Electricity has been largely restored in San Juan. Schools, hotels, restuarants and many arts and music venues have reopened. (The rest of the island is another story.)
In this call with Jorge Andrés Ferreras, guitarist with the Puerto Rico-based band “Sr. Langosta”, Jazz on the Tube gets an update on conditions in the capital and what you can do to help (cutting to the chase: visit!)
Michele Rosewoman and members of New Yor-Uba perform “The Egun and the Harvest”
Michele Rosewoman Trio perform ‘Akomado’ For Babaluaye
“Guerreros” Michele Rosewoman and New Yor-Uba at Dizzy’s Lincoln Center 10/13
New Yoruba, October, 1984 in Warsaw, Poland a year after the group’s founding
Ed Kelly exploring Monk – “Well You Needn’t
Orlando “Puntilla” Rios – “El Breve Espacio”
– Ken McCarthy
Jazz on the Tube
Music credit: The Jazz on the Tube podcast theme song is “Mambo Inferno” performed by The Manhattan School of Music Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra conducted by Bobby Sanabria from the CD ¡Que Viva Harlem!
Rich Pulin of pulin4jazz.org talks about his life in jazz which included seven years with the Tommy Dorsey Band on trombone. Rich has been running a most innovative jazz education program for kids in Clark County, Nevada (Las Vegas) that could be a model for the nation.
– Ken McCarthy
Jazz on the Tube
P.S. Our unique programming is made possible by help from people like you. Learn how you can contribute to our efforts here: Support Jazz on the Tube
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Singer, writer, and educator Tom Cunniffe was part of the legendary and unfortunately now-defunct Jazz.com.
He’s captured the spirit of that site and put his own unique twist on it with a unique approach to reviewing the music and shining a light on some of the great music of the past that deserves a second look – or maybe even a first look for some of us. Highly recommended.
P.S. Our unique programming is made possible by help from people like you. Learn how you can contribute to our efforts here: Support Jazz on the Tube
Thanks
Pianist and composer Milcho Leviev was born and raised in Bulgaria in 1937 which means he had the experience of World War II, the Soviet invasion, and a long dictatorship as a child and young man.
Milcho is part of a wave of supremely accomplished musicians from Eastern Europe who’ve made huge creative contributions to jazz over the decades.
Their dedication to the art is epic and perhaps not fully appreciated.
During the Communist times, jazz was, for all practical purposes, a banned music in the Eastern Bloc. Schools did not teach it, public performances were frowned on, jazz records were seized at Customs and pursuing jazz was a potential career-killer for a professional musician.
Still they persisted.
Milcho relates how a small group of dedicated musicians and fans in his country tuned into Willis Conover’s 1 AM Voice of America jazz broadcast with their primitive tape recorders turned on.
The hope was that one of the group would get a relatively clear signal (the program was jammed by authorities) and could share the tape with others. They then laboriously worked together to transcribe the recordings so they could study them.
Why did they love jazz so much? Because it exemplified freedom.
A sampling of where that love of freedom has brought Milcho. Enjoy!
Milcho returns to Bulgaria
With Art Pepper
With Don Ellis
With Bill Cobham
With Dave Holland
Tribute to Voice of America’s Willis Conover
Bulgarian cartoon from the 60s (Jazz in banned in Heaven)
P.S. Our unique programming is made possible by help from people like you. Learn how you can contribute to our efforts here: Support Jazz on the Tube
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