Breaking Jazz
About The Program
Dizzy Gillespie once said: “As a musician, you have to keep one foot in the past and have one foot forward, into the future.”
Matt Silver here to let you know that musicians making new jazz records today — whether they’re conscious of it or not — continue to heed Dizzy’s words. This music we love is so inextricably bound to its history, to legendary musicians long passed, that, as an audience, we can lose sight of the fact that it’s constantly evolving, its idiomatic language constantly expanding, like the universe — or the argot of adolescence.
On my new show, “Breaking Jazz” — showcasing the recently released music I like best right now — you’ll hear from the instrumentalists and vocalists generating the most buzz in the contemporary jazz ecosystem. You’ll also hear from those who’ve got the chops but not yet the name recognition. Hence, breaking jazz — like breaking news.
But the name of the show implies something beyond that. And that is the prospect of discovering not just new songs and the new names playing them, but new sounds — sounds distinctly rooted in the capital-T tradition but also unencumbered by any prescriptive notion of what jazz is or must be.
On “Breaking Jazz,” we’ll champion music qua music; that is, music for its own sake, as a mood and perspective altering substance that makes life, if not a little better, than at least a little richer and more acutely felt, its texture more perceptible. I will never play an album simply because its promotional materials declare it to stand for one anodyne, focus-group-tested political position or another. To be sure, music amplifies the melody, harmony, and rhythm of the time in which it’s made, and the times in which we live are, indeed, hyper-political. But, to me, if something’s gonna make the air, it’s because it’s made a statement musically, not in a press release.
I’m not looking for fresh new faces to sell jazz to the masses — or to save it or transcend it or redraw its borders; I’m going to play for you the stuff I compulsively share with those closest to me because I want them — I NEED them — to be as excited about it as I am.
I’ve learned that when you thoughtfully share music with others, you can reveal those parts of your innermost self that conventional language will never completely do justice. Each week, for 90 minutes, I’ll share those parts of myself with you.
THIS is Breaking Jazz.
Join me. Every Sunday night at 6:30 pm Pacific. On KSDS Jazz 88.3 FM in San Diego; all around the world at jazz88.org and the KSDS mobile app.
Latest Blog by Matt Silver
Remembering James Moody
Moody with Dizzy Gillespie.
Today (Mar. 26, 2025) we celebrate the centennial birthday of James Moody. Moody, a prolific saxophonist and flutist with a career spanning eight decades, passed on here in San Diego in late 2010. He led an extraordinary life, and would've turned 100 years old today.
Here's what Matt Silver is talking about:
- Mar 26, 2025 - Remembering James Moody
- Feb 6, 2025 - How Does a Jazz Radio Station Pick This Year's Super Bowl Winner?
- Jan 30, 2025 - Black History Month 2025 Freedom Now! Programming Schedule
- Jan 15, 2025 - Coming this February: KSDS Celebrates Black History Month 2025
- Jan 11, 2025 - Terence Blanchard and Bill Mays to Guest on INSIDE ART
On-Demand Audio Content
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Here are a few CD selections featured most recently:
Here are the 30 most recent tracks played on this show:
| March 23rd at 7 PM Hour | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7:59 PM | Chris Lightcap | “Loopy” — Bigmouth | BUY | |
| 7:55 PM | Natalie Cressman and Ian Faquini | “Ellingtoniana” — Guinga | BUY | |
| 7:48 PM | Mavis Pan | “Chances are Odd” — Rising | BUY | |
| 7:41 PM | 3 Cohens & the WDR Big Band | “Catch of the Day” — Interaction | BUY | |
| 7:34 PM | Artemis | “Olive Branch” — Arboresque | BUY | |
| 7:24 PM | Kaisa's Machine | “Moon Waves” — Moving Parts | BUY | |
| 7:17 PM | Jo-Yu Chen | “Nutcracker: Dance of the Reed Flutes” — Rendezvous: Jazz Meets Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and More | BUY | |
| 7:13 PM | Sharel Cassity | “Suspect” — Gratitude | BUY | |
| 7:07 PM | Sylvie Courvoisier and Mary Halvorson | “Bone Bells” — Bone Bells | BUY | |
| March 23rd at 6 PM Hour | ||||
| 6:56 PM | Sasha Berliner | “Zenith” — Fantome | BUY | |
| 6:52 PM | Isabelle Olivier | “Impressions” — Impressions | BUY | |
| 6:42 PM | The Empress | “Bolivia” — Square One | BUY | |
| 6:37 PM | Caili O'Doherty | “Two Deuces” — Bluer Than Blue | BUY | |
| 6:30 PM | The Montclair Women's Big Band | “Caravan” — Salsa de la Bahia Vol. 3: Renegade Queens | BUY | |
| March 16th at 7 PM Hour | ||||
| 7:59 PM | Stefan Bauer Band | “Peter's joke” — Coming Home | BUY | |
| 7:53 PM | Emily Remler | “Cisco” — Cookin' at the Queens: Live in Las Vegas 1984 and 1988 | BUY | |
| 7:48 PM | Caili O'Doherty | “Struttin' with Some Barbecue” — Bluer Than Blue | BUY | |
| 7:37 PM | 3 Cohens & the WDR Big Band | “Footsteps and Smiles” — Interaction | BUY | |
| 7:33 PM | Ensemble C | “The Light of the Dark” — Every Journey | BUY | |
| 7:28 PM | The Empress | “Nica's Dream” — Square One | BUY | |
| 7:20 PM | Elsa Nilsson and Santiago Leibson | “Radal” — Atlas of Sound: Quila Quina | BUY | |
| 7:15 PM | Rachel Eckroth and John Hadfield | “Blood Moon” — Speaking in Tongues | BUY | |
| 7:11 PM | Patricia Brennan | “Manufacturers Trust Company Building” — Breaking Stretch | BUY | |
| March 16th at 6 PM Hour | ||||
| 6:59 PM | Sasha Berliner | “Khan Younis” — Fantome | BUY | |
| 6:53 PM | Kaisa's Machine | “Tykytys” — Moving Parts | BUY | |
| 6:43 PM | Sharel Cassity | “Magnetism” — Gratitude | BUY | |
| 6:38 PM | Jo-Yu Chen | “Swan Lake” — Rendezvous: Jazz Meets Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and More | BUY | |
| 6:30 PM | Yelena Eckemoff | “Tournament” — Scenes from the Dark Ages | BUY | |
| March 9th at 7 PM Hour | ||||
| 7:51 PM | Ensemble C | “Home” — Every Journey | BUY | |
| 7:44 PM | Artemis | “Little Cranberry” — Arboresque | BUY | |
RSS feed of the 30 most recent tracks of the show.