This weekend's Newstalgia Downbeat goes head first into New Years Eve with a broadcast special from December 31, 1957 featuring The Teddy Wilson Trio, The Eddie Heywood Trio and ringing in New Years with Duke Ellington and His Orchestra.

I'm not sure if this has seen the light of day or reissue since 1957, but it's a great (although kind of short) set from each group. This was part of a yearly seven hour extravaganza NBC Radio put on in the 1950's each New Year's Eve featuring bands all over the world, ringing in the New Year.

At any rate, if a Cool New Year's Eve is right up your street, by all means check this one out.

And enjoy.

En route to the much anticipated Vienna Summit with Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev, President Kennedy paid a State Visit to Charles DeGaulle to engage in talks regarding French views on U.S. Foreign Policy and discuss differences with regards to NATO.

Here is a wrap-up of the days events for June 2nd, 1961 as reported by Leon Pearson and NBC Radio News.

If you haven't seen this post before (it was posted on this day last year and this day the year before that), it's a reminder that protesting a wrong your government is doing is legal - it is part of our democracy. And when 100,000 people do it, as they did on this day in 1970, it sends a message.

As an outgrowth to the violence that met the anti-War protests at Kent and Jackson State Universities only a few days earlier, a mass demonstration and protest to the Vietnam War and our incursion into Cambodia on April 30th was organized and a march on Washington was held on May 9th.

It was the biggest demonstration of its kind, and the most peaceful. This was the demonstration made somewhat famous by the presence of President Nixon, walking through the crowd unannounced and without Secret Service in the middle of the night, talking with protesters.

News reports remarked Nixon thought the exchange with the demonstrators was "interesting". At a time when the word "interesting" could either mean enthusiasm, revulsion or the Chinese Curse - it was hard to pin down exactly what Nixon meant. But suffice to say, this demonstration brought mass opposition to the Vietnam War very much to the forefront.

Here is a special broadcast as presented by NBC News on May 9,1970.

Update: With a flood of donations overnight, we've come within $1,000.00 of meeting Newstalgia's goal of staying online and saving the archive from extinction. Those of you who have donated, and re-donated, I cannot begin to express my gratitude and heartfelt thanks for your help, your kind words, your encouragement. You have made all the difference between disaster and hope. We're extremely close and this final push over the next day is crucial in averting what would have been a complete disaster. Because we're so close, your donations are still desperately needed. Any amount is deeply appreciated. You may not think giving $1.00 can make a difference, but it has and it's being proven over the past few days. It all makes a huge difference and has succeeded in turning this seemingly insurmountable obstacle into a speed-bump. If you haven't considered making a donation to help keep Newstalgia up and running yet, please consider it now. Any amount, any amount at all, is needed and appreciated beyond words. We're making it. We're close. We're getting there.

The news on this morning in April of 1945 was about the eventual collapse of Germany and the end of the War in Europe. With news reports coming in, and bulletins being reported one on top of the other, news of the Fall of Berlin was being reported. Soviet troops had succeeded in occupying the center of the city, while defacto head of the German government, Heinrich Himmler was busy hammering out surrender terms. The latest communique had Himmler attempting to reach a surrender with the Allies without including the Russians. Needless to say, it was rejected. And despite some rumors to the contrary, no Surrender had been arrived at. Allied forces were systematically taking over and occupying every other German city, with news that Munich had fallen while this broadcast was on the air. Also reported was news that the Allies had liberated the Dachau Conentration camp, and news of that discovery would be coming in time. During the course of the morning news broadcast, an address by Gen. Spaatz of the Allied Air Forces announced confirmation that the German Luftwaffe had been completely obliterated and subsequently, the Allied Air Force would changed its role over to tactical support of ground forces during these final hours/days.

Meanwhile, the War in the Pacific was still far from over. With news reports of a Kamikaze attack on an Allied Hospital ship near Okinawa brought outrage from the Allied High Command and fighting was still intense.

And that was the news for this April 30, 1945, as presented in two morning Newscasts over NBC. One, the Morning Roundup and the later Alka-Seltzer News Of The World.

Update: Looking grim. Donations have been slowing down the last 24 hours and that's not a good sign for keeping either Newstalgia online or saving the archive from destruction. There is still some time, and you can still make a difference. I need your help. Give what you can, but please try and give something. I'm not making any money off of this for myself, it's all for keeping Newstalgia going and keeping the Archives together. We're getting down to the wire and there's still time left to help. Please do what you can and my sincere thanks and gratitude to those who have donated so far. We can still do this. You can still make a difference.

News on this day in 1945 was entirely about the historic linkup of Soviet and Western-Allied forces at the Elbe River, effectively cutting Germany in half and sealing the fate of Hitler's "Thousand year Reich". It would be a matter of days, and with bulletins racing in, with reports cutting in and flying on top of each other, it was clear the war in Europe would be over soon. Still, there was caution, and it was stressed over and over in the course of the newscasts that this was not to be considered the end of the war in Europe. Fighting was still intense. With overwhelming numbers of displaced, refugees and former Nazi officials fleeing to safety managing to clog the roads leading to Berlin.

As the reports kept coming in, the later bulletins placed Russian troops, within blocks of the Chancery in Berlin, seizing the Deutches Bank building. So there were conflicting reports with some saying the allies were 75 miles away from the heart of Berlin, and later reports of fighting going on in the streets of Berlin. No one knew for sure and Allied censorship of news reports made it difficult to get an accurate picture of just far along everything was going.

And that's what the news sounded like from 11:00pm-12:00 midnight via NBC and WEAF in New York for April 27th, 1945.

As much as we're heard about the Protest Movement to the Vietnam War in the 1960's there was that just-as-vocal contingent who not only believed the war was justified, but that we were also in the process of winning it. And many of those people were on Capitol Hill.

For example, Sen. Thomas J. Dodd (D-Conn) who served on the Senate Armed Services Committee was a staunch believer in the Vietnam War and was convinced we were winning it. One of the true Hawks in the Senate. But in all honesty, early in 1965 there was a much larger segment of the population who believed the war could be won and believed we were absolutely justified in being in Southeast Asia than who weren't. The Anti-War Movement was just getting started at this point and the sales pitch for the War was much more organized.

Dodd was convinced we were winning, that we had "turned the corner" so to speak. And in this installment of NBC's Meet The Press, he is asked why he is so adamant in that assessment.

Sen. Thomas Dodd: “We’re winning more battles every day. The latest figure I heard was, on an engagement just recently, it was in the ratio of about four to one. They suffered something in excess of 400 losses. Our side had something in excess of 100.The morale of the South Vietnamese is very high. There are more defectors coming over to our side every day. About a year ago, my information is, we were getting about ten a month. We’re now getting over a hundred a month. We’ve got a thousand pilots, about a thousand pilots now in the South Vietnamese Air Force. They’re good pilots, I’m told by our Air Force people, they’re good fighters. As a matter of fact, I was told they do a better job at maintenance than our people do. So there are all these reasons I say we’ve begun to win.”

Hearing the casualty reports, I am reminded of what was later revealed to be grossly inflated enemy body counts, and how early on the war was being manipulated to be portrayed as another cakewalk. What was being conveyed and what was actually happening were two wildly different stories. And unfortunately we had to find out the hard way.

So here is Meet The Press featuring Sen. Thomas J. Dodd as originally broadcast on May 2, 1965.

I'm not entirely sure this being touted as "the first Network Jazz concert on Television" is accurate, as I think CBS may have had that distinction a year or two earlier. But I'm sure it sounded good in the press releases and, truths to tell, it was a star-studded lineup that promised more on a regular basis. Hosted by then-King of Late Night Television Steve Allen (he was the first Tonight Show host) with venerable pitch-man John Cameron Swayze for Timex (takes a licking and keeps on ticking) watches, it was a one hour extravaganza.

Packed with the likes of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Woody Herman, Gene Krupa, Jack Teagarden, June Christy and a host of others, it was one solid hour of wall-to-wall Jazz at a time when Rock n' Roll was threatening to eclipse the popular music market and Jazz was making a stand.

I believe this concert has been preserved and is available on video. These however, are the original transcription discs made by NBC engineers as a reference recording and so the sound quality may be a bit better.

In any event, if you've never heard this concert before, here's a good opportunity to hear what was going on in 1957 as far as the more mainstream Jazz practitioners were concerned. If you have heard this concert before, maybe this one sounds a bit better. You decide.

(H.V. Kaltenborn - decrying Partisan Politics - even in 1940)

Seventy years ago this week, France surrendered to Germany and, even though at the time of this broadcast (June 21st 1940), it had not become official for another day. Still, H.V. Kaltenborn, who was one of the more trusted and listened to commentators of the day, spoke about the effect the surrender would have on the rest of the world as well as the political ramifications here in the U.S.

Then, as now the sentiment seemed to be the same:

H.V. Kaltenborn: “National Defense is not a partisan question, would that that were true. I repeat what I have said so many times – it is unfortunate that this country must be divided politically at a time when it should be united nationally.”

Update: We're slowly chipping away at the emergency, even though we haven't gotten very past the 1/3 mark. There's still a long ways to go and not much time left. My grateful thanks to those of you who have donated over night. Your help is appreciated beyond my words to convey it. If we had a few more like you, we'd be out of the woods and we could get back to normal. Unfortunately, when you have the loss of your website facing you, the loss of the archive that this website completely relies on for its daily posts facing you, it's hard to think of anything beyond raising enough money to keep disaster at bay. So won't you please consider making a donation in order to keep Newstalgia alive? Any amount is desperately needed, no matter how paltry you may think it is - every penny and every dollar goes in to chip away at the emergency. And every penny and every dollar helps. We can make this happen, but I need your help.

This day in 1941 was staring at the 600th since that ominous overture to Poland in 1939. And in that time, Europe was engulfed in a series of invasions, surrenders and daily desperation.

From London came word that German bombing raids over Britain the previous night were mostly confined to the Southeast and Northeast of England, but casualties were reported to be small. It was also the second successive night London went without a raid alarm.

The RAF retaliated with attacks on targets throughout occupied Europe.

The Free French Island of Tahiti declared itself on the side of DeGaulle.

There were unconfirmed yet persistent reports that Athens had fallen to the Germans and that Greece was in danger of being a lost Allied cause.

From Berlin came news that the previous nights address by Charles Lindbergh of the America First Committee at Madison Square Garden in New York drew praise in the German press, fueling speculation that maybe America would not get involved in the War after all.

Hitler concluded talks with Hungarian leaders in the wake of preparing German plans for the occupied Balkan region. Japanese Foreign Minister Matsuoka returned to Tokyo, armed with assurances and a renewed alliance with Berlin. Rumors that Germany was planning a move to Spain and Portugal were shrugged off as British propaganda, despite credible reports that some 2,500 German operatives posing as "tourists" were roaming the streets of Madrid.

It was also learned that German brewers were considering the idea of "light beer" to go with calls from the government to curb alcohol use, even though they hadn't even entered the experimental stage yet. And shortages were turning into rationing of cigarettes and cigars, in the wake of government calls to ban tobacco, which was deemed not such a good thing from a morale point of view.

And back in the U.S. - Secretary of State Cordell Hull called for renewed support of Britain in their fight against the axis and to support Lend-Lease.

All on this day in April, 1941 as reported by NBC and it's News Of The World.

Update: I won't bore you. See the post just before this for the full story and the full appeal, and also realize this is one of the posts you won't get to hear if Newstalgia goes away.

I ran a broadcast from Radio Moscow a few weeks back, indicating some networks were monitoring everything the Soviet Union was doing on a daily basis during the Cold War period. This one comes from NBC's shortwave monitoring facility and it's a half hour of Radio Moscow and the news of the Day, as only they could do it, from April 24, 1947.

Interesting when you give a listen, how the wheels of propaganda were turning during this early phase of the Cold War. Since they were heaping praise on Henry Wallace during his European visit, it's no wonder he was quick to be labeled a "commie" in some political circles here.

I doubt many people actually heard these, unless they were hobbyists and had shortwave radios tuned to this frequency every day. So if you're curious as to how the "Evil Empire" sounded in 1947 - have at it.