Lazaro Vega

When Chick Corea appeared with his Vigil band at St. Cecilia Music Center in 2014 there came a point in the concert where he turned to the audience and said, “We’re just going to play for a while now. You’re welcome to stay.” And the inference was clear: the band was going to stretch out, play long, winding, improvised arrangements and we were welcome to stay for the ride. But if we were expecting a pithy medley of Chick’s hits, well...On his new album “Chinese Butterfly,” which celebrates a 50 year musical collaboration with drummer Steve Gadd, the same aesthetic is in play: stretch. As we heard last night on Jazz From Blue Lake, found here: www.bluelake.org/ondemand.

The truth is Sun Ra had a book of “hits.” That is, if you know Sun Ra’s music, you’re probably familiar with “Saturn,” “Enlightenment,” “Velvet,” “Rocket Number Nine Take Off For the Planet Venus” and “We Travel The Spaceways.” These staples of his marathon live performances, Ra’s music was, as he said, concerned with “the potential future, which I call the alter destiny, realizing that earth is getting over into what you might call different isolated armed camps, and if people don’t get something in common quick, well, they’re not going to have anything at all.” So, to Ra, “Musicians really represent the harmony department of the universe.” Right on. Hear Sun Ra’s music on Jazz From Blue Lake here: www.bluelake.org/ondemand

Jazz From Blue Lake’s broadcast featuring multi-instrumentalist Rahsaan Roland Kirk is heard today at our on-demand page www.bluelake.org/ondemand . From his roots in Ohio, and his first recording for Cincinnati’s King Record label, we explored Kirk’s recording career, ending up in our 5th hour on stage with Charles Mingus at Carnegie Hall. Here’s hoping you’ll join us.

After his May 9, 1966 session for “East Broadway Run Down,” Sonny Rollins didn’t return to the recording studio until 1972, though his touring flourished, especially in Europe. Bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones joined the saxophone colossus, and trumpeter Freddie Hubbard contributed on the epic title piece heard on Jazz From Blue Lake found here today: www.bluelake.org/ondemand

On May 7, 1968 Ornette Coleman completed the recording sessions for two Blue Note albums, “New York Is Now” and “Love Call.” With his boyhood friend Dewey Redman on tenor saxophone and a pocketful of original music, Coleman invited John Coltrane’s sidemen, bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones, into the studio where “Broad Way Blues,” “Back Home” and “Check Out Time” were recorded, as we heard last night during “The Jazz Retrospective” segments of “Jazz From Blue Lake” which you can hear right now today at our on-demand page www.bluelake.org/ondemand

Last recording I have by him released in 2014 on Tum, duos with Bill Laswell, "Space/Time.Redemption" https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=milford+graves+%26+bill+laswell+%E2%80%93+space+time+redemption+

Thought the New Yorker review was fair, and who knew that 1968 meeting between Lee and Clifford Jordan playing "Straight, No Chaser"? Does anyone remember Billy Hart recounting Lee's last night on earth? Found in MP3 form if you scroll down the page. https://ethaniverson.com/interviews/interview-with-billy-hart/

Abney and Ella are on screen in "Pete Kelly's Blues." This was supposed to be the first Verve release, but the Cole Porter Songbook came out and 60 years later we get the, 'Oh yeah.....I forgot about that one.....' The crowd, and maybe that's Granz, is kind of treating her like a human jukebox. A few times she sort of shrugs to the band and says something along the lines of 'we're going off the set list.' She'd worked some stuff up, though, as you can hear in the intro to "Why Don't You Do Right?" That's a thought out arrangement. Kind of wish they'd have left her alone to play what she wanted, though everyone is up to winging it.

From the Lester Young Appreciation Society on Facebook, in response to this radio program posting: Jon Wheatley "I experience Gene as a kind of bebop sax version of Louis Armstrong. His music was down-to-earth, sweet, fiery, sincere and never too ornate. Like, jazz for everyman... I believe Gene had hit songs in three decades. My Foolish Heart (50's) Canadian Sunset (60's) and My Way (70's). Remarkable and his career wasn't even that long. " And from Terry Gibbs, "I worked with Gene on the Woody Herman Band. We know how great he was as a Jazz Saxophonist but a lot of you don't know that he was one of the most gentle people you would love to like to hang out with. We are both on a record called "More Moon" that we recorded with Woody. Gene's two choruses that he played on the record is something that would stay in your head if you ever heard it. It was great."

Gene Ammons soulful tenor saxophone rang out over the airwaves of Blue Lake Public Radio last night. In the first part of each hour we featured Ammons music, starting mid-career, 1961, with music from “Brother Jug” and “The Boss Is Back.” Though Dexter Gordon may have been the first to “bop the tenor saxophone,” Gene Ammons was close behind, digging the music of Charlie Parker, yet completely distinctive in playing ballads. You may check this episode of Jazz From Blue Lake out for yourself via www.bluelake.org/ondemand.

This program is now available from www.bluelake.org/ondemand under "Studio Performances." Ban is deeply influenced by Abdullah Ibrahim. There's some lovely music played in the program, especially the first number, "Dark Blue."

On a less poetic note, check out Sun Ra's "Heliocentric" and then "Splatter." The low brass/drums sudden forte followed by little instrument sounds, that's a texture you'll find in few other places. "Splatter" develops into something different, crescendos into a sort of Braxton-type composition, but the openings are similar.

Thanks for the heads up. Just ordered one.

Hearing the various versions this is built upon is walking the process. At some point you get to the top of the stairs and time flattens out over the upper floor. Fortunately you'll have the feeling of being lifted higher, somewhere above music's roof. "Ride the Wind."

Sunday, April 29th at 3 p.m. please join clarinetist Ben Goldberg and keyboardist Michael Coleman as they present “Practitioner,” a concert realization of soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy’s album “Hocus Pocus (Book H of ‘Practitioners’)” in The Underground Concert Series at LaFontsee Galleries, 833 Lake Drive SE, Grand Rapids. In 1985 Ben Goldberg took a lesson with Steve Lacy where, remembers Goldberg, Lacy, “prescribed some exercises for investigating the basic elements of music. At the end of our meeting he gave me a copy of a new record of his called ‘Hocus Pocus.’” “Hocus Pocus” is an album featuring six etudes for solo soprano saxophone, each titled with a word beginning with the letter “H,” that Steve Lacy described as, “Deliberately made so as to be hard to play,” yet containing many of the characteristic ‘licks’ which comprise the language Lacy used in different kinds of improvisational music. He said, “Each piece is also a portrait of, and an homage to, a distinguished practitioner of a particular art.” Keyboardist Michael Coleman and clarinetist Ben Goldberg studied and recorded Lacy’s compositions over a period of three years and envisioned a kind of dreamlike multidimensional sonic collage which they call “Practitioner.” Pianist, improviser and composer Michael Coleman is a graduate of the Oberlin College where he studied history and jazz piano before moving to Oakland, CA, where he dove into the improvised music scene, working with Scott Amendola, Marcus Shelby, many others, and developing three different bands of his own. Clarinetist Ben Goldberg was a pupil of the eminent clarinetist Rosario Mazzeo and studied with jazz greats Steve Lacy and Joe Lovano. Since 1992 he’s “shaped a career through curiosity and experimentation across genres and styles.” The New York Times wrote Ben’s music, “conveys a feeling of joyous research into basics of polyphony and collective improving, the constant usefulness of musicians intuitively coming together and pull apart.” The Downbeat Critics Poll named him the #1 Rising Star Clarinetist in both 2011 and 2013. Tickets are $20 in advance, $25 at the door ($10 for students or musicians). For information about www.AdventureMusic.org please call (616) 745-4353. This year’s Underground Concert Series is underwritten in part by The Grand Rapids Therapy Group, providing West Michigan with experienced and innovative family, individual, and couples counseling at 500 Cascade W Pkwy SE #240, Grand Rapids, MI Phone: (616) 591-9000. “Experience the difference.”

Please join Blue Lake Public Radio this Saturday morning for a special broadcast from the performance studio featuring the duo “Something Holy.” The Transylvanian expatriate pianist Lucian Ban synthesizes a wide range of playing styles, from Abdullah Ibrahim, Keith Jarrett and Cecil Taylor as a pianist to Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn and Ornette Coleman as a composer. He’s joined by Detroit area baritone saxophonist/bass clarinetist Alexander Harding, a good friend of former Blue Laker James Carter, in wildly expressive spontaneous musical conversations. Jazz From Blue Lake with your host Lazaro Vega airs Saturday morning from 7 – 10 a.m. over WBLV 90.3/WBLU 88.9 and www.bluelake.org/listen. #BlueLakePublicRadio

As we begin Women’s History Month please join Blue Lake on-demand for the first female vocalist featured with a national dance band (The Paul Whiteman Orchestra), who then formed the first big band co-led by a woman (with husband Red Norvo). Mildred Bailey was a microphone singer, an intimate new approach that Bing Crosby popularized as “a crooner.” Women singers who favored the mic were known as “canaries.” Bailey was the first, very different than Mamie or Bessie Smith. As you’ll hear today on Jazz From Blue Lake from Blue Lake on-demand, www.bluelake.org/ondemand

For 30 years pianist Keith Jarrett’s “Standards Trio” used compositions from the Great American Songbook as a starting point for exceptional improvisational music, as you’ll hear in a special Valentine’s evening broadcast of “Jazz From Blue Lake,” featuring Jarrett with bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Jack DeJohnette. We’ll even include “love songs” by Albert Ayler during “Out on Blue Lake” in the 3rd hour. Jazz From Blue Lake is found at www.bluelake.org/ondemand

Nice. I'd like to find that Xanadu.

Wardell Gray swung. The Oklahoma born, Detroit-bred tenor saxophonist may have played Grand Rapids in the 1940’s as a member of the Benny Carew Band before taking off for the big time Earl Hines Orchestra in Chicago. Though considered a bebop stylist, especially for his post-WWII work with Dexter Gordon, Charlie Parker and Howard McGhee, Gray recorded with Benny Goodman and Count Basie, those giants of swing. Blue Lake Public Radio spun Gray's recordings last night during Jazz From Blue Lake found here: www.bluelake.org/ondemand

So, Bob Moses has a record label, Ra-Kalam Records . www.nativepulse.com . He sent Blue Lake about a dozen releases recently, and we featured some of them last night. The third hour of Jazz From Blue Lake at our ondemand page is given over to Roscoe Mitchell's music, "Out on Blue Lake," including the new release on Nessa Records. On January 28th drummer, composer, artist, poet and nature mystic Ra Kalam Bob Moses celebrated his 70th B’earthday at The Lilypad in Cambridge. He writes, “Still flying (and recuperating)…Twas a joyous explosion of Spirit light and love in the form of sound.” Blue Lake Public Radio celebrated, too, by airing performances from Ra-Kalam Records on Jazz From Blue Lake, found here: www.bluelake.org/ondemand

Her version of "The Nearness of You" with Julian Priester and Kenny Wheeler does it for me.

Did you know soprano saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom was the first musician commissioned by the NASA Art Program to create three original compositions (1989) and has a minor planet named after her (6083 Janeirabloom)? Did you know this Yale graduate (1977) and tenured music professor at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music is married to the actor/director Joe Grifasi? Yeah man, she’s way hip. Friday night’s edition of Jazz From Blue Lake featured Jane Ira Bloom’s music in the first part of each hour and is at Blue Lake Public Radio’s on-demand page until tomorrow. (photo of Bloom by Erika Kapin). www.bluelake.org/ondemand

From his early work with the beboppers to the great band he co-led with Clifford Brown, to his civil right music, to recordings with avant gardists to his percussion ensemble and solo drums, Jazz From Blue Lake touched on the music of Max Roach last evening. Jazz From Blue Lake is found here: www.bluelake.org/ondemand

Trombonist/cornetist Dan Barrett’s music was heard last night on Jazz From Blue Lake. That version of “Perdido” where the Howard Alden/Dan Barrett Quintet transcribed Flip Phillips famous solo on the Ellington classic and then played it together as a band? Still knocks me out. Barrett grew up in California in the 1970’s hanging with all the aging traditional New Orleans transplants, and I read he played at Kid Ory’s funeral. Was a kick to swing the night away. The program is available today through Blue Lake’s on demand page. http://www.bluelake.org/ondemand