacted his life and those of his students.