And here we are with the second installment of Al compas del mundo’s guest DJ session. This week brings in Ras Haas (some relation) taking a stab at the age old musical question: Do I have good taste? Can the boy measure up? Right away it need be said that “Ras” is Rasta talk for “duke” or “prince”, so I guess he’s pulling rank. A proper listening to the playlist will allow you to cast judgment, though.  I’m leaning toward “yes”, now that I’ve heard the whole thing and discerned the logic that brought these pieces together. I ought to make him write up his own summary of the playlist. Most of the tunes here were unfamiliar to me. But then, last time a guest took over the show he wrote up a synopsis and got all Artaud/Neitzsche/Witkowiak on me.   There are several opinions I can share. One, is that younger folk support repetition in their music far more than us oldsters. Hatch a catchy phrase and run with it! Over and over and over (Afrika Bambaataa, DJ Snake, Cybotron.) I...

  The funny thing about jazz is that a sizable percentage of today’s younger generation cannot relate. Or so I’m told by my sons who fit that demographic and taste (or lack thereof). Were we like that back in the day? I, myself, began learning about the genre as a college student living in Milwaukee. Admittedly I never paid a lot of attention to jazz until an old grade school friend turned up in town and I let him crash in my room for a while. He travelled light: his trumpet and a handful of records stand out in my memory. Through him I heard Stanley Turrentine’s sax, Blue Mitchell’s trumpet, and Horace Silver’s piano. I immediately dug the “cool” element and the “out there” aesthetic. It’s been a musical motivator ever since. Go to most any jazz concert today and in attendance will be a sea of grayhairs. Don’t know what that portends for the music we call jazz – whose definition has been liberally extended in most every direction over time – but I’m hoping that moment of satori (a...

  What have we here? Yet another potpourri, a song collage, a musical mishmash, an assortment, a jumble, a smorgasbord…perhaps a gallimaufry (a confused jumble or medley of things), depending on how you want to say it. I’m viewing it with a lazy eye. Rather than invent yet another eclectic (didactic? depending on how you want to look at it) program theme and scour my files and the internets for fodder, I merely look back at earlier shows and select the outstanding cherries on top that most turn me on. My hope is that they will work their magic on you as well this second time around. They first appeared on Al compás del mundo some two years ago so I doubt they’ve worn out their welcome, depending on how you hear it. -JH Runlist for “Greatest hits” from programs 4-7 or 'Cherries on Top' First broadcast 1-11-24   01 Ravi Shankar (producer) - Svara Mantra (India) 02 Altai - Dumun (Republic of Altai, Russia) 03 Ray Lema and Tyour Gnaoua - Ghzeyel meyel (Congo and Morocco)...

This ain’t no mouse music! (exclamation courtesy of Chris Strachwitz, he of Arhoolie Records fame). I called the program “Los blues originales” for its presentation on Mexican radio, but “Original blues” didn’t seem to work in English. All these guys were originals in some way, but what said of Elmore James’ rendition of “One Way Out”? Sonny Boy Williamson wrote it and recorded it first…and James hits it out of the park. Howling Wolf’s “Callin’ for My Darlin’” suffers not in the hands of Albert King. As covers come and covers go, much of what was recorded had its origins in some other place (likely the deep South) and some other, earlier time. We don’t always know who was the original creative mind to conjure up tunes like “Funeral Hearse at My Door”, “Too Poor”, or “Squabblin’ Blues”, but each and every song included here brings original art, lived experience, rhythmic vitality, and a story worth listening to. JH Run list for Blues from Bukka to Lloyd Glenn First broadcast  1-4-24...