Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Mondo Jazz: A New Radio Program hosted by Ludovico Granvassu

Mondo Jazz, a new radio program hosted by Italian-turned-New-Yorker Ludovico Granvassu (Founder and Editor-in-Chief of All About Jazz Italia), has a mission of showcasing international jazz that's not readily available on the US airwaves.

Starting on November 15, 2017, the show will broadcast on Wednesdays from 10 p.m. to midnight via Radio Free Brooklyn.  (See below for additional links to the archives, playlists, Facebook page.  Radio Free Brooklyn is also available through the App Store or via the “Tune-In Radio" app, which can be subscribed to on iTunes.)

“When I first moved to the United States I was surprised that, in the country where the customer has unlimited choices, I could go to a supermarket and find 80 different brands of cereal, but in a record store the selection of jazz albums was much narrower than in record stores in Oslo, Tokyo, Brussels, London, Rome, Paris, etc. It was therefore not surprising that the playlists of the major radio stations was equally narrow," says host Granvassu. “How could it be that, in the land which gave birth to this music, jazz fans had fewer options than jazz fans from anywhere else in the world? I quickly realized that whereas record stores and radio stations abroad naturally featured albums from the US, since jazz was born in the US, they also featured albums by international jazz musicians since there are thriving jazz scenes everywhere, which produce excellent artists. These foreign artists were virtually unknown in the US and absent from American airwaves.

“My mission with Mondo Jazz is to share some of my favorite international artists with US jazz fans to widen their listening options,” adds host Granvassu. “Needless to say there will be plenty of US jazz on my program, in an attempt to show the continuity that exists between the US and the international jazz scenes. Mondo Jazz is dedicated to the proposition that jazz is a language that originated in the US but is now spoken all over the world in various, at times very strong, accents and dialects, which make it a rich resource for rewarding sonic explorations. In the end, I hope to give a small contribution towards making barriers (across music-genres and nationalities) meaningless, and show that all that matters is people, the beauty of their music and the emotions it can generate."

Schedule and themes of next episodes

November 15th: Episode 1: First Steps... Jazz Walking
November 22nd: Episode 2: Jazz Travelling
November 29th: Episode 3: Film Noir Jazz Soundtracks

Mondo Jazz
Ludovico Granvassu – Mondo Jazz (for playlists)
Radio Free Brooklyn
Podomatic archive (archived streaming and download)
Mixcloud archive (archived streaming)