Blog - Jazz Spectrum

This Week on Jazz Spectrum - 8/23-8/25

By Fritz ByersEach week, Fritz exchanges thoughts with Aly Krajewski about the Song of the Week featured on Jazz Spectrum Saturday.Dear Aly, Miles Davis, not widely known as a charitable praise-giver but certainly a lord of the manor when it comes to identifying true genius as opposed to the counterfeit variety, said on the occasion of Duke Ellington’s passing in 1974, “I think all the musicians should get together one certain day and get down on their knees and thank Duke.”  (Miles was rarely inadvertent in his word choices, so I’ve always thrilled Read More

This Week on Jazz Spectrum - 8/9-8/11

By Fritz ByersEach week, Fritz exchanges thoughts with Aly Krajewski about the Song of the Week featured on Jazz Spectrum Saturday.Dear Aly, Last week, we concentrated on “The Last Time I Saw Paris.”  The song evokes a piercing sentiment, a moment that stops time, and then the frozen moment sticks with you forever.   This week, I’m remembering the first time I saw a Breughel painting – we’re talking here about Pieter the Elder. Read More

This Week on Jazz Spectrum - 8/2-8/4

By Fritz ByersEach week, Fritz exchanges thoughts with Aly Krajewski about the Song of the Week featured on Jazz Spectrum Saturday.Dear Aly, In a documentary on the life and art of the saxophonist Charlie Parker (aka “Bird”) that I saw in the late 1980s – I think it was Celebrating Bird: The Triumph of Charlie Parker, directed by Gary Giddins and closely tied to Gary’s unrivaled book of the same title – a fellow be-bopper of Bird’s -- I think it was the alto saxophonist Frank Morgan -- reminisced about the thrill of hearing him in full flight. Read More

This Week on Jazz Spectrum - 7/26-7/28

By Fritz ByersEach week, Fritz exchanges thoughts with Aly Krajewski about the Song of the Week featured on Jazz Spectrum Saturday.Dear Aly, At a recent Let’s Get Acquainted team-building exercise (don’t ask), the moderator stole a question from the NYT Book Review regular feature, By the Book, in which a writer is asked a series of probing queries.  She presented the group with the inquiry: “You’ve having a dinner party. Read More

This Week on Jazz Spectrum - 7/19-7/21

Each week, Fritz exchanges thoughts with Aly Krajewski about the Song of the Week featured on Jazz Spectrum Saturday.By Fritz ByersDear Aly,
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This Week on Jazz Spectrum - 6/28-6/30

Each week, Fritz exchanges thoughts with Aly Krajewski about the Song of the Week featured on Jazz Spectrum Saturday.Song of the Week – “Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most” – Music by Tommy Wolf, Lyrics by Fran Landesman  Dear Aly, Last week at dinner, a friend and I were talking about Salman Rushdie’s new book, Knife, an extended and moving reflection on an extremist’s demented attempt to stab him to death, thirty years after the fatwa that was decreed against him for the act of publishing a work of imaginative fiction. Read More

This Week on Jazz Spectrum - 6/21-6/23

Each week, Fritz exchanges thoughts with Aly Krajewski about the Song of the Week featured on Jazz Spectrum Saturday.Dear Aly,
 
As we age, and our gears begin slightly to slip, it can lead to some wonderful suspended-in-mid-air exchanges.  I was recently on the periphery of one.
 
          We were showing off the downtown riverfront park development.  Admittedly, it IS disorienting.  But:
 
          “You pretty much cover the waterfront.”
 
          “I love that movie.”
 
          “Which movie” Read More

This Week on Jazz Spectrum 6/14-6/16

Each week, Fritz exchanges thoughts with Aly Krajewski about the Song of the Week featured on Jazz Spectrum Saturday.By Fritz ByersDear Aly,
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This week on Jazz Spectrum – 6/7-6/9

Each week, Fritz exchanges thoughts with Aly Krajewski about the Song of the Week featured on Jazz Spectrum Saturday.By Fritz ByersDear Aly, Anyone who’s been through law school, or at least the caricature of law school that fetishizes the Socratic method, knows that enormous power derives from being the person who asks the questions. Ms. Read More