Kaya 959 The Jazz Standard

Rico Jones on The Jazz Standard with Brenda Sisane

Loading player...
Tenor saxophonist Rico Jones is a musician who found his voice at age thirteen in a Denver gospel band, and that sacred foundation has informed every note since. After earning two degrees from the Manhattan School of Music and being mentored by the likes of Sonny Rollins and George Coleman, Rico did something truly remarkable during the pandemic. He brought jazz to the people, organizing over 200 free outdoor concerts at Sloan Lake, reminding us that music is a necessity, not a luxury.

His debut album, BloodLines, released in 2025 on Giant Step Arts, has already been hailed as a landmark recording, earning a four-star review from DownBeat. Critics are already placing him in the lineage of Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders, noting his deep roots in the Black church.
12 Jul English South Africa Music History · Music Commentary

Other recent episodes

Sibongile Nene on The Jazz Standard With Brenda Sisane

Sibongile Nene is an Art practitioner with an academic background in Music, Drama and Film. She studied drama at Drama Studio London and Ethnomusicology at The College of Music (Zimbabwe). Her debut CD ‘Sangoma’ earned a ‘Best Producer Award’ (Music frica, Toronto, Canada). The album is a rendition of traditional…
18 Oct 32 min

Kesivan Naidoo on The Jazz Standard with Brenda Sisane

Kesivan Naidoo is a drummer, composer, arranger and bandleader. He leads Kesivan and the Lights, has built big-band projects around both jazz and amapiano, and he has worked with artists including Miriam Makeba, Bheki Mseleku, Zim Ngqawana, Abdullah Ibrahim and Maria Schneider. He also made history when he received the…
18 Oct 27 min

Kelly Green on The Jazz Standard with Brenda Sisane

A pianist can tell you a lot about a song before they say a word. But when that pianist is also the vocalist, composer and arranger, the conversation gets even more interesting. Kelly Green is a Steinway Artist, a New York-based pianist, vocalist, composer and bandleader whose work brings high-energy…
30 Aug 24 min

David Virelles on The Jazz Standard with Brenda Sisane

Santiago de Cuba is a city of percussion and procession, of voices and ceremony, of music carried through generations — sometimes written down, sometimes remembered in the body. And somewhere in that soundscape, a young David Virelles was listening. Listening to Cuban music, to Bach, to the elders and to…
4 Oct 36 min
All episodes