Some of the first ‘free jazz’ I heard in the early 1960s was on the VOA Jazz Hour with Willis Conover
JR
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Some of the first ‘free jazz’ I heard in the early 1960s was on the VOA Jazz Hour with Willis Conover
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I agree that there is a political angle to shutting down Voice of America but i wonder how relevant a state sponsored radio.station is these days . Most people will access news and music through other means other than radio. I doubt if many people actually listen to Voice of America these days and i doubt it is cheap to run.
I think that Trump is probably the worst and most incompetent political leader in Western Europe since the Roman Empire. He and his minions are disrupting civilisation in a very bad way. I do not think the damage he is causing can be under estimated. Fifty per cent of American voters are responsible for this too. They are all complete idiots and the likes of Musk and the Redneck Vance are extremely dangerous. I cannot express how much i hate these people and the contempt i feel for America. Having said this , i was surprised Voice of America still existed. I doubt it features much jazz these days. It has probably served it's purpose and i can understand why it has been axed.
Oddily enough, my Dad used to speak of listening to the jazz on Voice of America and pointed out that hearing the Charlie Christian track 'Waiting for Benny' made a massive impression on him. I am guessing this was mid fifties. -
I remember VoA being of a very similar age to Richard Williams. My very early experience was them playing a Monk trio track, Work or similar, and the following classical programme opening with solo Ravel. My introduction to Maurice.
My other favourite radio experience at the time was listening to Radio Tirana (Maoist Albania) when every one day docks strike or car plant walkout was heralded as the beginning of the British socialist revolution. If BLOODY ONLY!Comment
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Apparently they wouldn't let you in if sporting a beard back then. One of my friends tried it and he hadn't even mentioned being a Trotskyist. They wouldn't let you out for other reasons.Originally posted by BLUESNIK'S REVOX View PostComment
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The Land of the Bunkers...
KUKES, Albania (AP) — If you’d like to walk for miles in concrete burrows built to defend an isolationist totalitarian regime that nobody wanted to attack, Kukes in northeastern Albania is the place for you.
The small Balkan country’s post World War II communist dictatorship reveled in massive defensive works; the countryside is still littered with the crumbling remains of 175,000 concrete mini-bunkers — again built to stop imaginary invaders"
Apparently many teenage Albanians today "lose their virginity" in the mini bunkers. When I was a youth it was bus shelters or holiday caravans at Torquay. BUT if we'd had BUNKERS....
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One used to feel quite sorry for The Worker, or whatever the title was of the daily of the CPGB (M-L), whose message had initially promoted the USSR as the new paradise, then the China of the Cultural Revolution (for which a remarkable few including Cornelius Cardew fell ideological prey), then Albania, then... who? where? I'd known one or two of them as friends, been invited to reading sessions on Stalin's "Origins of Leninism" which at least, because their advocated system believed in product permanence if not the other kind, means I still have it along with a copy of "State and Revolution" (in case the secret services are interloping, to save them time and taxpayer's expense). The paper was alleged to have been written up in England, dictated by phone to Beijing (or Peking as was)...(think of the phone bills!), translated into Chinese, "corrected", and translated back into English for next day public transmission in its strange resulting sentence constructions, and the black print that rubbed off onto ones clothing.Originally posted by BLUESNIK'S REVOX View PostComment
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