KSDS 88.3 Blog

The San Diego Jazz Community is invited to a celebration of life for Robert Bush. He was a beloved brother, father, uncle, grandfather and an invaluable friend and voice of the jazz and music scene in San Diego and beyond. The event in this Saturday at 3:30PM at the Athenaeum Art Center located at 1955 Julian Ave in San Diego. If you wish to attend please RSVP by e-mailing us at JAZZINSANDIEGO@gmail.com. Also, there is a Go Fund page set up for this event. Kindly search Robert M Bush Celebration of Life.

By Matt Silver

One great thing about staff here at KSDS is their versatility. General Manager Ken Poston basically built a jazz museum from scratch; Production Director Michael Rovatsos plays bass in the West Coast’s premier U2 tribute band, and "Phat Tracks" host Gordon Goodwin has won four Grammys and been nominated for over 20 more. Which is why when I went to City College’s Saville Theatre last Tuesday night to see and hear Goodwin preside over a radio program broadcast before a live audience, I wasn’t that surprised when a full-fledged big band concert broke out.

Musicians…they just can’t help themselves.

In our most recent fall pledge drive we partnered with the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance to offer two tickets to either the San Diego Zoo or San Diego Zoo Safari Park to as part of our fundraising efforts.

Congratulations to the lucky winners and thank you to the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance for its support of Jazz 88:

Adrienne Bell, Pietro DiGammarino, Larry Janes, Marta Glena Davila, Jerry Conklin

Feed Your Soul's Need for Swing with Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band

By Matt Silver

Gordon Goodwin (on keys) leads the Big Phat Band in Lviv, Ukraine. Photo courtesy Gordon Goodwin.

Attention Jazz 88ers, especially Jazz Live Ticket Holders:

A friendly reminder that this Tuesday night, Oct. 10, KSDS’s Jazz Live: Best of the West concert series welcomes Gordon Goodwin and the Big Phat Band to the stage at City College’s Saville Theatre. The band hits—and we’ll be broadcasting live-to-air—promptly at 7:30 p.m., so arrive with some time to spare, indulge in some delicious treats from our friends at Blackmarket Bakery, find your seats, and strap in for an unforgettable show.

KSDS/Jazz 88.3's 2023 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. Here is the Top Ten Artist Poll we conducted for the drive. Please tune in all day tomorrow to hear all these great artists:

1. Louis Armstrong
2. Gilbert Castellanos
3. Art Pepper
4. Duke Ellington
5. Tony Bennett
6. Cal Tjader
7. Count Basie
8. Nat King Cole
9. Herbie Hancock
10. Sonny Rollins

Retirees include: Miles Davis- Fall 2015, John Coltrane- Spring 2016, Frank Sinatra- Fall 2016, Ella Fitzgerald- Spring 2017, Thelonious Monk- Fall 2017, Dave Brubeck- Spring 2018, Stan Getz- Fall 2018, Nina Simone- End of Year 2018, Chet Baker- Spring 2019, Charlie Parker- Fall 2019, Bill Evans- End of Year 2019, Billie Holiday- Fall 2022, Vince Guaraldi- Spring 2023

KSDS Fall Pledge Drives Celebrates Latin Jazz with One-of-a-Kind Membership Gifts 

By Matt Silver

Machito and His Afro-Cubans, Glen Island Casino, New York, N.Y., c. 1947. Photo by William Gottlieb. Courtesy of Library of Congress.

In recognition of Hispanic Heritage Month (Sept. 15-Oct. 15), the 2023 KSDS Jazz 88.3 FM Fall Membership Drive (Fri., Sept. 22- Sun., Oct. 1) will celebrate Latin American music’s myriad indispensable contributions to jazz. Over the course of the drive, the station will, per member drive custom, be asking listeners to pledge support by purchasing or renewing memberships to sustain KSDS as a vital cultural resource here in San Diego and in every community around the world where the best in straight-ahead jazz can be streamed. And, per member drive custom, there will be Thank You gifts.

Pero este año con la ñapa. But this year, with a little something extra.

The Christian Jacob Trio Doesn't Deconstruct Standards; They Reveal What's Been There the Whole Time

By Matt Silver

The Christian Jacob Trio. From left: Jacob on piano, Trey Henry on bass, Ray Brinker on drums. Photo by Larry Redman.

I’ve been writing about jazz since 2016, which is not an eternity but more than a minute, and I’m embarrassed to admit I’d never heard of pianist Christian Jacob until last Tuesday night. The reason I’m embarrassed is because Jacob’s chops, the staggering breadth of his musicality, warrant so much more than mere name recognition; they warrant the type of adulation given to all the other greats of today and yesterday— Brad Mehldau, Ethan Iverson, Joey Alexander, Chick Corea, Bill Evans, and even Monk before them—who approach jazz with the erudition of a classical concertmaster, a child’s playfulness, and an adolescent’s total disregard for boundaries.

Clint Eastwood’s Bird: The Good, The Bad, The Apocryphal

By Matt Silver

You get a pretty good sense "Bird's" intended visual aesthetic from its lobby card. Warner Bros., 1988.

Part I: Prologue, Immediate Reaction, Forrest Whitaker, Bird's Cinematography, and a General Verdict

Prologue

I approach Bird as someone who loves jazz generally and knows more than the casual fan but less than the historians who get paid to be historians. Having said that, these are my thoughts – the good, the bad, the ugly—about Clint Eastwood’s Bird (1988).

The famous filmmaker Spike Lee, whose father Bill Lee, a jazz musician, supposedly knew Charlie Parker well, has criticized Bird for overplaying Parker’s character and behavioral flaws and underplaying the warmth and sense of humor that drew people to him.

Lee may very well be right—I can’t say; I didn’t know Charlie Parker personally, nor do I know anyone who did. But my sense is that Lee, and others who have criticized Bird similarly, are overlooking the most obvious thing about this depiction: It’s a movie! A big-budget Hollywood entertainment for as broad an audience as there can ever be for something about jazz or a jazz musician. Lee, more than anyone, should recognize that Eastwood’s treatment of the subject is not a documentary; after all, Lee’s no stranger to based-on-a-true-story moviemaking. He's been good (Malcolm X) but far from perfect (Summer of Sam). Trying to balance historical accuracy and biographical integrity with commercial entertainment value is a razor’s edge for artists in every medium to walk.

Clint Eastwood’s “Bird”: The Good, The Bad, The Apocryphal

By Matt Silver

Bird, and to his left, Chet Baker, playing the San Diego Coliseum in Nov. 1953. Photo by Ross Burdick.

Part II: Parker’s Relationships

Bird and Chan

In Eastwood’s world, these are two people genuinely in love, genuinely in awe of one another, and unendingly antagonistic towards each other. They come from different worlds—Parker from early 20th century poverty in Kansas City, Chan from affluent Westchester, the daughter of a vaudeville producer and man of grand romantic gestures whom Parker strives to emulate, at least superficially, to win Chan’s heart (or, arguably, emotionally manipulate her, if you want to be a cynic about it). 

Chan’s rendering at times feels a little typecast; Eastwood really leans in to depicting her as the archetypal mid-century muse: a silver-tongued, bourgeois-bohemian enchantress, simply irresistible to any male creative type whose self-destructive tendencies are inextricable from his art. But I’ll give Eastwood the benefit of the doubt, since, one: this conception wasn’t nearly as trite 35 years ago as it is today; and two: the actors bring an inarticulable authority and credibility to the roles that makes it feel like they’re doing these real-life people justice; and three: it’s a friggin’ movie! 

Clint Eastwood’s “Bird”: The Good, The Bad, The Apocryphal

By Matt Silver

The real Buster Smith pioneered the so-called “Texas sound” on saxophone, played with Lester Young and Count Basie, and mentored Charlie Parker.

Part III: Apocrypha and Artistic License

The Curious Case of Buster Franklin

By most accounts, Bird’s Buster Franklin character, if not the film's primary black hat—that's probably vice-cop-cum-shakedown-artist, Estevez—then certainly its most emotionally resonant one, was meant to represent a fictional character cobbled together from different characters Parker would’ve known in real life. A so-called "composite character." But in real life, everything about the Buster character—aside from how he treats Parker— seems very consistent with a real person, Buster Smith.