Blog - Jazz Spectrum

LARRY WILLIS – An Appreciation

August 9, 2023

By Fritz ByersIn the early years of the Murphy’s Jazz Masters program, we brought the pianist Larry Willis to play in Toledo. There were day-time educational features, as usual, and the night gig was, of course, at Murphy’s, back when it was still in the original location on Madison. If memory serves, Buster Williams was the bassist. Read More

Bobby Watson and Jon Faddis

August 4, 2023

Jazz Spectrum

By Fritz ByersThe alto saxophonist Bobby Watson’s composition, “The Misery of Ebop,” from his career-defining 1986 masterpiece, Love Remains. In the late 70s, Bobby, who on the LP cover of this album is billed as Robert, studied in the fabled institute of advanced hard-bop studies that was Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. He began making recordings as a leader toward the end of that decade. Read More

On Tony Bennett

August 1, 2023

Jazz Spectrum

By Kim Kleinman
Jazz Spectrum Contributing Writer

I primarily mourned Tony Bennett’s death by finding his two albums with the revered Bill Evans from right around the time I saw Evans with Eddie Gomez at the Antibes Jazz Festival and later at home in Kansas City. That said, I did not get or even listen to them back in the day. Read More

This Week on Jazz Spectrum - 7/29

July 28, 2023

Jazz Spectrum

By Fritz Byers This week on Jazz Spectrum, an homage to Tony Bennett. I posted earlier this week a brief reflection on Tony’s music, which was elevated by his taste and his commitment to the meanings of the lyrics, married to the melodies and harmonies of the best songs in the canon.

On the show this week, we’ll hear Tony in various settings. But we begin with three tracks from the highwater mark of his work, his collaborations with the pianist Bill Evans. Read More

Tony Bennett (1926-2023)

July 26, 2023

Jazz Spectrum

By Fritz ByersTony Bennett, who died last Friday at 96, sang for us for more than 70 years. We didn’t always listen as closely as we should have. As happens when the crowd is surfing the zeitgeist, the culture took its eyes and ears from Tony for a while –he endured a long dry period as folk, rock ‘n’ roll, and their variants pushed him and his favored music to one side. He even lacked a record contract in the 70s, and he resorted to forming his own recording company. Read More

This Week on Jazz Spectrum - 7/22

July 21, 2023

Jazz Spectrum

By Fritz ByersThis week on Jazz Spectrum, selections from a cascade of new releases reflecting the vitality of current jazz. Among them:

* The Venezuelan-born pianist Edward Simon, abetted by his stalwart bandmates, the drummer Adam Cruz and the bassist Reuben Rogers, programs his new release, Femininas, as an homage to female Latin American songwriters. Read More

This Week on Jazz Spectrum - 8/30-9/1

Jazz Spectrum

Each week, Fritz exchanges thoughts with Aly Krajewski about the Song of the Week featured on Jazz Spectrum Saturday Dear Aly, For a lengthy but indeterminate stretch of time following 1973, when I departed Kansas for college, I was asked by virtually everyone I met when I was far from my home state if I had a dog named “Toto.” (I would routinely say, “No, but I have one called ‘Terry,’ which usually took the air right out of the conversation – Terry, of course, was the Cairn Terrier who played Toto in The Wizard of Oz. Read More

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