CiTR -- The Jazz Show

Tonight's Jazz Feature is our small celebration to Halloween as tonight is October 31st! Joseph Rudolph Jones aka "Philly Joe" a nickname he adopted to distinguish himself from the older Basie drummer Jo Jones. Philly Joe came to national fame as part of Miles Davis' "first great quintet" and became one of the most in-demand sideman and appeared on so many classic recordings in the 50s and 60s and...

Alto saxophonist William "Sonny" Criss was undeservedly overlooked for most of his rather frustrating career. He truly is one of the very greats on his instrument and a powerful emotionally direct player with a beautiful full singing tone. Sonny's most prolific recording period was the 1960s when in 1965 he was signed with Prestige Records. The seven or so albums he did for that label are all real...

This album came about because of Miles Davis. Gil Evans who was a composer/arranger collaborated on a trio of Miles Davis recordings that became instant classics: these were "Miles Ahead", "Porgy and Bess" and "Sketches of Spain". Through these albums, Gil Evans' name became a household one in the late 50s and early 60s and through his notoriety he was able to form his own orchestra and the magnif...

Tonight on The Jazz Feature we present a group pf recording sessions that feature two great iconoclasts of Jazz music.: Art Blakey and Thelonious Monk who are celebrating their Birthday Anniversaries on Oct 10 (Monk) and Oct. 11 (Blakey). Blakey and Monk not only shared musical empathy but a lifelong friendship. Blakey was the drummer on Monk's very first recordings in 1947 and they continued that...

This album was recorded at the legendary Jazz Workshop in the North Beach area of San Francisco in October of 1962. In 1959 Max Roach declared that his music would from that time on reflect not only his musical stance but his political stance as regards civil rights for his people of African-American heritage. After this recording, Mr. Roach was boycotted by many booking agents and the record comp...

This is a classic John Coltrane recording to celebrate his 90th Birthday Anniversary. The album was his only date for Blue Note Records and it occupies the position of Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue", Brubeck's "Take Five" or Coltrane's "A Love Supreme" as being an essential Jazz album. Coltrane was given rehearsal time and was able to hand pick the personnel. He chose a young Lee Morgan on trumpet wh...

This classic recording done in the mid-50s is our second Jazz feature into the "back to school" idea with an educational and entertaining lecture into what Jazz music is and what it isn't. Leonard Bernstein loved, understood and respected Jazz music and was a master communicator. This is less a history of Jazz but an analysis in a non-academic fashion of many of the unique musical elements that ma...

This Jazz feature is a long time September tradition on The Jazz Show as it is entertaining and educational. It celebrates the usual September time of "back to school, back to work" and so on. Julian "Cannonball" Adderley was one of the leading alto saxophonists in Jazz music and a great bandleader and Jazz communicator. He was a former school teacher before embarking on his fabled musical career....

This incredibly innovative album is from 1961 and combines the intuitive artistry of the one and only Stan Getz with the innovative string compositions by Eddie Sauter. Tenor saxophonist Getz is one of the most lyrical and distinctive voices on that instrument and displays all his great talents on this album of which he was most proud. Many great Jazz stars recorded with strings but nothing ever m...

Tonight's Jazz Feature was the last recording of one of tenor saxophonist Stan Getz' finest bands. This was a truly magical band that included Getz and valve trombonist Bob Brookmeyer, they both exhibited a genuine 6th sense and blended and played together so well. The band for this session was re-united for a series of concerts and this recording done in Los Angeles on November 9,1954. There was...

This set was recorded in October 1960 for the new Candid label. Writer and close Mingus friend Nat Hentoff was the producer and Mingus brought his core band in a reunited effort to capture the music that Mingus had played on a long gig at a Greenwich Village club called "The Showplace". There were no recordings from there and this date was set up to capture the excitement and creativity of that gi...

Duke Ellington wrote this suite after performing with his band and later spending a few days going to plays and experiencing the great Shakespearean Festival in Stratford, Ontario in 1956.. Ellington was so inspired by all of this that over almost a year he and his alter-ego Billy Strayhorn composed the twelve movements of "Such Sweet Thunder". All of the pieces are Ellington and Strayhorn's conce...

Walt Dickerson (1928-2008) was one of the most individual voices of the vibraphone, He is one of the very few who was NOT influenced by Milt Jackson. He developed his own sound and approach to the vibes by listening to horn players. He was also a fine composer of original works. Dickerson never achieved the recognition he richly deserved as he emerged in the 1960s...it was Gary Burton and Bobby Hu...

John Coltrane signed with Impulse Records in 1961 and in May began to record his monumental first album for Impulse called "Africa/Brass"... however he was informed that he still owed one more recording to his previous label, Atlantic Records. Coltrane honored this commitment by bringing in his working Quartet with McCoy Tyner on piano, Reginald Workman on bass and Elvin Jones on drums. He added t...

When you hear the alto saxophone of Art Pepper, there is no doubt as to who it is. Art's sound and emotional directness hits hard and as someone put it, "Art plays for his life". Art's life was a convoluted mess and interrupted by long prison sentences for drug use but Pepper always played his best, no matter the circumstances. This album called "The Trip" was made in 1976 after his release from r...

This is a a rather special Jazz Feature and it is a complete solo concert by one of the great geniuses of the piano....Keith Jarrett. Little has to be said here as Mr. Jarrett before performing one of these concerts completely clears his head of an preconception and lets his muse take over. For me, Gavin Walker, this solo concert has never in the many years since I first listened to it has never f...

Composer and Gary McFarland only loved until he was 38 years old but accomplished much in his musical life. His recorded legacy is vast and is worth a check on the internet. Tonight as a tribute to The Fourth of July we present what is considered McFarland's masterpiece...."America The Beautiful-An Account of it's Disappearance". Written in 1968, a time when America was in the midst of a very unse...

Cornettist Nat Adderley was a great musician who was somewhat overshadowed by his big brother Cannonball Adderley. Nat was a formidable musician oin his own right. He preferred the smaller and sharper sounding cornet to the trumpet and excelled. He put together this great band for a one night stand at an LA club called Memory Lane. His front line partner is Joe Henderson, one of the great tenor sa...

Alto saxophonist Charles McPherson is truly one of the living masters of the alto saxophone and at age 77 is very active, playing, traveling, teaching, recording, composing. McPherson has been on the Jazz forefront since the late 50s, first with the volcanic bassist Charles Mingus on and off for more than 15 years. Pianist Barry Harris was one of McPherson's mentors from his early days in Detroit...

This band was a mix of two generations of players. Tenor saxophonist Harold Land was one of the leading tenor saxophonists on the scene and had rose to fame in the early 50s. Vibist Bobby Hutcherson was about a dozen years younger than Land and came up in the turbulent 60s and established himself as the leading post-Milt Jackson vibist who was capable of playing in "straight-ahead" contexts and "a...

The Jazz festival host Gavin Walker turns things over to John Orysik this evening. John is the Media Director and the chief spokesperson for The Coastal jazz and Blues Society, the organization that every year produces the Vancouver International Jazz Festival. John will pick all the music for tonight's show. Listen up!

This band, led by Miles Davis reveals his complete move to original material and his complete transformation of his music bringing in elements of rock and funk and mixing electric and acoustic instruments. It is really in this writer's opinion one of his finest electric post "Bitches Brew" bands. It was not well represented on records until Columbia issued this set of 6CDs in 2005 called "Miles Da...

This album marked a change and impending changes in Miles Davis music and his life. It also was the last recorded statement of the Second Great Quintet. The album is often overlooked and yet it is a rather profound musical journey. The recording took place in two different sessions. The first from June of 1968 consists of three new Miles Davis compositions recorded over three days. These were the...

This was the evolutionary and revolutionary band led by trumpeter Miles Davis that is referred to as his "second great quintet". The final stage of the quintet was formed in late 1964 when the last member, tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter came aboard. The band was essentially together as a unit until 1968 when personnel changes took place and Davis' music took a different direction. The second grea...

Drummer Tony Williams declared in a published statement that "Milestones is the greatest Jazz recording of all time". It might be over the top but Tony, who played with Miles Davis from 1963 through 1969 was only 17 when he joined Davis and this recording was a large part of his learning process. It was done in two sessions on February and March of 1958 and featured Miles Davis' best rhythm sectio...