Great Live Moments - Michael White and The Original Liberty Jazz Band

April 23, 2008. Posted by Joshua Jackson.

Add new comment | Filed under: alto horn, any given saturday, associate curator, bourbon street parade, creole musicians, field producer, fig jam, history of new orleans, hogan jazz archive, Jazz Alive, jazz musician, Listening Post, Live Music, louis armstrong, new orleans jazz, new orleans music, onward brass band, paul barbarin, street parades, toast of the nation, traditional brass, village vanguard, wwoz

Meet Paul Barbarin, one of the most important people in the history of New Orleans music, and the "how" we call jazz.
The Barbarin family constitutes one of the original lines of Creole musicians who were present at the creation of a new music. Paul's father, Isidore, played the alto horn in The Onward Brass Band, one of the early traditional brass bands in the city.

Before I moved to New York, I used to work at WWOZ in New Orleans. I started as a volunteer, operating the board for a woman named Betty Rankin. Every Saturday morning, while most people my age had hangovers from Friday night, I was in a tiny peach-colored building in Louis Armstrong Park, playing LPs, cassettes, and the occasional CD for a lady who wanted no business with those details. She spent her ninety minutes as "Big Mama," the host of "The Moldy Fig Jam." I was 22, and this was the most amazing radio I had ever heard in my life. She told stories about every jazz musician in the city who had ever picked up an instrument with the purpose of playing traditional New Orleans jazz.

As it happened, Big Mama was an associate curator of the Hogan Jazz Archive. She handled the extensive oral history of New Orleans' music, and she knew both the collection as well as the musicians' whose lives she had helped to document. On any given Saturday, she talked about Paul Barbarin as if he were in the studio with us. It was the beginning of my post-college, real world education. On one such occasion, it was the first time I had ever heard his song, "Bourbon Street Parade." She told her audience about the street parades, how Barbarin kept that tradition alive. In the 1960s, he revived the Onward Brass Band, the name of the group that his father played a part. In fact, Paul Barbarin died in a parade, leading the band. [While I'm no fan of death, that's a great way to shuffle off this mortal coil.]

Years later, on the cusp of 2002, I was the field producer for NPR's Toast of the Nation. We're at the Village Vanguard, with Michael White and The Original Liberty Jazz Band. Hear them play "Bourbon Street Parade" from that evening.
When I hear this song, I remember how I got this far into jazz. Because I live with music.
-Josh

PS Watch the video of Paul Barbarin's funeral. The musicians are playing "Just a Closer Walk With Thee."

Watching that is knowing why New Orleans matters. Onward.

© 2008 WBGO

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Great Live Moments - Benny Golson

April 22, 2008. Posted by Joshua Jackson.

Add new comment | Filed under: american jazz, benny golson, clifford, collective hands, foremost composers, gentlemen, hero, jazz radio, jazz standards, killer joe, Listening Post, Live Music, Masters, music, radio festival, wbgo

Aside from being one of the foremost composers of jazz standards - "I Remember Clifford," "Whisper Not," "Stablemates," and "Killer Joe" immediately come to mind - Benny Golson is one of the real gentlemen of our music. When WBGO approached Mr. Golson for approval to post music from the American Jazz Radio Festival in 1987, here's what he said:

Please use whatever you want in whatever way you choose. WBGO has made a
hero out of me by playing my recordings over the years. Be assured, this
does not go without much appreciation. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
May all that your collective hands find to do continue to meet with certain
success always.
Benny Golson

Is this cat for real? Yes, absolutely.

Listen to Benny Golson's "Are You Real," from the WBGO Archives.

Perhaps you'll consider becoming a WBGO member. They make great live moments like this possible. Contribute now.
-Josh

© 2008 WBGO

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Great Live Moments - John Hicks and Albert Dailey

April 21, 2008. Posted by Joshua Jackson.

Add new comment | Filed under: ben webster, billy strayhorn medley, bridge, Jazz Alive, jazz forum, john hicks, johnny hodges, Listening Post, Live Music, master hands, master musician, melody, piano keys, pretty girl, solo piano, soloists, star crossed lovers, three minutes, two pianos, wbgo

A Billy Strayhorn melody is so very nice to hear on solo piano. A Billy Strayhorn medley is even better when there are two pianos. In 1983, at the Jazz Forum in New York, the lyrical master John Hicks and the underrated Albert Dailey put Strayhorn's music on display for more than twenty-three minutes. 'Star-Crossed Lovers' (aka "Pretty Girl") and 'Chelsea Bridge' were songs that I always believed Strayhorn had tailor-made for their respective soloists, Johnny Hodges and Ben Webster. However, these are such tremendous songs, all they require are the hands of any master musician. On this particular evening in September, they received four master hands, and 176 piano keys.
-Josh
Listen to the Billy Strayhorn medley, from the WBGO Archives.

© 2008 WBGO

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