2023

There’s no better way to spend New Year’s Eve EVE than with Grammy winning musician and producer Billy Vera and a very special Soul Jazz edition of Saturday Night Fish Fry.

By Matt Silver

This Saturday night at 6 p.m. PT, Billy Vera, the celebrated singer/songwriter, Grammy winner, and most soulful host of KSDS's "Saturday Night Fish Fry," is trading in his usual brand of jump jazz, rhythm and blues, and boogie woogie and setting course for a decade-and-a-half into the future, to the early-to-mid 1960s, when hard bop, R&B, funk, and gospel got together and expressed themselves through Hammond B3 organs and amplified saxophones and smoky electric guitars and honest, assertive, maximally soulful vocals that brooked no BS—or jive, as it were.

Happy Holidays! KSDS is airing its annual 'Sounds of the Season' programming. This 36-hour block of holiday music is brought to you by KSDS and our good friends at California Coast Credit Union and La Vida Real Retirement Community. Special thanks to Ken Borgers and David Grudt. Here's the PLAYLIST.

By Matt Silver

KSDS General Manager Ken Poston joined the Jazz Journalists’ Association’s (JJA) monthly podcast — “The Buzz” — this week for an authors’ panel discussing the three books published on and about Gerry Mulligan in the past year. One of those books—Being Gerry Mulligan: My Life in Music, the late baritone saxophonist’s autobiography as-told-to Poston—was a project thirty years in the making.

This week on “Sing! Sing! Sing!” Will Friedwald makes a weekend contribution to KSDS’s 12 Days of Sinatra by revisiting Sinatra’s 1955 recording "In the Wee Small Hours" and interviewing Sinatra’s granddaughter AJ Lambert, a vocalist who’s made the album part of her vocal repertoire.

By Matt Silver

It’s no secret that the prolific Will Friedwald considers Frank Sinatra to be the greatest entertainer of the 20th century. On this week’s episode of “Sing! Sing! Sing!” Friedwald takes a deep dive into what might be Sinatra’s greatest album, 1955’s In the Wee Small Hours. Joining him is singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist AJ Lambert, who knew Frank and his music as well as anybody — as a granddaughter would (Lambert is Nancy Sinatra’s daughter and oldest child).

Adam Gopnik, longtime staff writer for "The New Yorker," author, songwriter, playwright, Sinatra fanatic.

By Matt Silver 

Our “Twelve Days of Sinatra” is officially breaking for regularly scheduled programming over the weekend. We’ll officially be back at it again on Monday, Dec. 11 at noon Pacific, with the Seventh Day of Sinatra—Frank in the Movies—hosted by Chuck Granata. Officially. But here at KSDS, we’re less interested in the distinction between official and unofficial than you might think. In fact—call it our trailblazing spirit—we kind of love the renegade, weekend regions of our terrestrial radio landscape, where we give the unofficial a wide berth to stretch its legs, riff without restraint, and luxuriate in the unadulterated freedom of an off-the-books lifestyle.

The holidays are for family, friends….and Frank. We’ve heard from many of you and as a late holiday gift to you we will be replaying all 12 Days of Sinatra consecutively on New Year’s Eve, beginning at 7PM. The world’s foremost Sinatra experts and insiders—the men who’ve literally written the books on Frank—will bring you the music—and the stories—from each major period of Sinatra’s life and career. So, join us as we RE-Gift all the 12 Days of Sinatra to you- all 12 episodes played consecutively in its entirety beginning on New Year’s Eve at 7PM.  

Here's the 12 Days of Sinatra schedule, all times are approximate:

NYE- 7PM- 1st Day of Sinatra: The Early Years  1935-42 hosted by Will Friedwald
NYE- 9PM- 2nd Day of Sinatra: The Columbia Years 1943-49 hosted by Ken Poston
NYE- 11PM- 3rd Day of Sinatra: The Radio Years hosted by Chuck Granata
NYD- 1AM- 4th Day of Sinatra: The Fall and Rise hosted by Will Friedwald
NYD- 3AM- 5th Day of Sinatra: Frank and Nelson hosted by Will Friedwald
NYD- 5AM- 6th Day of Sinatra: The Capitol Years hosted by Loren Schoenberg
NYD- 7AM- 7th Day of Sinatra: The Movies hosted by Chuck Granata
NYD- 9AM- 8th Day of Sinatra: Early Reprise Years 1960-65 hosted by Loren Schoenberg
NYD- 11AM- 9th Day of Sinatra: The Concert Years hosted by Ken Poston
NYD- 1PM- 10th Day of Sinatra: The Rat Pack hosted by Ken Poston
NYD- 3PM- 11th Day of Sinatra: Inside the Studio  hosted by Chuck Granata
NYD- 5PM- 12th Day: Reprise-The Main Event hosted by Will Friedwald

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By Matt Silver

In 1957, Benny Golson wrote perhaps the most beautiful requiem in the jazz canon. Earnest and heart-wrenching “I Remember Clifford” is a bona fide standard, inspiring versions by Dizzy Gillespie, Art Blakey, Lee Morgan, Sonny Rollins, Quincy Jones, and nearly every jazz instrumentalist of consequence, including Golson himself.

But it begs the question: Do we follow the lead of Benny’s lament and do enough to remember Clifford ourselves? This year, we do. Here at KSDS, we aim to honor jazz’s great innovators, past and present. Clifford Brown, who tragically died four months shy of his 26th birthday in June 1956, is indisputably one of them.

KSDS-FM remembers Clifford. This Morning, KSDS will celebrate the birthday of trumpeter Clifford Brown. This fundraising event will focus on the way too short career of one of the most influential horn players in the history of jazz. We will feature segments throughout the day that follow his journey as a trumpeter and composer and offer great thank you gifts for your donation during this special birthday celebration, beginning at 9AM today.

KSDS friend and former contributor Robert Bush passed away on October 20th from his battle with cancer. The San Diego Jazz Community has lost one of the true advocates for the art form. His writings and perspectives and passion for Jazz, and all music, was immense.

Our thoughts go out to Robert Bush’s family and friends. We will miss him, Rest in Peace Robert.