Lazaro Vega

Long way to fly....fly fly fly

ALOC!!!!! It sounds better after a glass of wine; or Lemoncello. Looking forward to a program tonight on Bennie Green.

I see you listen to a lot of radio over there, Bill. You might try http://bluelake.ncats.net/ and see if that loads. Been working on the idea of time shifting the program on the Internet, so that for the the 24 hours after Jazz From Blue Lake is over it would be available to listen to in one five hour block. Starting at 3 a.m. you could download the program that just ran from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. (that must be very early in the morning there: 3 a.m. to 8 a.m. for you?). We're just held up in getting on that by the cost, of course, for the additional bandwidth; and the Digital Millennium Copy Right Act, which is tricky when it comes to streaming on the web. There are all kinds of legal limits on how many selections by the same artist may be played in a three hour period, unless you get a waiver from the copyright owners; and then there are hoops to jump through regarding "on demand" services, which time shifting would be. Dumb ass law as relates to the 78 rpm era, or educational broadcasting, for that matter. Someday, but not today. In any case, wish you could hear the program. Think you might enjoy it. Bessie Smith featured tonight.... LV

Ah, someone out bid me at the last second.....

Now that'd be funky. Cool, Werf. Did you catch Adam Rudolph and Ralph Jones on the air? We had John Erskine from Hope College recording their concert at Hugo's place. Looking forward to hearing the "extended" version of what they do. Man, Bob Porter's the guy when it comes to doing the leg work on Jug. The notes to the 78 rpm era CD are great at setting the scene. They do mention that Gene had a brother in the church. Last year the Blue Lake Faculty guys were playing a reception for a Christian confab in Grand Rapids and the Reverend introduced himself. "Some of the members of my family played music. My brother Gene played saxophone and my father, Albert, played piano. I was the only one who didn't go into music." "Well, no family is perfect." (!) By the way, where is the non-vocal version of "Red Top"? I could have sworn we had that on vinyl at the station, but no luck. So it's the vocal version. Not as good.

Hope you can join us

Was listening to "Take the Coltrane" yesterday, and it's nearly all Stanley from start to finish.

Up for tonight

Q, Where is Conception released? LV

Ingrid is now on the faculty part time at the University of Michigan. She appeared last month with the Western Michigan University Jazz Orchestra, and her own quartet, in Kalamazoo. Blue Lake had the good fortune of recording her band with Geeof Keezer, Matt Clohsey and her husband Jon Wikan a few years back during a concert at Mona Shore High School near Muskegon. Nice, long-form version of "The Night Has A Thousand Eyes."

Koester was sort of trapped between the sandbar and the edge of the shore at Duck Lake State Park. The water will get waist high, chest high, about three feet from shore. But if you walk another yard or two it's back to around your ankles. After that incident he'd introduce me to anyone who would listen, "He's the guy that saved me from drowning in Lake Michigan." I can't remember clearly if I even did -- I think it was Ann Nessa! Who knows. Its become a myth. When Koester would come up to Michigan he'd sometimes bring his jazz films and show them on the warehouse wall where Chuck was working at the time. Great parties. Live band playing early jazz -- I think there was a bass sax involved -- then a cookout and after the sun went down "The Sound of Jazz," "Jammin' The Blues" and all kinds of other jazz films projected on the wall. Again, this was a couple of decades before You-Tube and you just didn't see that stuff much. Koester showed those often at the Record Mart in that period, but it was a real special treat to have them in the vicinity of Lost Valley in Montague, Michigan.

Well, yeah, Chuck Nessa, man: No Chuck, no Chicago Jazz Festival. OK, maybe not that black and white, but if it weren't for his take no bullshit from people in power, i.e. City Hall Chicago, chances are The Jazz Institute of Chicago might not have prevailed. Before "Taste of Chicago," the jazz fest. was using Grant Park for cultural events. And it was just "any" jazz festival in those days, it was one of the last bastions, and strongest bastions, of a multiplicity of musical styles from the historical continuum, nearly anti-corporate at every turn. As a student radio announcer/jazz director at Michigan State University in the early 80's I was calling the Steeplechase Records office in Chicago requesting promo copies of their latest releases (several of which I still have in my possession) - and it was Chuck on the other end, asking me if I was familiar with the Basie band's men Buck Clayton and Dickie Wells. Buck's double lp with Buddy Tate, Dickie Wells and Jimmy Rushing was one great concert recording. Just recently, with their firesale, I picked up Mosaic's Complete Columbia Small Band Swing Sessions and low and behold, there was the studio album that preceded the 1959 tour that led to the concert in Denmark Steeplechase released. Some lessons never stop. Shortly after moving into a cabin in Faculty Village in the Manistee National Forest here at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp (March 1st, 1983), I was doing the Saturday morning show live. I looked up from back announcing an Air recording on Antilles Records (maybe "Chicago Breakdown,") and this girl's smiling face was in the window between studios, and when I looked at the small square window in the studio door, some dude's grinning face was filling it up. I opened the door like, "Wat the" and there's a hand sent forward with "Hi, I'm Chuck Nessa." Then it was really, What the? His daughter Carla is now the graphic designer on those unfussy CD presentations. Chuck, the convergence of jazz forces in Whitehall, Michigan, of all places, in the 1980's was better than any graduate school a 20 something could have ever. And there was Augsburger! Having had the chance to produce or at least lend a hand in producing concerts here in Michigan by Von Freeman, Ira Sullivan (who's date on Flying Fish Chuck produced), Roscoe Mitchell and Fred Anderson, all after having been exposed to their music through Chuck, is an honor. There's no way to describe, too, how important Chuck's vast library and early dedication to serious discographical study were in assembling retrospective radio programs before the Internet. From pulling a half water sogged Bob Koester out of Lake Michigan during one of his visits to Whitehall, to sitting in the press section at the Chicago Jazz Festival throughout much of the 1990's, to being invited to after parties at the old Blackstone Hotel, to sitting in on a mixing session for "Procession" with Leo Smith, there are just so many great memories in jazz that are associated personally with Mr. Nessa. And it is always good to see his hard work recognized world wide. He won't talk about it, but the Charlie Parker/Dizzy Gillespie Uptown release: thank goodness Chuck was there to shepherd it. You have no idea. The integrity he's brought to work he does has earned him a level of trust among musicians anyone in the music industry would be proud to have achieved. So raise a glass to Mr. Nessa. "Tenors and turmoil" could sum up his catalogue in a cheeky way. When I was 19 one of the coolest records I owned featured three harps and the trumpet of Leo Smith. Can't wait for the world to hear that one again in digital sound. Hopefully we'll see you Sunday, Chuck, for Adam Rudolph "Live From Blue Lake." Adam said he wants to tell you about a concert he just did with Roscoe and Yusef Lateef.

http://www.metromodemedia.com/filterd/RoscoeMitchell.aspx

That's the one with Art Blakey? I have that as double album on Columbia called "One Night At Birdland." No Conception on that one. Morgenstern does go into it. He dates it as June 30, 1950, but Fats dies on July 7th, so he's really doubtful. He quotes Ira Gitler as having seen Fats and Birdland in 1950 and saying he's in bad shape.

Up for the Adam Rudolph/Ralph Jones duo this Saturday at Mexicans Sans Frontiers. They're playing Good Friday at Kerrytown Concert House; Saturday in Grand Rapids and Sunday live on Blue Lake Public Radio. It's been 20 years since Adam toured in Michigan. He played at the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts in Grand Rapids then with the band Eternal Wind.

I wonder if they'll have any transcriptions. Fats is easily one of my all time favorites, though I tend to his small band recordings with Tadd Dameron on Savoy and Blue Note as the center piece for listening. Need to delve further into the Royal Roost broadcasts with Dameron. "Only" have the two-fer on Milestone. There must be much more live material, just haven't found it yet. Yes, his playing with Eckstine is fine, both lead and solo; and that version of "Move" he made with Max Roach and Linton Garner is something else. But "Nostalgia" and "Ice Freezes Red" and "Lady Bird" are the ones that I've gone back to time and again. B flat major seven is how Hod O'Brien described Dameron's music to me once in a casual comment. And it was Fats who took that sound into improvisational beauty.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090420/zirin?rel=emailNation

Sparty said, "No."

ah, April 11th at Founders....

May 11th at Founders? It was on their calendar.

His new record is a bitch. He revisits "Bill for Bennie" from the Ray Charles days and nails it; there's also a tribute to Clifford Brown, I believe, called "Brown's Town" that shows his chops are in fine shape. Last summer he recorded with a band called "Generations" an album called "Tough Guys" where he is fabulous on "So What." I mean, he nods in the first half chorus to Miles solo, and in the last half chorus nods again, but in between -- original. Eric Alexander on tenor and Andrew Speight on alto are more inclined to the outlines of the classic solos.

Niko, thanks for the link!

Let's see...Bruyninckx lists him as arranger with: King Carter and his Royal Orchestra : Wardell Jones, Shelton Hemphill, Ed Anderson (tp) Harry White, Henry Hicks (tb) Charlie Holmes (cl,as) Theodore McCord, Castor McCord (ts) Edgar Hayes (p) Benny James (bj) Hayes Alvis (b) Willie Lynch (d) Dick Rogers (Dick Robertson) (vcl) unknown scat vcl-1 New York, March 23, 1931 For "Low Down on the Bayou" and "Blue Rhythm." Leslie contributed his arrangement of "Radio Rhythm" to Henderson, as Connie's Inn Orchestra, for a July '31 session. Then "Blue Rhythm" and "Low Down On the Bayou" for Henderson, again as Connie's Inn Orchestra, in August of '31. The Mills Blue Rhythm Band (as The Blue Rhythm Boys) recorded "Blue Rhythm" and "Lowdown on the Bayou" in April of '31, then Leslie's arrangement on "Heat Wave" in February '32.

Buried deep. Towards the end. Ah, the Saugatuck/Douglas Jazz Festival. That's morphed from what was the Idlewild Jazz Festival. Produced out of Detroit, it lasted a few years in Idlewild, though that former African-American resort town -- Clifford Jordan told me he took his first steps there; and for years Lillian Armstrong had a cabin there with her phone listed in the local directory -- is located in one of the poorest counties in Michigan. So this is the first attempt at moving it down to Saugatuck, which is a beautiful little resort town a reasonable drive from Chicago. The Art Institute of Chicago has an extension program there at the Oxbow school, and there's a large gay population as well as throngs of tourists. Looking forward to M.C.ing a night of that fest when the time comes.....

Where was the Johnny O listing? Thursday, April 16th at 7:30 p.m. the Branford Marsalis Quartet, behind the release of their new CD “Metamorphosen,” celebrates a decade of playing together at the VanSingel Fine Arts Center, 8500 Burlingame S.W. Byron Center, MI, 49315. Information about the band from www.marsalismusic.com and more about the concert from www.vsfac.com. Box office phone, (616) 878 – 8600.