Just the mention of jazz summons up images of smoky bars and sweaty sidewalks, late night blues, New York City, and the ghosts of Monk, Miles and Coltrane.
Pre-eminent trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and the writer Carl Vigeland are looking to takes us beyond the sounds and images, though. In their new book they open up the back stage, take us inside the rented busses, the hotels and impromptu dinners, the stop-offs at high schools, to great cities and the small towns. Vigeland is our guide, Marsalis is the guru, and their riffing with one another takes us deeper: trading observation and revealation, getting inside the thoughts that stream through a performer’s mind as he picks up his horn, before he hits the stage and blows.
It’s an improv jam, jazz in the printed form. “Jazz in the bittersweet blues of life.”
(Hosted by Dick Gordon)
Guests:
Wynton Marsalis, musician
and Carl Vigeland, author