Do you feel like listening to jazz but don’t know where to start? We’ve all been there, and there’s nothing better than having a good selection of ingredients to take the first step. In this session, we’ll discover a few recipes to explore different styles and the musicians behind them. Explosive combinations to help you cook up your own perfect dish.

Jazz has long been deeply connected with the fight against racism and for individual freedom. Artists like Max Roach, Charles Mingus, Art Blakey, and Nina Simone devoted part of their music to social criticism. Half a century later, the fight against racism, along with anti-fascist and anti-capitalist movements, remains relevant. We have no choice but to continue: We Insist!

Swing is one of the earliest styles of modern music, where the saxophone evolved as a solo instrument. Discovering tradition is essential to understanding the evolution in style, sound, phrasing, and rhythm that both the instrument and the genre have experienced. Understand the past to comprehend the future.

Do you have swing or not? Swing is more than just a style—it’s a way of playing, a way of expressing yourself, and a way of interpreting tempo. While the swing era may have ended, the approach to music born in that time still lives on in all Afro-American-rooted music. It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing.

Have you heard of Leo Parker, Pepper Adams, Gary Smulyan, or Harry Carney? That’s the life of the baritone saxophonist—unsung heroes who have brought the baritone sax to its greatest heights. These incredible artists recorded dozens of albums with Little Richard, Lou Reed, Duke Ellington, or James Brown, yet remain virtually unknown. After years of playing and studying this instrument, let’s discover and pay tribute to these unsung heroes.

Closer to carrier pigeons than to 5G, music traveled quickly from the United States to the Caribbean through radio waves and vinyl records. Styles we now distinguish clearly—jazz, rhythm & blues, and ska—shared repertoire, musicians, and influenced each other throughout the 1950s. Let’s take a time-traveling journey through some fundamental cities of modern music. Put on your dancing shoes—you won’t be able to stop moving.