Kahlil Kwame Bell Interview | Jazz Percussion, Slapaphone, Jazz Legends & Rhythm Wellness

Welcome to a new edition of the Neon Jazz interview series with Grammy-affiliated Percussionist, Composer, Educator & Bandleader Kahlil Kwame Bell.

For more than 30 years, Kahlil has built an extraordinary career as one of today's most dynamic percussionists, performing at legendary venues including Blue Note, Birdland, and Smalls Jazz Club, along with stages throughout the United States.

His musical journey has placed him alongside some of the most influential artists in jazz, soul, R&B, and popular music, including Branford Marsalis, Wynton Marsalis, Abbey Lincoln, Roy Hargrove, Roberta Flack, and Erykah Badu.

But Kahlil's story goes far beyond performing.

He is the founder of the Kahlil Kwame Bell Foundation and its Where Rhythm Meets Purpose initiative, bringing live jazz and rhythm-based wellness programs into hospitals, libraries, museums, schools, senior communities, and cultural spaces.

He is also the author of Jazz Legends A–Z and is recognized for his innovative work with the Slapaphone, an inventive percussion instrument that reflects his lifelong passion for rhythm, education, and creative exploration.

In this conversation, we get into Kahlil's remarkable musical journey, his experiences performing with jazz legends, the evolution of percussion, the Slapaphone, jazz education, rhythm-based wellness, community engagement, and the powerful connection between music, rhythm, and human wellbeing.

From more than three decades in the music world to creating new ways for rhythm to serve communities, Kahlil Kwame Bell has built a career rooted in music, purpose, education, innovation, and connection.

We dig into this incredible story. Enjoy this interview.

More Kahlil Kwame Bell
Kahlil Kwame Bell — Official Website

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Vivienne Aerts Interview | Current, Floating Studios, Jazz, Electronics & Sound Art

Welcome to a new edition of the Neon Jazz interview series with NYC-based, Dutch-born Artist, Vocalist, Composer & Producer Vivienne Aerts.

We get into her latest 2026 album Current and the remarkable creative journey behind this innovative project.

In the summer of 2025, Vivienne set sail across the Dutch waterways aboard a 1951 mahogany sailboat, transforming the tiny vessel into a floating recording studio over the course of two weeks. Along the way, she recorded new songs and soundscapes that blur the boundaries between jazz, improvisation, electronic music, environmental art, and experimental sound.

It's an artistic process that perfectly reflects Vivienne's creative spirit—curious, adventurous, immersive, and deeply connected to place and experience.

Her work reaches far beyond traditional jazz. She explores electronics, multi-sensory experience design, chocolate, sound, improvisation, and creative technology, while also bringing her background as a clinical psychologist and her work as faculty at Berklee College of Music into her creative life.

In this conversation, we explore Current, the floating studio experience, Dutch waterways, jazz improvisation, electronic music, environmental sound, sensory experiences, psychology, creativity, and the many worlds Vivienne Aerts brings together through her art.

This is a fascinating story about breaking creative boundaries and finding music in unexpected places.

It's quite a story. Enjoy this interview.

More Vivienne Aerts & Current
Vivienne Aerts — *Current*

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Mark Jamilkowski Interview | Mask of Romulus, Ancient Rome, India & Historical Fiction

Welcome to a new edition of the Famous Interviews with Joe Dimino series. On this episode, we catch up with Author Mark Jamilkowski to explore his remarkable journey as a writer and his acclaimed 2025 historical fiction novel, Mask of Romulus.

Published in November 2025, Mask of Romulus takes readers deep into the world of Ancient Rome, where Augustus, Rome's first emperor, encounters Kamala, an oracle from India, creating an unexpected connection between two ancient civilizations. The novel weaves together history, philosophy, mythology, political power, spirituality, and human destiny.

Mark's inspiration for the novel began with an archaeological discovery in Pompeii—including the discovery of a statue of the Hindu goddess Lakshmi—which led him to explore the historical connections between ancient Rome and India.

This is also a reunion conversation. We originally caught up with Mark in 2024, and much has happened since then. His writing career has continued to grow alongside his work as a healthcare startup entrepreneur, and Mask of Romulus has attracted strong reviews and recognition from publications covering historical fiction.

We also revisit his first historical fiction novel, The Road to Moresco, which follows Maria-Luisa and her daughter Chiara through the upheavals of early 20th-century Europe. Mark drew heavily on research, interviews, and family history to create the story.

In this conversation, we get into historical fiction, Ancient Rome, Augustus Caesar, ancient India, mythology, philosophy, research, storytelling, entrepreneurship, family history, the creative process, and what it means to bring the past to life through fiction.

It's quite a story. Enjoy this interview.

More Mark Jamilkowski
Mark Jamilkowski — Official Website 

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George Stoimenov Interview | Rise From The Ashes, Trauma, Recovery & Transformation

Welcome to a new edition of the Famous Interviews with Joe Dimino series. On this episode, we talk with UK-based Podcaster, Entrepreneur, Coach, Author & Frontline Worker George Stoimenov about his remarkable journey and his latest book, Rise From The Ashes.

Born in Bulgaria and now based in the UK, George has spent the past 12 years working with some of the country's most vulnerable people, including homeless youth, newly arrived asylum seekers, and men currently on probation through the UK's Ministry of Justice. His frontline experiences have profoundly shaped his work around men's work, trauma, recovery, emotional healing, and personal transformation.

His latest book, Rise From The Ashes: A 4-Step Guide to Getting Unstuck, grew from his experiences helping vulnerable people and offers a practical framework for anyone—men or women—who feels stuck, lost, overwhelmed, or buried beneath the weight of their past.

In this conversation, George opens up about the experiences that shaped him, his work on the frontline, the realities of trauma and recovery, men's mental health, emotional awareness, purpose, relationships, and the process of transforming pain into something meaningful.

We also explore the ideas behind Rise From The Ashes and why sometimes moving forward doesn't require reinventing your entire life—it begins with one honest step in a new direction.

George's story is one of pain, redemption, resilience, purpose, service, and transformation.

We cover his whole transformative and inspirational journey. Enjoy this interview.

More George Stoimenov
Men's Corner — Official Website

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Adrian Wolfberg Interview | Who Leads When AI Thinks? Leadership, AI & Decision-Making

Welcome to a new edition of the Famous Interviews with Joe Dimino series. On this episode, we talk with Researcher, Author, Scientist, Former U.S. Intelligence Officer & Former Naval Officer Adrian Wolfberg about his provocative new 2026 book, Who Leads When AI Thinks?: How Leaders Frame Decisions and Exercise Judgment.

Adrian's work explores one of the most important questions facing leaders today: how do individuals and organizations make decisions when problems are complex, ambiguous, uncertain, and increasingly influenced by artificial intelligence?

He earned a Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from Case Western Reserve University, a master's degree from the National War College in Washington, DC, and an Honors B.A. from York University in Canada.

Drawing on decades of experience across national security, intelligence, military service, organizational research, and knowledge management, Adrian examines the individual, organizational, emotional, and cognitive forces that shape how leaders interpret information and exercise judgment.

His new book, Who Leads When AI Thinks?, takes this conversation directly into the emerging relationship between AI and human leadership. As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly capable of generating information, analyzing possibilities, and influencing decisions, what remains uniquely human about leadership?

In this conversation, we explore AI and leadership, human judgment, decision-making, organizational behavior, intelligence, uncertainty, knowledge management, cognitive bias, emotional dynamics, complex problems, strategic thinking, and the future of leadership in an AI-driven world.

Adrian is currently the Founder and CEO of Organizational Insight Consulting LLC, where his experience across national security and organizational science informs his work helping leaders understand how knowledge and judgment actually function inside complex organizations.

Who leads when AI thinks? It's a question that is only becoming more important. Enjoy this fascinating interview.

More Adrian Wolfberg
Adrian Wolfberg — Amazon Author Page 

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Pomelo Interview | Luke Elliott & Wynnm Murphy on Loreless, Art-Pop & Creative Freedom

Welcome to a new edition of the Neon Jazz interview series with Netherlands-based pop duo Pomelo, featuring Luke Elliott and Wynnm Murphy.

We caught up with this exciting duo to explore their debut album Loreless, new music, their collective creative energy, and the unique sonic world they are building together.

Pomelo creates seductive, engaging art-pop that draws from its musical influences while remaining firmly forward-facing. Their sound blends avant-garde electronic techniques, watery resonant textures, atmospheric production, intimate songwriting, and sexy storytelling into something that feels both otherworldly and deeply human.

Loreless is vulnerable, personal, experimental, and emotionally direct. Across the project, Luke Elliott and Wynnm Murphy create a sonic landscape where electronic experimentation meets organic feeling and storytelling.

In this conversation, we get into the making of Loreless, the creative partnership behind Pomelo, electronic music, experimental pop, art-pop, songwriting, sonic textures, vulnerability, collaboration, and the inspiration behind their distinctive musical identity.

It's a fascinating look at two artists creating music that feels connected to the present while pointing toward the sound of tomorrow.

Dig their story.

More Pomelo & Loreless
Pomelo — *Loreless* on Bandcamp

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Carol Lin Interview | 9/11 News Anchor, CNN Journalist & Author of When News Breaks

Welcome to a new edition of the Famous Interviews with Joe Dimino series. On this episode, we talk with Veteran ABC/CNN Journalist and Author Carol Lin, best known as the first national anchor to report the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Carol's extraordinary journalism career has taken her to some of the most consequential stories of our time, including the Kosovo War, the fall of the Taliban, the war in Iraq, the LA Riots, and investigative reporting on human trafficking.

Her work has earned some of journalism's highest honors, including the Emmy Award, Peabody Award, and Alfred I. duPont Award.

But Carol's new memoir, When News Breaks, goes far beyond the headlines.

For Carol, breaking news and that defining split second when lives change became both an obsession and a calling—a love affair her traditional Chinese mother warned would never love her back. Then devastating news enters her own life, forcing Carol to confront questions that couldn't be answered from behind a news desk.

She writes candidly about journalism, 9/11, ambition, marriage, infidelity, cancer, motherhood, sacrifice, identity, family, and the price of a career that demands everything.

When News Breaks is ultimately the story of a woman who has witnessed history firsthand but still has to discover who she is when the cameras stop rolling and the headlines disappear.

In this powerful conversation, we explore Carol's career, the experience of covering history as it happens, the responsibility of journalists during breaking news, her journey through personal adversity, and the path toward becoming the mother and person she wanted to be.

From her base in Hawaii, Carol Lin shares an incredible life filled with integrity, grit, courage, truth, journalism, and humanity.

More Carol Lin
Carol Lin — Official Website

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