I volunteer as a DJ for Charlottesville’s local independent radio station, WTJU Charlottesville, 91.1 FM.
Since January, I have been the every-other-week co-host of All That Jazz, which airs from 9:00–11:00am ET on Thursdays.
The sets below are my last two on this show! Starting this coming Monday, July 8, I will transition to start co-hosting a new jazz show, Second Sight, with David Buie-Moltz from 7:00–9:00pm ET on Monday nights.
WTJU broadcasts locally and streams worldwide on the web, so you can tune in live no matter where you are, or you can catch the archived stream anytime!
All volunteers can sub for others, too. While I’ll mostly sub for Jazz shows, I may get to do the occasional Rock, Folk, or Classical one.
Whenever I host a show, I’ll drop its stream and a corresponding playlist on the blog, and I’ll write a little about what I’m spinning and why.
Hope you enjoy and hear something that inspires!
All That Jazz | Thursday, July 4, 2024
If you’re interested in listening to my commentary for this set, the archived show will be up for the next two weeks. As Pat’s dad said, “Greg was fired up today” (lol!).
Public Spotify playlist:
The Opener
Back in 2008, vocalist Rene Marie was asked to open the Denver’s State of the City event. What the audience got was not what they expected.
Instead of singing the National Anthem, she beautifully juxtaposed the lyrics to “Lift Every Voice and Sing” overtop the melody of “The Star Spangled Banner.” For this, she received death threats and even the scorn of then-presidential candidate Barack Obama (read more here).
I often recall this story. Delighted to have landed a rare Independence Day slot, I knew I had to open with Rene’s song. It set the tone for the rest of my selections for the day.
For the sorts who are contemplative on ID4
While the second tune was more traditional—a great arrangement of the classic “Battle Hymn of the Old Republic” (which… perhaps I subconsciously chosen off that album due to it being the melody of “Solidarity Forever,” ha)—the rest were chosen as reflections of our past, present, and—at least in the near-term—future.
On Independence Day, we’re called to celebrate the birth of America and its formative promises of freedom and liberty. Thus, Sonny Rollins’s Freedom Suite was an obvious choice for this set. Though I chose to feature each of its movements as played by different groups, its important to listen with Sonny’s words in mind:
America is deeply rooted in Negro culture: its colloquialisms; its humor; its music. How ironic that the Negro, who more than any other people can claim America’s culture as his own, is being persecuted and repressed; that the Negro, who has exemplified the humanities in his very existence, is being rewarded with inhumanity.
Of course, I couldn’t do this show without playing an all-timer, Charles Mingus’s “Fables of Faubus”. The all-too-still-relevant lyrics for your pleasure:
Oh, Lord, don't let 'em shoot us!
Oh, Lord, don't let 'em stab us!
Oh, Lord, no more swastikas!
Oh, Lord, no more Ku Klux Klan!
Name me someone who's ridiculous, Dannie.
Governor Faubus!
Why is he so sick and ridiculous?
He won't permit integrated schools.
Then he's a fool! Boo! Nazi fascist supremacists!
Boo! Ku Klux Klan (with your Jim Crow plan).
Name me a handful that's ridiculous, Dannie Richmond.
Faubus, Rockefeller, Eisenhower.
Why are they so sick and ridiculous?
Two, four, six, eight:
They brainwash and teach you hate.
H-E-L-L-O, Hello.
“Damn Nam (Ain’t Goin’ to Vietnam)” and “Oh Lord Don’t Let Them Drop That Atomic Bomb on Me” were chosen as anti-war tracks in the face of our country’s obsession with imperialism and its forced messages of military infallibility.
Modern trumpeter Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah is known for being politically outspoken and for writing his music—as well as improvising—accordingly. “Angola, LA, & the 13th Amendment” has a title that’s rather on the nose, thus the selection.
“This is Not America,” originally written by David Bowie, Lyle Mays, and Pat Metheny and performed here by Chilean vocalist and guitarist Camila Meza, is a song of promise and potential gone unrealized:
Blossom fails to bloom this season
Promise not to stare too long
(This is not America)
For this is not the miracleThere was a time
A storm that blew so pure
For this could be the biggest sky
And I could have the faintest idea
Who are the heroes that we are expected to celebrate when we consider American freedom? What do they represent? Would Bobby Hutcherson be treated as a patriot—or demonized as Rene Marie was—in naming his chosen bastions of freedom in “Black Heroes”?
Folks all over the world are talking about freedom right now
Garvey, Malcolm, Martin
Men have given their minds and lives for freedom for us
Garvey, Malcolm, Martin
Lies are wearing so thin the people can see through them now
Now! Freedom now! Freedom now!
The Closers
When Pat’s dad said I was fired up, maybe he was referring to when I introduced “Mutuality,” a song by saxophonist Chris Potter that is inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr.’s words in his Letter from Birmingham Jail:
In a real sense all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be...
This is the inter-related structure of reality.
I love this quote and read it in full on air. No one can put it better than that, but I expressed that freedom to me is not something based in selfish notions of rugged individuality. Rather, it is something based in that which comes when you can live your life and be your best self as a person embedded in a community that you have complete faith and trust in.
Individualism is a lie that the ruling bourgeois class sells their wage slaves in order to stoke interclass conflict and maintain their power. I didn’t go that far on air, but there you have it.
One thing that I did point out is how, in his lyrics, Potter makes apparent how MLK’s words applies to our increasingly globalized human society. He depicts two women—one living in a war zone and one living in the city—and describes how even though the woman in the city may feel alive, she fails to feel free.
Have these feelings ever been more at the surface than they are today? Our country has been aiding Israel in its ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people for the better part of a year. Perhaps not everyone shows outright how much this weighs on them in their day to day, but does it not still, both emotionally and materially?
Even National Security Advisor John Kirby—no matter how complicit, no matter how much he has to deceive to himself by saying that what he is doing is right—has eyes that stare into the abyss. Even those who may not know about everything that’s happening because they don’t have the ability to keep up with the news are still affected materially because our resources are going towards mass murder rather than to keeping them healthy, housed, and fed.
This isn’t just some kind of high concept—it’s science! Humans are an open system! This is what MLK is ultimately describing. This is what Maya Angelou is, too, when she declared that no one of us can free until everybody is free.
Anyway, I’m pontificating a bit. I did that on the radio, too, so I actually didn’t get to play hardly any of my last track, which is Joey DeFrancesco (RIP) soulfully stating the most important thing for us to keep in mind in spite of the conditions we live in today: “A Change is Gonna Come.”
And it’s not just “going to”—we are going to make it. We will bring the change, and we will build a better world together.
All That Jazz | Thursday, June 20, 2024
I hadn’t posted this one before, and even though the music is incredible, I don’t think the playlist merits its own blog entry. Please enjoy!
Public Spotify playlist:
One Theme to Rule Them All
After the Cedar Walton trio track that I spun subbing for The Jazz Messenger the week prior exploded my brain, I needed an excuse to play more of his work. The album of that track is The Trio, Vol. 3, so I made the theme of this show, roughly, “Live Recordings Released in Multiple Volumes.”
I featured four artists’ collections:
The Cedar Walton Trio, The Trio, Vol. 1–3. These were all recorded on the same day. Fire from start to finish.
Clifford Jordan & the Magic Triangle, On Stage, Vol. 1–3. These also were recorded on the same day. The Magic Triangle is, in fact, the Cedar Walton Trio (but with Sam Jones on bass rather than David Williams).
Brad Mehldau, The Art of the Trio, Vol. 1–4. I actually advertised this show on air as a way for us to listen to the evolution of the artists over time, but… these were the only tracks I spun that weren’t recorded all at once lol. Anyway, each one of these albums are masterclasses, and it really is a treat to hear this band over the years playing at the Village Vanguard for each recording. There is also a fifth volume that I did not feature, so check it out!
Keith Jarrett, Standards, Vol. 1–2. These two may have been recorded in one day, but honestly… this is Keith Jarrett’s forever trio, so technically every album they released is like a volume in the whole of their lexicon, right? : P
I hope you find something new you love in these sets. Let me know in the comments!
Peace,
Greg