Three Listening Tips And A View

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Tip 1. Jim Wilke’s Jazz Northwest program on Sunday will broadcast the tribute given pianist and composer George Cables at this summer’s Centrum Jazz Port Townsend festival on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. Mr. Wilke recorded the concert in July. For years, as performer and teacher, Cables has been an integral part of the festival and its jazz workshops. From Mr. Wilke’s announcement:

Three pianists, Geoffrey Keezer, Benny Green and Dawn Clement take solo turns playing compositions by George Cables, and guitarist Anthony Wilson also contributes a piece associated with George Cables. The program ends with the master pianist playing one of his own compositions.

L to R, Green, Clement, Keezer, Cables, Wilson

George Cables honed his craft as a sideman before beginning his own career as a leader and soloist. Among the many influential leaders he played with are Sonny Rollins, Joe Henderson, Bobby Hutcherson, Freddie Hubbard, Woody Shaw and, perhaps most notably, Dexter Gordon and Art Pepper. He has recorded on dozens of albums and CDs, the most recent being his own Icons and Influences (HighNote).

Jazz Northwest will air at 2:00 PM PDT on Sunday on KPLU, 88.5 FM, and stream on the internet at KPLU.org.

To whet your appetite, here is Cables in concert last fall with bassist Abraham Laboriel and drummer Dennis Mackrel, playing “I Should Care.”

Tip 2. Later on Sunday, WBGO-FM in Newark, New Jersey will broadcast the last of Bill Kirchner’s contributions to its Jazz From The Archives programs. The station is dropping the long-running series at year’s end. Here is some of Mr. Kirchner’s preview of the show.

I’ve decided to focus on my proudest achievement in 45 years as a professional jazz musician: the music of my own Nonet, which was a working, touring,
 NYC-based band between 1980 and 2001. The Nonet recorded five albums–one of them a 2-CD set. The band included some of NYC’s finest jazz musicians and, I daresay, developed a unique identity. All of the three reed players “doubled” extensively on woodwinds, the two trumpeters doubled on flugelhorns, and the bass trombone provided a rich “bottom”; all this combined with a versatile rhythm section. As critic Larry Kart put it: “A musical coat of many colors, Kirchner’s Nonet sounds at times as though it were twice its actual size.”
The program will air this Sunday, September 14, from 11 p.m. to midnight, EDT on 88.3 FM in the Newark-New York City area. WBGO also broadcasts on the Internet at wbgo.org.

Tip 3. This is one to put on your calendar for next Friday, and Fridays thereafter, from 9 to 11 am EDT. Jason Crane (pictured), whose program The Jazz Session has been an internet pleasure for several years, now does a radio version of the show. It will be on the Pennsylvania State University radio station known as The Lion. That’s at 90.7 FM for those who listen in the State College, PA, area. Others may hear it on the web at http://thelion.fm.

View. After living in major metropolitan areas most of my adult life, I must confess to now and then missing their excitement, variety, hustle and surprises. For the most part, I’ve liked everywhere we’ve been, even Cleveland in the early 1960s. We left before the Cuyahoga River caught fire. I wasn’t overly bothered by the Los Angeles Traffic, New York’s grumpiness, the New Orleans humidity or San Francisco’s August fog. All of those places had plenty of compensations. Occasionally, I wonder what I’m doing in the agricultural hinterlands of the Pacific Northwest.

Then my friend Vig takes me for a ride. Vig is my bicycle, full name Vigorelli Bianchi. We come to the top of a rise, I look off toward the foothills of the Cascades, and I stop wondering.

Have a good weekend.