Every now and then, during the infantile hours of a brand new day, a cool and soothing voice may come on your radio (specifically WUSF 89.7 FM if you’re in the Tampa Bay area). Sometimes that voice belongs to the nonprofit radio station’s Jazz Director Mike Cornette, who hosts “All Night Jazz” and admits that his radio voice takes “practice, practice, practice.” The program airs during the “other nine-to-five” — 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. — so we bothered Cornette to see where the coolest live-jazz nightlife in the area might be.
Q&A: Mike Cornette talks "cool jazz," Kamasi Washington and who's making great jazz in the Bay area
“My favorite is Monday night at the Hangar Lounge at Albert Whitted Airport. It’s sponsored by the Al Downing Jazz Association, a group with a deep jazz heritage in this area,” Cornette wrote, adding the the Palladium Theater also plays a huge role in the scene, along with weekly jam nights at clubs like Ybor City Jazz House and Ruby’s Elixir in St. Pete.
But jazz is an old man’s game, right? Apparently not.
“People of all ages are playing jazz in town,” Cornette said, adding that he just saw a pair of high school seniors — Jason Charos and Kendrick McAllister — perform fabulously at the aforementioned Whitted jam. Some local high school bands are also great, according to Cornette, who also gave high marks to jazz education programs at Ruth Eckerd and USF’s School of Music. He argues that the mere existence of young jazz musicians like these is enough to debunk the idea that jazz is dying (we’re blaming it on La La Land for that notion).
“I still get really emotional about jazz; love finding and hearing new jazz music.”
“When bands who appeal to a younger demographic like Snarky Puppy or artists like saxophonist Kamasi Washington, who was on Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly, show up on the cover of Downbeat Magazine, it leads me to believe jazz has a big future ahead of it,” Cornette — who shared that he’s already received about 250 new jazz recordings in 2017 — said. How does he have time to listen to it all?
“It takes some discipline,” he admitted. He often uses his two-hour commute to and from work to listen. “My car gets to act as a bit of a music lab at times. My office is just stacked with CDs. I listen to a lot of music.”
So trust in that calming voice on the airwaves late at night, because he already loves jazz twice as much as you think you probably do.
“I still get really emotional about jazz; love finding and hearing new jazz music,” he said. “I’m really intrigued in how songs will sound next one another. Colors, tones and segues fascinate me. In my mind, [the music] becomes sort of a social event where I bring out my old friends, the classics, and introduce them to the new ones to see if they play well together.”
See if you play well with Cornett by tuning into WUSF 89.7, and read our full Q&A here and look below for a list of cool places to see jazz.
This article appears in May 11-18, 2017.