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(Aaron Copland at a 1948 symphony rehearsal)

Time to dive into some Americana today. The first recorded performance from 1950 of Aaron Copland's Four Piano Blues, which received its premier earlier that year with Copland's friend Leo Smit doing the honors. This recording, issued first in the UK and a few months later in the US by London Records features Aaron Copland at the piano in an album titled "Music Of The 20th Century", which also featured works of Ernest Bloch and Samuel Barber, contemporaries of Copland. The Four pieces are broken into sections, with each one dedicated to a pianist friend of Copland's. 1 - Freely Poetic (for Leo Smit) 2 - Soft and Languid (for Andor Foldes) 3 - Muted and Drugged (for William Kapell) and 4 - With Bounce (for John Kirkpatrick).

I'm not sure if this has been reissued on CD, it would be wonderful if it is and a shame if it isn't. For the collector - this particular transfer comes from London 10" LPS 298.

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(The Poems - Scottish Indie never sounded so good)

The Poems are a band from Glasgow and I've been a fan of theirs for a few years now. They're a great band with some good production going for them and they've gotten some very good word of mouth going as well as featuring some of their tracks on various TV and film projects. They're on a label here in the States (Minty Fresh) and have two albums out so far. So all is going well for them.

This song comes from their MySpace page, Goodbye And Good Luck and its only one of several really strong tracks I would urge you to check out. As always, it's a pleasure to run into musicians who are making great music. It's a little mind blowing to realize just how much talent there is floating around.

Lucky us.

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("Hello suckers!")

On July 28, 1995, the FCC voted by unanimous decision to relax the restrictions that prevented a foreign company or individual from owning a broadcasting outlet.

And take a wild guess who was the recipient of that little bon mot?

James Quello (FCC Commissioner): “Rupert Murdoch, an American citizen is in de facto and in de jure control of Fox and therefore the likelihood of undue foreign influence is virtually nonexistent. I’ve said it before and I believe that the determining factor should be control by an American citizen, not the amount of foreign stock investment.

Ironically, Murdoch applied for and got citizenship while the hearings were underway, so it made everything seem legit.

The bottom line was/is, the FCC has done its level best to destroy any vestige of integrity in broadcasting in this country and it has effectively done so for way too many years.

It's also ironic that the initial complaint came from NBC. Funny how the animosity between Fox and NBC has a history attached to it.

But the shame of the FCC appears limitless.

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(Ride - obscure for absolutely no reason)

I think we're going to shelve the "theme weeks" for a while. I'm starting to realize a little goes a long way. So we're back to basics tonight.

Ride were an amazing band that broke up all too soon. They somehow got pigeonholed as "shoegaze", even though they did come about at the time when Indie was pretty much exploding on the music scene. There was very little of the mellowed out somnambulant they got saddled with to justify that. But . . what do you do?

Their first few albums were walls of guitar and vaguely ethereal vocals. But by the time of their last album Tarantula in 1996, they gave up the ethereal and went for the jugular, which was perfectly fine - and they could get away with it.

But Tarantula wound up being the last out of them and the band dissolved shortly after. Which was a shame as they evolved musically into one of the more consistently rewarding listening experiences I had in years.

But nothing ever stays the same and "Black Nite Crash" will have to do until a Ride reunion of some sort happens (they did do a one-off reunion of sorts in 2001 for the BBC). An official reunion was rumored to be this year, but was quickly denied.

Maybe someday.

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(Brother Jack McDuff - a little funk does a body good)

A little funk tonight by way of Brother Jack McDuff. From his 1971 Blue Note album "Who Knows What Tomorrow's Gonna Bring?".

This is the title track.

McDuff has taken something of a back seat in the recognition department over the years. And that's a shame - you can never have too many great Hammond B3 players in the world. I remember first hearing McDuff around the same time I first heard Jimmy Smith. To me, there was always enough room in the world to enjoy both of them - they came from different musical places. But they shared a common bond of excellence. McDuff was the funkier - but there's a big place in the world for that.

If you haven't checked out Brother Jack McDuff, or the ton of albums he's released (a lot, but not all are reissued on CD), here's a great chance to do yourself a favor.

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(Gloria Jones - the voice that stopped you dead in your tracks)

A couple of lifetimes ago, I was working with a band whose management shared an office suite with Ed Cobb. Cobb was one of the really great writer/producers on the L.A. music scene. I would often sit in an adjacent office and listen to whatever he was working on through the walls. It was always pretty amazing. And that's where I discovered Gloria Jones. He wrote a lot of the material for and produced her first big hit "Heartbeat" (part 1 and 2) which featured a stellar backup band fronted by none other than Billy Preston. But it was Cobb's composition and Jones version of "Tainted Love" that proved to be a massive hit in the 1980's when it was covered by Soft Cell.

A couple of years later in 1968, I stumbled across one of the follow-up discs. This time not produced or written by Cobb, but rather written by Jackie DeShannon and arranged by Artie Butler.

"When He Touches Me" just aches. It is a soulful lament to self-destructive love (where have we heard that one before?), and in Jones' hands, it just tore me up.

Sadly, this didn't hit and Gloria Jones life took another turn. But she's still singing and recording and I suspect just as powerful as ever.

But right now, here's the single she cut for Minit Records in 1968. I have the feeling it's never been reissued - and that's a shame.