Joe Lovano ~ Saxophonist & Composer

From NPR’s Jazz Night In America

JAZZ NIGHT IN AMERICA: Cleveland’s Joe Lovano Comes Home
By: Nate Chinen

If you’re even a casually observant jazz fan, you might think you know a thing or two about Joe Lovano. A tenor saxophonist with dozens of albums to his name, most of them made during a roughly 25-year tenure on Blue Note Records, Lovano is one of the most instantly identifiable musicians on the jazz landscape and on the New York scene. But he didn’t come from nowhere.

With that in mind, Jazz Night in America joins the amiable saxophonist on one of his customary visits to Cleveland, where he came up under the wing of his father, Tony, a tenorman known “Big T.” We’ll stop by his Uncle Sandy and Aunt Rose’s house, where he spent countless childhood hours, and hear family lore from his brothers Anthony and Patrick, and sister Laura-Jo.

And, of course, we’ll hear some terrific music — Lovano on the bandstand at The Bop Stop, a Cleveland fixture, with close friends like vibraphonist Ronzo Smith and drummer Carmen Castaldi.

“There were five generations of musicians in my life from Cleveland that I presented in those two nights,” Lovano muses. “I didn’t realize it ‘til afterwards, either. You know, it was just people I wanted to play with.”

You’ll want to be there, so to speak, when he does.

Click here for more info and to listen to the set