The Music Where Our Mouth Is

This is a playlist from a early morning broadcast on KDVS in Davis. I went on the air at about 5 minutes after 3 and was off by 6. All though there were no mistakes I felt that towards the end, due to some extra bookkeeping at the request of BMI, my timing was a little off. I would have liked to have played the 1946 duets by Ellington, Strayhorn (on the same piano!) and something from Sterling Brown. The purpose of playing the poetry along with the jazz is not a mere hip contrivance. In fact, as those who have followed this blog know, it is meant to illuminate the deeper and perhaps more subtle meanings of the music itself. I look at the show in its entirety as a single composition and just as a color or a shape in painting "brings out" a color or a shape in proximity so does a clarinet, a drum, a turn of the phrase. The most successful of these sequences in this particular broadcast, I believe, were as follows;

Ella Fitzgerald & Ellis Larkins playing My One & Only, followed by Duke Ellington's Orchestra playing Snibor

Margaret Walker (pictured above) reading For My People, followed by Johnny Hodges playing Day Dream

Snibor & Day Dream are, of course, compositions by Billy Staryhorn, which, I think, speaks to the depth of his genius and intuitive response to African-American culture in general and Jazz in particular.

I would have also liked to have spent more time on the small groups lead by Ellington sidemen. Perhaps in a future broadcast that's all I will play!


Ella Fitzgerald & Ellis Larkins - Someone To Watch Over Me
Ella Fitzgerald & Ellis Larkins - My One & Only
Duke Ellington & His Orchestra - Snibor
Langston Hughes - I Have Known Rivers
Langston Hughes - I, Too
Bud Powell - Blue Pearl
Bud Powell - Reets & I
Duke Ellington & His Orchestra featuring Lil Greenwood - Walkin' & Singing The Blues
Abbey Lincoln - Long As Your Living
Lee Morgan - All At Once You Love Her
Louis Smith - Tunesmith (excerpt)
Louis Smith - Au Privave
Herbie Nichols - Argumentative Variation
Herbie Nichols - Riff Primatiff
Countee Cullen - Heritage
Barney Bigard & His Orchestra - Brown Suede
Barney Bigard & His Orchestra - Noir Bleu
Barney Bigard & His Orchestra - "C" Blues
Barney Bigard & His Orchestra - June
Anita O'Day - I Didn't Know What Time It Was
Anita O'Day - The Very Thought Of You
Anita O'Day - Anita's Blues '76
Kenny Burrell Septet - I Never Knew
Ella Fitzgerald - I'm Just A Lucky So & So
Margaret Walker - For My People
Johnny Hodges & His Orchestra - Day Dream
Johnny Hodges & His Orchestra - Good Queen Bess
Johnny Hodges & His Orchestra - That's The Blues Old Man
Johnny Hodges & His Orchestra - Junior Hop
Claude McKay - If We Must Die (Introduction)
Claude McKay - If We Must Die
Miles Davis Sextet - Milestones (Miles)
Bill Evans Trio - Milestones (Miles)
Miles Davis Quintet - Milestones (Miles)
Gwendolyn Brooks - Kitchenette
Abbey Lincoln - Afro-Blue
Abbey Lincoln - Lonely House
Abbey Lincoln - Let Up
Bill Evans Trio - Solar