A whole bunch of big groups from overseas owed a substantial debt to the blues born on these shores. We’re talking Fleetwood Mac (pre-McVie), Animals, Them, Stones, Kinks, Mayall, Yardbirds, Zeppelin, and yes, the Beatles too. Less famous, in most cases, were the progenitors: Big Joe Williams (Baby, Please Don’t Go), Ma Rainey (See See Rider), Junior Wells (You Don’t Love Me), Willie Dixon (I Can’t Quit You Baby), Memphis Slim (Every Day I Have the Blues), Slim Harpo (Shake Your Hips), and Sonny Boy Williamson (Checkin’ On My Baby). Of course, these are amongst the top names in the history of the blues, but if fame for a musician was measured by their bank account, they’d be also-rans to the willing young Brits who “discovered” them. Another good reason to have the blues. Though admittedly, the notoriety of these British Invasion legionnaires playing the music of Black blues artists led to youthful music lovers in places like Racine, Wisconsin, to embrace the genre and a whole new...

Sun Ra starting off this week’s show could spell trouble. But he reined it in and let that celibate band of his (for real - look this up!) cook up some truly satisfying be-bop. No butterfly dancers floating to Mars this time. Maybe next week? Many a jazz fan remains unfamiliar with The Cookers, a super group of seniors still…well, cooking.    Try sitting down (if you can remain seated!) with Billy Harper, Eddie Henderson, George Cables, Cecil McBee, Billy Hart, and David Weiss. Well over a century of woodshedding and performance amongst that venerable group. And even though they’re not well known as a unit, they fit in easily amongst the masters represented here: Monk and Trane, Rollins, Hutcherson, Shorter, Sanders and two more only slightly less familiar. Duke Pearson and Teddy Charles require no excuses – great writers and band leaders like them will always rise to the top. Wahoo! – J.H. Space! Ba-Ba-Re-Bop   TRACKLIST Jazz broadcast on RadioActiva Feb 16, 2023 01 ...

A beautiful and jarring selection of field recordings and cassettes from early ‘80s Cairo. Compiled and mixed by Jim Haas from sounds and music collected during a trip to Egypt in 1982.   TRACKLIST rebroadcast on RadioActiva Feb 9, 2023 01 confluence of early morning muezzins - the beautiful chaos that is Cairo 02 street musicians - drummer, mizmars, firecracker, rooster, Cairo 03 Mitaal Enawy - Bellail Bellail; Dunya al-Fan Music Center advertisement 04 al-Sheikh Sawdeeq - Wa-Allah ya ghawaly (Bedouin) 05 radio drama, cool organ 06 Said Darweesh - Hellay halla (an expression of the worker's happiness) 07 Sawlih Abu Bakr - Zifat al-'Arees (Nubia) 08 Beyoumy al-Margawy - title unknown 09 Cairo street market and traffic sounds 10 Abdel Halim Hafez - untitled blues 11 Abanob and Dalia - Coptic Folk - Ancient Egyptian New Year 12 Coptic speaker المتحدثين باللغة القبطيةالمصرية القديمة 13 Coptic song - from the Pharaonic Institute for Coptic Music 14 Fatma Eid - Hassanen wa Mohamaden...

 Sorry if I’ve raised any hackles by lumping Ireland into the association of “British” Isles. Those of Northern Ireland would likely approve but the remaining population may end up trolling me on Twitter, Facebook, and every other social media forum…none of which I frequent, fortunately. Be that as it may, I’m all for a rousing good musical time and a cessation of divisive politics. That’s the here and now of this program and that’s all I’ll say about that.  My father was a fisherman, my mother a fisherman's friend. We Americans find the Brits’ accent engaging and somehow, still, with a suggestion of diffident superiority (methinks). But let Stick In the Wheel’s lead singer sport her Cockney accent and it’s love at first hearing – I want to sit in a pub and have a pint with her!  And then how is it that The High Kings, an Irish band, sound more Midwestern USA than sons of the sod? Another example of international commodities finding that sensible middle ground, maybe? The...