It’s spring! Which, I suppose, means different things in different places. Boston just got dumped on with hella snow; San Francisco is seeing cold (relatively), clouds and rain; and we here in Tequisquiapan, Queretaro in the middle of Mexico are suffering our way through 80-degree blue-sky days. I remember youthful exuberance in Madison, Wisconsin, when we played baseball on a March day when the temperature suddenly reached 50 degrees. We dodged patches of snow that still remained, but I guess that’s also something from the past that remains a wistful memory. Anyway, I’m searching for a theme for this week’s program that really has nothing to do with spring. But look! And smell the blossoms! The Kazakh folk group sings of flowers and Roma Indians from Rajasthan dance for the sheer joy of being alive! Regrettably, Johnny can’t dance as per Clifton Chenier and Billy wishes Stackalee hadn’t doubted his reading of the dice. But mostly it’s a positive bunch of tunes we’re putting forth here

Jazz is…raucous and somber, mellow and frantic, morose and uplifting…everything an art form can attain to…and offers more notes than most people can handle. So let this playlist wash over you and don’t sweat the small stuff. Hear what you can hear. - JH Run List for  – Jazz - raucous, somber, mellow and frantic| First broadcast 3.21.24 01 Art Farmer and Benny Golson – Avalon 02 Sonny Rollins - Sweet Leilani 03 Benny Golson - The Touch 04 Elmo Hope – Ecstasy 05 Roland Kirk - Slow Groove 06 Dave Brubeck - Charles Matthew Hallelujah 07 Don Braden Septet - Creepin' 08 Roy Campbell -Thanks To the Creator 09 Donald Byrd - Pentacostal Feelin' 10 Miles Davis - Nature Boy There was a boy A very strange enchanted boy They say he wandered very far From East St Louis To Santa Monica ...

Any program that starts and ends with Little Walter has got something going on right. And in this version of Mexican radio’s Al compas del mundo (radioactivaTX.org – in Tequisquiapan, Queretaro) I can do no wrong. Though I kind of, sort of, do a chronology of the harmonica in American blues, I had to start off this playlist with Little Walter Jacobs for reasons obvious to me and, I’m certain, many others. Followed by an all-time favorite – Rollin’ and Tumblin’, with Walter again, Muddy Waters, Baby Face Leroy Foster and an unnamed participant or two. It is a given that the blues developed in the United States brought by an enslaved population that introduced African characteristics from many different roots and regions. This lyric-less version of Rollin’ and Tumblin’ is played, moaned and wailed to create a mood that – to these ears – evokes the sound of the motherland, how distant that might be. Followed by early recordings of a novelty harmonica solo, jug bands, and country sounds. F

  “Chulas fronteras” is the theme for this week’s Al compas del mundo radio show. Roughly translated as “beautiful borders”, it refers to the perception of the United States as the land of milk and honey. Singer/songwriter and comic genius, El Piporro, starts off his paean to el Norte tongue-in-cheek with “The beautiful border area: it’s been a year since I’ve seen it. How I miss it!” He goes on to describe the situation at a border crossing where a Mexican laborer is called out as a wetback and accused of carrying “generics” (that  must  be illegal.) “No sir, just food. I work here. I have papers. Try some of my tequila.” While the Mexican holds his own in this situation, his brothers and sisters often don’t fare as well as seen in many of the other songs. At the top of the playlist “Mexico Americano”, speaks of an immigrant who ultimately “celebrates” two countries, two cultures, two languages – an optimistic model to follow for those who take up the difficult life of immigrant labor