Today we're putting The Tonearm's needle on bassist and composer Linda May Han Oh.
Linda's a Grammy winner who's recorded with Pat Metheny, Kenny Barron, and Joe Lovano. She was even the model for the bassist character in Pixar's 'Soul.' But it's her own work that brings us together.
Her latest album, Strange Heaven, explores why we choose familiar hells over strange heavens—why we stick with what we know even when change might save us. It's a question that cuts through everything from personal relationships to political choices.
Linda approaches her albums like journals, each one capturing where she is as an artist and a person. Since becoming a mother, she says her music has become more direct, more distilled—less about ego and more about emotional truth.
She's here to discuss creative honesty, her work promoting women composers in jazz through the New Standards project, and why making music with emotional directness matters more than ever.
(The musical excerpts heard in the interview are from Linda May Han Oh’s album Strange Heaven)
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