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PERFORMANCE: LISTENING: The wealth of PBS stations is wonderful, any kind of music, any time of the day or night. I can hear jazz in the morning on WTJU, classical music the rest of the day on any number of stations and Jim C's Swing Club Saturday night on WVTF plus many of my old favorites. Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz on Sunday night and Riverwalk,Live from the Landing on WCVE Saturday at noon. Now, if I could just find Hazen Schumacher's Jazz Revisited and Jazz from Lincoln Center. A new AM station in Farmville (1490) plays some jazz everyday. Also on AM, CHWO (740) plays big band music every evening. I've been listening to jazz 'forever' but got hooked first by Duke Ellington and then by Lester Young/Count Basie in the late 50's. The first on a couple of 10 inch Columbia LP's and then an Epic LP called Lester Leaps In (now on CD). I still have the records and the means to play them (in mono, and tube amps if the mood strikes). The list of jazz records is up to about 250, plus the tapes and CD's. The newest CD's are a set of 4 called The Engine Room. They record the evolution of jazz drumming from the 20's on. Our kids got us a DVD player for Christmas, so I'm in the process of digging out suitable speakers and amps to take advantage of the audio capabilities of this new format Since it will also play CD's and has a sub-woofer output we may get an enhanced sound. We heard some of the big bands live in the 50's and 60's (Basie and Kenton in particular) so maybe some of the effect can be re-created. COLLECTING: I used to go to record shows in Columbus,Ohio, but that's a little far now. I haven't found where record shows are held in Virginia yet. Maybe once a year I got a chance to go to the Jazz Record Mart in Chicago, a great place , still more LP's then is good for me. |