Friday, June 3rd, 2005 ... 4:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. ... KZSU, 90.1 FM

Late start due to a Stanford baseball game. Interesting story: The game was slated for noon to 3:00 p.m., but there was a rain delay. It never actually rained, though. Apparently storm warnings were afoot, with hail and all kinds of nastiness expected to pass through (this being in Waco, Texas, land of bad weather). Rather than, oh I don't know, start the game anyway like they would in any other clime, officials decided to wait for the storm to pass. It either never did or arrived too late, and they outright canceled the game. No problem for me, but a tough day for the sports guys who sat around for 4 hours waiting for this alleged rain.

Format:
ARTIST -- "TRACK TITLE" -- ALBUM TITLE (LABEL, YEAR)

* Veryon Weston, John Edwards, Mark Sanders -- "Vienna One" -- Gateway to Vienna (Emanem, 2005)

* Wolfgang Fuchs Sextet -- "(Loosely) Second Iridescence" -- Six Fuchs (Rastascan, 2004)

* Daniel Panasenko -- "Of Silence and Expression" -- Fables of Fatcha (self-released, 2004)

* Drew Gress -- "Rhinoceros" -- 7 Black Butterflies (Premonition, 2005)

I'm really digging this CD - bright, brisk modern bebop played by some of NYC's premiere avant-jazzers including Tim Berne. Exciting music. Feels healthy.

* Steve Baczkowski, Chris Corsano, Paul Flaherty -- "No Boat Will Ever Come" -- The Dim Bulb (Wet Paint, 2005)

Aggressive two-sax attack plus drums. Raw and vicious free jazz, really cool stuff.

-- 5:00 p.m. --

* Irwin Mayfield -- Strange Fruit (Basin Street, 2005)

An ambitious project by trumpeter Irwin Mayfield. The tale of a doomed romance in the old south, mostly gloomy in the telling but with a kernel of hope at the end. Strange Fruit was conceived as a theater project, combining a jazz orchestra with one narrator telling the story and music harkening back to those old big-band days. Oh, there's also a choir in the mix for a few gospel tracks. Effective and probably exhiliarating to see live.

Anyway, I don't know how many chances I'll get to play the whole program, so I figured I'd take the opportunity here, during its first week in rotation. I have to admit the music here isn't always my cup of tea, but it's a well executed project that deserves to be heard.

-- 6:00 p.m. -- * Irwin Mayfield -- Strange Fruit, conclusion.

* Albert Ayler -- "Birth of Mirth" -- Live on the Riviera (ESP-Disk, 2005; recorded 1970)

* = Item in KZSU rotation
! = Pop anomaly
? = Item not in KZSU library

-- Go back to Memory Select playlists.
-- Bay Area free/improv music calendar: http://www.bayimproviser.com.