Editor’s note: This is second in a series about radio programs streaming from KLOI 102.9 FM on Lopez. The radio has been broadcasting both local and national programs since April 2008. Their goal is to feature locally produced shows exclusively.
According to Gary Alexander, you’ve got to be careful what you listen to when you’re 14 years old, because you’re likely to love that music for the rest of your life. Gary fell in love with classic jazz and the Great American Songbook in his early high school years and even now believes the best jazz records were those he first heard from 1959 to 1962, when he started listening with elephant ears to what he would call his “desert island discs (best all time).” Alexander also had the great honor of seeing Basie, Ellington, Armstrong, Brubeck, Goodman, Errol Garner and other greats in their prime, all in 1962.
“Back then,” Alexander said, “I played better jazz clarinet and sax than I can muster these days, but I couldn’t find many outlets for my kind of jazz in the Golden Age of Rock’n’roll, so I ended up going into financial journalism with music on the side. Even as a 17-year old kid I realized that the world didn’t need me as yet another mediocre saxophonist. Instead, it needed an audience for the great sax players, who were then dying out way too young, and too obscure. That’s when I decided to devote a good share of my life to becoming a champion of the music in the media.”
While living in New Orleans in the 1980s, Alexander was able to develop a regular show on WWOZ, 90.7-fm, the soul of New Orleans music. Back then they had a makeshift studio above Tipitina’s, a famous night club. Alexander had the Friday or Saturday morning slot for more than six years. Alexander still has his FCC broadcaster’s license, which has no expiration date. Alexander’s current program, “Joy Spring,” is similar to what he did in New Orleans, bringing music history in pleasurable bite-sized chunks of about 30 minutes each, often tied to birth dates.
Alexander commented, “My contention is that classic jazz and the Great American Songbook is the classical music of the 20th century, blending the European immigrant harmonies (from the grandkids of Tevye) with the American black experience (the grandkids of slaves) to create a fusion of world music on a crowded island about the size of Lopez (Manhattan). This classic music is in danger of losing relevance to modern youth (and most adults, too) if we don’t strive to keep it alive. As part of this mission, I have also written articles and reviews for major national jazz magazines (Down Beat and Jazz Improv) and have given pre-concert lectures for Ellington’s son, Mercer, and the Brubeck Brothers’ Band (among others). I look forward to helping others experience the sounds that opened a beautiful new world to me some 50 years ago.”
Alexander’s programs are eclectic, conversational, and filled with great composers’ works sung by a wide variety of jazz performers. Peppered throughout with Alexander’s intelligent and friendly commentary, one finds out all kinds of interesting tidbits and side notes about the music and the musicians.
For the coming year, Alexander is expanding his list of albums recorded in the first half of 1959, which he will cover in detail as the year unfolds. Alexander considers early 1959 the pinnacle year for classical modern jazz recordings. His album picks include Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue and John Coltrane’s Giant Steps. Alexander remarks, “It’s like the zenith of jazz, the miracle year. Part of my program each week contains selections from an album recorded precisely 50 years ago that week. I’ll start the year with Ella Fitzgerald singing the Gershwin songbook, recorded January 5-8, 1959.” Other albums include: Cannonball Adderley Quintet in Chicago (recorded February 3), Released March 23 on Verve; Count Basie’s “Breakfast Dance and Barbecue” in Miami (Mary 31) on Roulette; Dave Brubecks’s Time Out (July 1), and Ornette Coleman, Shape of Jazz to Come (May 22).
Tune into Alexander’s show on Fridays on KLOI from 3:00 pm to 5:30 pm. You won’t be disappointed.
