Blog - Jazz Spectrum

This Week on Jazz Spectrum - 8/2-8/4

July 31, 2024

By Fritz ByersEach week, Fritz exchanges thoughts with Aly Krajewski about the Song of the Week featured on Jazz Spectrum Saturday.Dear Aly, In a documentary on the life and art of the saxophonist Charlie Parker (aka “Bird”) that I saw in the late 1980s – I think it was Celebrating Bird: The Triumph of Charlie Parker, directed by Gary Giddins and closely tied to Gary’s unrivaled book of the same title – a fellow be-bopper of Bird’s -- I think it was the alto saxophonist Frank Morgan -- reminisced about the thrill of hearing him in full flight. Read More

This Week on Jazz Spectrum - 7/26-7/28

July 24, 2024

Jazz Spectrum

By Fritz ByersEach week, Fritz exchanges thoughts with Aly Krajewski about the Song of the Week featured on Jazz Spectrum Saturday.Dear Aly, At a recent Let’s Get Acquainted team-building exercise (don’t ask), the moderator stole a question from the NYT Book Review regular feature, By the Book, in which a writer is asked a series of probing queries. She presented the group with the inquiry: “You’ve having a dinner party. Read More

This Week on Jazz Spectrum - 7/19-7/21

July 15, 2024

Jazz Spectrum

Each week, Fritz exchanges thoughts with Aly Krajewski about the Song of the Week featured on Jazz Spectrum Saturday.By Fritz ByersDear Aly,
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This Week on Jazz Spectrum - 6/28-6/30

June 25, 2024

Jazz Spectrum

Each week, Fritz exchanges thoughts with Aly Krajewski about the Song of the Week featured on Jazz Spectrum Saturday.Song of the Week – “Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most” – Music by Tommy Wolf, Lyrics by Fran Landesman Dear Aly, Last week at dinner, a friend and I were talking about Salman Rushdie’s new book, Knife, an extended and moving reflection on an extremist’s demented attempt to stab him to death, thirty years after the fatwa that was decreed against him for the act of publishing a work of imaginative fiction. Read More

This Week on Jazz Spectrum - 6/21-6/23

June 17, 2024

Jazz Spectrum

Each week, Fritz exchanges thoughts with Aly Krajewski about the Song of the Week featured on Jazz Spectrum Saturday.Dear Aly,

As we age, and our gears begin slightly to slip, it can lead to some wonderful suspended-in-mid-air exchanges. I was recently on the periphery of one.

We were showing off the downtown riverfront park development. Admittedly, it IS disorienting. But:

“You pretty much cover the waterfront.”

“I love that movie.”

“Which movie” Read More

This Week on Jazz Spectrum 6/14-6/16

June 13, 2024

Jazz Spectrum

Each week, Fritz exchanges thoughts with Aly Krajewski about the Song of the Week featured on Jazz Spectrum Saturday.By Fritz ByersDear Aly,
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This week on Jazz Spectrum – 6/7-6/9

June 6, 2024

Jazz Spectrum

Each week, Fritz exchanges thoughts with Aly Krajewski about the Song of the Week featured on Jazz Spectrum Saturday.By Fritz ByersDear Aly, Anyone who’s been through law school, or at least the caricature of law school that fetishizes the Socratic method, knows that enormous power derives from being the person who asks the questions. Ms. Read More

This Week on Jazz Spectrum - 5/17-5/19

May 15, 2024

Jazz Spectrum

Each week, Fritz exchanges thoughts with Aly Krajewski about the Song of the Week featured on Jazz Spectrum Saturday.By Fritz ByersHi Aly, I didn’t mention to you when we were talking last night that any impairment you detected in my capacity for linear thought was likely due to my having spent excessive time recently with the movies of the French New Wave. I think mostly the movies go way over my head, but I find them funny; often, I think, unintentionally so. Read More

This week on Jazz Spectrum – 5/10-5/12

May 9, 2024

Jazz Spectrum

Each week, Fritz exchanges thoughts with Aly Krajewski about the Song of the week featured on Jazz Spectrum Saturday.By Fritz ByersHi Aly, Yesterday the sky’s vast cloudless expanse was so striking that it set me to wondering what it was reminding me of. Do you remember the Peanuts strip when Linus asks Lucy, “Why is the sky blue?” And she answers, “Because it isn’t green.” Yesterday, it was a blue on blue, like an English weave It was very nearly one of those impossible Renoir blues we talked about a couple of weeks ago. It was a sweeping heartache blu Read More

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