Episode 61:: Old News, New Gospel

In the continuing quest to champion the value of modern Jazz, WSRP presents another episode in the constantly-evolving genre of "new Jazz releases." The selections have been released within the past year - several of them just the past month - and were chosen for their particularly distinct approaches.

'Modern Jazz' is no one thing, and in fact it's not even a viable auditory category. 'Modern Jazz' cannot be classified by how it sounds, because it can sound like so many, even contradictory, things. But perhaps it can be categorized by what it's trying to do, and how it's trying to do that. The modern techno-concept of the internet 'cloud' I think captures this much better than an earlier ideology of Jazz-as-geneology (King Oliver begat Satchmo etc.) or the more general linear genre histories (traditional, swing, bebop, dixieland, hard bop, cool post, free jazz, fusion).

So give it a listen, and if this isn't your bag of Jazz, fear not - there are lots of other types of Jazz being made in the world today, and over 85 years worth of archival recordings.

Audio

Playlist

1. Warren Smith - One More Lick for Harold Vick - Old News, Borrowed Blues
2. George Schuller - Common Mama - Like Before, Somewhat After
3. Myra Medford - Through the Same Gate - The Whole Tree Gone
4. Ahmad Jamal - Flight to Russia - A Quiet Time
5. Brad Mehldau - John Boy - Highway Rider
6. Brad Mehldau - Sky Turning Grey (For Elliott Smith) - Highway Rider
7. Pat Metheny - Spirit of the Air - Orchestrion

::WSRP:: Good thing we didn't call it "Weekly Surrogate Radio Project."

Episode 60:: Shuffle Along

Rather than allowing my current obsession with the development of Baku's petroleum industry and the techno-social impact it had on the rise of labor power and mass politics (M.A. Thesis) to prevent me from making my weekly webradioblog quota, I decided to take a less labor-intensive approach made possible by a different form of socio-technology: iPod Shuffle.

I put my iTunes Music library on the table, selected "shuffle" and pressed play. Well, it was slightly more structured than that. But not much.

Admittedly, it's something like "Jack-FM" except that I'm not Jack, and there is no Frequency to be Modulated. And the music doesn't suck.

Audio

Playlist?

Sorry, if this show had to be blind for me as its creator, then you're just going to have to listen for yourself to see what comes up. Not knowing is much of the fun. The following rules/guidelines did help me arrive at the final product:

1. No artists/songs that we've played on previous episodes of WSRP
2. No songs longer than 6:00, to keep things moving
3. No live cuts, bootlegs, or other poor sound-quality recordings

::WSRP:: so tastefully done, it can afford to be mixed-up like a Picasso (RdSM) - but keep your ears on.

Episode 59:: Putting the L back in LP

Since its invention in 1948, the LP, or long-playing album, was the primary vehicle for recorded Jazz consumption and enjoyment until 1988. Not only does this 40-year span account for the most artistically diverse period in the history of Jazz (the titles for most prolific, most popular, and perhaps most innovative are all, at least conventionally, ascribed to the pre-LP ear of 78 rpm records), the LP also offered something impossible for 78s, regardless of stylistic innovation or commercial appeal: LPs allowed for longer tunes.

No more were aspiring Jazz composers restricted to 3:00 song-forms, short solos, and other technical limitations of a 10" disc spinning at 78 rotations per minute. By increasing the diameter to 12" and slowing rotation down to just 33 and 1/2 rotations per minute, each side could now accommodate 20:00 of music. 40:00 per album! This required more music for each release, but it also allowed for individual songs to be much longer. A tune could develop. Solos could stretch out. Everyone Could Get Their Own Solo!

This edition of WSRP is in no way a history of the LP, a catalogue of its great innovations, or a highlight of those special moments that have made the vinyl LP the greatest jazz instrument of all time (sorry, Cornet). Instead, it's a simple celebration by way of playing a few particularly nice cuts that simply wouldn't have been possible without the L introduced by the LP.

Audio

Playlist

1. Bobby Timmons - Lela - Workin' Out
2. Yusef Lateef - Happyology - Jazz for the Thinker
3. Andrew Hill - Siete Ocho - Judgement!
4. Kenny Barron - Two Areas - Peruvian Blue
5. Don Pullen - Kadji - Tomorrow's Promises
6. Freddy Hubbard - Birdlike - Ready for Freddy
7. Tony Williams - Love Song - Spring

::WSRP:: If this thing really catches on, perhaps all webradioblogs will henceforth be abbreviated 'WSRPs.' Then you can one day record a show on your holocrystal about putting the WSR back in the WSRP.