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This week on Jazz Spectrum – 5/3/24-5/5/24

Each week, Fritz exchanges thoughts with Aly Krajewski about the Song of the Week featured on Jazz Spectrum Saturday.By Fritz ByersHi Aly, I checked the rules, but I don’t see one that prohibits beginning consecutive Song of the Week emails with a reference to a poem. So, last week, e.e. cummings, this week, Frank O’Hara. Frank’s affecting poem, “St. Paul and All That,” has this perfectly cadenced stanza: I walk in
sit down and
face the frigidaire
it’s April
no May
it’s May Read More

Rethinking Jails + Justice Radio Program

The “Rethinking Jails + Justice” project is in collaboration with The Board of Lucas County Commissioners and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Safety + Justice ChallengeTOLEDO, OHIO – April 26, 2024 – WGTE Public Media’s “Rethinking Jails + Justice”, in collaboration with The Board of Lucas County Commissioners and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Safety + Justice Challenge, is set to launch the latest phase of the project on Tuesday, April 30th at 7 p.m. Read More

This week on Jazz Spectrum – April 26-28

Each week, Fritz exchanges thoughts with Aly Krajewski about the Song of the Week featured on Jazz Spectrum Saturday.By Fritz ByersHi Aly, e.e. cummings was right to say that  “Spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully out of Nowhere)arranging Read More

This week on Jazz Spectrum – April 19-21, 2024

By Fritz ByersThe tenor saxophonist Lester Young is widely – and I think plausibly – credited with inventing the use of the word “cool” to describe something hip or fashionable or, well, you know. That alone should land him in one or more Halls of Fame – who in American history has more enduringly shaped the national vocabulary with a single word?  This cracks me up: the original OED isn’t having any of this use of cool. BUT, in a supplement, the editors added several usages. Read More

FM 91 Programing Changes

Mondays - Radio Alchemy from 12 a.m. - 1 a.m. Mondays - Great Lakes Odyssey Radio Hour from 7 p.m. - 8 p.m. Tuesdays - Early Music Now from 10 p.m. - 11 p.m. Fridays - Jazz Spectrum Fridays from 8 p.m. - 10 p.m. Saturdays - Saturday Afternoon at the Opera from 1 p.m. - 4 p.m. Sundays - Electronic Currents from 8 p.m. - 10 p.m.  For a full schedule visit wgte.org/schedules Read More

This Week on Jazz Spectrum - 4/12

By Fritz ByersThis Friday’s 10pm hour presents in its entirety the pianist Andrew Hill’s 1964 triumph, Point of Departure.  Twined with the five tracks from that album are two cuts from the guitarist Nels Cline’s 2006 date, New Monastery: A View into the Music of Andrew Hill.  Each of the Cline excursions is tied to Point of Departure. Read More

‘Finding Festivals’ Accepted by The National Educational Telecommunications Association for National Distribution

Local producer and show host Haylie Robinson’s Finding Festivals airing again on WGTE Public MediaWGTE Public Media is proud to re-air the full 13-episode season of Finding Festivals, created by local producer and show host Haylie Robinson. The program is now available through The National Educational Telecommunications Association (NETA), a nationwide program distribution service to members, public television stations and independent producers. Read More

This Week on Jazz Spectrum - 4/5

By Fritz Byers  In 1930, Babe Ruth signed a contract with the Yankees under which he was paid $80,000 a year to play baseball. At the time, Herbert Hoover occupied the position of President of the United States. It is a measure of the quaintness of those days, and of the near-century of ensuing dislocations, that a journalist thought it apropos to ask Babe if he deserved to make more money than the President. Read More

This week on Jazz Spectrum – March 30, 2024

By Fritz ByersThere’s nothing like teaching a class to help you learn.  A blog post or two ago I mentioned I’m teaching a jazz-history class.  Here’s a thanks to Lourdes for letting me do it and to the students for being so thoughtful and giving me so much to think about. Since Tuesday’s class I’ve been thinking about hard bop – you know, the style that emerged as a reaction to cool jazz, which was a reaction to bop, which was a reaction to swing, which . . .. Read More