Blog

The Alternate Universe

By Fritz Byers The evolution of streaming-music sites, and their current dominance, have changed many things about the business of making music, and about how we consume it. I don’t believe it’s merely a nostalgia-drenched generational cavil to observe that the notion of buying an album, and then listening to it as a unit conceived by the artist, is another sad casualty of the digital revolution and its ancillary technologies.  Of course compact discs changed how we listen. Read More

The Best of 2023, Revisited - Latticework

By Fritz ByersThis week is the second of two editions of Jazz Spectrum that focus on my selections for the best new releases of 2023. The entire list of forty is in last week’s post, and it is repeated below. Last week we attended to half; this week, to the other half. The time spent in December re-reading my contemporaneous listening notes and re-listening is immensely satisfying. In last week’s post I shared a few thoughts on the year in jazz, and I briefly commented on the difficulty of picking from among the hundreds of new releases. Read More

The Best of 2023 – Owning It

By Fritz ByersIf someone tells you they understand the current music landscape, they’re bragging.  And if they tell you they know what it will look like by the end of the decade, they’re lying.

WGTE's 2023 Wrapped

WGTE had an amazing year! Here's to 2024!  Read More

The Best of 2023, from a committed avant-gardist

By Rob Michaels (Jazz Spectrum Listener)

This Week on Jazz Spectrum – A Sampler of Holiday Jazz

By Fritz ByersJudging by the torrent of holiday jazz releases over the last decade, there must be a market for the genre. The remainder of this paragraph, discussing markets, genres, and artistic pandering, is being self-censored. That’s because the thoughts don’t apply to the holiday-themed music you’ll hear this week on Jazz Spectrum and Jazz Spectrum Overnight. Both shows are chock-a-block with great musicians having fun with, and finding fascination in, the familiar songs of the season. Elsewhere on the site, you’ll find the Jazz Spectrum playlist. Read More

“Rethinking Jails + Justice” Press Release

WGTE PUBLIC MEDIA TO HOST FREE COMMUNITY TOWN HALL EVENT TO DISCUSS CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORMThe “Rethinking Jails + Justice” project is in collaboration with The Board of Lucas County Commissioners and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Safety + Justice ChallengeTOLEDO, OHIO – January 8, 2024 – Beginning in January 2024, WGTE Public Media, in collaboration with The Board of Lucas County Commissioners and the John D. and Catherine T. Read More

This Week on Jazz Spectrum – The Spirit of Live Recordings

By Fritz ByersAt its core, jazz is an improvisational music. I believe I read about fifty years ago that the projectivist poet Charles Olson said something to the effect that if you say the same thing twice, you’ve lied. Read More

Win Tickets to Lights Before Christmas at the Toledo Zoo