"Because ignorance of your culture is considered uncool"
Coleman Hawkins All-Stars – Live at Deutches Museum, Munich – Jan. 19, 1950 – Bavarian Radio – Gordon Skene Sound Collection – The legendary Coleman Hawkins this weekend, at a superb-sounding concert from 1950, recorded by Bavarian Radio and rebroadcast in 2009 and subsequently issued privately and not-so-privately over the...
Count Basie and his Orchestra – Live in Milan, Italy – April 6, 1960 – RAI – Gordon Skene Sound Collection – Count Basie this weekend. An American institution, Basie was a fixture from the 1930s all the way up until just before his death in 1984. An enduring figure...
Ben Webster Quartet – Live in Paris – November 4, 1972 – Radio France – The legendary Ben Webster this weekend. Recorded live in Paris in November of 1972, Webster is joined by Georges Arvanitas on piano, Jacky Samson on bass and Charles Saudrais on drums for some solid,...
Gene Krupa Band, featuring Anita O’Day and Charlie Ventura – Spotlight Bands – January 1946 – Gordon Skene Sound Collection – Digging deep into the vault this week for a performance by The Gene Krupa Band, featuring the legendary singer Anita O’Day, along with the pre Bop-For-The-Peaple Charlie Ventura on...
Gil Evans Orchestra – live from Studio 105, Maison de la Radio, Paris – November 4, 1976 – Gordon Skene Sound Collection – Gil Evans for a stay-at-home Sunday. Recorded at Radio France, Studio 104 in Paris on November 4, 1976. For all the decades Gil Evans was active, he...
Peggy Lee with Dave Barbour’s Orchestra – In Session for C.P. Mac Gregor – Jan, 1945 – Gordon Skene Sound Collection – Peggy Lee is probably a name which may not register with people below a certain age. Her career spanned some six decades, from the 1930s to the 1990s....
Carla Bley Big Band – live from Paris – Studio 104, Maison de la Radio, Paris – March 16, 1982 – Radio France – Carla Bley Big Band for this Christmas eve. Okay, maybe not full of Christmas music, but this concert is joyous as hell – and if it...
Thad Jones – Mel Lewis Big Band – Live in Paris – Recorded at Studio 104 – Maison de la Radio – Paris – Sept. 8, 1969 – Radio France Musique – Thad Jones – Mel Lewis Big Band, recorded live in Paris in September of 1969. Normally I don’t...
Conversations With Artie Shaw – Guest: John Simon – Feb. 29, 1972 – Gordon Skene Sound Collection – Critics – an alternately loved and despised lot, viewed by some as a combination of giddy swooning fan and stone-faced curmudgeon. The critic, throughout history has been a starmaker and icon-basher. Why...
Wardell Gray Live at Birdland – April 28, 1951 – Gordon Skene Sound Collection – Wardell Gray this weekend. One of the true guiding lights in Post-War Jazz, he was that link between Big-Band and small group Jazz, and his collaborators read like a who’s who of the Jazz world....
