Monday, April 30, 2012

Poet Laureate of California, Juan Felipe Herrera

Show description for Sunday 4/22/2012 @ 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM


Our guest this week, on the 5 o'clock hour, Juan Felipe Herrera. A key figure in the development of California literature, Mr. Herrera has most recently been appointed Poet Laureate of our state.
Also this week, a special birthday tribute to Charles Mingus, born this day, April 22, 1922. We will pay particular attention to the scarce and infrequently heard sides recorded for his co-operative label, Debut, founded with Max Roach. 

ArtistSongAlbumLabel
Charles Mingus & Spaulding GivensWhat Is This Thing Called Love?The Complete Debut RecordingsFantasy
Charles Mingus & Spaulding GivensBody & SoulThe Complete Debut RecordingsFantasy
Charles Mingus & Spaulding GivensBlue Moon The Complete Debut RecordingsFantasy
Charles Mingus & Spaulding GivensBlue TideThe Complete Debut RecordingsFantasy
Charles Mingus OctetBlue TideThe Complete Debut RecordingsFantasy
Charles Mingus OctetEclipseThe Complete Debut RecordingsFantasy
Charles Mingus OctetPink TopsyThe Complete Debut RecordingsFantasy
Charles Mingus OctetMiss BlissThe Complete Debut RecordingsFantasy
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Charles MingusMake BelieveThe Complete Debut RecordingsFantasy
Charles MingusParis In BlueThe Complete Debut RecordingsFantasy
Charles MingusMontageThe Complete Debut RecordingsFantasy
Charles MingusExtrasensory PerceptionThe Complete Debut RecordingsFantasy
Charles MingusPrecognitionThe Complete Debut RecordingsFantasy
Charles MingusPortraitThe Complete Debut RecordingsFantasy
Charles Mingus (Thad Jones)PortraitThe Complete Debut RecordingsFantasy
Charles Mingus (Thad Jones)ChazzanovaThe Complete Debut RecordingsFantasy
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Charles MingusBass-ically SpeakingThe Complete Debut RecordingFantasy
Charles MingusBass-ically SpeakingThe Complete Debut RecordingFantasy
Charles MingusStardustThe Complete Debut RecordingsFantasy
Charles MingusStardustThe Complete Debut RecordingsFantasy
Charles Mingus (Miles Davis)Nature BoyThe Complete Debut RecordingsFantasy
Charles Mingus (Miles Davis)Nature BoyThe Complete Debut RecordingsFantasy
Charles MingusLove ChantThe Complete Debut RecordingsFantasy
Charles MingusLove ChantThe Complete Debut RecordingsFantasy
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Charles MingusPrayin' With EricTown Hall Concert 1964JWS (Original Jazz Classics)
Charles MingusPrayin' With Eric (Meditations)Town Hall Concert 1964JWS (Original Jazz Classics)
========================== Airbreak ==========================
Charles MingusUntitled Original CompositionThe Complete Debut RecordingsFantasy
Interview With Juan Felipe Herrera By Justin DesmanglesInterview With Juan Felipe Herrera By Justin DesmanglesInterview With Juan Felipe Herrera By Justin DesmanglesInterview With Juan Felipe Herrera By Justin Desmangles
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The Band with The Staple SingersThe WeightThe Last WaltzWarner Brothers

Monday, April 2, 2012

Night's Dancer

Show description for Sunday 3/11/2012 @ 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM


Our guest this afternoon on the 5 o'clock hour, Yaël Tamar Lewin, dance historian, writer, dancer, and most recently
author of, Night's Dancer: The Life of Janet Collins, new from Wesleyan University Press

"Night's Dancer: The Life of Janet Collins is an enthralling read. It reinforces Collin's struggle, personal strength and ultimate success. While following her dreams with endless energy, she leapt over boundaries."Karen Barr, Dance International

The biography of the first African-American prima ballerina

Dancer Janet Collins, born in New Orleans in 1917 and raised in Los Angeles, soared high over the color line as the first African-American prima ballerina at the Metropolitan Opera. Night’s Dancer chronicles the life of this extraordinary and elusive woman, who became a unique concert dance soloist as well as a black trailblazer in the white world of classical ballet. During her career, Collins endured an era in which racial bias prevailed, and subsequently prevented her from appearing in the South. Nonetheless, her brilliant performances transformed the way black dancers were viewed in ballet. The book begins with an unfinished memoir written by Collins in which she gives a captivating account of her childhood and young adult years, including her rejection by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Dance scholar Yaël Tamar Lewin then picks up the thread of Collins’s story. Drawing on extensive research and interviews with Collins and her family, friends, and colleagues to explore Collins’s development as a dancer, choreographer, and painter, Lewin gives us a profoundly moving portrait of an artist of indomitable spirit.

“With Night’s Dancer, Lewin has produced a major work that continues to correct the absence of historical writing on African Americans in ballet and modern dance. The author incorporates Collins’s own writings, intimate details from the artist’s life, and rich contextual material to create a work that is emotionally touching and incredibly informative.”John O. Perpener III, author of African-American Concert Dance: The Harlem Renaissance and Beyond

“Blessed with extraordinary gifts for dance and painting, Janet Collins broke barriers as the first African-American prima ballerina at the world-renowned Metropolitan Opera. Her life’s journey is inspirational. History should recognize her as one of its pioneers. Janet Collins was truly one of earth’s angels.”Arthur Mitchell, co-founder of the Dance Theatre of Harlem


ArtistSongAlbumLabel

Henry Grimes TrioDancestorsSublime Communication 2: Live At EdgefestPrivate Recording
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Ran Blake & Jeanne LeeYou Stepped Out Of A DreamYou Stepped Out Of A DreamOwl

Ran Blake & Jeanne LeeNewswatchYou Stepped Out Of A DreamOwl

Declared EnemyFlowersSalute To 100001 Stars: A Tribute To Jean GenetRogue Art

Declared EnemyAlberto's WorkshopSalute To 100001 Stars: A Tribute To Jean GenetRogue Art

Declared EnemyMettraySalute To 100001 Stars: A Tribute To Jean GenetRogue Art

Woody ShawStepping StoneLive: Volume OneHigh Note
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William ParkerPhiladelphia ClayCrumbling In The Shadows In Fraulein Miller's Stale CakeCentering Music

Tom CoraCows Stars Rivers And GiantsGumption In LimboSound Aspects

Derek Bailey & Cyro BaptistaRio BrancoCyroIncus

Quincy TroupeA Man Walks In Slow MotionA New TongueSound Art
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Freddie HubbardBreaking Point (excerpt)Breaking PointBlue Note

Interview With Yael Tamar Lewin By Justin DesmanglesInterview With Yael Tamar Lewin By Justin DesmanglesInterview With Yael Tamar Lewin By Justin DesmanglesInterview With Yael Tamar Lewin By Justin Desmangles
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Henry Grimes TrioRitual Future / NowSongNew (excerpts)Sublime Communication 2: Live At EdgefestPrivate Recording

Tyrone Brown featuring John A. WilliamsReadings From Safari WestSuite For John A. WilliamsDreambox

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

You Have Given Me A Country, Neela Vaswani's America

Show description for Sunday 3/4/2012 @ 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM






Our guest this afternoon on the 5 o'clock hour, Neela Vaswani. We will be discussing her most recent work, You Have Given Me a Country, winner of the American Book Award 2011.

You Have Given Me a Country is a mixed-genre exploration of blurred borders, identity, and what it means to be bicultural. Combining memoir, history, and fiction, the book follows the paths of the author’s Irish-Catholic mother and Sindhi-Indian father on their journey towards each other and the biracial child they create. Vaswani’s second full-length work thematically echoes such books as The Color of Water, Running in the Family, or Motiba’s Tattoos, but is entirely unique in approach, voice, and story, The book reveals the self as a culmination of all that went before it, a new weave of two varied, yet ultimately universal backgrounds that spans continents, generations, languages, wars, and, at the center of it all, family.

-ForeWord Book of the Year. Gold Medal. Essay category. 2010.
-Independent Book Publisher's Award (IPPY). Silver Medal. Multicultural fiction. 2010.

-Honor Book. Asian/Pacific American Literature Award. Nonfiction category. 2010.

-Honor Book. Association for Asian American Studies Book Award. Prose category. 2010.



ArtistSongAlbumLabel

Louis ArmstrongStardust ("Oh, memory")Louis Armstrong & His OrchestraPhillips

Louis Armstrong & His OrchestraStruttin' With Some BarbecueSwing That Music (ep)Swaggie

Rose Murphy featuring Slam StewartBig Noise From WinnetkaDinah b/w Big Noise From WinnetkaDecca

Lucky Thompson & His Lucky 7Boppin' The BluesCrazy & CoolRCA

Jazz At The PhilharmonicEndidoJ.A.T.P. Volume 10Mercury

Billy EckstinePrisoner Of LoveBilly Eckstine SingsNational

Benny Goodman With Peggy LeeLet's Do ItBenny Goodman With Peggy LeeColumbia

Julian "Cannonball" AdderleyKelly BlueAfrican Waltz b/w Kelly BlueRiverside

Earl HinesMountain AirEarl Hines & His All-StarsMercury
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Bill Evans TrioMilestonesWaltz For DebbyRiverside

Oscar Brown, Jr.Man, Earnest BoyTells It Like It Is!Columbia

The Jazz MessengersEcarohThe Jazz MessengersColumbia

Sarah VaughnWords Can't DescribeSarah Vaughn & Her TrioEmercy

Stan GetzStella By StarlightStan Getz Quartet (ep)Clef

Coleman HawkinsPhantomesqueColeman Hawkins (ep)Aladdin

Dinah WashingtonMakebelieve DreamsDinah Washington Vol. 8Official

Frank Sinatra with Nelson RiddleOnly The Lonely Only The LonelyCapitol
========================== Airbreak ==========================

Sarah VaughnMean To MeHot JazzRemington

Earl HinesFather CooperatesEarl Hines & His All-StarsMercury

Louis Armstrong & His OrchestraSatchel Mouth SwingSwing That Music (ep)Swaggie

Honey HillBoogie WoogiePiano Jazz: Boogie Woogie Style (ep)Swaggie

Dinah WashingtonMad About The BoyDinah Washington Vol. 8Official

Ella Fitzgerald & Ellis LarkinsWhat Is There To Say? Songs In A Mellow Mood (ep)Decca

Garland WilsonSweet LorraineSwing Sessions 2 - 1938/1939Pathe Marconi

Oscar AlemanRussian LullabySwing Sessions 2 - 1938/1939Pathe Marconi
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McCoy TynerMessage From The Nile (excerpt)ExtensionsBlue Note

Interview With Neela Vaswani By Justin DesmanglesInterview With Neela Vaswani By Justin DesmanglesInterview With Neela Vaswani By Justin DesmanglesInterview With Neela Vaswani By Justin Desmangles

McCoy TynerMessage From The Nile (excerpt)ExtensionsBlue Note
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Peggy LeeIs That All There Is? Is That All There Is? Capitol

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Greil Marcus Talks About The Doors Secret Alphabets, Matthew Shipp Appears In The Upcoming Film, The Composer

Show description for Sunday 2/26/2012 @ 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM

This afternoon, Matthew Shipp returns to discuss his most recent recording, featuring Michael Bisio and Whit Dickey, Elastic Aspects (Thirsty Ear).
Later in the program, Greil Marcus, pictured at right, joins us to talk about his new book, The Doors: A Lifetime of Listening to Five Mean Years
.

"Nobody reads a song like Greil Marcus, whose prose is as passionate and omnivorous as the music he loves. Here he travels by way of Thomas Pynchon, Pop Art and Charles Manson to bring the chaotic, majestic, death-haunted Doors back to doomed and haunting life." -- Salman Rushdie

"No one thinks or writes like Greil Marcus. He has a genius for putting the aural dream-language of music into words, for making you 'hear' songs you thought you knew as if for the first time. Not just hear, but, as he puts it, 'feel on your skin' well after the song is over. Because 'the story it's telling is still going on.'" -- Mary Gaitskill


ArtistSongAlbumLabel

Roscoe Mitchell QuartetMr. FreddyBefore There Was SoundNessa

Roscoe Mitchell QuartetGreenBefore There Was SoundNessa

Matthew Shipp TrioPsychic CounterpartElastic AspectsThirsty Ear

Matthew Shipp TrioFrame FocusElastic AspectsThirsty Ear

Matthew Shipp TrioFlow ChartElastic AspectsThirsty Ear

Art Ensemble Of Chicago & Cecil TaylorIntro. To 15 Part 3ADreaming Of The Masters: Thelonious MonkDIW
========================== Airbreak ==========================

Betty Carter & Geri AllenStardust / Memories Of YouDroppin' ThingsBet-Car (Verve)

Matthew Shipp TrioMute VoiceElastic AspectsThirsty Ear

Matthew Shipp TrioExplosive AspectsElastic AspectsThirsty Ear

Matthew Shipp TrioRaw MaterialsElastic AspectsThirsty Ear

Interview With Matthew Shipp By Justin DesmanglesInterview With Matthew Shipp By Justin DesmanglesInterview With Matthew Shipp By Justin DesmanglesInterview With Matthew Shipp By Justin Desmangles

The DoorsThe EndThe DoorsElektra

Interview With Greil Marcus By Justin DesmanglesInterview With Greil Marcus By Justin DesmanglesInterview With Greil Marcus By Justin DesmanglesInterview With Greil Marcus By Justin Desmangles

The DoorsWhen The Music's OverStrange DaysElektra

The DoorsSoul KitchenThe DoorsElektra
========================== Airbreak ==========================

Art Ensemble Of ChicagoAs Clear As The SunTribute To LesterECM

Art Ensemble Of Chicago & Cecil TaylorCaseworksDreaming Of The Masters: Thelonious MonkDIW
========================== Airbreak ==========================

Roscoe Mitchell QuartetJo JarBefore There Was SoundNessa

Monday, February 27, 2012

Speaking with Joanne Griffith, editor of Redefining Black Power

Show description for Sunday 2/19/2012 @ 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM




Our guest this afternoon, on the 5 o'clock hour, Joanne Griffith, editor of Redefining Black Power, new from City Lights Books.


"Redefining Black Power is an important, historical rumination on race, class, power and politics in the Age of Obama. The conversations with such figures as Van Jones, Michelle Alexander and civil rights icon Dr. Vincent Harding are thoughtful, probing, nuanced insights into the state of African-American political power at this historic moment. The book raises challenging questions, but rather than offer definitive answers, it provokes the reader to personally define 'Black power' and inspires all of us to continue the work of 'deepening the meaning of democracy.'" – Wade Henderson, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

"I agree with economist Julianne Malveaux, who says the notion that Obama's election made America 'post racial' is utter nonsense, when you look at current rates of poverty, income and unemployment among black people. Van Jones, former Green Jobs Czar at the White House, intrigued me when he claims that the youth who believe that electing a black president changes nothing were right. Joanne Griffith, of the Pacifica Radio Archives, interviews these and other long distance runners for justice to provide a lively array of conflicting, complex and critical attitudes the first black U.S. president has evoked, to answer the question of whether it's time to redefine Black Power." -- Kathleen Cleaver


ArtistSongAlbumLabel

Countee Cullen (read by James Earl Jones)From The Dark TowerA Hand Is On The GateVerve-Folkways

Langston Hughes (read by Ellen Holly)I've Known RiversA Hand Is On The GateVerve-Folkways

Robert Hayden (read by Moses Gunn) Frederick DouglassA Hand Is On The GateVerve-Folkways

Paul Laurence Dunbar (read by Cicely Tyson)We Wear The MaskA Hand Is On The GateVerve-Folkways

Abbey Lincoln Laugh Clown, LaughAbbey Is Blue Riverside

Tadd DameronJust Plain Talkin'The Magic TouchRiverside

Kenny Dorham featuring Ernie HenrySposin'2 Horns / 2 RhythmRiverside

Eric Dolphy & Booker LittleFar CryFar CryNew Jazz (Prestige)

Frederick WilliamsBabylon A Turn The ScrewAn Evening Of International PoetryNew Alliance

George Russell All About RosieThe 3rd StreamRCA

Count Basie Little PonyClassic CountCBS

Billie HolidayMean To MeA Love StoryCBS
========================== Airbreak ==========================

Eric Dolphy Out ThereOut ThereNew Jazz (Prestige)

Sterling Brown (read by James Earl Jones & Moses Gunn)Ol' LemA Hand Is On The GateVerve-Folkways

Helene Johnson (Read by Josephine Premice)Sonnet To A Negro In HarlemA Hand Is On The GateVerve-Folkways

Arna Bontemps (read by Leon Bibb)Southern MansionA Hand Is On The GateVerve-Folkways

Langston Hughes (read by Ellen Holly)Mother To SonA Hand Is On The GateVerve-Folkways

Abbey Lincoln Lost In The StarsAbbey Is BlueRiverside

Abbey Lincoln Long As Your LivingAbbey Is BlueRiverside

Tadd DameronLook, Stop & ListenThe Magic TouchRiverside

Hank Mobley The BreakdownRoll Call Blue Note

Steve LacyCriss CrossThe Staight Horn Of Steve LacyCandid

Edward Brathwaite (Kamau Brathwaite)The EmigrantsRites Of PassageArgo (U.K.)
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Charles MingusLos Mariachis (The Street Musicians)Tijuana MoodsRCA

Roscoe Mitchell & Anthony BraxtonOff Five Dark SixNonaahNessa

Roscoe Mitchell & Malachi FavorsA1 TAL 2LANonaahNessa
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Art Ensemble Of ChicagoTheme De Yoyo (excerpt)Les Stances A SophieNessa

Interview With Joanne Griffith By Justin DesmanglesInterview With Joanne Griffith By Justin DesmanglesInterview With Joanne Griffith By Justin DesmanglesInterview With Joanne Griffith By Justin Desmangles

Art Ensemble Of ChicagoTheme De Yoyo (excerpt)Les Stances A SophieNessa
========================== Airbreak ==========================

Kenny Dorham featuring Ernie HenryThe End Of A Love Affair2 Horns / 2 RhythmRiverside

Bob Dorough & Bill TakasSmall Day TomorrowBeginning To See The Light Laissez-Faire

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Ishmael Reed, Unreconstructed & Not Post-Black!

Show description for Sunday 2/12/2012 @ 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM

This afternoon, on the 5 o'clock hour, poet, playwright, essayist, and novelist, Ishmael Reed returns to New Day Jazz. His most recent novel, his first in over a decade, is Juice! A new book of essays, Barack Obama and the Jim Crow Media, is the first collection of its kind by a leading African-American intellectual. Mr. Reed's online magazine, Konch, published it's latest issue this month.

http://www.ishmaelreedpub.com/


ArtistSongAlbumLabel

Miles DavisDirections 1DirectionsColumbia

Miles DavisSide Car 2Circle In The RoundColumbia

Miles DavisWater BabiesWater BabiesColumbia

Joe HendersonEscapadeOur ThingBlue Note

Joe HendersonCaribbean Fire DanceMode For JoeBlue Note
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Randy WestonSamba BassaAfrican NiteInner City

Randy WestonNiger MamboAfrican CookbookAtlantic

Gil Evans (Cecil Taylor)PotsInto The HotImpulse

Cecil TalyorTales (8 Whisps)Unit StructuresBlue Note

Carmen McRaeI Left My Heart In San FranciscoLive At SugarhillTime

Carmen McRaeI Didn't Know What Time It WasLive At SugarhillTime
========================== Airbreak ==========================

Cassandra WilsonI Didn't Know What Time It WasBlue SkiesJMT

Cassandra WilsonShall We DanceBlue SkiesJMT

Charles Mingus featuring Honey GordonStrollin'Mingus DynastyColumbia

Charles MingusSong With OrangeMingus DynastyColumbia

Gil Evans & Steve LacyOrange WasThe Color OF Her Dress, Then Blue SilkParis BluesOwl
========================== Airbreak ==========================

Kenny DrewIf You Could See Me NowDark BeautyInner City

Interview With Ishmael Reed By Justin DesmanglesInterview With Ishmael Reed By Justin DesmanglesInterview With Ishmael Reed By Justin DesmanglesInterview With Ishmael Reed By Justin Desmangles
========================== Airbreak ==========================

Kenny DrewAll Souls Here (excerpt)Dark BeautyInner City

Monday, February 6, 2012

Will Alexander and the Ancient Future

Show description for Sunday 2/5/2012 @ 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM

This afternoon, on the 5 o'clock hour, poet, playwright, novelist, Will Alexander. We will be discussing his most recent works, Diary as Sin, Inside the Earthquake Palace: 4 Plays, and Mirach Speaks to His Grammatical Transparents.

“I am not of one persona, not of one mystery, but arrayed with intransigent neurons and timings. … I’ve splintered my own trajectory from a fissioning of threats which have issued from my great monomial leprosy. Which has created in me a raw ascensional vastitude, allowing me further millennia although the bodies about me will all have been destroyed. Because I speak out of blindness I am able to respond to spiritual extremity, which has transmuted dearth and soulless nightmare relations. Of course I am speaking from auto-causality, from an enriched alkaline insurrection, altricial, haunted, partaking cacophony from the cinders of nauseous aeronautics. Because I am Mexican and Seminole I breed schisms, I breed eloquent ransacking laws." -

Rosanna Galvez from Diary as Sin


ArtistSongAlbumLabel

Mary Lou WilliamsThey Can't Take That Away From MeThe First Lady of the PianoInner City

Mary Lou WilliamsLady BirdThe First Lady of the PianoInner City

Dizzy GillespieDizzy Song (Lady Bird)Jazz Time Paris, Vol. 2Vogue

Miles Davis & Gil EvansSpringsvilleMiles AheadColumbia

Gigi GryceBrown SkinsGigi Gryce et Son OrchestreVogue

Betty CarterAll I've GotOut TherePeacock

Betty CarterMake It LastOut TherePeacock
========================== Airbreak ==========================

Dizzy Gillespie Afro-ParisHorn Of PlentyBlue Note

Ahmad Jamal TrioBilly BoyPoincianaArgo (Chess)

Phineas Newborn, Jr. What Is This Thing Called Love? Phineas' RainbowRCA

Charles MingusMysterious BluesNewport RebelsCandid

Billie HolidayA Fine RomanceMusic For TorchingVerve

Billie HolidayCheek To CheekAll Or Nothing at AllVerve
========================== Airbreak ==========================

Roy EldridgeCrazy DriverLittle JazzInner City

Thelonious MonkSixteenGenius Of Modern Music Vol. 2Blue Note

Gil Evans (Cecil Taylor)PotsInto The HotImpulse

Andrew HillThe GriotsAndrew!!!Blue Note

Andrew HillAlfredJudgementBlue Note
========================== Airbreak ==========================

Andrew HillSymmetryAndrew!!!Blue Note

Milt JacksonOut Of NowhereWizard Of The VibesDisques Swing

Zoot SimsSlingin' HashFirst Recordings!Prestige

Buck ClaytonPassport To ParadisePassport To ParadiseInner City
========================== Airbreak ==========================

Sonny Rollins Misterioso (excerpt)Sonny Rollins Volume 2Blue Note

Interview With Will Alexander By Justin DesmanglesInterview With Will Alexander By Justin DesmanglesInterview With Will Alexander By Justin DesmanglesInterview With Will Alexander By Justin Desmangles

Sonny Rollins Misterioso (excerpt)Sonny Rollins Volume 2Blue Note