Join me for the June 1, 2020, edition of After Hours on KCAW Raven Radio as I’m joined for an uplifting and stirring conversation with bebop jazz vocalist and educator Giacomo Gates.

Without a question, Giacomo’s life experience is unlike any other jazz artist that may come to mind. He didn’t really step into the limelight until 1990 when he was 40. That came after a blue-collar career that included a three-year stint in the 1970s working on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline and 14 years in Alaska where he drove a school buses, 18-wheelers and cattle transporters, operating bulldozers, scrapers and other heavy equipment, pounding in railway spikes, and moonlighting as a bouncer at Fairbanks night clubs. Giacomo had been exposed to music when he was young, singing and playing guitar, and he sometimes left Alaska to perform in Washington State or Tucson, Ariz. Eventually he moved back to his childhood home of Connecticut so he could devote more time to music.

Blessed with a full-bodied and mellifluous voice, extraordinary rhythmic precision and an unerring sense of lyricism, Giacomo’s total command of the vernacular, boundless creativity and exuberant passion set him apart from nearly every other vocalist on the scene today. His performing style is heavily steeped in the traditions of the original vocal improvisers from Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald through their modern counterparts Betty Carter and Leon Thomas, Giacomo’s own approach draws most heavily from the bebop-rooted masters like Jon Hendricks, Babs Gonzales, King Pleasure and most of all, Eddie Jefferson. Giacomo teaches at Wesleyan University and Sacred Heart University, and has conducted workshops and residencies at numerous educational institutions all over the U.S.

Click this link to listen to the After Hours show featuring Giacomo Gates, originally broadcast on June 1, 2020. Click here to visit Giacomo’s personal website.