Updates from KCSM

Well, things are moving with light speed at "The Mother Ship" in San Mateo--KCSM Jazz 91. A new blog and a new Jazz Forum to invite listener inputs. KCSM is also on Twitter and Facebook!! So--Jazz Notes and Phrases will wind down its feeble efforts to post something often and drop back to the occasional "Something Important To Say About Jazz" mode of operation. I won't take down this blog--other social media go only so far now that blogs are common--but for the most part I'll do day-to-day updates on the Jazz 91 blog or forum.

I'm working on a piece centered on the wonderful interview Lee Thomas did the other day with violinist/composer Regina Carter. Wow, what a musician and what a wise, warm person!! So stay tuned!!

Does Anybody REALLY Listen to "The Radio" Any More?

That's right; "the radio;" when I was a kid (A. T. or ante televisio), "the radio" was a thing--a box, sometimes small, sometimes big enough to be part of the living room decor--and what you were able to listen to was worth paying attention to.

I've been cruising the blogosphere looking for stories about what role radio plays in our lives today. It's pretty depressing out there--concepts like "drive-time radio," those dismal broadcasts that try to perk up unhappy drivers with colorless commodified music-by-the-yard and mindless chatter, between bulletins about the latest traffic snarls and fender-benders--and commercials, commercials, COMMERCIALS!!! (On "commodity music," this poor schlumpf takes a long, long time to conclude that the answer to "free music" is...commercials! Arrrgggh!!)

This low-grade moronic programming tells us a lot about how much of radio isn't worth anybody's time. And of course so-called "talk radio" is so uniformly bad-nasty I don't have anything printable to say about that crud. Every once in a while, though, I run across an item that captures the magic of what radio can still mean--to the person behind the mike and to her listeners, as they still make a magic connection through a microphone, a transmitter (or webcast), and a loudspeaker or a set of ear-buds. Alas, like the Alabama blogger's eulogy for his personal radio hero Bert Bank (and Major Bank was quite a guy!!) these stories are often about the "used-to bees," which my granny kept reminding me "aren't flying any more." And the writer has moved on into TV--he gives the weather reports on a network TV station in Birmingham Alabama now. A big step down from those magic nights on WTBC that he writes about on his blog!!

The reason for this long lead-in is to remind you that radio worth listening to is alive and well out there--and now thanks to the World Wide Web, you don't need to be concerned becausf it's a 250-watt AM station--you can listen anywhere, any time, and "the radio" can be your laptop, your iTunes player or other MP3-ready portable device.

For my money (literally and figuratively), KCSM Jazz 91 is THE premier radio station worth listening to today. And we should really all pay at least a small admission fee to keep hearing their incomparable jazz collection played just for us.

KCSM needs our financial support to keep that web stream of great jazz flowing all over the world. So--take a few minutes now to "turn your dial" to KCSM.org--listen, enjoy, and then pay your admission to this Great Jazz Music Hall of the World!! Thanks--you'll get your money's worth, I gare-ON-tee!!

The Dupont Clifford Brown Jazz Festival Coming Up!

For all you jazz fans along the Amtrak Northeast Corridor, I just learned that the 21st annual Dupont Clifford Brown Jazz Festival is scheduled to happen in Wilmington, DE next week (June 15-21.) The brilliant, precocious jazz trumpeter and composer Clifford Brown, whose career tragically ended in a fatal car crash when he was only 25, was born in Wilmington in 1930.

If you listen to KCSM, you know that Clifford's son, Clifford Brown Jr., is one of their volunteer announcers. He hosts Mid-Day Jazz from 10-2 (Pacific time) every Tuesday and Thursday, and the music he selects and plays is truly an tribute to his Dad's memory--every single program. Clifford is also a friend of mine on Facebook--and one of the nicest guys I've ever met on the Web.

So--if you live here on the Atlantic coast and have some vacation time next week, take the train to Wilmington and enjoy live jazz at Rodney Square in downtown Wilmington. Jazz Notes and Phrases salutes the City of Wilmington and Dupont for continuing to sponsor the festival. There's nothing like hearing great jazz performed live--and all the events at the festival are free! More information at 1-800-489-6664 or go to VisitWilmingtonDE.com on your browser.

More on Jazz History

This blog will shy away from "Shameless Commerce," as Click and Clack call it. Yet, listening to the priceless collectors' items that KCSM has in its vast archive of jazz, I feel a need to plug a local business, Daedalus Books and Records, that has a whole lot of great jazz on sale at a very reasonable price. Yes, a lot of it's repackaged but for the price they charge I'm satisfied. The recession has hurt Daedalus and they don't deserve it at all! I'm going to go out of my way to get them into a marketing arrangement with KCSM; that'll bring their revenues up to snuff!!!

What lovely lovely evening music on KCSM!

Kathleen Lawton is just one of the highly individual announcers on KCSM in San Mateo. Already this evening I've heard two lovely versions of "Solamente Una Vez," one by Charlie Haden and another by Raquel Bitton!

My late brother-in-law introduced me to Latin jazz, and it was one of my first experiences of this universal musical form--so of course I love it!! But...now Kathleen has segued (effortlessly and smoothly) to Shelley Berg's fantastic piano solo of "My One and Only Love."

Where else in the whole wide world can anyone hear such wonderful sounds, all within a few minutes of one another, and all free of commercial noise? Nowhere. NO-where else.

Join me--enjoy a never-repeated Lawton experience--and keep tuning in to KCSM wherever you are! (The stream works on your mobile devices too--forget iTunes and let the experts do the work for you!!)

Saluting the KCSM Jazz Ambassadors!

In this first post, let me salute a small but growing group of jazz lovers who are "spreading the love of jazz" on behalf of our favorite all-jazz all-the-time web radio station; KCSM.org! We come from many backgrounds but share our love of good jazz and are dedicated to keeping KCSM streaming jazz over the Web and commercial-free. And if you don't think that all good music is being threatened, just read this news release from a European university!! I can't imagine how horrible this stuff would be--like Muzak to the 100th power!!