Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting Jazz Podcast

Rahsaan Roland Kirk

This week's episode of WNPM is about Rahsaan Roland Kirk, the brilliantly original multi instrumentalist, best known for playing three reed instruments simultaneously, often accompanied by additional, literal, bells and nose-whistles.  It features music from throughout his career, and ends with the story of the Jazz and People's Movement, the protest organization Kirk founded to try to get access to the mass media for jazz musicians.  I read excerpts from the JPM's manifesto, and play a recording of perhaps the peak of its activities, a performance on the final episode of the Ed Sullivan show, where Kirk brought Archie Shepp, Roy Haynes, and Charles Mingus to perform a blistering rendition of Mingus' Hatian Fight Song, a beautiful, if a little overblown, moment in musical and cultural history.  Enjoy!

Joe Henderson

This week's episode of WNPM is about Joe Henderson, a tenor saxophonist best known for his prolific mid 60's output for the Blue Note label, as a part of one of the most enduringly creative and interesting periods/scenes in jazz music. 

Nels Cline

This week's episode is about guitarist Nels Cline.  Nels is incredibly versatile and hiis s style difficult to categorize, but his approach to making music is deeply informed by jazz.  His group the Nels Cline 4 put out a beautiful album last year on Blue Note Records called Currents, Constellations, and are touring the US this month, and so I thought I'd share an exploration of his music to spread the word.  Check it out! 

The Newport Jazz Festival - Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting Jazz Podcast

This week's episode of WNPM is about the Newport Jazz Festival, which has taken place every summer in Newport, Rhode Island since it was founded in 1954.  It starts with the performance of Round Midnight that catapulted Miles Davis into (further) stardom, and continues with my selections of some of the best performances I've come across recorded at the festival, including songs by Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, Misha Mengleberg, and many more.  The last set of songs is from Charles Mingus' performances at Newport, along with one song from a record called Newport Rebels, which features musicians who joined Mingus at the alternative festival that Mingus arranged to compete with the Newport Festival, on the same weekend as and across town from the 1960 festival. 

Miles Davis and John Coltrane - Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting Jazz Podcast

This week's episode is about one of the most celebrated associations in jazz, that between trumpeter Miles Davis and tenor saxophonist John Coltrane.  It features music from their early albums together, where the veteran Miles led the novice Coltrane through some pretty straight ahead but masterful bebop, through Coltrane's maturity as a solo voice, to their work together on albums like Jazz Track and Kind of Blue, where they developed the revolutionary modal approach to jazz improvisation. Beautiful music, all throughout.  Enjoy!

Repeat - Grachan Moncur III - Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting

I've been having a busy, busy week, so decided to take a week off the podcast and re-upload this early episode of Out There. I've been listening to the incredible music Mr. Moncur created a lot lately and wanted to share it again for anyone who might have missed it the first time around.  Next week: Miles Davis and John Coltrane

Trombonists - Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting Jazz Podcast

This week's episode of WNPM is a little different than usual.  Rather than focusing on a single artist, I wanted to play some music by a few different trombonists.  The musicians featured are Jimmy Knepper, Curtis Fuller, Julian Priester, and Grachan Moncur III, and the songs played are from their own albums as a leader as well as albums they appear on by John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, and more. 

 

Requests? Questions? Comments?  Leave a voice message at (424) 704-1666 or email wnpmpod@gmail.com!

Sonny Sharrock - Out There Avant Garde Jazz Podcast

This week's episode of Out There is about the amazing free jazz guitarist Sonny Sharrock, and features tracks from his albums as a leader as well as songs from albums he recorded as a sideman with Herbie Mann, Pharoah Sanders, Wayne Shorter, and more, and also features a reading of excerpts from an essay on improvising by Sharrock found in full here:

 

http://www.jazzguitar.com/features/sharrock.html

 

Also, this might be the last episode of Out There for a while, as I want to focus on doing fewer, better episodes, and so will be either integrating the avant garde stuff into the regular WNPM episodes or just doing them sporadically.  Enjoy!

ESP DISK - Out There Avant Garde Jazz Podcast

This week's episode is about the record label ESP Disk.  ESP was started as a means to spread the artificial universal language Esperanto, and somehow wound up releasing some of the most important free jazz of the 60s.  Featuring music by Albert Ayler, Henry Grimes, Marion Brown, Bob James, Paul Bley, Marzette Watts, and many more

Ron Carter - Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting Jazz Podcast

This week's episode of Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting, the last in a series of episodes about the members of Miles Davis' second great quintet, is about the most prolific member of the group, Ron Carter.  Throughout his career Carter has appeared on more than 2000 records, and this episode focuses mainly on the albums he was recording before and around the time that he was playing with Miles.  Enjoy!