Lazaro Vega

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

Cool: did not know that.

Chick Webb, Jo Jones, Big Sid Catlett, Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich are recognized jazz drummers from the hey day of swing. Yesterday Blue Lake Public Radio celebrated the music of another percussionist, a colorist with an elaborate set up allowing him to create sounds perfect for The Duke Ellington Orchestra from 1921 to 1951. Greer and Jimmy Blanton made a fearsome rhythm section, too. In addition to music by Sonny Greer, last night’s radio program brought you the newly issued 1956 Ella Fitzgerald recording taped at Zardi’s Jazzland in Hollywood, and we went “Out On Blue Lake” in the third hour, remembering Sunny Murray and featuring Mars Williams new Albert Ayler Xmas recording. www.bluelake.org/ondemand

Jazz From Blue Lake remembered the south side Chicago tenor saxophonist Eddie Johnson during last evening’s Jazz Retrospective segment of Jazz From Blue Lake. Johnson’s uncle, Doc Poston, played alto in Jimmy Noone’s Apex Club Orchestra (1920’s era band), and Johnson himself appeared with Louis Jordan’s Tympani Five (turning down an offer from Duke Ellington to work with Jordan, but later subbing for Ben Webster in Ellington’s band at a concert in Detroit, and appearing on Ellington’s 1960’s era Mary Poppins recording). Johnson rose to prominence as Chicago’s chief computer systems engineer, but returned to music in the late 1970’s, appearing in the 1980’s at the Grand Haven (MI) Winterfest with special edition of The Hubbard Street Swingers, and in Grand Rapids with Greg Sergo’s Ellington Dynasty at Lincoln Country Club. You’ll hear his music under “Jazz From Blue Lake” at our on demand page. www.bluelake.org/ondemand

Yesterday jazz pianist Eddie Heywood was remembered on Jazz From Blue Lake, including his earliest recordings with the 1939 Benny Carter Orchestra, an unforgettable session with Coleman Hawkins, and his commercially successful New York Sextet of the mid-1940’s that served as house band at Jimmy Ryan’s Sunday Jam Session, appeared regularly at Café Society, accompanied Billie Holiday on record and made several sessions for Milt Gabler’s Commodore Record label. “Begin the Beguine” and other hit records by pianist Eddie Heywood found under “Jazz From Blue Lake” at our on-demand page, www.bluelake.org/ondemand

Bassist Christian McBride appears with Tip City this Thursday at St. Cecilia Music Center. On Friday, Blue Lake Public Radio featured the music of McBride on Jazz From Blue Lake, including an interview with the 4 time Grammy-award winning bassist/bandleader, as well as music by pianist Emmett Cohen and guitarist Dan Wilson who complete Tip City. The program, Jazz From Blue Lake, is available to hear from www.bluelake.org/ondemand

It’s a tradition at Blue Lake Public Radio, featuring trumpeter Clifford Brown and saxophonist Illinois Jacquet on the radio at the end of October (honoring their birthdays, memories and, especially, music). So much happening in the performance arts in west Michigan this time of year, too, which Blue Lake hips you to. Clifford Brown is under “Jazz From Blue Lake” at www.bluelake.org/ondemand For Jacquet please join www.bluelake.org/listen tonight from 10 p.m.-3 a.m. edt.

Dizzy time. Saturday is the 100th anniversary of jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie’s birth and last night Jazz From Blue Lake featured “the theoretician” (as Budd Johnson called Gillespie) in the first 20 minutes of each hour found here: www.bluelake.org/ondemand . Saturday morning Jazz a la Carte will include plenty of Gillespie, too, from 7 – 10 a.m. and Sunday night at 10 Gillespie is featured on “Night Lights.” Please join Blue Lake Public Radio in our celebration of this entertaining virtuoso and ambassador of American music.

THIS Sunday, 3 p.m., Adam Rudolph's Moving Pictures in the Underground Music Series at LaFontsee Galleries! The new season of The Underground Concert Series opens October 22nd at 3 p.m. The band "Moving Pictures" includes Adam Rudolph: handrumset; Alexis Marcelo: Fender Rhodes, electric keyboards; Damon Banks: electric bass; Hamid Drake: drumset, percussion; Kenny Wessel: electric guitar, electronics; and Ralph M. Jones: c flute, alto flute, bass clarinet, soprano and tenor saxophones, husli, bamboo flutes. Adam Rudolph's Moving Pictures just released its first new album in over five years, “Glare of the Tiger,” a perfect example of creative music looking to the future while expressing the sound of now. Says Adam Rudolph, “It is my feeling that to honor tradition, one should look forward and not backward. The tradition is to sound like yourself and create a NEW music that reflects the NOW. To put it another way, Yusef Lateef often said to me, "Brother Adam, we are evolutionists." This concert is presented by Adventure Music, www.adventuremusic.org. Tickets are $20 in advance, $25 at the door; $10 for students.

Thanks David. He was loquacious! Benny Goodman is free jazz. All right then. Thanks Chuck for putting up the photos. This broadcast is available to hear under "Studio Performances" at www.bluelake.org/ondemand

Photos to large to share, I guess. Blue Lake Public Radio features a special in studio performance by the Frode Gjerstad Trio with Steve Swell this Thursday morning from midnight to 1 a.m. eastern time “Out on Blue Lake.” The saxophonist/clarinetist who considers all jazz “free” since a boyhood encounter hearing Benny Goodman jam on record, Gjerstad’s trio features bassist Jon Rune Strom (who in 2016 performed with Gjerstad’s trio at Mexicains Sans Frontiers in Grand Rapids, and with Universal Indians at the Summer Solstice Jazz Festival in East Lansing), and drummer Paal Nilssen-Love, the 49 year old who’s played with Gjerstad for 34 years. Trombonist Steve Swell is on his third tour with the Norwegian free jazz ensemble, finding an exciting rapport in the band’s spontaneous orchestrations. This program is heard over WBLV FM 90.3 / WBLU FM 88.9 and streaming over the web from www.bluelake.org/listen.

Now at www.bluelake.org/ondemand “Jazz From Blue Lake” featuring the music of tenor saxophonist Chu Berry, one of the great soloists of the 1930’s. Catch the program now, as it will be replaced tomorrow. Under programs click on “Jazz From Blue Lake.”