Apr 8, 2025 1:23 PM
Blue Note Jazz Festival New York Posts 2025 Lineup
Blue Note Entertainment Group has unveiled the lineup for the 14th annual Blue Note Jazz Festival New York, featuring…
Nastos was emeritus-senior announcer and producer at WEMU 89.1 FM, holding down the evening slot for nearly 30 years.
(Photo: Michael G. Nastos/Facebook)Jazz DJ and journalist Michael G. Nastos passed away earlier this month at age 70. Nastos is best known for his work as a radio broadcaster in southeastern Michigan from the early ’70s to the present. His primary outlet was the NPR affiliate WEMU 89.1 FM, where he was emeritus-senior announcer and producer, holding down the full-time evening slot for nearly 30 years, alongside duties as assistant music director and chief librarian.
Born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Nastos took up piano at age 6 and drums at 7, and played in school marching bands and stage bands, as well as pickup rock and blues groups. A classically trained multi-percussionist, he played various symphonic pieces in small chamber ensembles, and later played with mainstream jazz and fusion bands, and a gamelan orchestra.
Turning his attention away from working as a professional musician, Nastos studied journalism and broadcasting, and made that his livelihood. He wrote extensively for the All Music Guide since its inception in the early ’90s. He published numerous syndicated previews, reviews and opinion columns and worked for 17 years at the Ann Arbor News. Nastos was named one of the top five Midwest critics by readers of the Arts Midwest newsletter in 1988, and #1 jazz critic in the SEMJA Music Poll in 1990. For 10 years, he was Detroit correspondent for DownBeat, and he continued in that role for Cadence magazine starting in 1980.
Nastos contributed to numerous other publications, including Hot House, Coda, Rhapsody.com, L.A. Scene Magazine, Jazz Forum, Swing Journal, Arts Midwest, Jazz News International and the Detroit Metro Times. He also wrote artist biographies, interviews, jazz festival and concert programs, and liner notes. As an instructor and guest lecturer, Nastos taught at the University of Michigan, Eastern Michigan University, Washtenaw Community College, local libraries and panel forums at the Detroit International Jazz Festivals.
He was a founding board member and vice president of SEMJA (Southeastern Michigan Jazz Association) and an active participant in ISIM (International Society for Improvised Music). In addition, Nastos was the business manager for the Ann Arbor Musicians Union. For 10 years, he was a panelist and eventually jazz chair for the Michigan Council for the Arts & Cultural Affairs. He served as publicity director worldwide for Karl Berger’s Creative Music Studio in Woodstock, New York.
As a musician, Nastos worked with keyboardists Stuart Cunningham, Rick Roe and Bill Heid, bassists Rob Crozier, Bruce Dondero and Jaribu Shahid, saxophonists Vincent York and Paul Vornhagen, clarinetist Perry Robinson and percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani, as well as improvising ensembles Sublingual and Electrosonic. DB
The Blue Note Jazz Festival New York kicks off May 27 with a James Moody 100th Birthday Celebration at Sony Hall.
Apr 8, 2025 1:23 PM
Blue Note Entertainment Group has unveiled the lineup for the 14th annual Blue Note Jazz Festival New York, featuring…
“I’m certainly influenced by Geri Allen,” said Iverson, during a live Blindfold Test at the 31st Umbria Jazz Winter festival.
Apr 15, 2025 11:44 AM
Between last Christmas and New Year’s Eve, Ethan Iverson performed as part of the 31st Umbria Jazz Winter festival in…
“At the end of the day, once you’ve run out of differences, we’re left with similarities,” Collier says. “Cultural differences are mitigated through 12 notes.”
Apr 15, 2025 11:55 AM
DownBeat has a long association with the Midwest Clinic International Band and Orchestra Conference, the premiere…
“It kind of slows down, but it’s still kind of productive in a way, because you have something that you can be inspired by,” Andy Bey said on a 2019 episode of NPR Jazz Night in America, when he was 80. “The music is always inspiring.”
Apr 29, 2025 11:53 AM
Singer Andy Bey, who illuminated the jazz scene for five decades with a four-octave range that encompassed a bellowing…
Davis was a two-time Grammy winner for liner notes.
Apr 22, 2025 11:50 AM
Francis Davis, an august jazz and cultural critic who won both awards and esteem in print, film and radio, died April…
