shows

Next Show: 1/15 on Paris Blues/Romare Bearden

The next show will air on Sunday 1/15/2012 from 11:00pm – Monday at 1:00am on WBAI, 99.5 FM in the NYC metro area or streaming online at wbai.org. Listen to the 40-second promo below (may not work in all browsers, especially mobile ones):

Jazz at Lincoln Center and the Romare Bearden Foundation are presenting the exhibition “Paris Blues Revisited: Romare Bearden, Albert Murray, Sam Shaw” as part of the 100th anniversary celebration of Bearden’s birth.

Designed as a book-on-the-wall, Paris Blues Revisited …presents fine reproductions of collages by Romare Bearden, writing by Albert Murray and photographs by Sam Shaw. Following the Shaw-produced film Paris Blues, these three men decided to improvise their own Paris Blues – a collaborative picture-and-writing book celebrating Paris as well as Duke Ellington, co-composer (with Billy Strayhorn) of the movie’s soundtrack and Louis Armstrong, one of that movie’s stars. That book was never completed. This exhibit shows, for the first time, finished pages, some of them unmistakable masterworks, as well as works-in-progress that make clear the power of jazz to inspire collaborations of long-lasting beauty.

Paris Blues Revisited is curated by Robert G. O’Meally, C. Daniel Dawson and Diedra Harris Kelley, and designed by Florio Design.

This edition of “Suga’ In My Bowl” will host a discussion with Robert G O’Meally, Professor of English at Columbia University and co-curator of exhibitions with Jazz at Lincoln Center and Diedra Harris Kelley, co-director of the Romare Bearden Foundation and niece of Romare Bearden.

Hosted by Arts Producer Joyce Jones.

Next show: Sunday 1/1/12 with Creed Taylor

Happy New Year and Habari Gani Imani! First, a quick update on what the Suga’ team has been up to. If you haven’t been over to our audio archives page yet, jump over and check it out! We’ve uploaded most of the shows that aired in 2011 and are working backwards from there to make older shows available: most of 2010 should be up over the New Year’s weekend. There will also be a few web-only extras: snippets of sound that didn’t quite make the cut for the original show for whatever reason.

The next show will air on New Year’s Day: Sunday 1/1/2012 at 11:00pm – Monday at 1:00am on WBAI, 99.5 FM in the NYC metro area or streaming online at wbai.org. Listen to the 45-second promo below (may not work in all browsers, especially mobile ones):

Tune in to hear an interview with Creed Taylor, who revolutionized the respectability and popularity of jazz with CTI Records. In fact, some of the most significant jazz of the last half of the 20th century has been fashioned under Taylor’s guidance and supervision.

This show is a remixed version of one that originally aired as part of WBAI’s fifth Hip Hop Takeover in June 2007 and primarily focused on songs from the CTI Records catalog that have been sampled by hip hop artists.

Taylor has been especially influential in the packaging of music. His records are as much art to see as they are to hear. With heavy, glossy, gatefold covers featuring stark design and striking photography, his records have the sound and feel of something bearing unusual class and great quality.

After earning a degree in psychology in the early 1950s, Taylor played trumpet in clubs around Virginia Beach. He relocated to New York and secured a venerable post as head of artists and repertoire at Bethlehem Records. He produced a wide variety of jazz for Bethlehem before he took a higher profile position with ABC Paramount during the late fifties. At ABC, he produced some jazz and a great many more vocal recordings that enjoyed popular success.

When ABC Records sought to form a jazz subsidiary in 1960, Taylor was recruited to oversee it all. He called the company “Impulse!,” conceived its distinctive black and orange label and spine design, brought in photographer Pete Turner for elegant, vivid cover art and initiated heavy cardboard, gatefold sleeves (to convey substance). Taylor, however, stayed with Impulse for only a few months. But during this short time, he recorded historically significant music by John Coltrane, Gil Evans, Oliver Nelson and Ray Charles.

Taylor jumped ship to accept a lucrative offer to run Verve Records, the jazz label Norman Granz sold to MGM in 1961. Here was a company that had solid name recognition in the jazz community as well as a rich parent company to fund many of Taylor’s lavish goals. Verve’s big budgets and Creed Taylor’s proven ability to turn jazz into hits (starting in 1962 with Stan Getz’s “The Girl From Ipanema”) afforded limitless opportunities to employ the cream of the crop in studio musicians for these records.

In November 1967, Taylor arranged with A&M’s Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss to begin his own organization, CTI Records. The team he took with him were among the finest in the business: engineer Rudy Van Gelder, designer Sam Antupit and, again, photographer Pete Turner. He also developed a small in-house staff of musicians comprised of jazz’s greatest names.

In 1970, Creed Taylor launched CTI as an independent entity. The shift was seen in the switch from the cover’s white backgrounds to black. George Benson made the transition too, staying throughout CTI’s greatest years in the 1970s. Some of the music’s greatest players, including (past Suga’ in My Bowl guest) Freddie Hubbard and Stanley Turrentine, were recruited to CTI and ultimately created some of their most remarkable recordings while under Creed Taylor’s aegis.

(CT’s bio adapted from Doug Payne’s excellent blog entry.)

Hosted by Arts Producer Joyce Jones.

Next show: Sunday, 12/11 on Christian McBride

The next show will air on Sunday 12/11 at 11:00pm – Monday at 1:00am on WBAI, 99.5 FM in the NYC metro area or streaming online at wbai.org and feature bassist Christian McBride.

Tune into this program to hear more about this hard-working bassist, composer and band leader, who was recently nominated for a Grammy for one of his latest two recordings, The Good Feeling.

Beginning in 1989, this Philadelphia-born bassist moved to New York City to further his classical studies at the Juilliard School, only to be snatched up by alto saxophonist, Bobby Watson. Since then, McBride’s list of accomplishments have been nothing short of staggering. As a sideman in the jazz world alone, he’s worked with the best of the very best – Freddie Hubbard, Sonny Rollins, J.J. Johnson, Ray Brown, Milt Jackson, McCoy Tyner, Roy Haynes, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock and Pat Metheny. In the R&B world, he’s not only played with, but also arranged for Isaac Hayes, Chaka Khan, Natalie Cole, Lalah Hathaway, and the one and only Godfather of Soul himself, James Brown. In the pop/rock world, he’s extensively collaborated with Sting, Carly Simon, Don Henley, and Bruce Hornsby. In the hip-hop/neo-soul world, he’s collaborated with the Roots, D’Angelo, and Queen Latifah. In many other specialty projects, he’s worked closely with opera legend Kathleen Battle, bass virtuoso Edgar Meyer, the Shanghai Quartet and the Sonus Quartet.

Away from the bass, Christian has become quite an astute and respected spokesperson for the music. In 1997, he spoke on former President Bill Clinton’s town hall meeting “Racism in the Performing Arts”. In 2000, he was named Artistic Director of the Jazz Aspen Snowmass Summer Sessions. In 2005, he was officially named the co-director of the National Jazz Museum in Harlem. Also in 2005, he was named the second Creative Chair for Jazz of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association.

Hosted by Arts Producer Joyce Jones

Next show: Sunday, 11/20 on Dexter Gordon

The next show will air on Sunday 11/20 at 11:00 PM – Monday at 1:00 AM on WBAI, 99.5 FM in the NYC metro area or streaming online at wbai.org.

Tune into this program to hear more about this legendary composer, band leader tenor and soprano saxophonist. We’ll talk to Dexter’s wife Maxine Gordon and host a repeat visit from Woody Shaw III. We will also sample the box set Dexter Gordon – The Complete Columbia Albums Collection.

Dexter Keith Gordon was born on February 27, 1923 in Los Angeles, California. His father, Dr. Frank Gordon, was one of the first African American doctors in Los Angeles who arrived in 1918 after graduating from Howard Medical School in Washington, D.C. Dexter’s mother, Gwendolyn Baker, was the daughter of Captain Edward Baker, one of the five African American Medal of Honor recipients in the Spanish-American War.

Dexter began his study of music with the clarinet at age 13, then switched to the alto saxophone at 15, and finally to the tenor saxophone at 17. He studied music with Lloyd Reese and at Jefferson High School with Sam Browne. In his last year of high school, he received a call from alto saxophonist Marshall Royal asking him to join the Lionel Hampton Band. He left Los Angeles with the band, traveling down south and learning to play from fellow band members Illinois Jacquet and Joe Newman. In January 1941, the band played at the Grand Terrace in Chicago for six months and the radio broadcasts made there were Dexter’s first recordings.

It was in 1943, while in New York City with the Hampton band, that Dexter sat in at Minton’s Playhouse with Ben Webster and Lester Young. This was to be one of the most important moments in his long musical career as, as he put it, “people started to take notice.”

In the late 40s, Dexter appeared on the famed 52nd Street in New York City with Charlie Parker, Fats Navarro, Miles Davis, Max Roach, and many of the bebop innovators of the day.

In 1960, Dexter was approached by Alfred Lion to sign with Blue Note Records. For five years, he made one session after another, and they are all considered classics. When asked which of all his recordings was his favorite, Dexter said: “I would have to say it is “Go!” The perfect rhythm section which made is possible for me to play whatever I wanted to play.”

In 1976, Dexter enjoyed a hero’s welcome in the U.S. when he made his return engagement at Storyville in New York City with Woody Shaw, Louis Hayes, Ronnie Mathews, and Stafford James. He subsequently played the Village Vanguard, signed with Columbia Records, and was officially back in town. He organized his first working band during this period with George Cables, Rufus Reid, and Eddie Gladden. He considered this band to be his best band and he toured extensively with them and recorded Live at the Keystone (Mosaic) and Manhattan Symphonie (CBS Sony) with the group.

In 1986, Dexter moved into his new career, acting, in the motion picture Round Midnight, which was directed by Bertrand Tavernier. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Leading Actor in 1986 for his portrayal of Dale Turner, a character based on the lives of Lester Young and Bud Powell. The music for the film won an Oscar for musical director, Herbie Hancock. The film included fellow musicians Bobby Hutcherson, Billy Higgins, Cedar Walton, Freddie Hubbard, Tony Williams, Pierre Michelot, John McLaughlin, and Wayne Shorter.

Dexter died on April 25, 1990 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Hosted by Arts Producer Joyce Jones.

Next show: Sunday, 11/6 on Woody Shaw

The next show will air on Sunday 11/6 at 11:00pm – Monday at 1:00am on WBAI, 99.5 FM in the NYC metro area or streaming online at wbai.org.

Tune in to hear more about this jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist, cornetist, composer and band leader, often referred to as the “last innovator.” We will also sample the “Woody Shaw – The Complete Columbia Albums Collection” released in September 2011. Our guest will be Woody Shaw III.

Woody Shaw was born on December 24, 1944 in Laurinburg, North Carolina. He was brought to Newark, New Jersey by his parents, Rosalie Pegues and Woody Shaw, Sr., at the age of 1 year old. Shaw’s father, Woody Shaw, Sr. was a member of the African American gospel group known as the Diamond Jubilee Singers and both of his parents attended the same secondary private school as Dizzy Gillespie, Laurinburg Institute. Shaw’s mother is originally from the same town as Gillespie, Cheraw, South Carolina.

Shaw began playing bugle at age 9 and performed in the Junior Elks, Junior Mason, and Washington Carver Drum and Bugle Corps in Newark, New Jersey. Though not his first choice for an instrument, he began studying classical trumpet with Jerome Ziering at Cleveland Junior High School at the age of 11.

As a teenager, Shaw worked professionally at weddings, dances, and night clubs. He eventually left school but continued his study of the trumpet under the influence of Dizzy Gillespie, Fats Navarro, Clifford Brown, Booker Little, Lee Morgan, and Freddie Hubbard. He later discovered that he had picked up the trumpet during the same month and year that Clifford Brown died, June 1956.

Shaw was also born with a photographic memory and perfect pitch. Max Roach once stated: “He was truly one of the greatest. I first had occasion to work with Woody on a trip to Iran. One of the most amazing things was his uncanny memory. I was just flabbergasted. After one look, he knew all of the charts, no matter how complex they were.”

Woody Shaw’s improvisational and composing style bears the influences of his idols Eric Dolphy, John Coltrane and McCoy Tyner, as well as many European modern classical and 20th century composers

Woody Shaw was a masterful stylist and a leader with strong musical convictions.

Hosted by Arts Producer Joyce Jones

Next show: Monday 10/10 with Pat Metheny

The next show will air at a special time: Monday October 10 from 10:00pm – Midnight Eastern Standard Time on WBAI, 99.5 FM in the NYC area or streaming online at wbai.org and will feature an interview with the incredibly versatile guitarist Pat Metheny.

Pat Metheny was born in Kansas City on August 12, 1954 into a musical family. Starting on trumpet at the age of 8, Metheny switched to guitar at age 12. By the age of 15, he was working regularly with the best jazz musicians in Kansas City, receiving valuable on-the-bandstand experience at an unusually young age. Metheny first burst onto the international jazz scene in 1974. Over the course of his three-year stint with vibraphon…e great Gary Burton, the young Missouri native already displayed his soon-to-become trademarked playing style, which blended the loose and flexible articulation customarily reserved for horn players with an advanced rhythmic and harmonic sensibility – a way of playing and improvising that was modern in conception but grounded deeply in the jazz tradition of melody, swing, and the blues. With the release of his first album, Bright Size Life (1975), he reinvented the traditional “jazz guitar” sound for a new generation of players. Throughout his career, Pat Metheny has continued to re-define the genre by utilizing new technology and constantly working to evolve the improvisational and sonic potential of his instrument.

During this membership/fund drive special, we will feature a discussion with Pat and share cuts from his latest release “What’s It All About.” Please join us and help keep this listener-supported experiment alive.

Hosted by Arts Producers Joyce Jones and Hank Williams.

Next show: Sunday 8/14 with Dee Dee Bridgewater

Ms. Bridgewater made her phenomenal New York debut in 1970 as the lead vocalist for the band led by Thad Jones and Mel Lewis, one of the premier jazz orchestras of the time. These New York years marked an early career in concerts and on recordings with such giants as Sonny Rollins, Dizzy Gillespie, Dexter Gordon, Max Roach and Roland Kirk, and rich experiences with Norman Connors, Stanley Clarke and the recently departed Frank Foster’s “Loud Minority.”

Ms. Bridgewater doesn’t care much for labels, and in 1974 she jumped at the chance to act and sing on Broadway where her voice, beauty and stage presence won her great success and a Tony Award for her role as Glinda the Good Witch in The Wiz. This began a long line of awards and accolades as well as opportunities to work in Tokyo, Los Angeles, Paris and in London where she garnered the coveted “Laurence Olivier” Award nomination as Best Actress for her tour de force portrayal of jazz legend Billie Holiday in Stephen Stahl’s Lady Day.

Tune in from 11 PM to 1 AM EST on 99.5 FM in the NYC metro area to hear more about this extraordinary song stylist, actress and entertainer. You can also listen to the live stream from wbai.org. Also WBAI will offer a sneak preview of Ms. Bridgewater’s recording Midnight Sun, which is scheduled to release on August 23.