Jazz pianist Horace Silver, a founding father of hardbop and soul jazz and one of the most renowned figures of the post-World War II jazz scene, turns 80 on September 2, 2008. Many of his compositions, such as “Opus de Funk,” “The Preacher,” “Nica’s Dream,” and “Peace” have become jazz standards heard frequently today.
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More from last Friday evening’s Afterglow program devoted to jazz and jazz-vocal recordings of the songs from Show Boat. Hour 2 features several very different versions of “Ol’ Man River,” including a contemporaneous …
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The new Charles Mingus/Eric Dolphy release from Blue Note, Cornell 1964, arrived at the station last week. Along with the recent reissue of the little-known 1970 Complete America Session and last year’s ragged but vital At UCLA 1965 (aka Music Written for Monterey, 1965 Not Heard…played in its entirety), it’s been a good run lately for Mingus fans. The Monterey and America dates give us glimpses of Mingus from a period…
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The Subterraneans, the only novel of Jack Kerouac’s to be adapted to film so far, was released in 1960, when the media fever surrounding the Beat Generation (much of it inspired by the publication of Kerouac’s On the Road in 1957) was still at a high pitch. Hollywood took great liberties with Kerouac’s story…
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In the mid-1950s Art Pepper had already served two prison terms on narcotics charges and was struggling to re-ignite the promising solo career he’d started several years earlier after leaving Stan Kenton’s orchestra. 1956 was a spectacular year for Pepper, and the recordings he did for the Aladdin label, featuring West Coast greats such as…
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