Todd Robbins learned the Maple Leaf Rag by slowing down a Scott Joplin piano roll and watching where the keys went. In Part 1 of a two-part conversation, the magician, sideshow artist, and ragtime pianist tells Jonesy how a string of happy accidents built a career that now runs six nights a week at Speakeasy Magick in New York, a show he says he put together on the fly, "just like a jazz solo."

They get into the magic shop old-timers who taught a twelve-year-old to hammer a nail into his nose, hanging out with the Turk Murphy band in San Francisco, and a brand-new grand piano that could not survive Pete Clute's attack. Plus Todd's first days in New York, and the night Dick Wellstood played the entire stride book for an audience of one. Part 2 next week!

Check out Todd's long-running show: Speakeasy Magick

Chapters:

This week Quentin Walston, pianist, author, and jazz educator, joins Jonesy for a conversation about a simple idea: people enjoy the music more when they understand what is going on inside it. He would know. He broke down Take Five into a short video and four and a half million people watched.

They trace Quentin's path from a bluegrass corner of Virginia to a self-taught start on ragtime and boogie woogie, the moment in high school when the sound he was chasing finally clicked as jazz, and the wineries and cigar shops where he built his solo chops. Along the way: his book Jazz Piano Like a Pro, his vinyl album Retro Future, the joy he hears in Errol Garner and Duke Ellington, and a new project bringing 1920s stride piano back without a trace of corniness.

Buy Quentin's books or check out more info at his website:

https://quentinwalston.com/store

This week Jonesy sits down with the great Skip Heller: composer, guitarist, bandleader, arranger, and one of the most restlessly curious musicians you will ever meet. Skip grew up in Philadelphia a few blocks from Dizzy Gillespie's old house, never took a real music lesson, and built a life in music that runs from bebop to rockabilly to exotica.

They get into his new Dizzy Gillespie project with his band Voodoo 5, why joy is the fuel in the music he loves, growing up on the Smothers Brothers and John Hartford, learning harmony from chord diagrams in a music store, the day Stevie Wonder's "I Wish" turned a Philadelphia block into a dance scene, and a wild year on the road with Yma Sumac that ended at the Montreal Jazz Festival with the copyists still passing music up to the bandstand.

Skip on the heart of it all: "Art doesn't have to be serious and heavy. Art can have a joyous component to it."

Listen to Skip's band Voodoo 5.

This week Jonesy sits down with Michael Jackson: photographer, musician, writer, visual artist, and the guy with his finger on the pulse of every jazz event in Chicago. From playing saxophone at London’s Royal Festival Hall as a kid to graduate school at the School of the Art Institute, from iconic Downbeat shoots to late nights at the Green Mill, Michael has done a bit of everything, and he still never stops.

They dig into his 32 years in Chicago, tracking down von Freeman on a snowy February night, his first big Downbeat piece on Ronnie Scott, recording 15 tracks in 6 hours and cutting a new record with his daughter, why the physical record still matters, and what it means to be an advocate for a music that lives on the fringe.

Michael on his life's work: "I'm interested in every aspect of people and their art form: where people come from, why they get into it, why it means so much to them."

Visit his website: Jackojazz.com 👈

Listen to some of Michael's music 🎶

Chapters

• 00:00 Welcome: the great Michael Jackson
• 01:28 Recording with his daughter (the "Easy Evil" sessions)
• 05:01 Detroit Jazz Festival and a blindfold test with Joe Lovano
• 06:37 Off the boat in 1994: the London jazz years
• 07:59 Printmaker to Chicago: the School of the Art Institute
• 09:01 Finding von Freeman and the Green Mill decision
• 11:33 Writing for Downbeat: the Ronnie Scott story
• 14:53 How a wedding gig led to journalism
• 16:57 A musical family
• 20:16 Teenage gigs, vinyl, and living on the streets of New York
• 27:21 Slim Cooper's: a baptism of fire in Philly
• 30:52 The Checkerboard Lounge and the warmth of the scene
• 33:54 Photography now, and why he shoots musicians
• 38:49 Why the physical record still matters
• 40:31 Jonesy's new records and the LA rhythm section
• 48:14 George Garzone and championing the unsung
• 53:46 The night Penn got stage fright at the Green Mill
• 59:03 The Sheik of Araby and a tribute to Dave Jemilo
• 1:04:42 Two new albums, vinyl only

Alex Frank grew up in the room while the music was being made. The son of an LA film composer, he was a kid at recording sessions who traded the clarinet for an upright the moment he heard Ray Brown. Now he's the musical director of Jeff Goldblum's jazz band and one of the most in-demand bassists working the drummerless-trio tradition that ran from Nat Cole to Oscar Peterson. He joins host Mike Jones for a conversation about where that deep time and taste actually come from.

They get into the Australia tour with Goldblum, the thousands of hours it takes to make two strangers sound like they've played together for years, and the trio record Alex, Graham Dechter, and Mike cut in Mike's living room. Alex also tells the John Clayton lesson that shaped him, the night Quincy Jones called him over to say he heard Ray Brown in his playing, and how he found the upright Penn Jillette plays today.

Alex Frank’s Website

Buy Mike Jones With Strings!

Welcome to The Stereo Image, a lighthearted look at how music fits into the lives of creative and interesting people.

Hosted by jazz pianist and Penn & Teller music director Mike Jones, this show trades rigid music theory for great storytelling. Each episode features fascinating guests sharing their wildest musical memories, unexpected histories, and the songs that soundtracked their lives. From backstage antics to personal deep cuts, it is a fun, casual dive into the sonic backstories of exceptional creators.

Subscribe to not miss an episode or follow us on Instagram @the.stereo.image or YouTube at @the-stereo-image

Joe Alterman fell for jazz at his dad's backyard barbecues: Wes Montgomery and Oscar Peterson over the steaks. He's spent his life chasing that same high. A 37-year-old pianist from Atlanta, Alterman talks with Mike Jones about coming up through an internship at the Blue Note, where his first assignment was keeping McCoy Tyner company for two hours, and how that hustle turned into friendships with his heroes.

He tells the story of meeting Les McCann, who took one look at the young player, said "play me some blues, boy," and christened him his "He-Bro" for the next twelve years. He and Jones swap road stories about Ahmad Jamal's advice to "keep your enthusiasm," the magic of sitting down with musicians who grew up on the same records, and why a slow blues still separates the players from everyone else.

Joe Alterman’s Website

The Upside of Jazz with Joe Alterman

For thirty years, if something happened on a Las Vegas stage, John Katsilometes was probably in the room. The entertainment columnist behind "The Kats Report" at the Las Vegas Review-Journal joins host Mike Jones for a conversation about a career built without a journalism degree. From covering the Tyson–Holyfield "bite night" as a young sports writer to becoming the last man standing in a beat that used to belong to Norm Clark and Robin Leach, Johnny Kats has seen it all.

Kats traces the whole arc: an 18-year-old stringer in Chico, getting sober in 2001, launching the column that made him ubiquitous, and learning to appreciate everything from Rush to Baby Keem because covering an artist means getting educated fast. He and Mike get into live music in Vegas, Penn's late-blooming bass playing, and why he still answers the phone like a gentleman.

Kats Entertainment

John Katsilometes at the Las Vegas Review-Journal