Posted in Jazz Notes on Jan 31st, 2008
In Part 2 of our interview with alto saxophonist John Handy, he discusses a unique aspect of his sound, the origins of Charles Mingus’ Lester Young tribute “Goodbye Porkpie Hat,” the night Mingus made a scene listening to him play, the Mingus gig that resulted in the live album Jazz Portraits, and the frustrations he faced…
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Posted in Jazz Notes on Jan 30th, 2008
Alto saxophonist John Handy has made monumental jazz records with bassist Charles Mingus, wowed crowds at the Monterey Jazz Festival, delved into world and classical music, had a chart hit with the 1976 single “Hard Work,” and helped pave the way for the rise of jazz education. On February 3 he turns 75, and this week on Night Lights we’ll be featuring his 1960s Roulette and Columbia recordings (including sidemen such as trumpeter Richard Williams, violinist Michael White, and pianist Don Friedman), in addition to a side that he recorded in 1959 with Mingus. Last week he spoke with me by phone from his home in California…
Posted in Jazz Notes on Jan 29th, 2008
A commonly-heard phrase in late 1950s/early 1960s jazz parlance was, “Will the big bands come back?” Woody Herman had a retort: “Sure, next football season.” But there’s fresh, less sarcastic evidence at hand that a few did, with Herman’s among them: a new Mosaic Select set of the bandleader’s early-1960s recordings for the Philips label…
Posted in Shows on Jan 28th, 2008
John Handy is one of the few surviving saxophone heroes from the 1950s and 60s golden age of hardbop. A featherweight boxing champion as a teenager, Handy tested and honed his jazz skills throughout the 1950s on the San Francisco jazz scene, where he was a regular at the city’s famed Bop City club. At the end of the decade he went to New York City and became a key member of Charles Mingus’ group…
Posted in Shows on Jan 21st, 2008
Many listeners know Peggy Lee as a great jazz singer, but she was also a prolific writer of songs—composing or co-composing nearly 200 of them, including hits such as “I Don’t Know Enough About You” and…
Posted in Jazz Notes on Jan 19th, 2008
A number of radio stations around the country have picked up the Night Lights show Dear Martin: Jazz Tributes to Martin Luther King Jr. Station links and air dates follow:
WGBH-Boston: Monday, Jan. 21 from midnight-1 a.m. EST
KZYX-Mendocino County, California: Sunday, Jan. 20 at 2 p.m. Pacific time
KSJD-Cortez, Colorado: Monday, Jan. 21 at 1 p.m…
Posted in Jazz Notes on Jan 18th, 2008
Jazz scholar Mike Fitzgerald, co-author of the Gigi Gryce biography Rat Race Blues, has been leading an effort to build a wonderful online jazz discography resource for the past several years. Recently he added 50 more leader discographies to his website, including pages for…
Posted in Jazz Notes on Jan 16th, 2008
Pianist Frank Kimbrough, who co-founded the Herbie Nichols Project (he can be heard playing and speaking on the Night Lights program Strange City: the Secret Music of Herbie Nichols) will be on the radio twice in the next week: Thursday, Jan. 17 from 11:20-noon EST on WAMC-Albany (Performance Place With Michael Eck) and next Tuesday…
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