I’ve been listening to my latest favorite album non-stop recently - Bobby Sanabria’s Big Band Urban Folktales. I’ve been so inspired by the use of so many different musical genres, improvisational approaches, and arranging techniques that I felt I just had to find out a bit more about his ideas behind the album. So I’ve been plowing through the internet like crazy looking for some information. I’m not sure that I found what I was looking for, but I did find Mr. Sanabria’s website, a PBS documentary entitled “From Mambo to Hip-Hop” co-produced by Mr. Sanabria, that follows the musical history of the Bronx, and an announcement about a July 2007 article on him in Downbeat.

Then I hit gold - I ran across a blog/podcast called The Jazz Session that features regular interviews with a wide variety of jazz artists. One podcast featured a 35-minute interview with Bobby Sanabria, going into vivid detail on his early musical influences, his philosophy as a musician, historian, and educator, as well as background on Big Band Urban Folktales. Site host Jason Crane ran the interview with professionalism and earnest interest; I got quite a bit out of it. My next listen there will be an interview with Venezuelan pianist Luis Pedromo, and I’ll most likely be back for more after that. There’s a lot to offer on the site, check it out!

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