PRX - Pieces for Topic: Music

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Caption: Chords Aplenty, Credit: Vector
I’ve heard comparisons between writing popular music and playing chess. There are the usual, recommended openings, but to stand out, writers need c...

Bought by KCBX


  • Added: Aug 27, 2021
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Sidney Bechet
One of the most talented New Orleans musicians is Sidney Bechet. Yet the soprano saxophonists is also the most overlooked. Had he not chosen to spe...

Bought by KLCC and KCBX


  • Added: Aug 20, 2021
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 2
Caption: Sunset Cafe
With the introduction of jazz to a broader audience of Americans in 1917, there was vast criticism and a trickle of acceptance. Not everyone was re...

Bought by WNMU-FM and KCBX


  • Added: Aug 13, 2021
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 2
Caption: Billy Banks
Vocalist Billy Banks and other male Vocalists join the program this week to highlight those 1920s singers who were not crooners. In the way Crooner...

Bought by KCBX


  • Added: Jul 29, 2021
  • Length: 59:01
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Eddie Condon
When guitarist Eddie Condon and saxophonist Bud Freeman were offered a chance to record traditional jazz in 1938, they jumped at the chance. This w...

Bought by KCBX


  • Added: Jul 22, 2021
  • Length: 59:01
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Entrance to Armstong Park
Congo Square: it’s in the heart of old town New Orleans, and considered by many as the birthplace of jazz. Just north of the French Quarter, the ne...

Bought by KCBX


  • Added: Jul 09, 2021
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Congo Square
Although the origin of the blues cannot be precisely known, it’s generally understood to have evolved in the Mississippi delta, just north of New O...

Bought by KCBX


  • Added: Jul 02, 2021
  • Length: 58:59
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Ethel Waters
She began as a blues singer. Then turned to popular song with a jazz flavor. She was a movie star for her next recreation. And, finally, a gospel s...

Bought by KCBX and KCBX


  • Added: Jun 24, 2021
  • Length: 59:01
  • Purchases: 2
Caption: Club Alabam, Los Angeles
Although it’s not thought of as a mecca for early jazz, California had its day of musical inventiveness. Some of the more famous nightclubs sprung ...

Bought by KCBX


  • Added: Jun 10, 2021
  • Length: 59:01
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Joe Sullivan
By the late 1920s the day of the sheet music was fading as fewer family members had the musical talent. Piano’s were replaced by the phonograph. Wh...

Bought by KCBX


  • Added: May 20, 2021
  • Length: 59:01
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Brunswick record label
With the public's thirst for jazz, the number of record producers increased very quickly in the 1920s. Sounds good. But most of those new comers we...

Bought by KCBX


  • Added: May 13, 2021
  • Length: 59:01
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Count Basie
Among all of the wonderful bands of the 1920s, only a hand full had the same personnel for a long period of time: Duke Ellington, Count Basie and L...

Bought by KCBX


  • Added: May 06, 2021
  • Length: 59:01
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Carl Kress
With the exception of the piano, stringed instruments were the outsiders in early jazz. They were restricted to the rhythm section, and not conside...

Bought by KCBX


  • Added: Apr 29, 2021
  • Length: 59:01
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Fats Waller
A look at the origins of the word “jazz”. Would you believe that the root of the word is absolutely not what you think it is? After all this time, ...

Bought by WEAA, WNMU-FM, and KCBX


  • Added: Apr 22, 2021
  • Length: 59:01
  • Purchases: 3
Caption: Kid Ory
When musicians began migrating north to Chicago in 1917, there was one item that was a must. Besides their suitcase and instrument, they had to hav...

Bought by KCBX


  • Added: Apr 16, 2021
  • Length: 59:01
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Irving Berlin
Three of the biggest names in 20th century popular music. All of them started their careers before jazz reached north of Kansas City, but years lat...

Bought by KCBX


  • Added: Apr 08, 2021
  • Length: 59:01
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Fess Williams
Second cousins, you might say. As jazz evolved, it adopted many other musical genres. Vaudeville was a natural. It welcomed the peculiar and experi...

Bought by KCBX


  • Added: Apr 02, 2021
  • Length: 59:01
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Lionel Hampton
The Blues was never expected to join the British royalty, but in the 1920s, the musical genre morphed and shifted its course. When jazz melded with...

Bought by KCBX


  • Added: Mar 25, 2021
  • Length: 59:01
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Earl HInes
A commonly used word for someone who played piano. Three of those artists are featured. One from the south, Jelly Roll Morton, East, Duke Ellington...

Bought by KCBX


  • Added: Mar 18, 2021
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Red Onion Jazz Babies , Credit: 78 RPM Record
Buzz translates to rumor, and if Chicago was anything in the 1920s jazz and rumor were the glue. There was constant buss around political intrigue,...

Bought by WXAV 88.3FM Chicago and KCBX


  • Added: Mar 11, 2021
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 2
Caption: Prohibionists
The fixture of the 1920s and early ‘30s was a result of the Volstead Act that introduced America to prohibition, and fostered the nightclubs that s...

Bought by KCBX


  • Added: Mar 04, 2021
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Sonny Greer
This program features a cross section of musicians … with paraphrases from Bill Crow’s book “Jazz Anecdotes”. Humorous stories about by Louis Armst...

Bought by KCBX


  • Added: Feb 25, 2021
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Art Hodes Riverboat Club
Quite a number of jazz musicians who were too young to take part in traditional jazz of the 1920s, joined the Revivalist era of the 1940s. To them ...

Bought by KCBX


  • Added: Feb 18, 2021
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Don Redman, leader
You’d be hard press to find more enthusiastic musicians who anticipated and relished every beat. McKinney’s Cotton Pickers were a young group who a...

Bought by KCBX


  • Added: Feb 11, 2021
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 1
Piece image
In the earliest years of jazz, the process of recording wasn’t close to being perfected. Microphones didn’t exist. Vocalists had to belt out their ...

Bought by KVCR and KCBX


  • Added: Feb 04, 2021
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 2