Radio Free D'ni

A strange group in many ways, The Doors formed in 1965 in LA by Ray Manzarek and Jim Morrison, both UCLA Theatre Film School graduates.  Their music is unlike almost any other bands, based in blues and rock with some jazz thrown in and a large dose of performance art.  Morrison was essentially a poet, and not a great singer, but an extremely charismatic performer.  The band contained no bassist, Ray Manzarek playing bass pedals on stage and session musicians performing on the albums.

Broadcast December 20, 2014 – yes, a Saturday… We all had other commitments for the Sunday and as it was the start of the holiday and people going away, we decided that Saturday would be a better spot.

The preshow has a mixture of tracks that didn’t make the main show, then we start with some rock & pop, then jazz, folk, and finally classical.

The Postshow has the tracks from the previous show that were missed out. Fionnghlua is Irish mouth music, a form of a capella, as are Rock and Roll Woman from Decameron and the Tuvan throat singing of Huun Huur Tu, as well as the sublime two choruses of Find The Cost Of Freedom from Dave Crosby and Graham Nash with Dave Gilmour.  King Henry’s Madrigal has harpsichord and flute (no surprise as this is Jethro Tull) and Break It Down is on Chapman Stick by Tony Levin.

Broadcast December 7, 2014

Vocalese is the setting of lyrics to established jazz orchestral instrumentals. The word was coined by jazz critic Leonard Feather to describe the first Lambert, Hendricks, & Ross album, Sing a Song of Basie.

So Jon Hendricks, Dave Lambert and Annie Ross can be thought of as the originators of this style.  Some would disagree, citing Eddie Jefferson (who replaced a solo instrumental line with a vocal, rather than a whole horn section) or scat singing (which is vocal improvisation on a chord sequence using nonsense syllables rather than words.

A Cappella (Italian for as in chapel) means unaccompanied singing and as you might guess has a long history, from Gregorian Chant onwards.

Unexpected instruments :- instruments being used in unusual contexts.

Due to a cock-up on my (AlanDJ’s) part, not all the planned tracks got sent to Edison in time for the show.  The missing tracks were added in to the next show in the post-show set.

Broadcast November 23, 2014

The second show in the Brit Prog series, this one concentrating on the Canterbury Scene band Caravan.  Caravan have a long and varied history as one of the premier groups of the Canterbury Scene, a noted Brit Prog melting pot that produced Soft Machine, Hatfield and the North, National Health and Gong among many others.  The membership has varied wildly throughout its lifetime, but the constant presence of Pye Hastings ties everything together with a trademark vocal style and songwriting standard.

Broadcast on November 9, 2014, assembled by Goren.

Broadcast October 26, 2014

Chronicling the career of the phenomenally successful Scottish band formed by the combination of Alex Harvey, former winner of the “Scotland’s Answer to Tommy Steele” competition, ex skiffle musician and five-year resident of the pit band for the musical “Hair” and Tear Gas, a prog band with aggressive up-front musical skills but lacklustre stage personas.  Alex described them as “raucous, loud, heavy and undisciplined… It was a very happy marriage”.  Alex loved the musicianship, but taught them how to perform, producing a band with great musical chops who were also terrific to watch.

25 listeners for this show – Come on back, guys 🙂

Broadcast on October 12, 2014

The years posted in the listing reflect when the singles and albums were published in North America; for the rest of the world, the tracks are in order of publication, starting in 1973. Also, our gratitude to the management of AC/DC for allowing us to play the lead single for the album Rock or Bust one day ahead of official publication–thanks, guys! How about an encore… ?

Broadcast September 28, 2014

The show was put together as a sequel to an earlier set called Mysty Jazz, and the title also borrows from the title of the classic  film of the Newport Jazz Festival of 1958, “Jazz on a Summers Day”.  The theme is live tracks, with an outdoors, festival feel and Cool, for the most part.

Broadcast September 14, 2014.  Part 1 of several.

Prog, and especially Brit Prog is hard to pin down but is mostly characterised by quirky titles, odd time signatures, lots of improvisation and a tendency towards sly humour.  Sometimes it can go over the top a bit as well.  There will be more…

The History of Supertramp, broadcast 31 August 2014:  A maximum of 18 listeners for this, only our second show.