Posted in Jazz Notes on Aug 25th, 2007
Alto saxophonist Frank Morgan, born in 1933, is one of the last great bop storytellers and living connections to that age of music. He’s also one of the last musicians left from the glory days of Los Angeles’ Central Avenue scene, a school-of-the-streets from which Dexter Gordon, Charles Mingus, Art Farmer, and many others graduated…
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Posted in Books, Jazz Notes on Aug 2nd, 2007
My jazz-DJ colleague Joe Bourne noted yesterday that it was the 65th anniversary of the American Federation of Musicians recording ban, which began on Aug. 1, 1942 and didn’t completely end until major labels Columbia and Victor came to terms with the union in late 1944. (Decca, the other of the “Big Three” during…
Posted in Jazz Notes on Jul 30th, 2007
This September Ken Burns’ new PBS series The War will be broadcast around the country, prompting the usual media firestorm of attention that accompanies any new Burns production. Such blockbuster programs tend to leave a kind of coffeetable-book closure effect in their wake, and that effect may be even more pronounced with this particular series, given that the generation which experienced World War II is rapidly passing away. I’ll be interested to see what Burns presents about the aftermath of the war on the American homefront–the mid-to-late years of the 1940s, which seem to have been filled…
Posted in Shows on Jul 9th, 2007
In the years following World War II, a number of African-American jazz musicians took up residence in France, inspired by the relative lack of racism, the working opportunities, and the appreciation that French audiences showed for their art. Jazz greats such as Dexter Gordon, Bud Powell…
Posted in Shows on May 19th, 2007
In the 1940s and 1950s the jazz format emerged on radio, and with it a number of colorful, laidback on-air personalities who helped disseminate the new sounds of bebop and early R & B. In response, musicians sometimes wrote and recorded tributes to these DJs. In this program, inspired by the passing of longtime DJ great Oscar Treadwell, we’ll hear Charlie Parker’s…
Posted in Shows on Apr 28th, 2007
In the mid-to-late 1940s, as the sound of swing gave way to the rise of bebop, popular bandleaders found themselves trying to incorporate the new music’s more complex rhythms and harmonies into their dance-orchestra styles. Bebop was just one of several challenges the big bands faced after the end of World War II, but it inspired…
Posted in Shows on Feb 17th, 2007
In this program we explore the sounds of the mid-20th-century Los Angeles jazz scene with historian Steve Isoardi (editor of the oral history book Central Avenue Sounds). Jam sessions, bebop, r & b, big bands, visits from Hollywood celebrities—as the center of African-American culture in L.A., Central Avenue had it all. We’ll hear the music of artists such as Dexter Gordon, Howard McGhee, Hadda Brooks…
Posted in Shows on Sep 9th, 2006
Jazz impresario Norman Granz, who started the popular Jazz at the Philharmonic concert tour series in the 1940s as well as the record label that came to be known as Verve, also produced a lavish package of jazz recordings…
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