WGTE Public Media Blog

Phil Haynes: An accomplished drummer invites us into his world

Photograph by René Pierre Allain
By Fritz Byers
The drummer Phil Haynes has long had a comfortable spot on Jazz Spectrum playlists. If memory serves, I first featured him in 2000, when Phil Haynes Free Country, Phil’s free-spirited eclectic quartet, released its eponymous debut. Read More

This Week on Jazz Spectrum – A Garland of Thanks

By Fritz Byers As a way of doing my share to promote the spirit of the week, I’ve organized this week’s show around the theme of thanks. You can check the titles of the tunes if you wonder what that means. Read More

Mucho Amor | Episode 3 | How to Make Sopa De Fideo

Originating from Spain, Sopa De Fideo was introduce to the indigenous tribes in Mexico. The Natives of Mexico however gave it its own dash of flavor, bringing it to the recipe we know and love today.  Read More

This Week on Jazz Spectrum – Sonny Rollins’s “The Freedom Suite”

By Fritz ByersBy 1958, the tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins had established himself firmly at the apex of jazz, sitting alongside John Coltrane as heirs of their instrument’s tradition, founded on the triumvirate of Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, and Ben Websters, and as the progenitors of the tenor’s next great era. Read More

This Week on Jazz Spectrum – Gil Evans’s “La Nevada”

By Fritz ByersThe first hour of this week’s show is given over to Kim Kleinman’s artfully designed compare-and-contrast exercise, placing the orchestras of Duke Ellington and Count Basie side-by-side. Big bands were everywhere, certainly by the 1930s, and there were dozens of great ones. But the common wisdom, which just this once is correct, is that Duke’s and Count’s ensembles rose above the rest. Explicating that truth would be worthwhile, and fun, but it is beyond my ambition for this post. Read More

This Week on Jazz Spectrum – Celebrating Carla Bley

By Fritz Byers(A few of my thoughts on Carla are in my post from two days ago.) Carla’s music, spanning more than fifty years, was vast and vibrant. From her early years with Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra; through her shifting mid-size bands (usually about octet-ish), which were always staffed by protean instrumentalists at home in the avant-garde and also lured by Carla’s sly wit; to her late sumptuous, richly colored recordings with the saxophonist Andy Sheppard and long-time bassist Steve Swallow – Carla never failed to be interesting. Read More