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.
Here's what Matt Silver is talking about:
- Dec 9, 2025 - Gordon Goodwin, Leader of Award-Winning Big Phat Band, Celebrated Composer and Arranger for Film and TV, Dies at 70
- Dec 2, 2025 - 2025's 12 Days of Sinatra is Here!
- Nov 12, 2025 - San Diego Symphony's JAZZ AT THE JACOBS Series Opens with a Blue Train Pulling into the Newly Renovated Jacobs Music Center on Nov. 29
- Oct 2, 2025 - Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Lose, Sometimes it Rains: In Praise of Bull Durham
- Sep 30, 2025 - Baseball, Jazz, and the SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP
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:
| January 4th at 7 PM Hour | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7:56 PM | Rosie Bennet | “What Love Will Do to You” — N/A | BUY | |
| 7:47 PM | Lisa Hilton | “Sunset Tale” — Extended Daydream | BUY | |
| 7:39 PM | Wolfgang Muthspiel, Scott Colley, and Brian Blade | “Diminished Augmented” — Tokyo | BUY | |
| 7:35 PM | Luke Marantz and Simon Jermyn | “Shori” — Echoes | BUY | |
| 7:31 PM | Greg Rahn | “Side Hustle” — Side Hustle | BUY | |
| 7:24 PM | Jack West & Curvature | “Big Ideas” — Essential Curvature | BUY | |
| 7:17 PM | Vance Thompson | “Lost and Found” — Lost and Found | BUY | |
| 7:09 PM | Julian Lage | “Talking Drum” — Scenes from Above | BUY | |
| 7:05 PM | Tigran Hamasyan | “Dardahan” — Manifeste | BUY | |
| January 4th at 6 PM Hour | ||||
| 6:59 PM | Michael League, Pedrito Martinez & Antonio Sanchez | “Caminando” — Elipsis | BUY | |
| 6:49 PM | Jordan Williams | “Left Alone” — Playing by Ear | BUY | |
| 6:39 PM | Snarky Puppy and the Metropole Orkest | “As You Are But Not As You Were” — Somni | BUY | |
| 6:30 PM | Mark Lettieri Group & WDR Big Band | “Knows” — Mark Lettieri Group Meets WDR Big Band - At Studio 4 | BUY | |
| December 28th at 7 PM Hour | ||||
| 7:54 PM | Keith Oxman | “Home” — Home | BUY | |
| 7:40 PM | Jack West and Walter Strauss | “More Guitar” — Guitars on Life | BUY | |
| 7:35 PM | Julian Lage | “Opal” — Scenes from Above | BUY | |
| 7:27 PM | Wolfgang Muthspiel, Scott Colley, and Brian Blade | “Flight” — Tokyo | BUY | |
| 7:16 PM | Jordan Williams | “One Finger Snap” — Playing by Ear | BUY | |
| 7:09 PM | Rin Seo Collective | “Alone, but Not Alone” — City Suite | BUY | |
| 7:01 PM | Lisa Hilton | “Here and There and Back and Forth” — Extended Daydream | BUY | |
| December 28th at 6 PM Hour | ||||
| 6:54 PM | Mauricio Morales and Adam Hersh | “Where Olive Trees Wither” — Between Dreams and Twilight | BUY | |
| 6:44 PM | Luke Marantz and Simon Jermyn | “Passages” — Echoes | BUY | |
| 6:39 PM | Greg Rahn | “Songo Blues” — Side Hustle | BUY | |
| 6:30 PM | Ben Rosenblum and The Nebula Project | “Merengue x Fantasy” — The Longest Way Round | BUY | |
| December 14th at 7 PM Hour | ||||
| 7:52 PM | John Scofield and Dave Holland | “Meant to Be” — Memories of Home | BUY | |
| 7:38 PM | Luke Marantz and Simon Jermyn | “Light Scatters Green” — Echoes | BUY | |
| 7:30 PM | Mauricio Morales and Adam Hersh | “Eurybia” — Between Dreams and Twilight | BUY | |
| 7:02 PM | Mauricio Morales and Adam Hersh | “Reminiscence” — Between Dreams and Twilight | BUY | |
| December 14th at 6 PM Hour | ||||
| 6:56 PM | Mauricio Morales and Adam Hersh | “Low Life” — Between Dreams and Twilight | BUY | |
| 6:50 PM | Jordan Williams | “Tayamisha” — Playing by Ear | BUY | |
RSS feed of the 30 most recent tracks of the show.