Update: Since it's Sunday night, it's slowed down a bit. We're still at 3/4 of the way to our goal and the deadline is getting uncomfortably close (Tuesday). I can't thank those of you enough who have donated, and donated whatever you could. You have made a huge difference. But we're not quite there yet and there's still a little ways left to go before we can breathe again. It's a nail-biter, I will admit. But I have faith we'll get through this crisis, and come out the other end. If you haven't made a donation yet, please consider whatever amount you can afford. I know these are tough times - this Fundraiser is proof of that right now. I need your help. We're slowly getting through this and you're making a huge difference. Thank you all for your help so far - I could not have come this far without you.

If you've just discovered Newstalgia for the first time (and you're scrolling through the 3,000+ posts since we got started in 2009), you'll notice the weekends are mostly made up of music; a lot of different kind of music. The weekends at Newstalgia are usually reserved for Popular Culture and flat-out Culture. Live rock concerts from the 1960's all the way to last week. Jazz Concerts (like this one) and a thing called Weekend Gramophone, which originally stared out as a place to play Classical 78's, but which has wound up in recent months as a sort of showcase for early radio broadcasts of some rare and seldom heard performances from the world of Classical music. The weekends at Newstalgia are rather eclectic and it sort of works that way.

Tonight it's a live concert, broadcast by NET (the forerunner to PBS) on July 5, 1970 featuring Jazz-Blues singer Joe Williams in one of his typically great concerts, but this time for a TV audience.

It's the audio-only portion of the concert that we're playing today. And if you've never heard Joe Williams before, or only casually heard about him in connection with Count Basie, now's your chance to hear why he was such a popular singer, among not only the audience, but with other singers.

Sadly, TV ran on a strict time schedule and the half hour program came to an abrupt end, just as Williams was getting ready to wrap up and truly wonderful set. So it fades out at the end.

Still, a great concert by one of the legendary figures of the Jazz-Blues contingent.

Enjoy.

As I promised a couple weeks ago, here is the Count Basie portion of the Jazz concert from The Hollywood Bowl on August 11, 1967.

Like the Cannonball Adderley entry, this recording hasn't been issued in any form and is most likely the first time it's been heard since it was recorded.

All the more reason to sit back and enjoy it.

In the off chance you were wondering if I'm running the same Count Basie from Birdland over and over, I'm not. This is a broadcast from July 31, 1952 from the Stars Of Jazz series on NBC Radio. As the paperwork illustrates, most bands who played on this radio series did several weeks (at least two) of broadcasts from the same venue. It's great if you're a completist and want to get every gig a favorite musician ever did. Wait til I start working my way through the three years of Stan Kenton broadcasts - live remotes with the band during cross-country tours, each week a new venue but a lot of the same material. Good stuff, but not for the casual take-it-or-leave-it listener.

So tonight it's Count Basie, during his stay at Birdland with another great gig only the Basie Band could do.

Good way to end a bizarre week and maybe put you in the mood to face the new one.

Enjoy anyway.

Back on schedule this week with Count Basie and His Orchestra live from Birdland on January 9, 1956.

Basie during one of his transitional phases and always in top form. One of the great artists whose band you never got tired of hearing and whose music still sounds as fresh today as it was during this broadcast.

Enjoy.

(Alan Freed (center) With Jackie Wilson and Jimmy Clanton - Rock n' Roll wasn't going to go away)

In 1957, when this CBS Radio Program first aired, the writing was on the wall that Rock n' Roll wasn't going anywhere and the Networks and advertisers scrambled to be part of it. Since radio as it was known since its inception was gasping its last by the late 1950s, networks such as CBS tried to appeal to a new, younger and hipper audience. And since Alan Freed was crowned "The King Of Rock N' Roll", what better personality to get to christen a new era in radio broadcasting? Still looking for the right formula, CBS and advertiser Camel Cigarettes devoted a half hour to live in-studio appearances by the hit makers of the time. Count Basie was a regular and this episode features songs by Faye Adams and The Robins, who had just released Cherry Lips on Whippett some weeks earlier.

A very rare show that is actually a rehearsal (no live audience) before the final run was aired, it offers a fascinating glimpse of a time in transition when musical tastes were changing and there was still an air of charming naivete before the Payola scandals put a dent in the party. And years before anyone even remotely considered smoking to be bad for your health. History is funny that way.