In The Wall Street Journal this week, I interviewed comedian Nikki Glaser for my "House Call" column in the Mansion section (go here). Nikki hosts the HBO Max reality dating series FBoy Island and she's appearing in an HBO comedy special, Good Clean Filth. To give you a sense of just how hysterically funny Nikki is, here's a clip (more on YouTube). Deliciously dark but honest...
Flora Purim sent along a lovely note last week after my Mike Stern interview [photo above of Flora Purim courtesy of Flora Purim]:
Dear Marc. I read the interview and I was very impressed with the history you covered so well. The pictures are amazing, and I learned a lot of things I didn't know about Mike. Thank you very much for making it available to everybody who loves Mike.
Flora's new album is If You Will. She also sent along a clip featuring a beautiful collaboration with her husband, Airto, on a song she wrote—The Road is Hard (But We're Going To Make It). It's on Airto's album I'm Fine. How Are You. Go here...
Tom Tom Club was formed in 1981 by wife-and-husband Tina Weymouth (bassist) and Chris Frantz (drums) of Talking Heads. Yesterday, the Recording Industry Association of America announced that the band's eponymous album released in '81 (above), which included the huge hit Genius of Love, had reached platinum status. This means that more than 1 million copies of the album have sold. I shot Tina and Chris an email of congrats. Chris sent along a terrific Spotify playlist called "Genius of Love x WhoSampled," featuring their original hit and 27 groups that have sampled the song's hypnotic riff. To listen, go here.
Before Midnight. The movie 'Round Midnight, starring Dexter Gordon, came out in 1986. Last week, I heard from Bruce Klauber:
Hi. Marc. Hope all is good, man. You may know about this. There's a strange but charming little French documentary film on the making of "'Round Midnight," called "Before Midnight." We discovered it virtually by accident, while scrolling through documentaries on HBO Max. Everybody shows up in this thing, including Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Billy Higgins, Ron Carter, Dexter (of course) and a host of others. Well worth seeing. Go to HBO Max and type "Before Midnight" into the search bar.
Mike Douglas. One of the strangest hours in TV talk-show history was hosted by Mike Douglas in 1974. On the show, he had boxer Muhammad Ali and singer-songwriter Sly Stone for a good chunk of uneasy time. Then things got really interesting when they were joined by Theodore Bikel and Congressman Wayne Hayes of Ohio. A pretty odd mix, by any stretch of the imagination. Someone must have thought this was a great idea. From the audience's perspective, it feels like you're trapped in a car that has gone into a 360 spin. Best line of the show is delivered by Sly Stone's brother, Freddy. Wait for it. Go here...
Ken Peplowski, the master jazz clarinetist and saxophonist, is battling multiple myeloma. It's a disease in which cancerous plasma cells accumulate in the bone marrow and crowd out healthy blood cells. As you can imagine, Ken's healthcare bills are heavy. So guitarist Frank Vignola started a GoFundMe campaign on Ken's behalf [photo above of Ken Peplowski cortesy of Ken Peplowski] To learn more about Ken's condition and view the page for contributions, go here.
WNEW-FM was New York's earliest and leading album rock FM radio station starting in the late 1960s. Last week, Tom Fine sent along the following note and links to a gold mine of free archived shows:
Hi Marc. I enjoyed your WABC memories last week. It got me searching for WNEW-FM, my fave growing up in the late '70s and early '80s. I had no idea it was an easy listening station in the 60s, and that Alison "the Nightbird" Steele (above) started out in that format (go here). The Nightbird quickly began to pioneer album rock (go here). Here's the Nightbird's pre-taped tribute to herself, broadcast one night when she called in sick.
Dizzy Izzy Sanabria. In the 1970s and '80s, Izzy Sanabria was an actor, MC, writer, publisher of Latin New York magazine and album designer at Fania Records who did more than anyone else to champion and promote salsa music and musicians. Known as Mr Salsa, Sanabria was a character and the face and pulse of a form that surfaced through American-born Puerto Rican youth that emerged on TV, in clubs and at park events (for more information, go here). The music also played a significant role in the disco revolution of the early 1970s (platform shoes, Nik Nik shirts and the Latin hustle all came out of salsa culture). A special thanks to Jim Eigo for sending along these clips:
Here's Sanabria in action, announcing Ray Barretto's band in the late 1970s...
And here's Sanabria hosting his TV show in 1973...
CDs you should know about.
Dick Hyman—One Step to Chicago (Rivermont) has just been released. I posted about the album in May here. Recorded in 1992, the music was produced by George Avakian. He brought together Dick Hyman (piano), Peter Ecklund and Dick Sudhalter (cornet), Jon-Erik Kellso (trumpet), Dan Barrett (trombone), Kenny Davern and Dan Levinson (clarinet), Ken Peplowski (tenor saxophone), Vince Giordano (bass saxophone), Howard Alden and Marty Grosz (banjo), Bob Haggart and Milt Hinton (bass) and Tony DeNicola and Arnie Kinsella (drums). But there were no takers for the Chicago jazz in the record industry back then. In 2017, clarinetist and early-jazz master Dan Levinson convinced Avakian to let him release the music. Dick Hyman heard the tapes in 2020 and he and Dan turned to Rivermont to put out the album. Now you can own it. The music is fabulous. Go here.
Here's Farewell Blues from the album...
Mark Sherman—Bright Light (Audiofile Society). Mark Sherman is a superb pianist, vibraphonist and educator. On Bright Light, he teams up with trumpeter and flugelhornist Joe Magnarelli, bassist Dean Johnson and drummer Tim Horner. Mark's seven originals are exquisite, as are the other three, including the standard Cry Me a River. Mark swings with taste and grace, and with Mags on horn, it's a perfect, lyrical combination. Mark is one of those pianists I could listen to all day. Mags, too. Plus Johnson and Horner are terrific drivers and time-keepers, not to mention elegant soloists. This quartet is one tight, pretty package. Go here or here.
Here's Mark Sherman's Miles in Front...
And here's the quartet at work on the album's title track in April. Gorgeous!...
Music break. Here's Dave Thompson playing Cry Me a River at his home studio last week...
Miles Davis/John Coltrane radio. On Sunday (July 17), Sid Gribetz at WKCR-FM in New York will host a five-hour Jazz Profiles show on the collaborations between Miles Davis and John Coltrane, starting at 2 p.m. (ET). Tune in from anywhere in the world by going here.
And finally, here's Joni Mitchell with Pat Metheny, Jaco Pastorius and Michael Brecker performing Shadows and Light in 1979...
