Monthly Archives: August 2004

WNUR Jazz Show, August 19 2004

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Ah, back on the air. I was afraid today’s show would be rough, because I only got about four hours of sleep — I was volunteering last night at the Interchange Festival‘s opening concert. But, my White Hen coffee seemed to keep me going and it turned out to be a fun show. And someone even called in to say he was enjoying it, which is always rewarding.
For some reason, the title track to Conference of the Birds was going through my head last night as I went to sleep, plus it’s a nice mellow way to start an early show, so we led off with that. “Trance Tracks” caught my attention during shuffle-play listening yesterday, so it got in the queue too.
Scott kicked off his set with a nice Jackie McLean cut featuring Ray Draper on tuba (as the album title suggests) and I busied myself digging up some more music. Getting home late kept me from finding a whole lot of stuff from home to play. Among the stuff I found a very fun record by Bill Tapia, who is apparently one of the pre-eminent Hawaiian Jazz artists. He was 96 when the album was recorded two years ago. Mellow versions of jazz standards may help me pretend I’m still on vacation!

artist: “track” – album   (label)

David Holland Quartet: “Conference of the Birds” – Conference of the Birds (ECM)
Gerry Hemingway: “Trance Tracks” – Acoustic Solo Works, 1983-94 (Random Acoustics)
Ken McIntyre: “Geo’s Tune” – Looking Ahead (Prestige New Jazz)
begin apprentice set
Jackie McLean: “Flickers” – Introducing Ray Draper on Tuba (Prestige)
Mose Allison: “I Got a Right to Cry” – Ol’ Devil Mose (Prestige)
Sonic Liberation Front: “pow!” – ashe a go-go (High Two)
Gil Evans: “Orange was the Color of her Dress, then Blue Silk” – Priestess (Antilles)
Jim McNeely: “Burgundy and the Virgin Snow” – The Plot Thickens (Muse)
end apprentice set
Paul Giallorenzo/Anton Hatwich/Mike Reed: “Illany (Love Theme)” – Live @ 3030, 3/11/2004 (Self-produced)
Misha Mengelbert/Steve Lacy/George Lewis/Arjen Gorter/Han Bennink: “Step Tempest” – Change of Season (Music of Herbie Nichols) (Soul Note)
Bill Tapia: “Mood Indigo” – Tropical Swing (MOOnROOm)
André Jaume/John Medeski: “Ba-lue Bolivar Ba-lues-are” – Team Games (CELP)
Bang on a Can: “Hout” – Gigantic Human Dancing Machine (Cantaloupe)
Atipico Trio: “Calipsophone” – Allegro con Brio (Leo)
World Saxophone Quartet with African Drums: “Africa” – Metamorphosis (Elektra)
Joseph Jarman/Famoudou Don Moye/Johnny Dyani: “Ode to Wilbur Ware” – Black Paladins (Black Saint)
The Vandermark Five: “Knock Yourself Out (for Jean-Michel Basquiat)” – Elements of Style… …Exercises in Surprise (Atavistic)
Joëlle Léandre/Gianni Lenoci: “Balançoire 3” – Sur Une Balançoire (Actuelle Music)
Shelley Weiss/Fred Lonberg-Holm/Noel Kupersmith: “The Dismemberment” – Redmoon Theater’s Frankenstein (composed by Michael Zerang) (Garlic Records)
Eight Bold Souls: “Third One Smiles” – Last Option (Thrill Jockey)
Fred Jackson: “Preach Brother” – Hootin’ and Tootin’ (Blue Note)
Wayne Horvitz and Pigpen: “Miss Ann” – Live in Poland (Cavity Search)
DKV Trio: “Elephantasy” – Trigonometry (3/31/2001) (Okkadisk)

WNUR Jazz Show, August 5 2004

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Whoops. Somehow I neglected to post the playlist for the last show. This was actually two Thursdays ago, as I was out of town this last week — the 8/12 show was covered by Alain (thanks!)
For this show, I was joined by Scott, who is “apprenticing”. (WNUR DJs spend a quarter or more “apprenticing” with an experienced DJ to learn their way around the equipment and the music library.) Scott’s set spanned the Gary Bartz, Count Basie, and Chuck Brown tracks during the first hour.
The Roswell Rudd/Toumani Diabate collaboration album Malicool is indeed cool — the track I played, “Jackie-ing”, is a Thelonious Monk composition, but it’s mostly not so specifically in the Jazz idiom. I’m also pretty excited about the David Murray/Gwo-ka Masters album, which I probably should have looked up before now. The Gwo-ka masters are Guadaloupean drummers and singers and they really rock out. “Onomatapée” is a playful glossolalia which is eventually joined by Murray’s slinky bass clarinet. Most of the album has more instrumentalists (including Hugh Ragin, Craig Harris, Pheeroan AkLaff and Santi Debriano) but most if not all the tracks do have vocal contributions from the Guadaloupeans.

Charles Mingus: “Solo Dancer” – The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady (Impulse)
New Horizons Ensemble: “BHU” – After the Dawn has Risen (Open Minds)
Scott’s Set
Gary Bartz NTU Troop: “I’ve Known Rivers” – I’ve Known Rivers and other Bodies (Prestige)
Count Basie: “The Comeback” – Count Basie Sings/Joe Williams Swings (Verve)
Count Basie: “If I Were a Bell” – Count Basie/Sarah Vaughan (Roulette)
Chuck Brown: “Red Top” – This is a Journey…Into Time (Raw Venture)
End of Scott’s Set
Niù Abdominaux Dangereux: “Ghosts” – Ghosts (Heron Music)
Joe McPhee: “Shakey Jake” – Nation Time (CJR/Unheard Music Series)
Aesop Quartet: “Cuttin’ and Scratchin’ featuring Rob Swift” – Fables for a New Milennium (8th Harmonic Breakdown)
François Houle 5: “Old Blues” – In The Vernacular: The Music of John Carter (Songlines)
Jimmy Giuffre/Andre Jaume: “Once” – Momentum, Willisau 1988 (Hatology)
Steelwool Trio: “Tough Sledding (for David Smith)” – International Front (Okkadisk)
Buell Neidlinger Quintet: “The Gig” – Blue Chopsticks: A Portrait of Herbie Nichols (K2B2)
Tomato Box: “The Syndicate” – Talisman (Rattle Tick Buzz)
David Murray and the Gwo-Ka Masters: “Onomatapée (Boula Djél)” – Yonn-Dé (Justin Time)
Roswell Rudd/Toumani Diabate: “Jackie-ing” – Malicool (Soundscapes)
Jazz Epistles: “Blues for Hughie” – Jazz Epistles Verse 1 (Celluloid)
Jaap Blonk, Ingar Zach and Ivar Grydeland: “Tambey” – Jaap Blonk, Ingar Zach and Ivar Grydeland (Kontrans)
André Jaume/Sapto Raharjo: “Blues for Aïda” – Borobudur Suite (CELP)

Home Again

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Just got back tonight from a week away: first, a few days at my in-laws home in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and then we all drove to Pensacola, Florida for a few days at the beach. For those who have been following the weather, yes, we were close to the “weather action” in Florida last week, but our trip was not seriously affected. Tropical Storm Bonnie passed over the Florida Panhandle to the east of Pensacola. We saw about five minutes of rain while we drove into town, and a healthy but quick downpour while we were taking a little walk on the beach after we dropped our stuff in the hotel room. Meanwhile, Hurricane Charley, as has been well documented, turned fierce and caused a lot of problems in Southwestern Florida, but there was no sign of that in P-cola. In fact, we had a beautiful weekend, with cooler-than-usual temperatures but plenty of sun and relatively calm waters in the Gulf of Mexico.
I didn’t check email during the entire trip – from Monday afternoon until tonight. I returned to nearly 6200 messages in my inbox, or about 1000 per day. I subscribe to several fairly busy mailing lists, but 3839 (about 60%) were marked as spam by Spam Assassin. That leaves quite a few to slog through, but hopefully they are mostly on the mailing lists that I only monitor superficially. We’ll see how that goes…