Muggsy Spanier- the Great 16

Survey of the mid to late 1940's recordings of trumpeter Buck Clayton - his own Big Four and Big Eight recording for HRS along with sideman appearances with Benny Carter, Ike Quebec, Charlie Ventura, Teddy Wilson, Don Byas, Coleman Hawkins, J.C. Heard, Sir Charles Thompson and Ea ... Show More

Great live shots of the Artie Shaw band featuring Bernie Privin, Chuck Peterson and John Best on trumpets, George Arus on trombone, Ronnie Perry or Georgie Auld on tenor sax, Bob Kitsis on piano, Al Avola on guitar, Sid Weiss on bass and George Wettling or Buddy Rich on drums wit ... Show More

Small group sides led by the great tenor saxophonist Lester Young after his departure from the Basie band. All were done in the middle 1940's on the West Coast and feature Nat "King" Cole, Joe Albany, Irving Ashby, Frank Lacy, Red Callendar, Henry Tucker, Chico Hamilton, Howard M ... Show More

In this episode, thanks to W. Eugene Smith's tape recorders, we get to experience something audiences rarely hear - the unrehearsed, imperfect, open-ended, overlong, rough-around-the-edges music that jazz players made when they got together to jam at 821 Sixth Avenue. No audience ... Show More

“Je n’aime pas les gens qui font du Jazz un théorème", disait-il... "Le Jazz est avant tout une question de feeling”. Pianiste introverti, lyrique et délicat, pianiste du sensible et de l'indicible, Bill Evans a posé son spleen sur les 88 touches de son clavier, écrivant au passa ... Show More

<p>It's time for a journey of the mind, as Kirk picks apart one of the best hard rock tunes of the early 2000s.</p><p>Queens of the Stone Age's "Songs for the Deaf" includes enough bangers that it was tough to pick a single song to focus on, but in the end, "No One Knows" won the ... Show More

<p>For the 100th episode of Strong Songs, Kirk takes a deep dive into one of the most famous concept albums ever recorded. </p><p>Pink Floyd's "The Dark Side of the Moon" is an instantly recognizable, widely discussed album, played and replayed to the point that it's easy to forg ... Show More

<p>After more than two years, a Strong Songs jazz mystery is finally solved.</p><p>Thanks to listener (and outro soloist) Jeff Bean, who finally cracked the case of the mysterious lick played by Clifford Brown, Lee Morgan, and may others. I can finally sleep at night.</p><p><stro ... Show More

Classic video game consoles like the Nintendo Entertainment System didn't just play games; they also played music. Their onboard synthesizers put strict limits on what kinds of music game composers could write, but from those limits came a cornucopia of musical themes that remain ... Show More

<p>It takes an extremely strong song to top the charts three separate times in three separate decades, but "I Will Always Love You" is just such a song. Written and recorded (twice) by Dolly Parton and then re-recorded in show-stopping fashion by Whitney Houston, the ballad has m ... Show More

<p>There is so much a man can tell you, so much he can say... especially if that man is named Kirk, and the thing he's telling you about is Seal's "Kiss From a Rose." Kirk goes back to the 90s for a close look at Seal's Grammy-winning, <i>Batman-</i>adjacent power ballad and find ... Show More