Jazz Bastard Podcast

The boys take a break by cobbling together an episode from a lengthy pop matters segment discussing Funkadelic, Rodrigo y Gabriela, Suzanne Vega, and Dr. Demento (among others) with an episode of Pat's Vinyl Corner covering Blue Note's recent LP issues as well as box sets by Coltrane and Leonard Bernstein (?)

Purely because Pat ran across a classic artist and a brand new find (for him, at least) who are both women guitarists, we decided to build a whole show around artists fitting that description.  Which lets us cover four very different albums while still leaving Mike time to complain about classic rock eminence Kansas.  Emily Remler – EAST TO WES; Leni Stern – WHEN EVENING FALLS; Camila Meza – RETRATO;  Mary Halvorson – DRAGON’S HEAD.

The boys look at three recent releases including a vocal-focused celebration of Canada, a two-hander by composers of children's television soundtracks and a Swedish flutist upset with the political tides of the last few years.  After a spirited, if dispiriting, discussion of jazz as "protest music" propers get paid to a pivotal recording of avant-funk-folk jazz by a co-founder of the World Saxophone Quartet...

Inspired by bassist Cecil McBee's star-turn on Lloyd McNeill's Elegia, the boys devote a whole episode to examining works led by Cecil or just plain enhanced by his presence.  He's had a wide-ranging career as a side-man so they cherry-pick what highlights they can while wondering if the next setting on the engineering knob after "10" and "11" is really "sexual...

Try as he might, Pat can't escape Mike's jones for jazz mixed with politics, so he submits and the boys do a trawl through just a few of the examples of art-music and rhetoric spilling forth from improvising musicians less than thrilled, let us posit, by the political bent of the last few years.  Do the bastards pontificate more than the music they're criticizing?  You be the judge...

After the "politicapocalypse" (Mike's coinage - ask him) of the previous episode, the boys decides to gently transition away from that minefield by looking at two artists more obliquely engaged with political discourse and two artists more or less removed from it entirely (by temperament and timing)...

In this very special episode the boys sit down to talk with alto saxophonist, composer, bandleader, and raconteur David Binney, who talks about his long career in jazz, his recent move from New York to Los Angeles, his upcoming projects, and his work mentoring young musicians.

Four six-string masters going solo are the focus for this fortnight's podcast, and they cover the gamut from acoustic true-believers to studio mavens ready to mix it up with multi-tracking and effects pedals.  What are the benefits - and dangers - of attempting jazz without compadres?  Wouldn't you know it, Pat & Mike have opinions on that topic.  Pop matters focuses squarely on the King - at least for white people of a certain age - Elvis Presley...

The boys focus on two pianists this time - the recently departed McCoy Tyner (stalwart of John Coltrane's "great quartet" and indefatigable leader of countless record sessions) and the long-departed Lennie Tristano (reclusive doyen of cool jazz education).  The subjects couldn't be less alike but both made fascinating music.  Normally, we'd insert some kind of joke right about here, but we're too busy hoarding toilet paper...

As lockdown enters day number "both of us have lost count, haven't you? ", the boys decide to check out some new releases.  There's a prestige project celebrating the First Couple of jazz, offerings from North and South of the US border, and a lo-fi jam session cut and pasted for your listening pleasure.  Then Pat apologizes for the Alan Parsons Project and the Damned. Somebody has to...