Michael Bourne Interviews Frank Wess

May 1, 2008. Posted by Joshua Jackson.

Add new comment | Filed under: Interviews, Listening Post, Masters

When someone like Frank Wess comes to WBGO, you better be prepared to hear some amazing stories. Michael Bourne interviewed Frank Wess, who is currently spending his evenings playing music at the Village Vanguard. The 86-year old Wess will forever be a Basie man, and he told a great story about a Count Basie tour in Europe. When the band arrived, there were no charts for the musicians to play. This could be a bandleader's worst nightmare, taking a band overseas without music. But Basie's response? "Well, you guys never look at them anyway, and I didn't want to pay for the extra freight." Hear what else Frank Wess had to say.
-Josh

© 2008 WBGO

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Rhonda Hamilton Interviews Guitarist Russell Malone

May 1, 2008. Posted by Joshua Jackson.

Add new comment | Filed under: audience, ballad, busy day, fcc, fortunately, great guitarists, guitarist, hefty fines, hotel room, Interviews, Jazz Alive, jazz host, jimmy smith, jokes, kenny burrell, lesson in music, midday, organist, rhonda, russell malone, those guys, wes montgomery

Rhonda Hamilton interviewed guitarist Russell Malone yesterday.
Fortunately, Russell didn't share any of his really colorful jokes with our audience. If he did, the FCC would level some hefty fines.
He did, however, talk at length about his experience with Jimmy Smith. When Russell met the organist in Atlanta, he asked to sit in with the band. Russell played everything he knew, trying to impress Jimmy. The audience went wild. Then, Smith called a ballad, "Laura," and Russell did not know the song. That humbling experience led to an all-night lesson in music in Jimmy Smith's hotel room. Smith had played with some great guitarists, notably Kenny Burrell and Wes Montgomery. He taught Russell Malone a valuable lesson - to put himself into the music, rather than trying to emulate those guys. Listen to the interview.
-Josh

© 2008 WBGO

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Great Live Moments - Clarence Gatemouth Brown

May 1, 2008. Posted by Joshua Jackson.

Add new comment | Filed under: 2005 new orleans jazz and heritage festival, b b king, beale street, blues club, clarence gatemouth brown, Listening Post, Live Music, lobby fountain, mallard ducks, memphis tennessee, new orleans jazz, new orleans jazz and heritage festival, npr, peabody hotel, photojournalism, Places and Spaces, program directors, public radio program, strange things, waft, wbgo, webstream, wwoz

This photo of B.B. King and Clarence Gatemouth Brown was taken at the 2005 New Orleans Jazz And Heritage Festival. It's from "Last Days of Fame," a powerful piece of photojournalism by Jennifer Zdon.

Gatemouth and I shared a birthday, though we were separated by half a century. I first met him at WWOZ in New Orleans. He sat in our tiny on-air studio, his head buried beneath a black Stetson, his hands wrapped around a small pipe. The occasional waft of an illicit substance. This must explain the fact that, as Michael Bourne once discovered, Gatemouth Brown loves to eat grape jelly on everything...including steak. Strange things happen.

In 1999, I attended the Public Radio Program Directors conference in Memphis, Tennessee. The Peabody Hotel, as I recall, where mallard ducks marched through the hotel hallway (led by a man in a tuxedo, suggesting penguin not duck) and climbed a flight of custom-made steps into the lobby fountain. This was part of the hotel's daily schedule. Strange things happen.

I went to BB King's Blues Club on Beale street one night. Gatemouth Brown was performing live. WBGO and JazzSet were broadcasting the show. NPR's Bettina Owens threw a huge party to celebrate the fact that this concert was NPR's first live webstream! I had no relationship whatsoever with any of this, other than kid spectator. One year later, however, I was working on an NPR show. And the next year, I started working at WBGO. Strange things happen.
-Josh

Listen to Gatemouth perform "Strange Things Happen," from the WBGO Archives.

© 2008 WBGO

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