The Stranger's Brendan Kiley talks with Frank Boyd about jazz, theater, and America:

After talking with Boyd for an hour, the ebullient DJ character of The Holler Sessions began to seem like a palpable extension of his own personality. (Though he says the character is also influenced by George Carlin and sports radio host "Mad Dog" Russo.) They're both brimming with life, occasionally at a loss for words when overcome by some memory or emotion, and fierce admirers of jazz musicians in a way that is anything but anodyne and sleepy. The Holler Sessions is not a know-it-all DJ dropping the occasional encyclopedic fact—we're watching a jazz evangelist in the process of being born, thrilling to the music in real time.

The character has an underlying urgency, like he's trying to tell us something and jazz is the vehicle at his disposal. "I guess there's something in this music that can better help me understand what I am as an American," Boyd says, sounding a lot like the DJ. "To disregard this music or not encounter it is a huge opportunity that's lost—for self-discovery. I don't know exactly what that might lead to, but I don't know who I am. I work in theater, I'm trying to earn the moniker of artist, I'm from Michigan. I know, like, six things about myself. But listening to this—there's something here that I need, and I don't know what that is yet. But it's important." 

Read the rest of the article at The Stranger.