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A celebration of the best of jazz’s great comeback stories including Duke Ellington’s legendary 1956 Newport Jazz Festival performance, and an exclusive interview with guitarist Pat Martino who survived a brain aneurysm and retook his place as one of the music’s great voices on jazz guitar. We’ll talk with jazz historian Phil Schaap about the epic saxophone solo that single-handedly propelled Duke Ellington back into jazz relevance, chat with a Chicago cabaret artist who’s committed to giving long-forgotten tunes from the Golden Age of American Song a new lease on life, and hear the triumphant story of guitarist Pat Martino.
Episode Transcript
Content warnings: discussion of aneurysm and recovery.
Host: Jeff Haas
Guests: Phil Schaap, Justin Hayford, Bill Milkowski, Pat Martino
Music
Original Air Date: March 23, 2012
Radio broadcast produced by Lou Blouin and Jeff Haas
Radio broadcast audio engineering by Jack Conners and Brock Mormon
Podcast produced by Sam Boase-Miller and Erik Saras
Podcast audio remastering by Sam Boase-Miller
Transcripts and show notes by Erik Saras
Theme Song: Jeff Haas Trio & Friends “Giving In”
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We continue our tour of America’s great jazz cities with the sites and sounds of New Orleans jazz and its origins in the early twentieth century, the parade tradition known as Second Line, and explore how Hurricane Katrina has reshaped the New Orleans jazz scene. We’ll talk with jazz historian Bruce Raeburn about the birth of jazz in New Orleans, get to know the raucous New Orleans parade tradition that is Second Line, chat with Louis Armstrong historian Ricky Riccardi about Satchmo’s wild and wooly years growing up on the streets of the Crescent City, and see how jazz has found new life after the devastating effects from Hurricane Katrina.
Episode Transcript
Host: Jeff Haas
Guests: Bruce Raeburn, Ricky Riccardi
Music
Original Air Date: February 18, 2012
Radio broadcast produced by Lou Blouin and Jeff Haas
Radio broadcast audio engineering by Jack Conners and Brock Mormon
Podcast produced by Sam Boase-Miller and Erik Saras
Podcast audio remastering by Sam Boase-Miller
Transcripts and show notes by Erik Saras
Theme Song: Jeff Haas Trio & Friends “Giving In”
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A celebration of the life and music of maestro Tito Puente, including the 1950s mambo craze that launched his meteoric rise to the top, and the many talents that made him the undisputed King of Latin Jazz. We’ll talk with Latin jazz historian Bobby Sanabria about why Tito still matters to the 20-somethings he’s teaching at the Manhattan School of Music, chat with Tito Puente’s friend and biographer Joe Conzo about Tito’s meteoric rise to the top of the mambo scene, and hear of the story behind Puente’s most famous composition and why you might not even realize it’s a Tito Puente original.
Episode Transcript
Host: Jeff Haas
Guests: Bobby Sanabria, Joe Conzo
Music
Original Air Date: May 19, 2012
Radio broadcast produced by Lou Blouin and Jeff Haas
Radio broadcast audio engineering by Jack Conners and Brock Mormon
Podcast produced by Sam Boase-Miller and Erik Saras
Podcast audio remastering by Sam Boase-Miller
Transcripts and show notes by Erik Saras
Theme Song: Jeff Haas Trio & Friends “Giving In”
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A lot of people probably don’t think of jazz as something that’s all that funny, but there’s more than one way to get a laugh out of all things jazz that’s guaranteed to make you smile. We’ll talk with stand-up comic Jeff Cesario about how his former life as a jazz musician helps make him a better comedian, bring in our jazz historian Lewis Porter to talk about jazz’s vaudeville roots and how jazz lost its sense of humor in the 1950s, and take a look at jazz prankster Dizzy Gillespie and other jazz stories that’ll leave you smiling.
Episode Transcript
Host: Jeff Haas
Guests: Jeff Cesario, Lewis Porter
Music
Original Air Date: August 6, 2012
Radio broadcast produced by Lou Blouin and Jeff Haas
Radio broadcast audio engineering by Jack Conners and Brock Mormon
Podcast produced by Sam Boase-Miller and Erik Saras
Podcast audio remastering by Sam Boase-Miller
Transcripts and show notes by Erik Saras
Theme Song: Jeff Haas Trio & Friends “Giving In”
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A celebration of the life and extraordinary work of American folklorist Alan Lomax and how his calling to record the world changed the course of 20th century music with his legacy of over 10,000 recordings. We’ll talk with Lomax historian and archivist Don Fleming about Lomax’s groundbreaking work in the American South during the 1930s, trace Lomax’s path abroad and his efforts to record and capture the traditional music of countries across the world, talk with Todd Harvey of the Library of Congress about his efforts to preserve Lomax’s legacy, and find out how Alan’s long-held dream of providing unlimited access to his work is now becoming reality in the Internet Age.
Episode Transcript
Content warnings: explicit lyrics on the translation of Jelly Roll Morton’s “C’était N’aut’ Can-Can, Payez Donc (If You Don't Shake, You Don't Get No Cake)”
Host: Jeff Haas
Guests: Don Fleming, John Szwed, Todd Harvey
Music
Original Air Date: April 13, 2012
Radio broadcast produced by Lou Blouin and Jeff Haas
Radio broadcast audio engineering by Jack Conners and Brock Mormon
Podcast produced by Sam Boase-Miller and Erik Saras
Podcast audio remastering by Sam Boase-Miller
Transcripts and show notes by Erik Saras
Theme Song: Jeff Haas Trio & Friends “Giving In”
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We start our tour of America’s great jazz cities with the sites and sounds of Chicago by tracing the arrival of jazz and how it established the city's reign as America’s jazz capital during the 1920s, leading it to grow into one of the country’s richest avant garde jazz scenes. We’ll talk with the owner of the storied Green Mill Cocktail Lounge about his epic restoration of the club to its former speakeasy glory, hear how the Green Mill helped found the improv-rich tradition that is the poetry slam, and tour the bizarre outer-space-themed world of Sun Ra.
Episode Transcript
Host: Jeff Haas
Guests: Dave Jemilo, Neil Tesser, John Szwed
Music
Original Air Date: January 28, 2012
Radio broadcast produced by Lou Blouin and Jeff Haas
Radio broadcast audio engineering by Jack Conners and Brock Mormon
Podcast produced by Sam Boase-Miller and Erik Saras
Podcast audio remastering by Sam Boase-Miller
Transcripts and show notes by Erik Saras
Theme Song: Jeff Haas Trio & Friends “Giving In”
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The life and music of the great Nina Simone from her roots as a gospel and classical musician to her place as one of the fiercest voices for civil rights. We’ll talk with New York Magazine’s Joe Hagan about his look inside Nina Simone’s private diaries, chat with Simone biographer Nadine Cohodas about Nina’s life and music and her role as one of the fiercest voices for civil rights, and listen to some of Nina’s best from her more than 30 year reign as the High Priestess of Soul.
Episode Transcript
Host: Jeff Haas
Guests: Joe Hagan, Nadine Cohodas
Music
Original Air Date: November 21, 2011
Radio broadcast produced by Lou Blouin and Jeff Haas
Radio broadcast audio engineering by Jack Conners and Brock Mormon
Podcast produced by Sam Boase-Miller and Erik Saras
Podcast audio remastering by Sam Boase-Miller
Transcripts and show notes by Erik Saras
Theme Song: Jeff Haas Trio & Friends “Giving In”
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You can’t listen to a painting or see a song, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t really interesting places where the worlds of jazz and art overlap. We’ll explore jazz’s connection to the arts with a look at the criss-crossing paths of jazz and the visual arts with Dr. Robert O’Meally, discussing how the worlds of art and music collided during the Harlem Renaissance, explore the life and art of the jazz painter Romare Bearden, and take a look at the life and work of iconic jazz photographer William Gottlieb.
Episode Transcript
Host: Jeff Haas
Guests: Robert O’Meally and Ben Cawthra
Music
Original Air Date: February 10, 2012
Radio broadcast produced by Lou Blouin and Jeff Haas
Radio broadcast audio engineering by Jack Conners and Brock Mormon
Podcast produced by Sam Boase-Miller and Erik Saras
Podcast audio remastering by Sam Boase-Miller
Transcripts and show notes by Erik Saras
Theme Song: Jeff Haas Trio & Friends “Giving In”
Visit our website and join us on Facebook
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