Gifts & Messages with Dr. Jazz

Roland Kirk told me “we provide the gifts and you deliver the message”.

We play jazz, the real deal, irrespective of era or style. We look for a memorable melody or a deep groove. We listen to 1000’s of new and old tracks/year, even the awful stuff. G&M is two hours of the best music, past and present. The first part of G&M is usually recent releases. But the rest of the program is typically 'historical'. We find many people who have never heard artists like Art Tatum, Bud Powell or even Count Basie. So, we have a rotating list of 'stars' that we visit with over the course of a year. The first show of the month usually features Blue Note 50th anniversary recordings (we have a discography and know how to use it:). Once a month, we do jazz birthdays. We recently completed a Horace Silver retrospective, covering his recordings as a leader and sideman in chronological order, and we've just started a Sonny Rollins celebration - going back to his recorded start with Babs Gonzales. We also mine features in DownBeat and Jazz Times for top poll recordings. On occasion, we'll even do a classic R&B/jazz compare and contrast, just for fun. It's important that I give you a reason to tune in - not just some random sampling of the latest 'cool tunes' that people will forget about after the marketing hype has played out.

read more

Roland Kirk told me “we provide the gifts and you deliver the message”.

We play jazz, the real deal, irrespective of era or style. We look for a memorable melody or a deep groove. We listen to 1000’s of new and old tracks/year, even the awful stuff. G&M is two hours of the best music, past and present. The first part of G&M is usually recent releases. But the rest of the program is typically 'historical'. We find many people who have never heard artists like Art Tatum, Bud Powell or even Count Basie. So, we have a rotating list of 'stars' that we visit with over the course of a year. The first show of the month usually features Blue Note 50th anniversary recordings (we have a discography and know how to use it:). Once a month, we do jazz birthdays. We recently completed a Horace Silver retrospective, covering his recordings as a leader and sideman in chronological order, and we've just started a Sonny Rollins celebration - going back to his recorded start with Babs Gonzales. We also mine features in DownBeat and Jazz Times for top poll recordings. On occasion, we'll even do a classic R&B/jazz compare and contrast, just for fun. It's important that I give you a reason to tune in - not just some random sampling of the latest 'cool tunes' that people will forget about after the marketing hype has played out.

We hope you’ll make G&M your jazz source and visit weekly.

Dr. Jazz has hosted and programmed jazz radio for decades in Ithaca (NY), Charlottesville (VA), Boston and now in Baton Rouge, Louisiana at WHYR-FM. Your host has collected jazz since he was 10 years old and has been doing jazz radio since he was 17.

show less