Thursday, January 1st, 2009 ... 6:00 a.m. - 9:00 a.m. ... KZSU, 90.1 FM

(Return to playlists.)

For a couple of years now, I've envisioned doing a New Year's Day, early-morning show that comprised of the more melodic, gentler stuff that I honestly enjoy but that doesn't necessarily fit my regular format. Keith Jarrett's "The Journey Home" is sort of the model, along with the ECM jazz catalog in general.

Format:
ARTIST -- "TRACK TITLE" -- ALBUM TITLE (LABEL, YEAR)
Horizontal lines denote microphone breaks.

* Royal Hartigan Ensemble -- "Generations Suite" ("Owl's Nightmare"/"We'll Be Together Again"/"Tenderly") -- Blood Drum Spirit: The Royal Hartigan Ensemble Live in China (Innova, 2008)

OK, not as gentle a start as I'd hoped for, considering "Owl's Nightmare" is a rush of cymbals and brushes, creating an otherworldly gale. And "Tenderly" is done in a more brisk, upbeat manner than I'd remembered.

* Garrison Fewell -- "U Mandara Ke (Mandara Flower)" -- A Blue Deeper Than the Blue (Accurate, 1993)

I figured if I got stuck for material, I could always resort to grabbing random mainstream-jazz albums and playing standards. To buy myself some set-up time, I went there early. We most recently heard from Fewell on a creative duo album called The Lady of Khartoum, but here, he's doing fairly straight stuff in a friendly nighttime jazz-club mode. Great band, too: Fred Hersch (piano), Matt Wilson (drums), and Cecil McBee (bass). This one's a Fewell original; I did want to avoid packing the "mellow-jazz" side of the show with standards.

The model, as noted up top, and it also opened my almost-New-Year's set on Jan. 2, 2005. I just can't resist that catchy "chorus:" Jan Garbarek's sax slides through the melody followed by a fingersnap of a piano chord. Love it.

Buffalo Springfield -- "Pretty Girl Why" -- Buffalo Springfield (Rhino, 2002; orig. released 1968)

A gentle track with jazzy chords, something I'd heard one day on a wonderful (and long-gone) San Francisco radio station that called itself The City. Can't recall the call letters offhand. They were the last gasp of interesting commercial radio, mixing album-oriented rock with jazz and blues and ... whatever!

Previously noted here.

Nels in mellow jazz mode, but still far from mainstream. The compositions are richly creative, with a comforting mellow sound. Tim Berne gets to add some fireworks on sax; in fact, this track gets intense later on while still feeling rather pretty. If your friends like "jazz" but don't like "Nels Cline," this album's a sneaky way to convert them.

Kyle Gann -- "Sentimental" -- Private Dances (New Albion, 2007)

Modern classical solo piano. The title track is a six-part suite, each segment named for some emotion starting with "S." It's lighter fare, easily melodic, this track especially. It's a bit to soundtrack-like for me, but it does end on a fun ragtime note with "Swingin'."

The suite is coupled with other pieces that dig harder into "modern" territory, such as the dramatic tones of "On Reading Emerson" or the disorienting microtonal scales on the piano-and-flute piece, "The Day Revisited."

Great example of ECM jazz -- spacious stuff that gets into the kind of intense jamming you'd find in bebop. Ken Stubbs on saxophone appears to be the driving force in this band, with Django Bates on piano. Mick Hutton is on bass, too; he and Bates would feature in the first version of Bill Bruford's Earthworks (first band I ever played on the air), and their names on the album cover are what drew me to this album, years ago.

I said on-air that this was their only album I was aware of, which I now realize was false; I did see a second album at one point. Haven't stumbled onto anything else by them or by Stubbs, though.

This fit really well with the ending of the First House song. Believe it.

* Michael Chapman -- "A Stranger's Map Of Texas/The Twisted Road" -- Time Past & Time Passing (Electric Ragtime, 2008)

Singer/songwriter fare in a John Fahey-like acoustic atmosphere. These are solo pieces with rich acoustic guitar picking, a satisfying steel-strings sound, and Chapman's vocals on most tracks. Chapman has apparently worked with all sorts of greats over the years -- Nick Drake, Richard Thompson, Roy Harper -- and you can see why. Marvellous stuff, with quite a few 6- and 8-minute tracks that let you savor Chapman's guitar sound.

Nice singer-songwriter work, with a full band, out of the Tampa area.

A charming tune, funny in spots. Lavin juxtaposes three trains of thought: Construction of the sandwich that she's waiting on, the love life of the guy at the sandwich shop, and Frank Sinatra's recent death. It's a good reflection of how your brain works during those short pauses in life, especially when there's something heavy on your mind.

Darol Anger and Barbara Higbie -- "Tideline" -- Tideline (Windham Hill, 1982)

The infamous (and Stanford-based!) new age label makes it onto KZSU airwaves. I like this track, though. It's got a nice stormy piano figure that goes well with the gorgeous cloudy-beach album. I encountered this one shortly after it came out, when I was in a space of enjoying that not-quite-jazz stuff, like the band Montreaux that Anger, Higbie and Mike Marshall played in, that was a more cerebral precursor to (ick) smooth jazz.

Previously noted here.

Master of Hawaiian slack key guitar. I'd intended to just play one of his solo tracks, but seeing George Winston's name here, and having just played some Windham Hill, I figured what the heck.

Previously noted here.

Codona -- "Travel By Night" -- Codona 3 (ECM, 1983)

Previously noted here. I'd intended to play the Japanese traditional song "Goshakabuchi," to soak in its long silences, but that track ends up getting too intense for my purposes here. It'll have to wait for the regular show, with the usual avant-garde stuff.

Previously noted here.

Previously noted here. No, this wasn't a case of trying to do a "female Japanese artist" set; I'd been trying to get this track into the show for some time, but its opening chords of peaceful majesty (it's inspired by California redwoods, John Muir, and all that) just didn't work 'til now.

* Joe Locke -- "Ruminations" -- Force of Four (Origin, 2008)

Mainstream contemporary jazz, led by Locke on vibraphone.

While it's got some instruments, this is primarily a choral piece with room for a couple of soloists. The text is by Giordano Bruno, a philosopher who was burned at the stake. With text in Latin, it's got a reverent classical sound to it. This particular track is heavy on the female vocals, including soloist Jessika Kenney.

Hersch's lush piano meets the jazzy but artsy clarinet/sax of Michael Moore (not the filmmaker). Moore is better known for a quirky style of Dutch jazz, but in an accessible way, with hints of Klezmer. Hersch is more mainstream but gets pushed into some off-color tricks on tracks like "The Sad Bird." It's not so surprising a pairing once you realize the two know each other going back to 1975, when Moore was still living in the United States. The overall mood is like velvety film noir, hushed and heavy.

A very pretty little tune in major 7th chords. This EP itself is interesting, as there's some dialogue on two of the four tracks, like a mic was left on backstage. The whole thing is overshadowed by this track, though; it's a wonderful song and ought to be played on radio everywhere.

Previously noted here.

* = Item in KZSU rotation
? = Item not in KZSU library

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