November 18: Don Cherry Has a Birthday

Yesterday was Don Cherry's birthday. The man with the tiny trumpet would have turned 79. To celebrate, I pulled out some of my personal highlights of his own catalog as well as some stuff from his work with Albert Ayler. I chose not to go the Ornette Coleman Quartet route, because I need to pace myself on that one. I can't think of a group that has hit me harder over the years than that one, as any long time listener of my show can attest. So no Coleman group. But there's still plenty of great stuff to pull from the man's fantastic career (side note, the Pharaoh Sanders solo on "Taste Maker" is a thing to behold!)

I also finally got to playing some Kamasi Washington. Situating him next to FlyLo and Kendrick makes Epic that much more enjoyable.

Listen to the show here. Again, the show starts a few minutes in.

Playlist is as follows:

Set 1:
1. Don Cherry: "Hope" from Organic Music Society
2. Flying Lotus: "Turkey Dog Coma" from Your Dead!
3. Kamasi Washington: "The Message" from Epic
4. Kendrick Lamar: "Alright" from To Pimp a Butterfly

Set 2:
1. Heather Leigh: "Fairfield Fantasy" from I Abused Animal
2. Rafael Anton Irisarri: "Persistence" from A Fragile Geography
3. Greenhouse: "Your Favourite Place" from Cold Wires

Set 3:
1. Albert Ayler Quartet: "Spirits" from The Hilversum Sessions
2. Don Cherry Quartet: "Taste Maker" from Where is Brooklyn?
3. Don Cherry: "Complete Communion" from Complete Communion

November 4 - 50 Years of AACM

It's time to get this blog going again. UMFM now automatically uploads my show onto their server so that you fine folks can enjoy the program via podcast. So I'll be posting links to my show and playlists here on a weekly basis. If all of a sudden I feel like doing more (admittedly, this is unlikely to happen) you may find even more stuff here. But in the meantime enjoy my program from yesterday. I spent the entire time celebrating the wonderful Chicago-based collective AACM (the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians). If you want even more on AACM, check out Alexander Hawkins' excellent piece on them here.

In the meantime enjoy my program here.

Playlist:

Set #1:
Air: "B.K" from Air Mail (Black Saint)
Muhal Richard Abrams: "March of the Transients" from Things to Come from Those Now Gone (Delmark)

Set #2:
Lester Bowie: "God Has Smiled on Me" from The 5th Power (Black Saint)
Matana Roberts: "Dreamer of Dreams" from Coin Coin Chapter Three (Constellation)
Wadada Leo Smith: "Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, 381 Days" from Ten Freedom Summers (Cuneiform)

Set #3:
Harris Eisenstadt: "It's Never Safe to Be" from Golden State (Songlines)
Nicole Mitchell: "Jo Jar" from Artifacts (Pi Recordings)
Nicole Mitchell: "B.K." from Artifacts (Pi Recordings)
Tameka Reid Quartet: "Woodlan" from Tameka Reid Quartet (Firehouse)
Art Ensemble of Chicago: "A Jackson in Your House" from A Jackson in Your House, Message to Our Folks (Charly Records)