If you’ve tuned into New England Public Media’s “Jazz à la Mode” this past week, you may have heard a new guy introducing the music on the Monday-to-Friday evening show. And if you’re a jazz fan, you know that he knows his stuff.

Avery Sharpe, the acclaimed bassist and composer who got his start at UMass Amherst, is now on “Jazz à la Mode” as a program host alongside longtime host Tom Reney and two newer hosts, Peter Sokolowksi and Bex Taylor.

Sharpe’s jazz credentials are extensive to say the least. Since winning attention alongside other “Young Lions” of jazz in the 1980s such as Wynton and Branford Marsalis, Sharpe has worked and recorded with players such as McCoy Tyner, Dizzy Gillespie, Archie Shepp, Wynton Marsalis and many others.

Sharpe, who grew up in Springfield, has also has a deep resume as a jazz educator, leading workshops and classes at UMass, Williams College, Berklee School of Music, and Bates College, and in schools in Peru, Brazil, and Australia. As a composer, his most recent album, “400,” released in 2019, offered a musical synthesis of 400 years of African-American history in the U.S.

“I’ve known Avery Sharpe since we met as students at UMass in 1976,” says Reney, who encouraged him to join NEPM. “It’s great to have the voice and perspective of a major jazz artist who has substantial ties to Springfield and western Mass. added to the team, and I know listeners will agree.”

“When I first heard his records with McCoy Tyner, I knew [Sharpe] was just a monster musician,” adds NEPM President Matt Abramovitz. “Little did I know he’d also be a gifted storyteller and curator.”

Sharpe, who also hosts a radio jazz show called “The Sharpe Side” in South Bend, Indiana, says he’s happy to be part of NEPM, too, playing his favorite music for a new audience: “Stay tuned, keep open ears and let the music soothe and enrapture you.”