The distinguished audio expert Jim Brown saw the Rifftides piece on the possible demise of the last jazz radio station in Los Angeles and sent this reminder that the music is threatened at stations across the nation.

Although I’ve just completed a move to Santa Cruz, I did learn during a recent visit to Chicago that WBEZ, the NPR station there, has announced discontinuance of all music programs in favor of the magazine format that has dominated an increasing portion of their airtime over the past ten years or so.
While that magazine format has been mostly done well, the jazz programming segment has both shrunk and suffered a serious decline in quality. I blame both the president and general manager (Torey Malatia) and Chris Heim, his appointed music director for those ten or so years. I got out to hear jazz at least once a week. I never saw Ms. Heim in a jazz venue, nor have I talked to anyone who has. Prior to her tenure, all the jazz jocks “lived it and loved it,” in the words of the legendary Chicago DJ Daddio Daylie, and it showed in their on-air work. Under Malatia/Heim, there were tight playlists (white bread), jocks are not allowed to say much of value, and good jocks were either fired or quit. In the same time frame, a low power suburban station, WDCB, has only musicians on the air as jocks and gives them plenty of running room. As a result, the real jazz fans deserted WBEZ in droves. This undoubtedly was reflected during pledge drives. Although I love NPR and their news programming, I withdrew my support years ago in protest of the mess they were making of jazz (and told them so), and supported WDCB generously. Now that we’re here, we’ll support KCSM.
Which brings up another threat to both jazz and NPR—we can’t hear KCSM on the air here, although they’re only 50 miles away, because there’s a 10 watt translator (for an Idaho religious broadcaster) on their frequency two miles away! If you travel across the country, you’ll find this is a common problem, as religious broacasters have gobbled up both high- and low-power licenses on the fringes of the major NPR stations. This mess, for example, caused WBEZ to need to add three translators to fill in the newly created “dead zones” that they previously covered quite well. In much of the United States, it is now far easier to get saved (and be fed the political agenda of the saviors) than it is to get the news.
WBEZ is run by a board composed of the same sort of large donors that fund PBS stalwart WTTW Channel 11 (whose upper crust-focused programming earned them the moniker “Wilmette Talks To Winnetka.” That, I suspect, has a lot to do with the Legends of Jazz debacle).
Jim Brown

A Rifftides reader writes

I just came across Rifftides, as I was searching for Coleman Hawkins’ Centennial CD/DVD package. I was at a loss in identifying some of the players on the DVD, and your post from 2005 helped a great deal. Especially in introducing me to Harry Sheppard and Dickie Thompson, neither of whom I’d known previously. I’m still wondering who the piano, bass and second tenor players are, however. Any help there? Anything would be appreciated.

The pianist is Willie “The Lion” Smith. The bassist is Vinnie Burke. The other tenor saxophonist on “Jumpin’ With Symphony Sid” is Lester Young.

Thanks, as well, for your excellent blog; I’m now a reader. I especially liked your pieces on New York in spring and on the Garage (a nice place to play) and Virginia Mayhew. I know her, and agree with your comment on the
jump in her playing.
E. J. Decker
New York, NY

Oh, no, thank YOU. Just for fun, here’s a reprise of that July 7, 2005, Doug’s Pick:

Coleman Hawkins:The Centennial Collection.This two-disc CD/DVD package was part of Bluebird’s observance of RCA Victor’s 100th anniversary. The CD has twenty of the tenor saxophone patriarch’s recordings made over several decades. All of them have been reissued repeatedly. The news here is the DVD showing Hawkins in 1950s television programs with peers like Charlie Shavers, Pee Wee Russell and J.C. Higginbotham, and younger musicians, too; bassist Vinnie Burke and a very good unidentified vibraharpist among them. In fact, none of the musicians is identified, a drastic production failure. Still, the music is terrific. The piece de resistance is a jam session performance in which Hawkins and Lester Young–the most revered tenor men of their era–trade four-bar phrases on “Jumpin’ With Symphony Sid.” Seeing and hearing them together is a joy.

As he moves toward the middle of his eighty-sixth year, Dave Brubeck is not slowing down. He’s picking up speed—and honors—and preparing a major work. Today he is at his alma mater, University of the Pacific, to collect another medal. For a story about Brubeck’s whirlwind week and his new project, go here.

A story in today’s Los Angeles Times has this headline:
Straight-ahead jazz may lose its KKJZ-FM gig
And this quote:

“KKJZ is a very famous jazz station and there aren’t many more around like them,” said Frank Sinatra Jr., son of the singing legend, and a professional musician who lives in West Los Angeles. “[Straight-ahead] jazz is the biggest music in the world, except in the country (where) it was created. It would be such a big loss if they stopped playing jazz. That station is the last lighthouse in the fog.”

The story is about what may be the next major step in the decimation of jazz on radio in the United States. Stations across the country are cutting back or abandoning jazz programming. They include independent broadcasters and many National Public Radio affiliates that have dropped NPR’s Jazz Profiles, Jazz Set, and Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz. KKJZ’s owner, the Long Beach branch of California State University, is soliciting proposals designed to put the station under management that will make it what the chairman of Pacific Public Radio calls “a cash cow ” for the university. Pacific Public Radio is the current operator of KKJZ and one of five radio companies asked to submit proposals.
To read the Times story, go here.
To listen to KKJZ on your radio in the Los Angeles area, tune to 88.1 FM. To hear it on your computer, go here.
The provost and senior vice president of Cal State Long Beach, the station’s license holder, is Dr. Dorothy Abrahamse, e-mail dabraham@csulb.edu

What can be hoped of an art which must necessarily depend on the favor of the public—of such a public, at least, as ours? Good work may, does sometimes, succeed. But never with the degree of success that befalls twaddle and vulgarity. Twaddle and vulgarity will always have the upper hand.
—Max Beerbohm, Saturday Review, September, 1908
We know that the tail must wag the dog, for the horse is drawn by the cart;
But, the Devil whoops, as he whooped of old: It’s
clever, but is it Art?
—Rudyard Kipling, The Conundrum of the Workshops

John Birchard writes from Washington, DC.

Reading TT’s disgusted remarks about the American Masters Nat King Cole show brought to mind the only time I saw Cole in person.
It was 1956. I was in Uncle Sam’s Air Force, stationed at Craig AFB outside Selma, Alabama. A jazz fan friend of mine and I learned that Cole would be coming to Birmingham as headliner of a tour that included June Christy, the Four Freshmen, Ted Heath’s British band and comedian Gary Morton, who later would become more widely known as Lucille Ball’s husband. We got tickets and drove to Birmingham, eagerly anticipating a show that turned out to be both more and less than we bargained for.
Alabama in ’56 was still very much a Jim Crow state. The audience for the Cole concert was divided by race—whites for the early show, blacks to attend the late one. The evening started enjoyably enough. The artists went through their tunes and jokes until it was time for Cole to appear. The curtain went up on the Trio, with Nat seated at the piano, turned half-way toward the audience, floor mic between his knees. The audience greeted him warmly and he began to sing. Suddenly, there was noise from the rear of the hall, quickly followed by four men, two in each aisle of the Auditorium, racing toward the stage. They leaped onto the stage, one of them tackling Cole, knocking him off the piano bench onto the floor.
There was instant chaos. the audience on its feet, screaming. Before you could blink, there were what seemed like a hundred cops onstage, grappling with the four white men, dragging them away. Now, the audience was shouting, cursing. My friend and I were, of course, stunned at what had happened and now, a couple of Yankees in a strange land, we were scared that the all-white audience might be calling for Cole’s blood. But no, they were angry at what had just taken place, calling for the scalps of the rednecks who had attacked Cole and ruined the evening.
In the midst of the confusion, the curtain had come down, Nat and his guys had disappeared and the crowd was milling about when the curtain rose again, this time on a scene of musicians from the Ted Heath band scrambling into their chairs. Amidst the chaos, someone had ordered Heath to play the national anthem and, to add to the bizarre quality of the night, the Brits launched into “God Save the Queen”.
That was the end of the show. Cole was slightly injured in the fracas and considerably shaken up by this ugly homecoming to his native state. There was a second show for the black audience, but Cole did not sing. He appeared on stage to apologize for not performing, but of course his fans understood. Later, we learned from newspaper accounts that the four racists who launched the attack were local Klan members who cooked up this plan. They did some jail time for assault abd battery or some such minor charge. The Birmingham police apparently had been tipped off that there might be trouble at the concert and were stationed backstage. Cole’s biography includes more details for anyone interested.
I have long regretted that it was my only chance to enjoy Nat Cole live, but on the other hand it was a bit of history.

Mr. Birchard is a news broadcaster for the Voice of America.

artsjounal.com neighbor Terry Teachout suggests that I pass along an item from his About Last Night. As a followup to recent Rifftides discussions about the quality of television music programming, here it is—a public service:

If you missed last night’s PBS American Masters documentary on Nat King Cole, don’t even think about catching a replay. Not only was the script a dumbed-down, once-over-lightly account of one of the most significant careers in the history of American popular music, but the show contained next to no uninterrupted footage of Cole in performance. In between the snippets was a numbing succession of talking-head interviews with such irrelevant celebrity interlopers as Whoopi Goldberg and Carlos Santana. Rarely have I endured so witless a piece of junk. Avoid it at all costs.

He didn’t llike it.

Very interesting (fascinating actually) subject, I think. Doug, I am thrilled that you are exploring the origins of the Jazz Messiahs and the emergence of Ornette Coleman. Pianist Don Friedman mentioned to me that this band played several gigs in the Pacific Northwest and Vancouver during this period, late 1957 (just prior to his joining a newly formed Buddy DeFranco group for an east coast tour). I have been searching many years for a possible recording made of the Jazz Messiahs from a CFUN Canadian Radio broadcast in late 1957. The group for this broadcast supposedly consisted of Don Cherry, Ornette Coleman, Don Friedman, Ben Tucker(filling in for Don Payne), and Billy Higgins. Another interesting tidbit as told to me by Don Payne….he recalls Scott LaFaro filling in for him on bass with this group on at least one occasion. I look very much forward to more of your writing on this topic.
Mark Ferrante, New York

If new information surfaces, we’ll report it. For Don Payne’s followup to the original posting, go here.

Matthew Lurie writes from Chicago:

I just thought I’d drop a line and link to an article I wrote about Legends of Jazz for Time Out Chicago. Because Ramsey Lewis is from here (as are the rhythm section of Larry Gray, Willie Pickens, and Leon Joyce) and the show was shot here, we viewed it as our special Chi-town duty to try and address some of the problems of the show.

Did he ever. Two samples:

The younger musicians who do make it in the show (Chris Potter, Roy Hargrove and Kurt Elling) perform beneath themselves despite herculean efforts to the contrary—they can’t escape the stylistic straitjacket the producers have imposed.

The problem with Legends is that jazz, the most quintessentially spontaneous music, is treated like a still photograph of someone who’s already dead and gone.

To read all of Lurie’s review of the series, go here.

Coincidentally, on the heels of yesterday’s Rifftides piece about the Legends Of Jazz television series, an e-mail message alerted me to a video performance that demonstrates the visual restraint, taste and directorial discretion that is missing in the Legends series. It is a solo piano performance by Denny Zeitlin of “What Is This Thing Called Love,” preceded by a few minutes of free playing as an introduction. It was videotaped at the 1983 Berlin Jazz Festival, with Zeitlin at a C. Bechstein concert grand.
Just as good writing should make the reader forget that he’s holding a book, good television presentation of music should make the viewer forget that he’s watching television. In the Zeitlin video, the setting, lighting, camera work and director’s shot changes are in partnership with the music, never calling attention to themselves or to production values. Even a cutaway shot of the Bechstein’s inner working makes sense with the improvisation. Pianists interested in Zeitlin’s technique are rewarded with sequences of his long fingers at work, the keyboard shot at a perfect angle for study. Since the subject here is not Zeitlin’s playing, suffice it to say that his improvisation is brilliant. Listen for the recurring Coltrane reference.
The only distracting notes come not from Zeitlin’s piano but from visual plugs for his latest solo album and his website.They momentarily fill the screen while he’s playing and break the spell. It is a minor flaw, but a crucially placed minor flaw. Commerce would have been served less jarringly when the music ends. But it is Zeitlin’s website and his call. To view the video, go here and look for the download instructions for Windows, Mac or iPod. With a broadband connection, the download takes more than a minute.
The full-screen option results in a slight loss of visual quality, but I found that expanding the picture, moving back a few feet from the monitor and cranking up the sound gives a sense almost of being there. To make the picture bigger, click on the box to the left of the X in the upper right corner of the realPlayer window.