today's show

Reeling things in a bit today on KSFR, as some of the programming the past couple of weeks has begun to raise eyebrows again from the higher ups. (Long-suffering station manager to me after last week's show: "Another wacky show today eh?" He was mostly referring to the alto (Dudu Pukwana) and trumpet (Mongezi Feza) solos over the lush orchestrations of Brotherhood of Breath's Devashe's Dream. Perhaps the Muhal Richard Abrams tracks as well.)

Modern Jazz Quartet, Roy Haynes, Bud Powell, Brownie with Roach and Rollins, Pepper Adams, Erroll Garner, Holiday, JJ Johnson, Milt Jackson provide a panoply of safe yet tasty excursions in today's set list. The eyebrow raising is limited to Archie Shepp from Magic of JuJu (side B) Joe Harriott (Straight Lines) and Ornette (Enfant).

Fence sitting, "radio-friendly" (good lord) hybrid inside/out music is more rare than I realized, at least at this time in my library. One example in today's show is the wonderful quartet with Paul Bley, John Gilmore, Paul Motian and Gary Peacock (Ida Lupino). Two goals for building playlists for the future: 1. snag a lot more music from figures solidly in the tradition but that's odd or edgy in some way (late Duke has worked well for this, as has Herbie Nichols, some Mingus, actually quite a bit of Miles). 2. Find much more so-called "outside" stuff that is fairly easy aesthetically (so far some Art Ensemble, Ornette Coleman, several downloads from destination-out.com, etc.) The problem with the whole enterprise: my ears are so accustomed to the entire spectrum that I often hear something as aesthetically accessible that ends up freaking out my long-suffering station manager.

A third goal: get a lot more contemporary releases, from 1995-present. Funny that I get pigeonholed around here as an "outside" listener and musician when in many current circles my library is considered absolutely retro and stuffy.

anyway, I'm on from 1-3 Mountain Standard Time every Thursday streaming from www.ksfr.org.