Simon Rentner
For more than 15 years, Simon Rentner has worked as a host, producer, broadcaster, web journalist, and music presenter in New York City. His career gives him the opportunity to cover a wide spectrum of topics including, history, culture, and, most importantly, his true passion of music from faraway places such as Europe, South America, and Africa.
He is the host and producer for The Checkout, which showcases new music “on the other side of jazz” by some of the best artists on this planet including Herbie Hancock, Robert Glasper, Hiatus Kiayote, Hermeto Pascoal, Kamasi Washington, Flying Lotus, Henry Threadgill, Cassandra Wilson, and many others.
Aside from working in media, he is a curator and producer of concerts in New York City at spaces such as The Beacon Theatre, Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Town Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, The (old) Knitting Factory, Le Poisson Rouge, and Bryant Park. Some of the artists he’s presented include Hugh Masekela with Abdullah Ibrahim, The Punch Brothers, Cecil Taylor, Rosanne Cash, and the late Andrew Hill.
In addition to The Checkout, Rentner has hosted and produced content for NPR, PRI, WGBH, and WNYC. He’s won PRINDI awards for his news stories on The WBGO Journal. He’s produced long and short content for Jazz Night in America, Jazz at Lincoln Center Radio (hosted by both Ed Bradley and Wynton Marsalis), Toast of the Nation, Afropop Worldwide, Marketplace, and The Leonard Lopate Show.
His radio shows also feature celebrated voices and minds, not limited to music, such as, Jessica Lange, Ellsworth Kelly, Lee Friedlander, Mark Morris to name a few. He’s also covered the music cultural histories from Colombia, France, Sierra Leone, Mali, Argentina, Madagascar, Venezuela, Peru, Canada, and, naturally, the United States.
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Musical couple José James and Taali perform the song "I Found A Love" while quarantined in their New York City apartment, in the first of a new series of videos from Jazz Night in America.
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We celebrate 25 Years of democracy in South Africa by focusing on the trailblazers that stayed during the brutal era of apartheid, featuring Herbie Tsoaeli and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. -
Explore two sides of Mark Guiliana's creative brain, with two different sounding bands, from two hemispheres of the globe: The Mark Guiliana Jazz Quartet from Amsterdam and Beat Music from Brooklyn.
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Pianist and electronic DJ Mark de Clive-Lowe turns his mistakes into art by sampling his bandmates live in the moment.
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Join Jazz Night in America on a visit to Clarksdale, Miss., where struggling musicians are reaping the benefits of blues tourism.
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Hugh Masekela and Abdullah Ibrahim, two of the biggest stars to emerge from South Africa, achieved success independently. But the two are cosmically linked by a single 1960 recording session. -
The annual jazz festival features so many bands on so many stages that we asked a few writers (and a photographer) to highlight some of this year's best moments. -
Jazz in its most flexible definition hits New York City in a marathon weekend every January. Here are some of the 120 bands to seek out, including Camila Meza, Makaya McCraven and Ray Angry. -
Montreal is a city of two cultures: French and English, usually commingling, sometimes colliding. The Montreal International Jazz Festival — Canada's grandest music event of the year — props up the city's elite Francophones. Here are five French or Quebecois artists featured this year. -
For centuries, the country turned its back on black musicians — including the jazz artists whose creations embodied freedom and empowerment. Today, the Cape Town International Jazz Festival is one of Africa's largest musical gatherings. Here are five musicians who played the festival this year.
