This episode is about a story that needs to be heard. It’s the tale of an amazing individual and jazz artist named René Marie. Her story has been portrayed in an award - winning short documentary by Rachel Kessler, a Brooklyn-based director, screenwriter, and producer with over a decade of experience deeply rooted in her artistic and creative beliefs.

The beauty and soul of René Marie has been captured in this film called, ‘Tuning René Marie’, that weaves you through the early life of this GRAMMY-nominated jazz vocalist. It premiered at the Oscar-qualifying Woodstock Film Festival in 2022 where it was nominated for Best Short Documentary; it’s now available for all to see on the prestigious short film channel, Omeleto.

It’s an extraordinary story that we’re honored to share as we speak to both women about how it came to be, and the impact it’s had on them, and on everyone who’s seen it.

Fado is a powerful and poignant musical expression of the Portuguese soul, often associated with the hardships of everyday life and characterized by melancholy, expressive vocal performances with a strong emphasis on emotional, poetic storytelling.

The unique sound of Fado is highlighted by the guitarra portuguesa, or Portuguese guitar - a pear-shaped cittern with 12 wire strings - and is usually accompanied by a wire-strung acoustic guitar. In many ways, its’ free-form style is reminiscent of early Blues and Jazz.

Intrigued by what we learned from our research, we sought out a specific Fado performance while visiting the city of Porto. This turned out to be a serendipitous experience. We were the only two audience members in what ended up being a private concert. This allowed us to dig deeper into the history and soul of this music deeply rooted in Portuguese tradition. The session featured the outstanding talents of noted Fado vocalist, Ana Margarida, and her two musicians, Artur on Portuguese guitar, and Antonio on classical acoustic guitar.

With apologies in advance for the less-than-perfect audio, we couldn’t pass up the chance to record this unexpected, once-in-a- lifetime session with a cell phone since we were without our professional audio equipment.

By sharing our experience, we hope to give you an insight into this extraordinary musical genre through our conversation recorded in the majestic Grand Salon of Porto City Hall.

This is a is the story of how New York-based pianist, composer, arranger and educator, Caili O'Doherty, developed and recently released an album called ‘Bluer Than Blue’ which honors the overlooked genius of Lillian “Lil” Hardin Armstrong. If that name is somewhat familiar to you, it’s because this highly talented artist and composer in her own right was married to none other than Louis Satchmo Armstrong. Lil was Armstrong’s second wife, and they collaborated on many recordings in the 1920s. But it was actually Lil who wrote many famous, classic tunes of that early jazz era.

Caili discovered Lil’s prolific background while taking a course from Ricky Riccardi, the Director of Research Collections for the Louis Armstrong Museum titled, “The Music of Louis Armstrong.” Not only did it whet Caili’s appetite to learn more about this unsung Jazz heroine, but also led to assembling her core trio of Tamir Schmerling on bass, drummer Cory Cox ,and saxophonist Nicole Glover, along with special guest vocalists Tahria Clayton and Michael Mayo, to record Lil Hardin Armstrong’s music.

My conversation begins with Caili diving into even more about Lil’s early career as she unravels for us details of this little-known magical, musical history.