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.

Update: We are slowly inching towards the half-way mark. With gracious donations and your kind words about Newstalgia, we may have a shot at reaching our goal. But I still need your help. Half way is still half-way and unfortunately I can't talk the landlords into half the amount needed in order to take off the lien. And so, I keep appealing for whatever amount you can give - any amount at all, in order to save Newstalgia (and the archive) from extinction. I know these times are tough and the future is, at best, uncertain. And I don't want to cause anyone any hardship - if you can't afford to donate, you can't and I would rather have you use one of my posts for your history class than to have you leave and not come back. But if you can afford it, please consider making a donation. As I said, any amount is a great amount to me and to helping save something I hope you feel is worthwhile. We can do it - we're doing it. You're making a difference!

Over to Neuss Germany this week for a chamber concert featuring The Ebène Quartet in music of Mozart, Borodin and Schubert. It was recorded on December 4, 2011 by WDR.

Hard to imagine the Ebène Quartet have only been together since 1999, as they sound like an ensemble who have been together for at least twice that long. They have been characterized in the press as "taking the music world by storm" and gaining a huge audience in the process.

The concert has been broken up between two players - the top player fetures the Mozart and Borodin and the bottom player features the Schubert.

For you note keepers:

wdr 3 Kammerkonzerte in NRW

wolfgang amadeus mozart: Divertimento D­dur KV 136

alexander borodin: Streichquartett Nr.2 D­dur

franz schubert: Quintett C­dur für zwei Violinen Viola und zwei Violoncelli D 956

Quatuor Ebène
Pierre Colombet · Violine
Gabriel Le Magadure · Violine
Mathieu Herzog · Viola
Raphaël Merlin · Violoncello
und Nicolas Altstaedt · Violoncello

Aufnahme vom 4. Dezember 2011 aus dem Zeughaus, Neuss

Since it is Anti-Road Rage Wednesday, I think it's a safe bet this one works for that.

Relax, the week is almost over.

Over to Prague this week, by way of Madrid, for a broadcast concert featuring the venerable Czech Philharmonic, conducted by the equally venerable Jiri Belohlavek.

The program consists of music by Martinu, Novak, Ancerel (Karl Ancerel who was Music Director of the Czech Phil for many years) and Antonin Dvorak and is part of the 100 year anniversary celebration of the Czech Conservatory.

Here are the program notes from Radio Nacional Espana:

100 aniversario del Conservatorio de de Praga. Concierto celebrado en el Rudolfinum de Praga el 28 de abril de 2011. Grabación de la CR, República Checa.

(Top Player) MARTINU: Obertura (6‟18”).
K. ANCERL: Sinfonietta(19‟05”).
(Bottom Player) - NOVAK: Suite morava, Op. 32 (27‟51”).
DVORAK: La rueca dorada, Op. 109 (22‟02”). Orq. Fil. Checa. Dir.: J. Belohlavek.

Great concert, and the Czech Philharmonic certainly lives up to their reputation. Nice Anti Road-Rage Wednesday (Thursday) music.

Enjoy.

Even though the drive is more or less officially over, I know there are some who didn't get a chance to donate while we were in crisis mode. If you care to, that would be wonderful, as running Newstalgia is an every day effort. I'll leave the Donate button up until the end of the week so if you didn't get a chance before, now's your opportunity.

Update: We're solidly at 2/3 of our goal tonight. We're getting really close. I am so knocked out and humbled by all the support that's come in the last 24 hours, I can't tell you how great it is to know the Archive stands a good chance of being saved and Newstalgia stands a good chance of being here for you. But please don't stop just yet - we're still a ways off. Even with 1/3 left to go it can still not happen. If we can keep this going a little long, and if you can donate whatever you can, whatever amount you feel comfortable with. I'm not asking for millions, I'm just asking to take the lien off and keep the site on. We can do this - we're doing this - you're doing this. I am beyond grateful.

Diving into the 70's tonight for a concert featuring 70's icons Mott The Hoople, recorded at The Santa Monica Civic Auditorium on April 12, 1973.

I remember this concert really well. I was sitting somewhere near the front. Ian Hunter had a cold and his voice was a little shot. But Mott The Hoople were one amazing band and this was at a time they were just hitting mass popularity. With such classics as All The Way To Memphis and All The Young Dudes (which are included here) just recently released, they were riding the crest of a very big wave.

This is the whole set - all 90 minutes worth. Crank it up and enjoy.

Pretend it's 1974.

I admit that, in all the time Newstalgia has been up and alive, I haven't included any Led Zeppelin material in my posts. Why? Honestly, I overdosed on them around the time this concert was recorded. Led Zeppelin were probably one of the most visible, most hyped bands of the early 1970's. Their albums were played back to back non-stop on most FM stations in the country. Every Rock magazine had at least some kind of story regarding them in every issue. They toured almost constantly and, frankly I heard enough of them to last me a lifetime.

Not that they weren't a good band or anything, and not that I didn't like them. I just hit critical mass hearing about them and hearing Stairway To Heaven for the 2,000th time. That's all.

But my experience is probably not your experience - so when I ran across this concert I was looking at it as a historic document and not out of personal preference. So I decided to run it.

I am sure this concert has made the bootleg circles many times over, as practically everything they've ever done has, in one form or another. What's interesting about this particular concert, recorded at the BBC's Paris Theater in London in 1971, is how sedate the audience is. Evidence Led Zeppelin were much more popular in the States than they were in their native UK. A Led Zeppelin concert in the U.S. during their heyday was a stoner's paradise with massive quantities of drugs and alcohol ingested over the course of the concert to epidemic proportions. Attesting to that was the fact that, at one Zeppelin concert in Los Angeles, I was thrown up on not once, but twice in one night. Wretched excess is what they call it.

At any rate, in case you missed them the first time around, or never quite got into them in the first place, here is a taste of them live relatively early on.

Enjoy. I promise to grab something new and unknown next week.

A historic concert from Germany this weekend. Drummer Max Roach and a quartet featuring Clifford Jordan, tenor sax; Coleridge Perkinson, Piano; Eddie Khan, bass; and Abbey Lincoln, vocals, performing at the Sendessal in Bremen.

Recorded by Radio Bremen on February 15, 1964, this concert features the complete Freedom Now Suite for the next hour and 10 or so minutes.

'nuff said.

Over to Austria this week for a concert from the 2011 Carinthian Summer Festival featuring Clarinetist Sabine Meyer, Cellist Heinrich Schiff and Pianist Martin Helmchen in a program of works by Beethoven, Berg, Shostakovitch and Brahms.

Here's the rundown:

Festival d'été de Carinthie : Beethoven, Chostakovitch, Berg, Brahms

Part 1 - Ludwig van Beethoven

Trio avec piano N°4 en si bémol majeur Op.11, Gassenhauer (1797)

1- Allegro con brio
2- Adagio
3- Tema con variazioni. Allegretto. Allegro

Dmitri Chostakovitch

Sonate pour violoncelle et piano en ré mineur Op. 40 (1934)

1- Allegro non troppo
2- Allegro
3- Largo
4- Allegro

Part 2 - Alban Berg (1885-1935)

4 Pièces pour clarinette et piano Op.5 (1920)

1- Mässig
2- Sehr langsam
3- Sehr rasch
4-Langsam

Johannes Brahms

Trio avec piano en la mineur Op.114 (1891)
1- Allegro. Poco meno allegro
2- Adagio
3-Andantino grazioso. Un poco sostenuto
4- Allegro

Sabine Meyer, Clarinette
Heinrich Schiff, Violoncelle
Martin Helmchen, Piano

Concert donné le 12 juillet 2011 en la Stiftskirche d’Ossiach dans le cadre du Festival d’été de Carinthie.

Great concert, relayed from Paris so the announcements are in French - but it's all Road-Rage Wednesday, if you ask me. And it is Summer Festival Season.

Enjoy.

A legendary Jazz Vocal group this week. Lambert, Hendricks and Ross virtually redefined the role singing took in the idiom of Jazz. Taking elements of Scat and Human Orchestra and coming up with a combination that was a flat-out hit from the start. Lambert, Hendricks and Ross rode the crest of a very popular wave all through the 1950's until late 1962 when Annie Ross left the group to pursue a solo career, leaving Dave Lambert and Jon Hendricks to carry on with another singer before finally hanging it up in 1964.

This concert, recorded at The Park Hotel in Bremen, Germany and broadcast over Radio Bremen on April 23, 1962 most likely marks some of their last recorded live performances as the original lineup of the group and is probably one of their last broadcasts. They are backed by The Gildo Mahones Trio, another legendary outfit.

And for the next hour, you get to be there.

Over to Dorchester-on-Thames this week for a live broadcast of the opening concert from the 2012 English Music Festival in Dorchester, England with the BBC Concert Orchestra in music by Parry, Curtis, Delius, Vaughan-Williams, Ireland and Moeran.

Celebrating their 60 years as a tight-knit little band, The BBC Concert Orchestra, conducted by Martin Yates and featuring Mark Bebbington, play an outstanding program of World Premieres and seldom heard works by British composers, and a couple of work-horses in the mix.

Here the rundown:

Live from Dorchester Abbey, Dorchester-On-Thames
Presented by Catherine Bott

The opening concert from this year's English Music Festival in Dorchester-on-Thames. The BBC Concert Orchestra are joined by pianist Mark Bebbington in John Ireland's Legend and the first performance of an early work by Vaughan Williams, his Piano Fantasia. The concert ends with another premiere: conductor Martin Yates's completion of Moeran's Second Symphony.

Part 1:Parry: Jerusalem
Curtis: Festival Overture
Vaughan Williams: Piano Fantasia (World Premiere)
Part 2:Ireland: Legend
Delius: Over The Hills And Far Away
Moeran: Second Symphony (World Premiere)

Mark Bebbington (piano)
BBC Concert Orchestra
Martin Yates (conductor).

It's Anti-road Rage Wednesday, and this one does the trick.

Enjoy.

Sadly, the name Lurlean Hunter has been overlooked lately, as an entry in the vast catalog of Jazz singers from the 1940's to today.

Hunter, born in Mississippi, raised in Chicago and migrating to New York where she landed a contract with RCA in the early 1950's and turned in four highly regarded albums for the RCA and subsidiary VIK labels.

Publicized primarily as a "torch singer", Hunter had a very good following on the club and lounge circuit throughout the 1950's and early 1960's.

But as tastes and venues changed, and as the vagaries of the music business did what they usually do, Hunter slowly faded from public view. Surfacing only occasionally, such as this guest spot on the Pre-PBS, NET-TV program Jazz Alley, broadcast on June 4, 1970.

A wonderful singer performing to a very appreciative audience, Lurlean Hunter certainly deserves some re-evaluation. At least some serious re-discovery of a memorable back catalog.

In the meantime though, here she is in a live setting.

Technical note: the transmitter for this broadcast got a little crazy about two minutes into the first song and it gets noisy for about 20 seconds. It goes away and the rest of the broadcast sounds fine. Worry not.

Dig, you must.