Neon Jazz Interviews

Welcome to a new edition of the Neon Jazz interview series with Grammy-affiliated Percussionist, Composer, Educator & Bandleader Kahlil Kwame Bell.
For more than 30 years, Kahlil has built an extraordinary career as one of today's most dynamic percussionists, performing at legendary venues including Blue Note, Birdland, and Smalls Jazz Club, along with stages throughout the United States.
His musical journey has placed him alongside some of the most influential artists in jazz, soul, R&B, and popular music, including Branford Marsalis, Wynton Marsalis, Abbey Lincoln, Roy Hargrove, Roberta Flack, and Erykah Badu.
But Kahlil's story goes far beyond performing.
He is the founder of the Kahlil Kwame Bell Foundation and its Where Rhythm Meets Purpose initiative, bringing live jazz and rhythm-based wellness programs into hospitals, libraries, museums, schools, senior communities, and cultural spaces.
He is also the author of Jazz Legends A–Z and is recognized for his innovative work with the Slapaphone, an inventive percussion instrument that reflects his lifelong passion for rhythm, education, and creative exploration.
In this conversation, we get into Kahlil's remarkable musical journey, his experiences performing with jazz legends, the evolution of percussion, the Slapaphone, jazz education, rhythm-based wellness, community engagement, and the powerful connection between music, rhythm, and human wellbeing.
From more than three decades in the music world to creating new ways for rhythm to serve communities, Kahlil Kwame Bell has built a career rooted in music, purpose, education, innovation, and connection.
We dig into this incredible story. Enjoy this interview.
More Kahlil Kwame Bell
Kahlil Kwame Bell — Official Website
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Welcome to a new edition of the Neon Jazz interview series with NYC-based, Dutch-born Artist, Vocalist, Composer & Producer Vivienne Aerts.
We get into her latest 2026 album Current and the remarkable creative journey behind this innovative project.
In the summer of 2025, Vivienne set sail across the Dutch waterways aboard a 1951 mahogany sailboat, transforming the tiny vessel into a floating recording studio over the course of two weeks. Along the way, she recorded new songs and soundscapes that blur the boundaries between jazz, improvisation, electronic music, environmental art, and experimental sound.
It's an artistic process that perfectly reflects Vivienne's creative spirit—curious, adventurous, immersive, and deeply connected to place and experience.
Her work reaches far beyond traditional jazz. She explores electronics, multi-sensory experience design, chocolate, sound, improvisation, and creative technology, while also bringing her background as a clinical psychologist and her work as faculty at Berklee College of Music into her creative life.
In this conversation, we explore Current, the floating studio experience, Dutch waterways, jazz improvisation, electronic music, environmental sound, sensory experiences, psychology, creativity, and the many worlds Vivienne Aerts brings together through her art.
This is a fascinating story about breaking creative boundaries and finding music in unexpected places.
It's quite a story. Enjoy this interview.
More Vivienne Aerts & Current
Vivienne Aerts — *Current*
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Welcome to a new edition of the Neon Jazz interview series with Netherlands-based pop duo Pomelo, featuring Luke Elliott and Wynnm Murphy.
We caught up with this exciting duo to explore their debut album Loreless, new music, their collective creative energy, and the unique sonic world they are building together.
Pomelo creates seductive, engaging art-pop that draws from its musical influences while remaining firmly forward-facing. Their sound blends avant-garde electronic techniques, watery resonant textures, atmospheric production, intimate songwriting, and sexy storytelling into something that feels both otherworldly and deeply human.
Loreless is vulnerable, personal, experimental, and emotionally direct. Across the project, Luke Elliott and Wynnm Murphy create a sonic landscape where electronic experimentation meets organic feeling and storytelling.
In this conversation, we get into the making of Loreless, the creative partnership behind Pomelo, electronic music, experimental pop, art-pop, songwriting, sonic textures, vulnerability, collaboration, and the inspiration behind their distinctive musical identity.
It's a fascinating look at two artists creating music that feels connected to the present while pointing toward the sound of tomorrow.
Dig their story.
More Pomelo & Loreless
Pomelo — *Loreless* on Bandcamp
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Welcome to a new edition of the Neon Jazz interview series with acclaimed Jazz Vocalist, Guitarist & Songwriter Allan Harris on his remarkable 2026 release Swingin’ Love Songs.
More than two decades after it was originally recorded, Allan Harris brings this extraordinary collection of previously unreleased music into the world. What began with sessions in Miami eventually returned to New York, where Allan completely reimagined the material with a stellar cast of world-class jazz musicians.
The result is a fascinating bridge between the past and present, preserving a remarkable chapter of Allan's musical journey that nearly disappeared into the vaults of jazz history.
In this conversation, Allan takes us behind the making of Swingin’ Love Songs, the story of rediscovering and reshaping these recordings, his evolution as a vocalist, guitarist and songwriter, getting through the COVID era, and the long musical road that brought this project back to life.
We get into jazz, songwriting, recording, perseverance, reinvention, New York, Miami, and the power of finally letting music that has been waiting for its moment be heard.
Dig this interview.
Get the Album
Allan Harris — Swingin’ Love Songs
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Welcome to a new edition of the Neon Jazz Interview Series with Detroit-based jazz pianist, bandleader, composer, and educator Zen Zadravec.
We caught up with Zen to explore his new 2026 album, New Paradigm, and a remarkable musical career that has taken him across continents and through decades of contemporary jazz.
With a rich international career as a bandleader, collaborator, and educator, Zadravec has developed a distinctive voice rooted in the belief that music is more than sound—it is a form of creative communication, an expressive language shaped by human experience, connection, and a deeply humanistic perspective.
Throughout his career, Zen has performed and collaborated with some of the most respected figures in the international jazz community, including Ron Carter, Louis Hayes, Sean Jones, Steve Turre, and many others.
Today, he leads two original projects that showcase different dimensions of his musical vision: the Zen Zadravec Quintet and the fusion-oriented ensemble Human Revolution.
In this conversation, we get into New Paradigm, Zen's international journey, his Detroit roots, the philosophy behind his music, collaboration, improvisation, education, and the continuing evolution of jazz in the modern world.
Zen Zadravec's story is one of musical exploration, international collaboration, education, and a lifelong commitment to using jazz as a language of human expression.
From Detroit to stages around the world, his work continues to connect tradition with innovation while exploring where contemporary jazz can go next.
Listen to New Paradigm
Zen Zadravec — *New Paradigm* on Apple Music
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