Saturday, March 21, 2009
I know what I'll be listening to over the next few weeks. I was delighted to receive two large box sets from ESP-Disc: Billy Holiday, Rare Live Recordings 1934-1959, & Charlie Parker, Bird In Time 1940-1947, Selected Recordings and Rare Interviews, both produced by Michael Anderson. These are completist kinds of recordings, with widely varying sound & performance quality; airchecks, rehearsals, amateur tapes. Mike's informative notes assume the listener's familiarity with Billy & Bird. This stuff is treasure for me. Mike is a walking music encyclopedia, he loves so many different kinds of music that in person he connects with you no matter what tastes or level of knowledge you have.
When Mike's show followed mine at WFMU (as "The Good Doctor" at 2 am), I challenged myself each week to segue into his program with music that would get me a smile & a compliment. One night, I was closing with Pharoah Sanders' ethereal version of "Moonlight In Vermont," more a meditation on the moon than Vermont & romance, it was gonna run over, Mike said, "Don't fade that out, I'll wait."
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
When Mike's show followed mine at WFMU (as "The Good Doctor" at 2 am), I challenged myself each week to segue into his program with music that would get me a smile & a compliment. One night, I was closing with Pharoah Sanders' ethereal version of "Moonlight In Vermont," more a meditation on the moon than Vermont & romance, it was gonna run over, Mike said, "Don't fade that out, I'll wait."
