Lazaro Vega

Blue Lake Public Radio will feature Sun Ra this evening on "The Jazz Retrospective," so some of his music will be featured in each hour of the five hour program. The second set of Dave Rempis Percussion Quartet recorded in Kalamazoo is up at midnight "Out on Blue Lake." See you in the heliocentric world of cyber space. www.bluelake.org

Yes, I tote them back and forth between house and work and the packages get marked up and worn. But what's a fellow to do? Have to share the music.

Sorry I missed his 1959 Village Vanguard trio record with Roy Haynes re-issued on Chess in 1992. All Music has a shopping cart icon next to the title, but when you click to the album there's no link to B&N. What I've heard of that recording matches up with some of the Blue Note material. http://tinyurl.com/qvzut A couple of years ago Blue Note reissued "Introducing" Kenny Burrell in a nice double CD. Always owned, in one form or another, Blue Lights. Here's to Louis Smith and Andy Warhol

Florence is our featured artist this Monday night on Jazz From Blue Lake.

(Aric)? va·le·ri·an ( P ) Pronunciation Key (v-lîr-n) n. A plant of the genus Valeriana, especially V. officinalis, native to Eurasia and widely cultivated for its small, fragrant, white to pink or lavender flowers and for use in medicine. The dried rhizomes of this plant, used medicinally as a sedative. You know Organissimo is playing at Bell's in Kalamazoo tonight? That's the potion: Bell's beer.

Best of luck to them. I can't explain the logic behind the lobby that convinced congress to limit the number of times a single artist can be played in a three hour period for a station that streams on the web. What perhaps I didn't make clear is you're welcome to do it, but you have to pay additional royalties if you do (or loose your statutory license to stream) to Sound Stream, the division of RIAA station's have to report ALL of their music airplay to, even satellite programming, if they're streaming on the web. (Station's with a staff of less than 10 are exempt from that reporting). I know WEMU and WKAR here in Michigan both do their best to comply with these rules. After speaking to a V.P. at RIAA he told me that the labels themselves can sign a waiver of these restrictions so that's what we've done. Unfortunately, the labels I mentioned before have legal departments which don't want to deal with this on a case by case basis (tonight I need a waiver for Miles on Columbia, next week Mingus on Columbia, etc), but they won't grant a blanket waiver, either. So we block the stream when we're doing concentrated historical programming such as that. Of course 70 people can join Blue Lake's web stream at any single moment while in the neighborhood of 4,000 listen to the FM in the evening (best guess from looking over the shoulder of someone reading the Arbitron book). You'd think the labels would want to reach that larger audience.

What did you think of the Dave Rempis in Kalamazoo? Back tonight. Yesterday Lesley and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary. Was fun looking back at photos of the wedding day: there's Randy playing drums, and Chuck as best man. Great day.

I know. They are not music friendly rules at a time when talk radio is dominating the medium. See foot, shoot foot. Gotta foot?

XM is violating a provision in the Digital Millenium Copy Right Act for streaming music on the web that says there can be no on-demand, track by track downloading possible. They can stream an entire program, but the once you start tracking it out, well, the congressional law pushed by RIAA and industry lobbies as far as I can tell says that there's a fundemental difference between making a show available (broadcasting) and making it possible to download individual pieces on demand (retail). This isn't about not recording, it's about not using the radio as an interactive downloading device where people then do their own programming. That is the province of the labels. I see their point. I'm more concerned about how the DMCA regulates how many times a radio station streaming on the web is allowed to only program the same artist three or four times in a three hour period (four if the artist is featured, three if they're not). That just kills educational programming of 78 rpm era jazz. Fortunately many labels are willing to work out a waiver, but not Columbia, RCA or Verve, which means legally no extended retrospectives of Ellington, Basie, Holiday, Henderson, Dorsey, Armstrong, you name it, without paying up to 33 cents per play per 100 on-line listeners. That's the law, but right now there's not much enforcement occuring and many station's are doing what they want. I'm not taking chances at Blue Lake. During much of our most concentrated historical progamming we block our web stream, otherwise we play by the rules. The stream opens up when we have a waiver from the labels.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SAT...-05-17-04-17-19

In looking up music to play tonight for a program featuring Dewey Redman, came across this review at All Music Guide. Sorry I don't have the album to play on the radio. http://tinyurl.com/zrbkq

Randy the most-o: your calls from the road are always welcome. Last week's rant about Eric Alexander was especially fresh. You might join us tonight "Out On Blue Lake" for the Dave Rempis Percussion quartet (sax, bass and two drummers). Joel, best of luck with your new album and compositions. That WAS great talking to you and John, espcially about John's time with Lee Konitz Nonet and that record he made with Jimmy Knepper on Soul Note. Sorry about the web. We need to have more than one option for listening, an MP3 capability would be good. Real Player is a very expensive proposition.

Oh man, thanks for that, and to alocispepraluger102 for listening so regularly. There are very few who can catch most of our jazz programming because of the late hours and that you're able to just amazes me. Recording the web stream and listening back, that's just going so far. Sorry I couldn't be in tonight for the follow up on Edmond Hall. Migrane. Hate these bastards. It's a sleep thing. This morning the door bell rang at 9 a.m. for a delivery; then everybody in the neighborhood was cutting their lawn because it stopped raining for the first time in 10 days; and the alarm went off at 11. By dinner time I was riding the migrane bus and almost headed it off with medicine, but no luck. Hey Skid, Night Lights is coming to Blue Lake: Sunday nights at 10 p.m. starting June 1st. Thanks for the thread. Hanging out in the woods all night with 5 hours of airtime and thousands of jazz records to fill it with -- nice work if you can get it.

Nessa commissioned that work "African Sunrise" from Randy Weston for The Jazz Institute of Chicago. It was incredible to hear it that night at the Chicago Jazz Festival, again on Antilles records, and now in this trio version.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- May 15, 2006 Jazz Review New Languages Festival Makes Avant-Garde Inviting, if Not Compromising By NATE CHINEN Communication can sometimes seem like a secondary concern in the adamantine ranks of jazz's avant-garde. But proponents of new music do enjoy connecting with audiences, and occasionally manage to do so without compromise or contortion. That was the deceptively simple idea behind the New Languages Festival on Friday and Saturday nights at Rose, a sleek new lounge in Williamsburg. Friday night's offerings did support the notion of an accessible experimental music, though perhaps not as convincingly as planned. Out of three featured bands, the one that received the strongest response was the one that took the fewest risks. But that group, Akoya Afrobeat Ensemble, had the advantage of going on late in the evening, when the audience had effectively tripled. It also had rhythm staunchly on its side. By contrast, rhythm was a slippery sort of ally for the alto saxophonist Jackson Moore, who performed earlier with his working quartet. This was by design: Mr. Moore was one of the festival's organizers, and he presented the evening's most challenging music. (His founding partner and fellow saxophonist, Aaron Ali Shaikh, led a group of his own on Saturday.) There were four pieces in Mr. Moore's set, each with a similar title and slightly warped propulsion. "Identity T" moved fitfully, as the drummer Tommy Crane and the bassist Eivind Opsvik stopped time at irregular intervals. But Mr. Moore was unperturbed; his improvisation, strictly in the low-to-middle register of his horn, conveyed an indifferent cool. It was only during a subsequent turn by the vibraphonist Mike Pinto that the piece's rhythmic tensions were exploited. Elsewhere in the set, even Mr. Pinto gave in to the music's hypnotic pull. "Identity O" featured a series of meter modulations, while "Identity M" induced its trance with a generally indeterminate pulse. Despite the abstruseness, there was an omnipresent swing: when Mr. Moore and Mr. Pinto dug in together, the results were like an update of the hard bop that Jackie McLean made with Bobby Hutcherson more than 40 years ago. There were more willfully contemporary allusions in the music of Mr. Opsvik, who played an opening set with his group Overseas. "Doggerbanken," one of his new pieces, featured some rhythmic gamesmanship that seemed inspired by Mr. Moore. Otherwise the songs were sturdy and unassuming vessels, almost poplike, and anything but opaque. Of course they were abstracted, inflated or deconstructed by the band. The tenor saxophonist Tony Malaby did most of the heavy pillaging; he sounded fiercest on "Tilt of Timber," an offhandedly funky tune. On a more somber piece, "Still the Tiger Town," he initially adhered to a music-box melody but quickly frothed up to screeching range. Mr. Opsvik locked in tightly with the drummer Kenny Wollesen and the pianist Jacob Sacks. As a trio they nailed one of the set's more cohesive numbers, "Maritime Safety"; Mr. Sacks, playing an out-of-tune upright piano, embellished the melody with rickety chord clusters and fast, upsweeping runs. Mr. Wollesen kept the groove steady and deep. Akoya Afrobeat Ensemble had its own steady groove: more of a thumping, unrelenting thing. Led by Kaleta, a singer and conga drummer once affiliated with the Nigerian pop hero Fela Kuti, the group comprised a dozen members, all of whom intermittently joined in singing. On the set's most distinctive piece, "U.S.A.," they all responded to a list of sociopolitical cues with an unequivocal indictment: "Not true." (U.S.A., in the parlance of this band, stands for "Unilateral System of Attack.") With two guitarists, two baritone saxophonists and several percussionists, among other things, Akoya left subtlety at the curb. This tactic was effective: dancers crowded the foot of the stage until the last downbeat, just before 2 a.m. Of course there's nothing new about this body language. But it's still powerful, precisely because it's universal. Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

As well as Pres and Bird and especially Trane. Anyone know anything about Warne in Berlin, 1980 on Gambit records? http://tinyurl.com/hx7oa

Been enjoying this recording, too. The "Message to Prez" is ghostly, otherworldly. Maupin recently showed up with Yusef Lateef and Adam Rudolph in their Go:organic Orchestra and was featured in the first part of a three part suite where he played bass clarinet. Believe it's on the CD "In the Garden" on Meta Records.

Lester Bowie with John Hicks playing "Hello Dolly" is a gem. Hicks with Betty Carter live at the Great American Music Hall..."Tight"..... There's a duo record under Richard Davis's name, The Bassist (Homage), with Hicks in a lovely program: http://tinyurl.com/nu89k edit for everything

Wednesday, May 17th and May 24th at midnight Blue Lake Public Radio broadcasts the first and second sets of the Dave Rempis Percussion Quartet recorded in performance April 16, 2006 at Kraftbrau Brewery, Kalamazoo. Dave Rempis, alto, tenor and baritone saxophones; Anton Hatwich, bass; Tim Daisy and Frank Rosaly, drums. An inspired Chicago ensemble featured “Out On Blue Lake,” www.bluelake.org . This recording was engineered by Jean-Yves Munch. For information on the musicians please see http://daverempis.com/ and http://www.482music.com/artists/dave-rempis.html Wednesday, June 7th at 10 p.m. Jazz from Blue Lake presents New York guitarist Joel Harrison’s quartet with Dave Binney, saxophone; Stephan Crump, bass; plus Dan Weiss, drums and tabla. This performance takes place live from our studio in the Manistee National Forest at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp. Joel Harrison’s last record, “Harrison on Harrison,” worked jazz improvisations from the compositions of George Harrison, and though jazz based the sound veers towards Indian music, Roots American music and, of course, 1960’s electric psychedelia. Please join us live via our web stream. This broadcast is engineered by Steve Albert. The band will appear live at the UICA, 48 Sheldon Blvd., Grand Rapids the following evening, June 8th (www.uica.org ). For more information www.joelharrison.com .

Begin forewarded message: There are no computer graphics or digital tricks in the film. Everything you see really happened in real time exactly as you see it. The film took 606 takes. On the first 605 takes, something, usually very minor, didn't work. They would then have to set the whole thing up again. The crew spent weeks shooting night and day. By the time it was over, they were ready to change professions. The film cost six million dollars and took three months to complete including full engineering of the sequence. In addition, it's two minutes long so every time Honda airs the film on British television, they're shelling out enough dough to keep any one of us in clover for a lifetime. However, it is fast becoming the most downloaded advertisement in Internet history. Honda executives figure the ad will soon pay for itself simply in "free viewing's" (Honda isn't paying a dime to have you watch this commercial!). When the ad was pitched to senior executives, they signed off on it immediately without any hesitation - including the costs. There are six and only six hand-made Accords in the world. To the horror of Honda engineers, the filmmakers disassembled two of them to make the film. Everything you see in the film (aside from the walls, floor, ramp, and complete Honda Accord) are parts from those two cars. The voiceover is Garrison Keillor. When the ad was shown to Honda executives, they liked it and commented on how amazing computer graphics have gotten. They fell off their chairs when they found out it was for real. Oh. and about those funky windshield wipers. On the new Accords, the windshield wipers have water sensors and are designed to start doing their thing automatically as soon as they become wet. It looks a bit weird in the commercial. Click here: http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/honda.php

No doubt. Hip staff.

From burntheincline [burntheincline@yahoo.com] via Chi Improv: For those who are still interested, here are details of a public meeting next week with station representatives: Community Advisory Board Meeting General Event Information Event Category: Chicago Public Radio Presents Price: FREE Dates and Times: Thursday, May 18; 6:00-7:30 pm Description Chicago Public Radio invites the public to participate in their Community Advisory Board meetings led by the Community Advisory Council. The meetings seek to gather ideas and concerns about Chicago Public Radio and its role in the community. Venue Information Venue: Columbia College School of Media Arts Address: 600 S. Michigan Ave., Room 401 City: Chicago State: IL Zip Code: 60605 Country: United States Telephone:

Put the Bud Freeman "Chicago/Austin High School Jazz in Hi Fi" on the car stereo yesterday. At the first session trumpeter Jimmy McPartland sounded strange to me on the heads. He's improvising on the themes, or at least embellishing them, and it sounded as if Pee Wee Russell had to sort of wait to hear how the theme was going to go before ad libbing his clarinet part. This is just the most slight hesitation, you know, the music is balling. The blowing sections are exciting, Freeman swings, the Condon-type rhythm section with Milt Hinton does a good job. But I was wondering how they would sound with a "straighter" melody lead. The second session, with Billy Butterfield, answers that: more cliche. Everyone easily slips into role playing, and the music is more arranged sounding, and it had me pushing the back button to hear those first four sides again. Butterfields chops are greater than McPartland's, but I would hazard McPartland played more jazz. None the less Pee Wee is a delight on the first 8 titles. The third session with Teagarden, what can you say? He and Freeman are highlights of those sides, and it's no wonder "I Cover The Waterfront" is the bonus track as Jack did that routine fairly often on record. He sings an ad-lib blues for Bud Freeman, and swings "There'll Be Some Changes Made." At that point we pulled in to the zoo and disembarked for monkeys and cougars and shit. Looking forward to hearing the rest of the date. Overall, on first listening, a great addition to the Bud Freeman collection here at home.

http://www.savethemusiconwbez.org/

BOOKS / SUNDAY BOOK REVIEW | April 30, 2006 'Fever: The Life and Music of Miss Peggy Lee,' by Peter Richmond: Queen of the Night Review by STEPHEN HOLDEN In Peter Richmond's biography, Peggy Lee is a musical genius who was all about the nuance. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/30/books/re...i=5070&emc=eta1