So, I am compelled to bring up the topic of nicknames within the world of R&B and blues music (T-Bone and Gatemouth?). Guitar Slim must have cut a trim figure – unlike Fats Domino or Two-Ton Baker – and I say more power to the man. Though what might be conjectured as a healthy lifestyle didn’t stop him from dying of pneumonia at age 32. In this playlist we also get a chance to hear what Li’l Bob was putting down, regardless of his physical stature. There’s lots of “Littles” out there, no? Walter, Milton, Brother Montgomery, etc., along with Big Mama, Barbecue Bob, Bumblebee Slim, Cripple Clarence, Speckled Red. We’ve also got Dyke (& the Blazers) but I’m not going there. Did I mention their song title of “Stuff” wins the post-modernist critics’ award for fulsome ambiguity? Most of these tags were terms of endearment, I imagine, but I have to wonder just how short Willie Walker needed to be to warrant the “Wee”? 5’ 2” according to the historic record, though Wikipedia doesn’t of...

  Ah, Colombia. It never stops giving. Its cumbia always livens up the dance floor. Not unlike Puerto Rican or Cuban salsa, there’s a motivational spark in its rhythm that propels the public forward (two-step, front and back, left then right…) You don’t even have to be well-coordinated to enjoy yourself. Letting it all hang out is the way to go. Just listen! JH Al compas del mundo - programa #129 Colombia  First broadcast 5.23.24 01 Los Corraleros de Majagual - La Paloma Guarumera 02 The Latin Brothers - Las Caleñas Son Como Las Flores 03 Crescencio Camacho y El Super Combo Curro - Santana En Salsa 04 Todos - Las Cosas De La Vida 05 Rufo Garrido y Su Banda - Viejos tiempos 06 Clodomiro Montes y El Super Combo Curro - Traigo Salsa 07 Puerto Rico y Su Combo - La Cumbia Del Pescador 08 Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto - Sabor a gaita 09 Calixto Ochoa - Mata de caña 10 La Tropa Colombiana - La Piragüa 11 Rosendo y su Banda - Me voy pa la costa 12 Alfredo Gutiérr...

These “greatest hits” programs are such a reward. All the effort that went into programming three or four distinct programs is narrowed down to a relatively easy selection of an hour’s worth of top-notch tunes. Is this an admission of laziness or even ennui in the task of music selection for a most demanding audience? Hardly. The best of the best deserves a second listening and making it all work as a cohesive whole brings sweat to my brow. Think I’ll take a nap.  The beer is consumed, the songs they are chosen, and what do we have here? A world music tour from West and North Africa, flitting across the Middle East, landing in various points of Latin America (Los Angeles counts, no?), and an overture (in the way of the final four selections) to Great Britain and the Appalachian immigrant sound. Must we finish with the sweetest Irish song these ears have heard in many a moon? We must.JH  Al compás del mundo - programa #128, ‘greatest hits’ from programs 14-16 First broadcast 5-...

Every now and then I’ll focus on a particular instrument (the harmonica) or series of related instruments (strings). But in order to create as much diverse interest as uncommon sense would bear, I typically reach to the far corners of the globe. This program, dedicated to the flute, is no different, touching on the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the US of A. There are big flutes, little flutes, simple and complex flutes, jazz flutes, classical flutes and folk flutes, solo flutes and group flutes. A profound example of this latter style is the Bolivian tarqueada [LEFT] , played on the tarka, a hefty, rudimentary instrument. On occasion dozens of flautists and drummers join in for a music perhaps best described as cacophonous, a complete community event with participation by an army of musicians and legions of dancers. It’s an egalitarian approach to the status of “musician” where almost anyone can master the basic note pattern, repeated over and over, and become a...

And it’s back to one of my favorite program themes: jazz, blues, and R&B, mostly of the era between 1940-80. At times I feel like an anthropologist, studying the music as an outsider looking in. Growing up white, Catholic and middle class in Racine, Wisconsin prepared me little for my embrace of African American music, but through knowledgeable acquaintances and strokes of good fortune (proximity to Chicago and Milwaukee [site of such as as the Avant Garde], amongst others) it became my go-to sound. As John Lee Hooker once intoned: “If the impulse is in you, it’s got to come out.” [ continued below... ] Al compás del mundo - programa #12 -  Jazz, Blues and R&B First Broadcast 5-2-24  01 Eddie Lockjaw Davis - Untitled Blues 02 Sidney Bechet - I'm Speaking My Mind 03 The James Cotton Blues Band - Somthin' You Got 04 Titus Turner - Hold Your Lovin' 05 Sonny Stitt - Me 'n You 06 Mercy Dee - Call the Asylum 07 King Curtis - Free for All 08 Duke Ellington - Blues for ...