Music Life and Times

One of the life lessons you learn, learning to play music is how to be authentic. In music it means developing your own style and individual expression. Of course, you are inspired by others and you have to learn the craft, but as you mature you develop your own sound, your own “voice.” Being authentic takes courage, especially when you are performing, but the courage you amass will carry over to being authentic in whatever your do and with the people you encounter along your way. This episode borrows from and builds on themes from Music Life and Times Episode 63 from July 2025.

Like many accomplished jazz musicians, renowned trumpeter, vocalist and big band leader Joe Gransden is mindful of the need to play a role in ensuring the survival of that American art form. For Joe, that has led to the establishment of the Future of Jazz, a program he has developed in cooperation with the 100-plus-year-old Atlanta Music Club to cultivate the next generation of jazz musicians by connecting them directly with seasoned professionals through mentorship and real-world performance opportunities. The purpose, as Joe describes it, “is to nurture the future world of jazz by ensuring it is lived, felt, and passed on through authentic experiences.” In this episode we talk with Joe about jazz, his career as a jazz musician, and the Future of Jazz.

Jamie Hood is the owner-operator of the digital marketing agency, Jamie Hood Creative/Marketing, but also a lifelong musician. That experience and his passion to “give back” come together in a charitable initiative he calls the Fare Thee Well Foundation. For more than 20 years, Jamie and the Foundation have been staging music-oriented events, the entire proceeds from which go to provide music camp scholarships to kids who otherwise might not be able to afford to attend. In this episode, Jamie talks about how music has impacted not only his life, but the lives of those kids as they experience the joy of playing music.

Sonny Rollins passed away on May 25 at the of 95. The legendary saxophonist of the bebop era and beyond was famously unhappy with his performances. But the occasional bad night was worth the trade-off to Rollins. His refusal to play the same passages the same way from night to night, those risks he took regularly might go badly at times, but they were also responsible for his greatest moments. The example he set applies well beyond his playing, well beyond music in fact, to most of life. Staying safe, on the beaten path, is easier; but great achievements, life's most gratifying moments, only come to those willing to risk departure from safe, to take the road less traveled.

Will Scruggs is a noted jazz saxophonist with a head for business and a major commitment to the sustainability of jazz in the city of Atlanta. That has led Will on a three-year journey to establish a new home for jazz in Atlanta. Named after Sam Yi's historic Churchill Grounds and historic jazz figure Mary Lou Williams, Churchill Grounds at the Mary Lou Williams Jazz Center will include a club with a stage large enough to accommodate a big band, a restaurant, a first floor retail and education center, and a top floor recording studio. We talk with Will about the project as construction is being completed for a planned Fall 2026 opening.

2026 Super Bowl winning quarterback Sam Darnold was once considered a “draft bust.” Interviewed after his Super Bowl win over the New England Patriots, Darnold told reporters, “As long as you believe in yourself, anything is possible.” Music is analogous to sports in many ways: performers can't hide; it's live; it takes years of hard work to become accomplished and failure along the way is inevitable; confidence is essential. Confidence but not arrogance. When players, musicians as well as athletes, are arrogant, all about themselves as opposed to working with and respecting their other band or team members, they misfire. When musicians fail to understand their calling, to work with each other for the pleasure of their audience, the night is a bust, the game is lost. 

Guitarist Buddy Red describes his music as “psychedelic.” The son of Atlanta rapper T.I., a pioneer of trap music, the 26-year-old Red has adopted a style more closely associated with rock 'n roll and the blues. A regular at Northside Tavern in Atlanta, Buddy was chosen the opening act of the 2026 Atlanta Jazz Festival. 

It's not an uncommon story: Musicians take another course in life to ensure a steady enough career to support themselves and their families. But sometimes, they have the courage and a passion for playing music to eventually leave corporate life and return to music as their full-time pursuit. The bottom-line reason: Nothing compares to the feeling of playing music well and seeing the enjoyment in the faces of your audience. That's the story of JPaul Whitehead as he tells it in this episode of Music Life and Times. 

Steve Williams is a multifaceted musician: composer, arranger, saxophonist. His depth of expertise and versatility has led him over his more than 50 years of playing and performing into a wide range of musical arenas, from the famed One O'Clock Band of his North Texas University days, to the U.S. Navy Commodores, where he played lead alto, was musical director, and contributed some 70 compositions and arrangements, to his current role as lead alto with the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra.  A devotee of big band jazz, his recordings include the Latin Grammy winning album, Caribbean Jazz Project's Afro Bop Alliance and his own album, Steve Williams and Jazz Nation.

In 2005, Mica Bethea, a 21-year-old jazz student at the University of North Florida, was driving back to campus when he was rear-ended by a tractor-trailer in stand-still traffic. The accident left him quadriplegic, with close to 90 percent of his body paralyzed. Doctors told him he would never again play his instruments, saxophone and piano. But he refused to let the accident keep him from music. After three years of rehabilitation, he returned to school to finish his degree, this time as a composer, and has since become a prominent figure in the North Florida jazz scene and a respected new voice in big band jazz writing. He has also built and operates NSF Ranch, a recording studio in Jacksonville, described as blending “iconic analog gear with cutting-edge digital technology to deliver uncompromising sound, comfort, and creative freedom. This is not a typical hourly studio — it’s a destination where artists come to focus, create, and bring meaningful projects to life.”