Max Roach

Tom Reney's very first interview was with famed jazz drummer, Max Roach.

Max Roach Interview, 1979

Jazz Beat from New England Public Media features host Tom Reney's research and love for the music, one artist at a time. In this outing, he spends some time with the work of Houston Person.

Houston Person

Sonny Rollins

Gary Giddens

Gary Giddins

Jazz critic Gary Giddins talks to Tom Reney about Sonny Rollins.

Jazz Beat #59 - Jazz critic Gary Giddins on Sonny Rollins

For Jazz Beat 57 and 58, Tom Reney spoke with Billy Boy Arnold about his autobiography, THE BLUES DREAM OF BILLY BOY ARNOLD.

Jazz Beat 58 - Billy Boy Arnold Part Two

Jazz Beat 57 - Billy Boy Arnold Part One


Ricky Riccardi

Tom Reney

In Part 3 of Tom Reney's interview with Ricky Riccardi, author of Heart Full of Rhythm: The Big Band Years of Louis Armstrong, they discuss Armstrong's tour of England in 1932, and his European sojourn in 1934-35; his top billing in the movie, Pennies From Heaven; his groundbreaking achievement as the first African American host of a network radio series; and the controversy over his 1938 recording, "When the Saints Go Marching In."

Jazz Beat 56 - Ricky Riccardi and Tom Reney, Part Three

Peter Guralnick

In part two of Tom Reney's interview with Peter Guralnick, they discuss three of the subjects of Guralnick's book, Looking to Get Lost: Adventures in Music and Writing: Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, and country music legend, Dick Curless, whose career began in the late 1940s in Ware, Massachusetts.

Jazz Beat 55 - Peter Guralnick Interview, Part Two

In 2015, Tom Reney spoke with Peter Guralnick about his biography, Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock &amp; Roll. And now in a two-part Jazz Beat, he’s interviewed Peter about six of the American music legends who are profiled in Guralnick’s new book, Looking to Get Lost: Adventures In Music &amp; Writing: Robert Johnson, Skip James, Johnny Cash, Howlin’ Wolf, Dick Curless and Ray Charles.

Jazz Beat 54 - Peter Guralnick 

In Part Two of Tom Reney's conversation with Ricky Riccardi about his new book, Heart Full of Rhythm: The Big Band Years of Louis Armstrong, Riccardi discusses Armstrong's skirmishes with Prohibition-era gangsters and managers; the trumpeter's triumphant return to his birthplace of New Orleans in 1931; and the massive archive of self-documentation in letters, scrapbooks, and tape recordings that Armstrong left for posterity.

Jazz Beat 53 - Ricky Riccardi and Tom Reney, Part Two

Louis Armstrong

Tom Reney spoke with Louis Armstrong biographer Ricky Riccardi about his new book, Heart Full of Rhythm, The Big Band Years of Louis Armstrong. In the first of a multi-part interview, they discuss Armstrong’s breakthrough in the early 1930s as a popular artist; his first recordings of Broadway show tunes; and the mixed response that Armstrong received during this period from critics in the U.S. and Europe.

Jazz Beat 52 - Ricky Riccardi and Tom Reney Discuss Louis Armstrong, Part One

Jazz Beat is a jazz and blues podcast from New England Public Media's Tom Reney. Tom was honored by the Jazz Journalists Association with the Willis Conover-Marian McPartland Award for Career Excellence in Broadcasting in 2019. In addition to hosting Jazz à la Mode since 1984, Tom writes the jazz blog and produces the Jazz Beat podcast at NEPM. He began working in jazz radio in 1977 at WCUW, a community-licensed radio station in Worcester, Massachusetts. Tom holds a BA from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he majored in English and African American Studies.

Being a fan of Tom Reney’s Jazz à la Mode radio program and blog, it was great to finally hear them come together as a podcast. Nice work Tom! Sounds great.

Nice to hear the blog in audio.

Jazz Beat

Bennie Wallace

Tom Reney spoke with Bennie Wallace for Jazz Beat a few days before concerts that the veteran tenor saxophonist was scheduled to play in Connecticut in October 2019.

Jazz Beat 46 - Bennie Wallace

Jazz Beat 44 is devoted to Tom Reney's appreciation of the blues singer and guitarist T-Bone Walker.

Jazz Beat 44 - T-Bone Walker

Paul Arslanian

Tom Reney spoke with Paul Arslanian on May 6 about his career in jazz. Paul is a veteran pianist who's been a highly visible figure in jazz in Western Massachusetts since 1984. In 2010, he was a co-founder of the Northampton Jazz Workshop, and since then, he's produced a series of weekly performances that feature a guest artist who plays with the Northampton-based Green Street Trio. Arslanian is the Trio's pianist, which also includes bassist George Kaye and drummer Jon Fisher.

Jazz Beat 49 - An Interview with Paul Arslanian

Lee Konitz

Jazz a la Mode host Tom Reney interviewed Lee Konitz in 2004 before concerts he was playing in Northampton and Cambridge. Konitz died from Covid-19 related pneumonia on April 15 at age 92. He was still touring and recording until social distancing began in March. A major figure in his own right, the Chicago-born saxophonist was associated over the course of his 75-year-long career with the jazz greats Miles Davis, Lennie Tristano, Stan Kenton, Bill Evans, and Brad Mehldau.

JazzBeat 48 - Lee Konitz

Jazz Beat host Tom Reney appeared on Open Source with Christopher Lydon on WBUR. They discuss jazz and r&amp;b and classical music and Tom Reney reveals eight essential recordings and one book that he would take to a desert island.

Jazz Beat 45 - Tom Reney on Open Source

As with many of you, my Aretha Franklin vigil began with the news of August 13 that she'd entered hospice, and for the next two days I posted some reflections on Lady Soul on Facebook. Then on what proved to be the eve of her death, I listened to her throughout a three-hour drive to Cape Cod and could hardly contain myself. Hers is simply the most powerful-- and versatile-- voice of my lifetime. The line that's resonated most for me over the past ten days is from her 1968 song, "Since You've Been Gone (Sweet Sweet Baby)," where Aretha pleads, "If you walk in that door, I can get up off my knees." For as deeply and inexorably as she was tied to the civil rights and women's liberation movements (Martin Luther King was a family friend at whose funeral she sang "Precious Lord, Take My Hand;" "Respect" galvanized feminists), her music was mostly about the wages of love and the pain of abandonment. A simple note of appreciation sent last week by a 70-year-old female friend underscored what made Ree's pleas so universal: "Boy, did she ever get me through some tough times."

Jazz Beat 43 - Aretha Franklin, 1942-2018, R.I.P

Charles Neville

Tom Reney pays memorial tribute to Charles Neville on this edition of Jazz Beat.

Jazz Beat 42 - Charles Neville

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