San Diego's Jazz 88.3 FM - KSDS

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KSDS to Celebrate the 60th Anniversary of Dizzy Gillespie's 1964 Presidential Campaign with Star-Studded Concert

In 1964, Dizzy Gillespie mounted a half-serious run for president. When asked why, his response: “Because we need one!” So on Oct. 27, KSDS is celebrating the 60th anniversary with a star-studded concert headlined by Jon Faddis and Charles McPherson. Why? Because we need one!

Just minutes after the Bill Mays Trio closed last Friday night’s Bud Powell Centennial concert with a euphoric take on Powell’s “Parisian Thoroughfare” that left us all exiting the concert hall floating at least three feet off the ground, the KSDS brain trust convened an emergency session in the atrium of The Conrad. We resolved not to rest on our laurels. The music we presented that night was too special, too magical for us to wait several months before bringing you another evening of commensurate artistry. 

And so we did something that might seem counterintuitive; we turned to the upcoming presidential election for inspiration. 

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KSDS Wins! Further Pitching Averted. Jazz 88 Coffers and Waistlines Expand.

KSDS GM Ken Poston (at right) interviews (from left) Alan Broadbent, Joshua White, Gilbert Castellanos, and Bill Mays on stage at the Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center in La Jolla before KSDS’s Bud Powell Centennial Concert on Friday evening, Sept. 27, 2024.

Dear Jazz88ers,

It’s been a 12-round, knock-down, drag out brawl of a Fall Membership Drive, but after ten grueling days and unspeakable amounts of pizza and Italian beef sandwiches and enchiladas… after our gastrointestinal systems have begged for clemency and prevailed upon us with reflux and the other unmentionable weapons at their disposal, we’ve laid down our swords and returned to programming as regularly scheduled. 

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The 2024 Fall Membership Drive

KSDS/Jazz 88.3's 2024 Fall Membership Drive has concluded! We welcomed many new and renewing members and the music will continue to thrive because of it. If you would like to donate towards the campaign you can do so by clicking here. If you want a Dizzy For President shirt and pin let us know the size. Here is the Top Ten Artist Poll we conducted for the drive.

 

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Jazz at Tio Leo's

Holly Hofmann's jazz series continues this month at Tio Leo's Restaurant and Lounge at 5302 Napa St. at Morena Blvd. Jazz at Tio Leo's is happening every Sunday evening from 5-7pm and features Southern California's finest jazz musicians in a quiet, spacious setting with full bar and Mexican cuisine. There is also plenty of free parking. See this month's schedule below:

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Trends in Avian Evolution: My Five Favorite Charlie Parker Tributes of the 21st Century

Portrait of Charlie Parker, Red Rodney, Dizzy Gillespie, Margie Hyams, and Chuck Wayne, New York City, c. 1947. Photo by William Gottlieb, courtesy of Library of Congress.

By Matt Silver 

There’s a famous quote attributed to Miles Davis. It goes, “You can tell the history of jazz in four words: Louis Armstrong. Charlie Parker.” Whether that statement is fair or not — whether it does justice to anyone not named Armstrong or Parker — is beside the point. By most credible accounts, Davis, setting all the musical genius aside, was a brilliant provocateur, a hot-take pioneer whose aloof, disagreeable, superior demeanor was carefully and consciously constructed. Whatever Miles Davis played was what he genuinely believed; everything else was in service of a different department of the corporation.

Nevertheless, Davis's declaration — glib, reductive, and disingenuous though it may have been — resonates.

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Lester Young: A Portrait of Lester Young's Early Triumphs and Set-Backs

By Loren Schoenberg

In the rarified precincts of the jazz pantheon, Lester Young is unique in that the true essence of his genius remains obscure. Armstrong, Monk, Tatum, Coltrane and the others recorded prolifically in the studio and out of it, etching a relatively complete picture of their abilities. To be sure, there were extraordinary moments that vanished the moment they were created, lingering only in the memories of those lucky enough to have witnessed them. But with Young, the overwhelming consensus of those who heard him when he was young is that he could and frequently did play extended solos, and that it was only in that form that he could express his unique and large-range sense of musical architecture. So we are left to parse, ever so minutely, the shards of that vision as they are to be found on the recordings that comprise this collection. All jazz soloists up through the advent of long-playing records in the '50s had to learn to express themselves succinctly and no one did it any better than Young at his best. 

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Today's Birthdays

Born on this day, October 5th

  • Jimmy Blanton (Bass) was born in Chattanooga, TN, 1918–1942.
  • Bob Astor (Band Leader) was born in New Orleans, LA in 1915.
  • Bill Dixon (Trumpet) was born in Nantucket, MA, 1925–2010.
  • Donald Ayler (Trumpet) was born in Cleveland, OH, 1942–2007.
  • Frank Guarente (Trumpet) was born in Montemiletto, Italy, 1893–1942.
  • Tord Gustavsen (Piano) was born in Oslo, Norway in 1970.
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On This Day

October 5th in Jazz History…

  • In 1951, Miles Davis makes his first extended length recordings due to the introduction of the LP. It also marks the recording debut of 19-year old alto saxophonist Jackie McLean.
  • Bix Beiderbecke (buy-der-beck) cuts 5 sides with the Whiteman & Trumbauer (trum-bow-er) bands in New York City in 1928 for the Columbia & Okeh labels.
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