CiTR -- The Jazz Show

Tonight's Jazz Feature is the third album in young Herbie Hancock's Blue Note Records era. All of his Blue Note albums are "classics" but this one is lesser known but an important document. It was supposed to be a straight forward piano trio album with Herbie playing well known standards, plus a couple of originals and a couple of 12 bar blues. Herbie had something very different in mind and creat...

Tonight is a special Jazz Feature as it it the music of Charles Mingus but not by his Jazz Workshop band but by Mingus alone at the piano. It is unique in his recorded legacy and features Charles playing his own compositions and standards that he loved on the piano alone. The piano had always been part of Mingus` musical journey and it was occasionally heard on some recordings especially one with...

Tonight`s Jazz Feature is the recording debut of a young prodigy named Eric Kloss. Eric is celebrating his 73rd Birthday today and playing his music is a good idea to honor his recorded legacy. Eric was born blind and learned music and the saxophone at the Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children and made his professional debut at age 12!! He continued to perform in and around Philadelphia a...

Tonight's Jazz Feature is in effect our final tribute to the passing of saxophonist/composer Wayne Shorter. The album is by Miles Davis and "The Second Great Quintet" with Miles Davis on trumpet, Wayne Shorter on tenor saxophone, Herbie Hancock on piano, Ron Carter on bass and the young master drummer, Tony Williams. The album represents the Quintet at a creative peak and as the band was very busy...

Tonight we present a very special concert that took place in Vancouver at the newly opened Queen Elizabeth Theatre and was presented by the old Vancouver New Jazz Society. It took place on a Sunday night on December 6, 1959. The star was the great Modern Jazz pianist Russ Freeman. Mr. Freeman was one of the leading and busiest pianists on the West Coast as he had played with Charlie Parker, Chet B...

Tonight's Jazz Feature is a bit of a catch-up as we return to live broadcasting. This Jazz Feature is an extended tribute to Black History Month and part 1 is Sonny Rollins' famous piece "The Freedom Suite" which was recorded in February of 1958 for Riverside Records. Mr. Rollins wrote this suite and performed it here with two pioneers of Modern Jazz, bassist Oscar Pettiford and drummer Max Roach....

Tonight's Jazz Feature is one of Charles Mingus' most intense and incendiary recordings. It was done with his core band that worked a long gig with him at a New York club called "The Showplace". The gig was coming to an end and his two horn players were about to leave. As Mingus had just signed a contract with a new independent label called Candid Records, it gave him the opportunity to record the...

Tonight's Jazz Feature pays tribute to Black History Month with this seminal recording by Herbie Hancock. It was his final album for Blue Note records and the first by his new working band. He had left Miles Davis' band and was embarking on his own career as a leader in 1969. This album was written and created as a musical statement reflecting the turbulent times in the USA and the anger and disco...

Tonight's Jazz Feature is a bit different as this is our Fundrive Edition of The Jazz Show and I wanted to have a shorter Jazz Feature interspersed with reminders to donate to CITR's Fundrive by going to www.cirt.ca/donate. For the Jazz Feature we present four classic recording sessions with the great alto saxophonist and pioneer of Modern Jazz. We will hear these four sessions spanning 1947 to 19...

Chicago born John Arnold Griffin 111 is better known as simply Johnny or in some cases "The Little Giant." Griffin was and is one of the major voices of the tenor saxophone. He emigrated to New York in late 1956 and was soon causing musical excitement in the Big Apple. He recorded his first Blue Note album and it was getting lots of play and in early 1957 he joined Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. He...

Tonight`s Jazz Feature is one of the few albums under his name that he recorded despite the fact that master drummer Arthur Taylor was on literally hundreds of recording sessions in the 50`s and 60`s. He played with everyone of note from Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk et al. The Jazz Feature album is called `A.T.`s Delight` and it is one that Art Taylor was proud o...

Drum great Max Roach is tonight`s Jazz Feature Artist. Mr. Roach was always aware of civil rights and was politically aware of the changes in American society but around about 1960 he decided to combine his music with the politics of civil rights and made a statement that he would never play any music that didn`t have social significance. Tonight`s Jazz Feature is his fine album, his first of two...

Tonight's Jazz Feature is our first for 2023 and it spotlights the talents of Dizzy Gillespie and Stuff Smith. Dizzy Gillespie is of course a Jazz pioneer and the major voice of Modern Jazz trumpet. Hezekiah "Stuff" Smith is a a rarity in Jazz, a master violinist. Stuff has that raw sound derived from the blues and a deep swing and a style that is very adaptable. Producer Norman Granz was right wh...

Tonight's Jazz Feature is a special one as composer arranger Gil Evans did not record many albums under his name. He became prominent as an important collaborator with Miles Davis and they produced three important and iconic albums, "Miles Ahead", "Porgy and Bess" and "Sketches of Spain". Davis was the principal soloist and the arrangements for the accompanying orchestra was conducted and arranged...

Tonight's Jazz Feature is of course a classic and one of tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins' great recorded moments. It was a meeting with two great musicians that Sonny had never played with or met before the recording session! It could have been either a triumph or a disaster but of course it was a triumph and even the self-critical Mr. Rollins likes the results. It was beautifully recorded by Cont...

Tonight's Jazz Feature is a masterful album by one of the most distinctive voices of the alto saxophone John Lenwood McLean, better known as "Jackie". This is a date that he was proud of and rightly so. Mclean is in top form with this hand-picked quartet with pianist/composer Larry Willis on piano, the great Bob Cranshaw on bass and the dynamic Clifford Jarvis from Sun Ra's Archestra on drums. The...

William "Red" Garland leads this classic quintet tonight on The Jazz Show's Jazz Feature. In the Fall of 1957 Red had some time off as Miles Davis' regular pianist because Miles was on a tour of Europe and involved in making the soundtrack from the French noir film "Elevator to the Scaffold". Red secured some gigs in and around New York with this band which included tenor giant John Coltrane, trum...

Tonight's Jazz Feature is a new voice on the big baritone saxophone. His name is Jason Marshall. He is an "in your face" player with a huge deep sound and tons of technique and facility to get around the big horn. He has had great teachers like Hamiet Bluiett, Ronnie Cuber and Gary Smulyan. His inspiration comes from listening long and hard to Bruce Johnson, Leo Parker and Nick Brignola and of cou...

In honor of a recent Birthday Anniversary of the great alto saxophonist Phil Woods, tonight's Jazz Feature is a concert by one of Mr. Woods' finest ensembles, his European Rhythm Machine. Woods formed this band right after a move to Europe in 1968 that revitalized his career and his music. Tonight's Jazz Feature is from a concert that took place at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. The ba...

Tonight's Jazz Feature is part of this month's series of unissued or newly unearthed albums. This one falls into the latter category. People were aware this date took place as it was listed in discographies but only one tune was ever actually issued. John Coltrane's contract with Impulse Records included a clause that he would have private tapes of everything he recorded for the label. When he die...

Tonight's Jazz Feature is part of this month's series of unissued or newly unearthed albums. This one falls into the latter category. People were aware this date took place as it was listed in discographies but only one tune was ever actually issued. John Coltrane's contract with Impulse Records included a clause that he would have private tapes of everything he recorded for the label. When he die...

Horace Parlan was born in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania and came to prominence with the 1958/59 edition of the Charles Mingus Jazz Workshop. after leaving Mingus he recorded prolifically as a sideman and signed a contract with Blue Note Records. His albums did well and he was a busy pianist. He developed a unique style of playing because of a handicap brought on by childhood polio which paralysed two fi...

The Dave Brubeck Quartet is our Jazz Feature from a live concert from The College of the Pacific on Dec. 14,1953 with Paul Desmond on alto saxophone, Ron Crotty on bass and Joe Dodge on drums playing his very first gig with the band. This concert was special for Brubeck as it was at his alma mater. Desmond in particular loved the acoustics of the hall too as it brought out special properties of hi...

This recording by Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers was not released until 2021 even though it was recorded in 1959. It is tonight's Jazz Feature and the theme of the five Mondays in the month of October will be albums that were never issued at the time of their recording. This marvelous Blakey album was never issued by Blue Note Records because the band, 6 weeks after this session was recorded,...

Tonight's Jazz Feature is a fine album by the "welterweight champion of the tenor saxophone", Hank Mobley. The music typifies New York Jazz of the mid-50's and is timeless and always contemporary sounding. The people involved are Mobley and trumpeter Bill Hardman who was working at the time with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, pianist Sonny Clark, bassist Paul Chambers and ace drummer Arthur Taylor....