I came to the vibraphone early in my jazz listening, and I’ve been there ever since, as the Jazz Spectrum archives document. And in this decade, the instrument has become ever more prevalent on the show, as it is on the current scene. Read More
In that winter of Lockdown, the Smalls/Mezzrow livestreams were my way of accessing at least some kind of live music performance. I hit a jackpot (on a pretty safe bet) with a band called Palladium promising to play Wayne Shorter’s Speak No Evil on Christmas Eve 2020, 56 years to the day after its original recording. This was also the first time I heard Nicole Glover who met the responsibility of playing tenor saxophone by being a fresh voice, very much her own, respectful but not too deferential. Read More
Toledo, Ohio — WGTE Public Media believes every child should begin school ready to learn. WGTE’s latest early learning initiative, Learn & Play Treasure Chests, is designed to provide teachers, parents and caregivers with tools and materials that set children up for success in school and beyond. The initiative employs an innovative approach to early childhood learning. Each Learn & Play Treasure Chest includes books, hands-on activities and guided links to PBS KIDS content. Read More
In 1992, I was drawn to a show at the Regatta Bar in Cambridge featuring Joe Henderson and Freddie Hubbard on the front line. With his 1985 recording, The State of the Tenor, Joe had reestablished himself as a not-to-be-missed musician and one of the inarguable occupants of jazz’s vaunted tenor-saxophone. And Freddie, a wunderkind trumpeter who rose to heady prominence in the early 1960s, had reliably returned from his fusion digressions to produce a series of notable records in the mid-to late 80s. Read More
Wes Montgomery recorded The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery (featured on a recent Jazz Spectrum Friday) for the Riverside label over two days in January 1960, his second date as a leader and the first to fully chart the new territory he was defining for the instrument. The boastful title, so at odds with Wes’s mild and modest nature, came from the producer, Orrin Keepnews, who during those years was both an incisive judge of talent and an astute marketer. Read More
WGTE Public Media today announced the appointment of Dr. Adam Fineske as its new President and CEO, effective August 1, 2026. A lifelong Toledoan who grew up just blocks from WGTE’s headquarters in South Toledo, Fineske brings more than 25 years of education and civic leadership in Northwest Ohio to the role, succeeding interim President Dale Thornton. Fineske currently serves as Superintendent of Ottawa Hills Local Schools, a position he has held since 2019. Read More
In 2005 I traveled with my oldest daughter to South Africa for a bit of work and a lot of what Duke Ellington called the “Tourist Point of View.” One afternoon during our interlude in Cape Town we were hosted for tea and dessert at a Cape Malay home. I’ve lost most of the small facts about the visit, but I recall the mood, the laughter, and the warmth of our hosts. This I really do recall: the sensation, as the hours unwound, of having been in that room, or at least having felt its ambience, before. Read More
My most recent contribution to this blog was a recollection of seeing Sonny Rollins perform in 2009. Now I return with a memory, now bittersweet due to his own death this week, of seeing Abdullah Ibrahim in 2018. Rollins was 79, old only until the moment when the band and his own playing lit a spark. Ibrahim was 83 and although ever alert and observant, he was less energetic. Read More
