I’m always happy to preview jazz festivals across the US on Straight No Chaser. The big ones like Newport or Monterey are always great, and regional festivals like those held in Saratoga or by NJPAC are a blast. But I have a special place in my heart for the cities and towns who present festivals, places like Northampton, MA, or Burlington, VT, Hartford, CT or Portland, Oregon, or in the case, Hudson, NY.

Scheduled in February in years’ past, the 2024 Hudson Jazz Festival marks the festival’s official move to October, offering music lovers the chance to get out and enjoy the festival’s many offerings and the region’s idyllic autumnal landscape. Coinciding with the seasonal change, the festival is taking its events city-wide with the addition of three new festival venues that showcase well-loved Hudson destinations and a free pre-festival Community Dayfeaturing Melanie Charles’ Make Jazz Trill Again: Trill Mega Jam.

There are multiple free events each day, with top-notch ticketed events at historic Hudson Hall each evening. Friday night features Ekep Nkwelle presenting “Ella Fitzgerald - Against All Odds,” an evening of songs associated with the legendary Ella, and bringing attention to her little known incarceration in Hudson, NY as a teenager.

Saturday night’s headliner is trumpeter Riley Mulherkar (formerly of the Westerlies) leading a quartet with Chris Pattishall (piano), Barry Stephenson (bass) and Chris Icasiano (drums). Riley has released his first solo album, the eponymous Riley, and we’ll feature “Ride or Die” from that album. Sunday afternoon wraps up with the Ethan Iverson Trio, with the former Bad Plus pianist joined by Reuben Rogers on bass and Gerald Cleaver on drums.

Podcast 986 is my preview of the festival with curator Cat Henry. Ms. Henry has previously curated concerts for MoMA Summergarden: New Music for New York, featuring composers such as Henry Threadgill, Myra Melford and Don Byron, and produced programs for Lincoln Center’s inaugural Poet-in-Residence, Mahogany L. Browne. Henry currently serves as Executive Director of Live Music Society, a foundation supporting grassroots music venues where musicians start their careers, connect with audiences and hone their craft. Previously, she served as Vice President, Concerts and Touring, for Jazz at Lincoln Center, where she managed all performance-related activities under the JALC brand, including concert seasons at Rose Theater and The Appel Room, worldwide touring of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, and nightly sets at Dizzy’s Club. She is a fellow of the Executive Program in Arts and Culture Strategy at the University of Pennsylvania and holds a BFA in Jazz Performance from The New School. Originally from the UK, she lives in Brooklyn with her teenage daughter.

Pianist and keyboardist Dan Siegel has covered a broad swath of the jazz spectrum over the course of his four-and-a-half decade career, from straight ahead swing to sleek contemporary sounds. While that’s a testament to Siegel’s multi-faceted talents and restless curiosity, it’s also the result of the diverse array of collaborators that have joined him along the journey – a roster that includes Bela Fleck, Steve Gadd, Larry Carlton, Ernie Watts, Ottmar Liebert, Lee Ritenour, Brian Bromberg, Eric Marienthal, Bob Sheppard, Boney James, Alex Acuña and others.

Siegel’s twenty-third release, Unity, is the latest and one of the finest examples of that alchemical process. It reunites the keyboardist with drummer Oscar Seaton for the first time in 20 years, since the recording of the 2004 album Inside Out. It also marks his first meeting with bassist David “DJ” Ginyard, Seaton’s rhythm section partner in Terence Blanchard’s electrically charged E-Collective band. From the time the trio entered the studio together, Siegel’s vision of the music he’d written for the session irrevocably changed, a display of the titular unity.

To the core trio, Siegel added a rotating cast of master guitarists, most of them longtime compatriots and friends who each added their own distinctive flavors to the tracks: Rob Bacon (Raphael Saadiq, Amp Fiddler), Allen Hinds (Roberta Flack, Natalie Cole), Michael Miller (Boz Scaggs, Chick Corea), Dean Parks (Steely Dan, Michael Jackson), and Michael Thompson (Babyface, Whitney Houston). Unity also features percussion great Lenny Castro, whose relationship with Siegel dates back to the keyboardist’s self-titled 1982 album, as does that of prolific saxophonist Tom Scott, who heads the album’s horn section.

During out conversation for Podcast 985, Siegel acknowledged that at 70, his long and rewarding career is entering a concluding chapter. It’s refreshing to hear an artist address the arc of his career, and Dan speaks eloquently for his fondness for his collaborators, his life as a musician and producer, and the possibility that he may still have more musical mountains to climb. Muscial selections from Unity include “free Spirit” and “Simple Things.”

‘Genre-fluid’ is a great word to describe the music of guitarist Ethan Margolis, aka “Emaginario.” A life-long student of music, he has traveled the world from his native Cleveland to bring African diaspora-Caribbean sounds and flamenco stylings to his musical base of the blues and folk-rock. Margolis has evolved into a creative and worldly artist, whose deep connections with flamenco, jazz, blues and even punk coalesce into a unique musical voice.

Elements of that Margolis style can be heard coming to fruition on his latest album, Interlude of the Duende (released on Ropeadope), in trio form with a pair of jazz masters Larry Grenadier and drummer Eric Harland.

“Duende” is the Spanish word in the title, has been called “a heightened state of emotion, expression and authenticity” and is often connected with flamenco and the Andalusian Romaní population. On this recording, the term appropriately reflects the complexity of the music, the power of the collaboration itself and more broadly Margolis’ life experience in Spain’s Romaní community. Ethan continues to translate that rhythmic language into American jazz formats and recordings in the vein of Hungarian Roma guitarist Gabor Szabó ("Gypsy Queen") and most importantly, the jazz-flamenco crossover playing of Lenny Breau.

In Podcast 984 we discuss his still-maturing musical saga, talk about past and future collaborations with pianist Chano Domínguez, and take a deep dive into the world of flamenco. Musical selections include the aptly titled “Beginning with a Groove,” and “A Beating Heart.”