eric dolphy

The boys love chasing after the esoteric, the brand new, the little known.  But sometime, we also like to talk about the, well, big label bangers.  That is, big labels in jazz terms, which really means small subsidiary branches of huge media conglomerates, but let's not get into that now.  Some famous names are back this episode and we talk about their latest releases - sometimes a great deal later than their date of death.  Artemis – IN REAL TIME; Brad Mehldau – YOUR MOTHER SHOULD KNOW;  Brandee Younger – BRAND NEW LIFE; John Coltrane / Eric Dolphy – EVENINGS AT THE VILLAGE GATE.

Maggie speaks with Grammy-winning music historian, journalist, producer, and educator Ashley Kahn about Evenings At The Village Gate: John Coltrane With Eric Dolphy, McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones.
In 1961, the John Coltrane Quintet played an engagement at the legendary Village Gate in Greenwich Village, New York.  Coltrane’s Classic Quartet was not as fully established as it would soon become and there was a meteoric fifth member of Coltrane’s group those nights— visionary multi-instrumentalist Eric Dolphy. Ninety minutes of never-before-heard music from this group were recently discovered at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, offering a glimpse into a powerful musical partnership that ended much too soon. In addition to some well-known Coltrane material (“My Favorite Things”, “Impressions”, “Greensleeves”), there is a breathtaking feature for Dolphy’s bass clarinet on “When Lights Are Low” and the only known non-studio recording of Coltrane’s composition “Africa”, from the Africa/Brass album. This recording represents a very special moment in John Coltrane's journey—the summer of 1961—when his signature, ecstatic live sound, commonly associated his Classic Quartet of '62 to '65, was first maturing and when he was drawing inspiration from deep, African sources— and experimenting with the two-bass idea both in the studio (Olé) and on stage. This truly rare recording of "Africa" captures his expansive vision at the time.

Ashley Kahn is a Grammy-winning American music historian, journalist, producer, and professor. He teaches at New York University’s Clive Davis Institute for Recorded Music, and has written books on two legendary recordings—Kind of Blue by Miles Davis and A Love Supreme by John Coltrane—as well as one book on a legendary record label: The House That Trane Built: The Story of Impulse Records. He also co-authored the Carlos Santana autobiography The Universal Tone, and edited Rolling Stone: The Seventies, a 70-essay overview of that pivotal decade. His latest book is entitled George Harrison on George Harrison: Interviews and Encounters.

Source: https://www.allaboutjazz.com/evenings-at-the-village-gate-john-coltrane-impulse-records__14009

Source: https://www.impulserecords.com/#/

Source: https://tisch.nyu.edu/about/directory/clive-davis-institute/1417614318


Host Maggie LePique, a radio veteran since the 1980's at NPR in Kansas City Mo. She began her radio career in Los Angeles in the early 1990's and has worked for Pacifica station KPFK Radio in Los Angeles since 1994.

Big bands tempt the ambitious jazzer with their expansive possibilities for arrangements, the variegated colors they offer, and their sheer power.  But, boy, those budgets!  These days you need a generous label or a grant or two to make things work.  We take a look at a very seventies example of the genre and then a brand new effort by a young woman barely old enough to drive.  A guitar trio and a guitar solo fill out the episode, and they couldn't be at further ends of the in to out spectrum.   In the end show, Mike fills us in on a couple major acts he caught recently in San Diego.  Grace Fox – ELEVEN O’SEVEN;  Oz Noy/Riverside Trio – RIVERSIDE; Samo Salamon – DOLPHYOLOGY; Oliver Nelson – SKULL SESSION.

Two major reissues and one highly publicized discovery from the 1960s provide the core of this round's podcast, as the boys discuss the latest album from the John Coltrane Quartet (despite the insistence of one internet denizen that "Coltrane's creativity really dropped off in the seventies") and then look at lavishly repacked work from Sonny Clark and Eric Dolphy.  Pop matters rounds things out with discussions of the personal politics of listening to Jimi Hendrix, the latest Beatles remixes, and the pros and cons of letting Kate Bush appear on her own albums.  John Coltrane – BOTH DIRECTIONS AT ONCE; Eric Dolphy – MUSICAL PROPHET; Sonny Clark – TRIO (on Time).

New-age-y music from the seventies, an organ trio with an inside-out guitar slinger, a saxophonist who almost went supernova in the eighties, an album of acapella movie themes?   This episode should be eclectic enough for anybody . . . who likes jazz, anyway.  Wil Blades – FIELD NOTES; Petra Haden – PETRA GOES TO THE MOVIES; Bennie Wallace – THE FREE WILL; Oregon – MUSIC OF ANOTHER PRESENT ERA.