i find its the night before my birthday that i ever feel any significant emotion regarding the day. usually i feel nothing on the day of (except a sense of having escaped another year and a party). tonight i’m all: thoughts, questions, concerns.
yo all. for those who haven’t been in the loop (like me), i’ve been writing these last few weeks for a blogsite called The Perpetual Post. Its a great challenge and an excellent cadre of writers and opinions. i figure i should start posting my weekly articles here too… so that there is less discrepency in my blogging. (and also more regularity here…)
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AKIE BERMISS: Love On the Radio (Why Radio Can’t Just Go Away)
I want to try to keep this short and sweet. I could write books about how much I love radio and how important it is to the communities it serves but my point in this post is much more specific: the human side of radio. Far too often advances in technology lead to a preoccupation with the production of the gadgets and not creative discussion about their implications to humanity at large. And with the speed of advancement these days its hard to find meaning in all the progress. Still, we can try to seek it out.
Radio, if done right, can be a beautiful thing. Aside from the internet, it is possibly the greatest fount of information and entertainment in our culture. Some people sing television’s praises but the problem with television is you have to watch it AND listen to it. You can’t have television running in your car or while your working on the computer without having to constantly switch your attention back and forth between what you’re working on and what’s on the screen. Radio has the wonderful quality of being completely aural — allowing you to use it while doing pretty much anything else but talking. And so, despite owning two 300 gig hard-drives full up basically only with music, I spend most of day listening to radio. In the morning as I go about my daily rituals and household tasks, I keep the radio going full-tilt boogie on my stereo. And not just any radio, mind you.
I keep it strictly: local. And what I’m talking about is WBGO Jazz 88.3FM
What’s The Buzz: Tell Me What’s A’Happening
WBGO provides me with basically everything I need to get through my day. Music, news, traffic, weather… and all in a timely and remarkably clear fashion. I was brought up on it, so I have a somewhat instinctive understanding for the format. And BGO (as my family calls it) is more than just a local radio station, its a listener-supported PUBLIC radio station. And I’ve been a member for about a decade now. At first, my mother would pay for the memberships in our names but as I grew to appreciate the quality of music on the station later I decided to make the plunge for myself. For all the flack I get from other musicians for not knowing what’s hot on the hip-hop or rock or pop stations (stations which, in my opinion, are so totally corporate and vapid that I don’t really care to find out what’s on rotation there anyway) and then on the other side from jazz musicians who think WBGO doesn’t push the envelope enough — I really love the programming. Because its personal. WBGO is as close to free-form radio as radio gets these days. The DJs play what they want, what they like, and what they think you should hear. Radio at its finest. As a regular listener I could tell you, without having to think very long, the names of nearly all the regular DJs and when they’re on AND what kind of music they play. 3pm to 4pm on weekdays ? That’s the blues hour with Michael Bourne. While Michael and I seem to disagree about 40 percent of the time on what good blues is, I still like to catch it and see what’s new on the scene.
Yes, I know and enjoy pretty much all of the stuff the DJs have to offer. But there are a couple of DJs I really love and trust. Brian Delp, for example, spins Jazz After Hours from 1am to 5am every weeknight. He pretty much never plays a sour cut. Driving home from gigs I know that if its 2 or 3 am I can throw on 88.3FM and hear solid swinging music all the way home (and I live in Brooklyn so consider that at that hour I’m going to have to find parking and I need to keep my cool then, especially.) Awilda Rivera does Evening Jazz on weekdays and the Latin Jazz Cruise (not an actual cruise…) on Tuesdays from 8pm to 10pm. Nice cuts always. If you’re lucky she’ll have someone in the studio promoting a new album or project. Then you get stuff you just can’t hear anywhere else. I could go on about the DJs (Rhonda Hamilton, Sheila Anderson, Gary Walker… on AND on) — each with their own pros and cons but always style and taste — but I don’t want to leave out the news people. WBGO has a great award-winning news department that puts together the weekly WBGO Journal on Fridays from 7pm to 8pm and ALSO news updates (in concert with NPR) every half-hour so in the morning and evening. All the important local happenings are recounted in a concentrated form: politics, sports, weather, traffic. Everything you need to be a functional tri-stater.
Did I mention its Public Radio? That its listener-supported? That means no commercials. Just programming. I’m not sure how to listen to commercial radio anymore. I find it brash and empty and over-wrought. Give me BGO or give me death, I say.
Community is Key
One of the most important things that I think local radio offers over anything else is a sense of community. While I do expect to hear the leading national and international stories, much of what I get from the news updates is local news for New York and New Jersey. And the DJs are in tune with local happenings like concerts and off-Broadway shows. There’s a short segment they run everyday called the WBGO Music Calendar which basically lets you know who is playing where through out the metropolitan area. I don’t always know someone’s in town if I’m not checking their website everyday or checking on the placards of clubs as I walk past them during the day. I depend on WBGO to keep me informed about what’s going on locally. Though an internet jazz radio station may have completely uninterrupted music, its all completely out of context. If its autumn in New York… it might be nice to hear Autumn In New York. Or if Roy Hargrove is playing in town, it might be nice to hear a couple of cuts off of his most recent record. Sometimes I don’t even know the conceit, but I get it. I might jump in my car in the middle of a rainstorm and catch the tail end of “Here’s That Rainy Day” and instantly I’m saying, “Ah yes, I get it. I dig it!” WBGO gives the New York jazz scene a sense of cohesion; a sense of community. Say what you will about this DJ as opposed to that one, they all contribute to the unifying entity that is WBGO. They put-on a twice year Children’s Jazz Series at various locations in New York and New Jersey. They co-sponsor events like the summer concert series Celebrate Brooklyn! at Prospect Park or the Charlie Parker Music Festival in Manhattan. The DJs sometimes even host these events as well. They are personalities thriving not only on the radio but also at the concerts and in the clubs of the city. You might catch Joshua Jackson (Special Programs Director) taking in a show at the Village Vanguard — especially if he’s recording his Monthly “Live At the Village Vanguard” series…
And before you call me a complete technological nay-sayer let me reveal the terrible truth of the matter: more often than not, I listen to WBGO on the internet. I admit it! The reception in Brooklyn is dodgy in my neighborhood and its just so much clearer over the internet. I spend more than a few hours a week on WBGO.org looking at the playlist or finding out what up-coming specials are going to be. They even have a blog. That’s right: a blog. And while being online allows them to increase their listener-base exponentially (there are BGO members all across the country and, indeed, the world) they still remain a LOCAL radio station. Its an awesome concept. Complete accessibility but a human precedent. And, honestly, I think that quality is what draws listeners from all over the globe. Its not just jazz without any intellect behind it — the DJs are giving the playlists — I’ll say it again, people — cohesion, coherency, and personality.
And Don’t Forget the Special Programming
And still they carry many of NPR’s national programming. I tune into WBGO to hear What’s The Word, Latino USA, Jazz from The Archives, The Treatment, JazzSet, and my personal favorite: Portraits In Blue (with Bob Porter). If you’ve never heard of these programs you should really get on it. You could go to npr.org and download or listen to many of them on demand, admittedly. But, just so you know: you can also catch them on WBGO.org as well.
I appreciate the modern advances radio has brought to our culture. More options, greater detail and specificity, and unparalleled accessibility to programming. Still, I think its wise to remember that there should also be a human component to our intake. Sure On-Demand is pretty damned satisfying, but there is something magical about hearing something unexpected on the radio. Something you hadn’t downloaded into your ipod. Something new. Something you didn’t know you needed until you heard it. Radio still offers us surprises.
Sometimes its just good programming. But, once in a while, they get you with the perfect cut and its: love on the radio.
Delight of delights. I spent last week based out of Philmont, NY. Apologies for the drop-off in posts. My computer’s plug died and i had no other way of charging it. and since its a MAC i had to go to an Apple store and buy the $85 plug in order to get back on things.
In the interim, Johnny invited me up to the farmhouse in Philmont to spend the week warming my hands by the wood-oven. There was something lovely about spending a few nights in the relative silence of the country detoxing all the city’s frenetic energy from my soul. After Big Willie’s passing its nice to return to the bucolic sort of landscape that he sprang from (and i do hope to plan a sojourn down to Barnwell, SC sometime in the near future). I spent the week eating beats and buckwheat and fresh sourdough bread. drinking root-tea (chickory and dandelion root) and organic coffee with cream so heavy it had to be spread into the cup like mayonaise.
i did some other things while up there. visiting friends, giving a lesson or two, and playing the Uptown Cigar shop’s Spring Smoker in Kingston, NY with Ken McGloin and Dean Sharp. (the photographic evidence thereof is to be found on my facebook profile page… under “moble downloads”). It was my first time drinking Martini’s i must admit. turns out, i pretty much like them. i’m not usually a vodka drinker, but i do like olives. so, imagine it: cigars (inside!), martini’s, and spacey funkjazz trio. it was the first time i really felt comfortable in the non-bass format. if anything i could have eased up on the basslines and let more space happen in the bottom for Dean… but i really enjoyed the freedom felt. the fearless fearfulness. directions in music, you dig?
finally, i did a brief hang with John Esposito and seen he’s in a pretty good space which is positive. no time to hang out with kyle gann – but that’s another cigar hang in and of itself.
i came home friday night to chill. saturday night was dedicated to the Intangible Poetry Collective’s Where There’s Smoke There’s Fire… aabaraki playing house band for BNice, Bamboo MC, and MC Zev (with DJ Alan Spingburg sitting in on the 1s and 2s). We turn the joint OUT! it was fucking live, people! you should have been there. i’ll throw some tracks up from it later. it was heavy wild shit.
played a gig sunday morning and then headed up to Washington Heights to see my homegirl LaToya play the lead (Fiordiligi) in Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte. It was a cool production with a twist. right before the final double-wedding scene, the audience got to vote how the couples ended up at the end — with the opera taking place in modern day Massachussetts, the potential for a same-sex double wedding was at stake. while i think many of the older more conservative people in the audience over-powered my more liberal desires and had the play end as it is conventionally staged. ah well.
i have this week to do the rehearsals and preparations necessary before i head out a) on a one week retreat with the mrs. and then, b) off to St. Barths for a three-week stint at the Baz Bar with ari and aaron.
so many, many things to be done.
more tomorrow!
akie
