(a Vintage Hitachi 3-band “Hiphonic” Transistor Radio – but any radio will do! Image Wikipedia Commons)
Readers of this blog will notice that I have not made any posts in over a month, which is the longest break in some time. Apologies, dear readers! However, I have been busy with another music-related project that will work into this blog and fuel more written content – I’ve started a new radio show! This show is called “Where is Brooklyn?” and is broadcast on WVKR, 91.3 FM Vassar Collage radio, broadcasting from Poughkeepsie throughout Duchess County, New York, and streaming worldwide at wvkr.org. The show broadcasts twice weekly for an hour, at 5 AM on Tuesday and 2 AM on Saturday. Yes, both are early in the morning in the eastern USA, but if you’re up, I’d love the company! And for our international readers, my show may fall right into your schedule and time zone.
Of course, the show’s name is inspired by Don Cherry’s classic album, recorded in 1966. Ornette Coleman wrote the liner notes to Where Is Brooklyn? and my show follows the advice of that oracle of the avant-garde: “the most rewarding state of today’s music is its newness, whatever its categories.”
The goals for my radio show are pretty similar to those of this blog – to explore improvisational music at the intersection of folkloric and “art” traditions, music that blurs genre distinctions, pushing expression into new forms. The show just hit episode ten, and I’ve been playing music that I loved in 2024, often — but not always — grouped around a theme. Recent shows explored electroacoustic music in 2024, the incredible releases this year on Clean Feed records, and new albums by indie-jazz pacesetter Kris Davis and multidisciplinary artist Rob Mazurek. Over the next few weeks, I plan on playing some of my favorite releases of 2024. On December 24th, you know I’ll be playing from An Ayler Xmas and paying tribute to the much-missed Mars Williams. After that, I’m not sure where we’ll go next, but that’s all part of the fun. With this show, we’re on a quest for the new, the unexpected, the “sound of surprise” that only jazz can bring. I hope you’ll join me for the ride!.
As for The Necessary Blues, you’ll see much more content here very soon, starting with my year-end list for 2024 jazz and experimental music. After that, I plan to post on albums by the prolific Satoko Fujii, new ambient records, an update on my ongoing obsession with Pat Thomas’s music, more gig journals, and a much-delayed post on The Blue Notes. Stay tuned, both on the airwaves and at The Necessary Blues.
(a happy family tuning into Where Is Brooklyn? Won’t you join us?; Image Wikipedia Commons)