To start off the 2021-2022 season of Discovering Jazz, I thought I’d play some familiar (and a few not so familiar) tunes from my lp collection. I play a few ‘regulars’ whose music has appeared on this program over the years: Don Shirley, Vince Guaraldi, Sounds Orchestral (Johnny Pearson), Fraser MacPherson, Peggy Lee, Tony Bennett & Bill Evans, and Bob Dorough. You’ll aso hear cuts from albums by Eddie Cano, Franco D’Andrea, Mel Torme with Rob McConnell and the Boss Brass, Buddy DeFranco and Tommy Gumina, and Sergio Mendes and Brazil 66.

I have lots more lp’s that I want to revisit. I look forward to playing them on future programs. But next week I’m going to dip into my cd’s.

This is an episode that is near and dear to my heart. Absolute Pitch (sometimes inaccurately called ‘perfect’ pitch) is something I had, then lost. And its something that people who don’t have it can never understand. When you have it, it seems as ‘normal’ as being able to identify the colour of your socks….and it’s a mystery why others aren’t able to do that.

In this episode I talk about my own experience. But it’s mostly about various musicians who have or had it, and how it affected them. And, like all my episodes, I play recordings by some of these musicians.

Only about one in 10,000 people are said to have it…..and it’s generally considered something you are born with….or at least learned at a very early age. It’s not something you can learn to have as an adult—despite certain online courses that claim to teach absolute pitch.

It’s very different from relative pitch—which we need to learn (even if you have absolute pitch). I talk about that difference.

Next week my summer reruns will end and I’ll begin posting new episodes for the 2021-2022 season.

You go to a jazz jam session with students or amateurs. One of the most common musical guides that almost every player uses is The Real Book, 6th Edition, Volume 1.

The original Real Book was put together in the mid 1970’s by some Berklee College of Music music students in Boston, partly as a way to make some money and probably also so they could have some standard melodies and chords to use during jazz jams. No royalties were paid.

In 2004, Hal Leonard obtained the rights to most of the tunes in the real book. He deleted some, added others, and that’s how the Real Book 6th Edition came into being.

I’ve gone through that Real Book a few times. Here are a few tunes that are relatively obscure. Some of them I’ve selected because I really like. Others are just curiosities.

I’ll play a commercially recorded version of 9 of them. They are: Equipoise, Las Vegas Tango, Chelsea Bridge, Como En Vietnam, Yes and No, Blue Room, Unity Village, Django, and Duke Ellington’s beautiful “African Flower”.

This is an episode I posted November, 2019…..before my guest, Angela Verbrugge, won the listener’s poll in Jazz Times magazine for favourite female vocalist.

Angela sent me (upon my request) some recordings from jazz singers I probably never heard of.   These recordings are the subject of this week’s and next week’s podcast.

I make it an exchange by presenting one or two to her that she’s probably never heard of.

This week you and I will discover the delightful singing of Lucy Yeghizaryan, Gabrielle Stravelli, Greta Matassa, Camille Thurman, Susannah McCorkle, and Dave Tull.   Recordings I chose to present to Angela are by Lorraine Nygaard, Alex Samaras (with Chelsea McBride’s Socialist Night School), and …….Angela Verbrugge.

Hearing some of Angela’s insights about these artists and about these recordings is definitely a highlight of this Discovering Jazz episode.

I invite any of you who are interested in reviewing this program to go to the itunes or Apple site, click the ‘ratings and reviews’ tab, and post a comment.  It would be much appreciated

One of my favourite Discovering Jazz podcasts. I used to play French Horn and tried to play blues on it. Even used it in a rock-blues group, with questionable success.

But there is quite the tradition of truly great jazz french hornists, and I’ve discovered a few of them. I play some of them on this program. It’s all great jazz…..I assure you.

According to Wikipedia, Jan Randall, a Canadian composer, pianist, and arranger, has made a career of composing soundtracks for films, theatre, radio, and television.  He combines playing by ear with his formal classical and jazz training.  And he teaches jazz appreciation courses through UVic and is a faculty member of the Victoria Conservatory of Music.

For this week’s program, Jan talks about a jazz appreciation course he has taught over the years. His objective is to help everybody expand their minds.  And he expanded mine!  Never before had I thought about jazz’s “Chopin roots”.

His audience? “People who are severely allergic to technical jargon”.

Enjoy Jan’s inspiring commentary, his positive energy,  and some great music!  From Louis Armstrong, through Art Tatum, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Joe Pass & Herb Ellis, and up to The Yellow Jackets.  Plus one very fine original Jan Randall composition, and he demonstrates his creative process in putting it together

Shortly before I moved from Peterborough, Ontario to Victoria, B.C., I spoke with Peterborough jazz guitarist, Mike Graham. I asked him for his thoughts on the future of jazz. He had lots of interesting things to say….and on this episode I play part of that interview.

What is the future of jazz?   Will everything change when the Miles Davis generation dies out?  Who will replace them?

In this program, I discuss with Mike what jazz might look like in the future—-as well as what it won’t be.  Of course, to predict the future, we need to know the past.  What past areas of jazz will flourish and develop?  What role will modern classical style compositions have?  How about hip-hop and sampling? Bebop?  Swing?

Just as important, who will be listening to jazz?  Will it just be ‘students’?  Or will it be so much ‘fun’ that it’s popularity grows and it’s listening base expands?

You’ll hear quite a variety of music today, some of which you might also hear tomorrow and the next day, and some you might never hear again, as it disappears into the ether.   Some of it, too, is definitely NOT jazz.  But the line between jazz and ‘not-jazz’ is expected to be blurred even more in the future

While many of those jazz tunes jazz artists like to play are from films or Broadway, many are written by jazz musicians. For this episode, from 2019, I feature seven tunes that have become ‘standards’. Two of them were written for films, and the other five specifically to be played by jazz ensembles.

I play tunes written by Horace Silver, Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, Bernie Miller (for Gerry Mulligan), and Wayne Shorter. And the two film tunes are from Alice in Wonderland and A Hole In The Head.

You’ll hear a couple renditions of some of them.

They’re all great tunes.

This is a program originally aired on Trent Radio and placed on my podcast site in November, 2017.

Inspired by a jazz instruction blog & podcast , LearnJazzStandards.com, hosted by guitarist Brent Vaarstra, and his post called “92 Modern Jazz Albums You Need to Listen To”. ‘Modern’ was defined as being anything after the year 2000. 

I went through the first few, and also found (elsewhere) a couple Canadian jazz albums……and decided to play a track from a few of them.  Vaarstra recommended albums are by Anna Maria Jopek & Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Tarek Yamani, Larry Goldings and Peter Bernstein, Poncho Sanchez & Terence Blanchard, Bruce Forman, David Kikoski w. Christian McBride, John Abercrombie, and Eldar Djangirov. 

Paul Novotny and Robi Botos, and trumpeter/singer Bria Skonberg are the two Canadian artists I discovered.

I’ve truly learned a lot since I started putting together these podcasts four years ago. That’s why the program is “Discovering Jazz”. I keep discovering new things about jazz and about jazz compositions. That being said, a lot of my earlier programs are still pretty good.

While Episodes 1 and 2 seem to have a lot of listeners, for some reason Episode 3 hasn’t. I don’t know why. There’s some great music!

The last two tracks are by a well-known trumpet player from the 1930’s who saxophonist Flip Phillips once said was “probably the greatest alto saxophone player alive”. Guess who?

And speaking of saxes you’ll also hear a duet of Stan Getz and Gerry Mulligan–including one where they switch saxes and Getz plays baritone and Mulligan tenor.

I also play some more modern tracks by Sweden’s Linda Svantesson, Toronto’s Robi Botos, Havana’s Interactivo, Peterborough’s Sean Hully, and Vancouver’s Jennifer Scott.

Rounding it all out are selections by Frank Sinatra (where Daniel Levitin raves about his phrasing), and Bill Evans & Jim Hall.