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.

We forget how often President's used to hold news conferences. During the JFK years is was almost every week. This Press Conference, from June 7, 1962 covers a wide range of topics. The budget, the recession, inflation, taxes and of course Medicare, which was foremost on JFK's agenda in 1962.

He opens the Press Conference with a statement:

President Kennedy: "Good afternoon. I have a brief preliminary statement. I would like to say a few words about our economic outlook and program.
I think most financial experts have realized for some time that an overpriced market could not hold up once investors recognized that inflation was ending. Price-earning ratios which averaged on Dow-Jones 23 to 1 could not be justified unless there was heavy inflation in prospect. And we have been working to prevent inflation, which gives a very misleading and spurious picture of economic health. We must not permit the effects of this adjustment, however, to hamper the growth rate of our economy, with which we have, as you know, not been fully satisfied. While our recovery from last year's recession has been a good one, production, profits, and employment are at alltime highs, and the prospects for continued economic expansion remain favorable. In view of corporate and consumer cash on hand, we should take every appropriate step to make certain that recovery is stronger and longer than before and is not cut short by a new recession.

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It should be remembered that the concept of affordable Healthcare for everyone isn't a new concept. It's history goes back as far as 1909 as an idea hatched by Teddy Roosevelt. It was re-introduced during the FDR years, first as a possible adjunct to Social Security, but shelved temporarily, and was in the midst of being introduced again, when World War 2 broke out in December of 1941. It was again introduced by Harry Truman as a continuation of the legacy of FDR. It was bandied about during the Eisenhower years and it was again introduced in 1962 by President Kennedy.

Here is an address made by JFK at a rally in Madison Square Garden on May 20, 1960. Promoted as Medical Care for the Aged, Kennedy hoped for a plan that would insure decent medical care to those over the age of 65 and those who couldn't afford it. The bill was introduced and shelved, but was re-introduced and finally passed during the Johnson Administration in 1964 as a legacy to President Kennedy.

Here is that complete address.

This week fifty years ago, President Kennedy assessed his first year in office, expressed concern over the drop in graduates in the Sciences in colleges around the country and disappointment that the Test Ban Treaty was a failure.

Other topics covered in this first Press Conference of 1962 were Berlin, the Indonesia/Dutch dispute, the issue of Trade, the Food For Peace Program, Civil Rights, The Common Market and proposed Medicare Legislation. A question was raised as to whether there were troops engaged in combat in Vietnam, and the answer was no.

A fascinating glimpse into the Kennedy Years from January 15, 1962.

A lot has been attributed over the years to Per Jacobsson, who was Chairman and operating Manager of the International Monetary Fund from 1956 until his death in 1963. But it goes back even further to his days with The League Of Nations and the financial reconstruction of those countries devastated by the affects of World War 1.

Here he is, in a panel discussion from Meet The Press on July 7, 1962 where he is asked to assess the then-current economic situation in the U.S. and the subject of tax cuts:

Per Jacobsson: “You say there is growing agreement in this country on a tax cut, but when I read the newspapers this morning I found a number of people said that we’re at the wrong time, and not needed now. So I think still it is a very open question. The question of tax cut has very much to do with the two problems. One, whether one has to expect a setback in business and I do not believe there will be a setback in the coming months. I think the improvement will continue, not at the high rate that had been expected, but still at the steady rate. Secondly, some people believe that there has to be a tax cut because they want a higher deficit in the budget, which of course is quite another question that there will be, as we know, a deficit, a fair amount already under present provisions. So that some people think this deficit is large enough to give the impetus to business that is needed in this situation.”

I suspect not many people have actually heard him, let alone heard of him. He was an influential figure in the world economy for many decades and a little history now and then can do a lot of good. Particularly in relation to current situations.

I remember just how much of a panic people got into when the Cuban Missile Crisis escalated to this point on October 23rd. We had all become too familiar with the "pending atomic attack" from the Soviet Union over the years. And how, as a kid living in Los Angeles, reading an article in the L.A. Times with accompanying graphic of just how much of L.A. would be reduced to dust if such an event occurred. As best as I could tell, our house was destined to be boiling ash and it created no end to the amount of sleepless nights in the days and months to come.

In retrospect, it probably explains a lot of what we eventually grew into and the choices we'd make because, let's face it, we were convinced we'd be radioactive waste at any given moment.

But I think it was the cool detachment of the media when this crisis hit the boiling point that is so fascinating in hindsight. And this broadcast from 7:00 pm Eastern on the evening of the 23rd perfectly exemplifies that.

Ray Scherer (NBC News): “The most significant moment of this perhaps historic day came at seven minutes after seven tonight when the President took up a pen and put his name to the Quarantine Proclamation, a two page document titled ‘Interdiction Of Delivery Of Offensive Weapons To Cuba’. Here is the list of prohibited materials: Surface to Surface Missiles, Bombers, Bombs, Air-To-Surface Rockets and Guided Missiles, Electronic Equipment To Support Them. After 10:00 tomorrow morning, any ships carrying such materials will be turned back. If there is resistance, force shall be used, says the document, to the extent necessary.”

It's interesting to consider (and I certainly didn't at the time), that no doubt there was a family somewhere in Moscow with a 12 year old kid who was probably just as freaked out about the possibilities of being reduced to radioactive waste as I was. The threat of war is just like that.

In 1962 the mid-term elections were just about to heat up. Congressman Leslie Arends (R-Ill) was Minority Whip and was asked, during this episode of ABC Radio's From The Capitol what he thought of JFK's State Of The Union message, delivered just a few days before. From the tone of it, there seemed to be a unilateral "no" to just about everything Kennedy proposed and grave doubts about all the issues at hand.

Pete Clapper (ABC News): “ How about some comments, Congressman Ehrends about your reaction to the proposals by the President in the field of civil rights? Do you think there was too much, too little, was it political, was it non-political?”

Cong. Leslie Ehrends (R-Ill.): “Well, it was completely political for the very simple reason they’re going to do nothing about civil rights during this session. I think I would come close to making a good guess on that of any of these proposals we’re talking about. They will simply not do anything about it, particularly in an election year. Plus the fact that, I’m sure during the campaign while President Kennedy talks about the thing, they have no intention, no intention of doing anything about civil rights during this last session or this session.”

Seems the saga of The Party Of No is a very, very long one.

Les Fantomes were France's answer to Britain's Shadows or America's Ventures, with a liberal sprinkling of Sweden's Jorgen "Apache" Ingmann for good measure. They were, between the years 1961 and 1964, the biggest thing to hit the French charts in a long time and were the epitome of Twang Francaise.

Although they made no dent here or in the UK, they released a string of ep's and albums before their eventual breakup. Tonight it's a track off an ep culled from their "Big Sound Guitars" album for Disques Vogue in Paris. Cafard isn't high voltage and doesn't move along at a quasi-frantic surf pace. It's a slow, broody number recorded in 1962 right around their peak in popularity.

For all intents and purposes, the popular success of Les Fantomes spawned a whole genre of French Twang instrumental bands, before jamming on the brakes and facing the British Invasion and re-invention.

Twangy guitars were big stuff in Europe, and everywhere else it seemed in the early 60's.

While I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to play this week, I ran across this track by the legendary Walter Wanderley, one of the leading figures in the International Samba revival of the early 1960's.

Here is a track he recorded for the Brazilian Odeon label and issued as a Compact 33 (ep) in 1962. Chora Coracao sounds more like background music for European Spy Thriller than a nod to Samba, but it's a great track and one of many he recorded in his native Brazil that have yet to see the light of day here in the U.S.

Samba for Monday. You could do worse.

Fifty years ago today, just about every kid in every school around the country was herded into an auditorium, or had a TV or radio carted into their classroom and sat, glued to the spectacle going on in front of them for the better part of that day. Nothing else went on, it wasn't business as usual. We were busy witnessing something.

I'd like to say it seemed like yesterday but no, it really does seem like fifty years ago. John Glenn and his apt named space capsule Friendship 7 were doing something we only imagined before this day and it was borne out of that curiosity that was so prevalent in the Post-World War 2 era and The New Frontier of the Kennedy Years. Part of it was a result of the Cold War and our desire to be Number One in All Things Adventuresome. But most of it really was doing something that just hadn't been done before. Those of us who had our heads buried in the latest Science Fiction book or TV show or magazine article just thought it was the next logical step in Art versus Reality.

We were primed for this for a while. Ever since Alan Shepherd the year before, we knew it was only a matter of time. But there was also that thing in the back of our heads that asked "what if it goes wrong? What it if explodes? What if he's stuck up there?". We didn't really know what to expect.

But enough time has passed and enough discoveries have been made so we can now look at this particular day, unfolding long before most readers were born and shrug "not that big a deal". Hindsight is a lot more confident than the reality of the moment. And at that moment in 1962 the uncertainty prompted an otherwise staid announcer to yell "Go Baby, Go!", triggering an excited squeal from my elementary school auditorium and an admonishment from the school Principal that the TV would be turned off if we didn't calm down.

And that's how history presented itself on this day in 1962. The uncertainty of the future and the excitement of the possibilities. Even a Fifth Grader knew that.

Here is an excerpt of that day recapped via an NBC Radio Special report for February 20, 1962.