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Tag: Jaki Byard

2026

Wednesday, April 22nd

Happy (104th) Birthday, Charles!

Charles Mingus Sextet (CM, 4/22/1922–1/5/1979, bass, compositions; Eric Dolphy, 1928-1964, alto saxophone; Clifford Jordan, 1931-1993, tenor saxophone; Johnny Coles, 1925-1987, trumpet; Jaki Byard, 1922-1999, piano; Dannie Richmond, 1931-1988, drums), live, Belgium,* Norway,** Sweden,*** 1964

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radio

WKCR-FM (Columbia University): all Mingus, all day. 

*****

* “So Long Eric,” “Peggy’s Blue Skylight,” “Meditations on Integration”

** “So Long Eric,” “Orange Was the Color of Her Dress, Then Blue Silk,” “Parkeriana,” “Take The ‘A’ Train”

*** “So Long Eric” (performance and rehearsal), “Meditations on Integration” (performance and rehearsal)

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lagniappe

random sights

other day, Chicago (Columbus Park)

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2025

Tuesday, April 22nd

Happy (103rd) Birthday, Charles!

Charles Mingus Sextet (CM, 4/22/1922–1/5/1979, bass, compositions; Eric Dolphy, 1928-1964, alto saxophone; Clifford Jordan, 1931-1993, tenor saxophone; Johnny Coles, 1925-1987, trumpet; Jaki Byard, 1922-1999, piano; Dannie Richmond, 1931-1988, drums), live, Belgium,* Norway,** Sweden,*** 1964

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lagniappe

radio

WKCR-FM (Columbia University): all Mingus, all day. 

*****

* “So Long Eric,” “Peggy’s Blue Skylight,” “Meditations on Integration”

** “So Long Eric,” “Orange Was the Color of Her Dress, Then Blue Silk,” “Parkeriana,” “Take The ‘A’ Train”

*** “So Long Eric” (performance and rehearsal), “Meditations on Integration” (performance and rehearsal)

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2024

Monday, April 22nd

Happy (102nd) Birthday, Charles!

Charles Mingus Sextet (CM, 4/22/1922–1/5/1979, bass, compositions; Eric Dolphy, 1928-1964, alto saxophone; Clifford Jordan, 1931-1993, tenor saxophone; Johnny Coles, 1925-1987, trumpet; Jaki Byard, 1922-1999, piano; Dannie Richmond, 1931-1988, drums), live, Belgium,* Norway,** Sweden,*** 1964

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lagniappe

radio

All Mingus, all day: WKCR-FM (Columbia University).

*****

* “So Long Eric,” “Peggy’s Blue Skylight,” “Meditations on Integration”

** “So Long Eric,” “Orange Was the Color of Her Dress, Then Blue Silk,” “Parkeriana,” “Take The ‘A’ Train”

*** “So Long Eric” (performance and rehearsal), “Meditations on Integration” (performance and rehearsal)

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2023

Saturday, May 27th

timeless

Art Blakey & The New Jazzmen (AB, drums; Freddie Hubbard, trumpet; Nathan Davis, tenor saxophone; Jaki Byard, piano; Reggie Workman, bass), “Crisis” (F. Hubbard), live, Paris, 1965

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lagniappe

random sights

yesterday, outside Chicago

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2023

Saturday, April 22nd

Happy (101st) Birthday, Charles!

Charles Mingus Sextet (CM, 4/22/1922–1/5/1979, bass, compositions; Eric Dolphy, 1928-1964, alto saxophone; Clifford Jordan, 1931-1993, tenor saxophone; Johnny Coles, 1925-1987, trumpet; Jaki Byard, 1922-1999, piano; Dannie Richmond, 1931-1988, drums), live, Belgium,* Norway,** Sweden,*** 1964

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lagniappe

radio

All Mingus, all day: WKCR-FM (Columbia University).

*****

reading table

This poem is not addressed to you.
You may come into it briefly,
But no one will find you here, no one.
You will have changed before the poem will.

—Donald Justice (1925-2004), from “Poem”

*****

* “So Long Eric,” “Peggy’s Blue Skylight,” “Meditations on Integration”

** “So Long Eric,” “Orange Was the Color of Her Dress, Then Blue Silk,” “Parkeriana,” “Take The ‘A’ Train”

*** “So Long Eric” (performance and rehearsal), “Meditations on Integration” (performance and rehearsal)

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2022

Friday, April 22nd

Happy 100th Birthday, Charles!

Charles Mingus Sextet (CM, 4/22/1922–1/5/1979, bass, compositions; Eric Dolphy, 1928-1964, alto saxophone; Clifford Jordan, 1931-1993, tenor saxophone; Johnny Coles, 1925-1987, trumpet; Jaki Byard, 1922-1999, piano; Dannie Richmond, 1931-1988, drums), (live, Belgium,* Norway,** Sweden,*** 1964

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lagniappe

radio

All Mingus, all day (tomorrow, too): WKCR-FM (Columbia University).

*****

random sights

other day, Oak Park, Ill.

*****

*”So Long Eric,” “Peggy’s Blue Skylight,” “Meditations on Integration”

**”So Long Eric,” “Orange Was the Color of Her Dress, Then Blue Silk,” “Parkeriana,” “Take The ‘A’ Train”

***”So Long Eric” (performance and rehearsal), “Meditations on Integration” (performance and rehearsal)

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2020

Thursday, October 29th

timeless

Charles Mingus Sextet (CM, 1922-1979, bass; Eric Dolphy, 1928-1964, alto saxophone; Clifford Jordan, 1931-1993, tenor saxophone; Johnny Coles, 1925-1987, trumpet; Jaki Byard, 1922-1999, piano; Dannie Richmond, 1931-1988, drums), “So Long Eric” (C. Mingus), live, Norway (Oslo), 1964

 

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lagniappe

random sights

yesterday, Chicago

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2017

Thursday, July 27th

voices I miss

Some musicians suck up oxygen; others increase the available supply.

Jaki Byard (piano, 1922-1999), live, Berlin, 1965

 

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lagniappe

art beat: other day, Art Institute of Chicago

Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858), Bullfinch on camellia branch, early 1830s

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2015

Thursday, April 23rd

Happy (Belated) Birthday, Mingus!

Charles Mingus, composer, bandleader, bassist
April 22, 1922-January 5, 1979

Better late than never for someone who, like Miles and Monk, Bach and Beethoven, I couldn’t live without.

Charles Mingus (bass) with Eric Dolphy (alto saxophone, bass clarinet, flute), Clifford Jordan (tenor saxophone), Johnny Coles (trumpet), Jaki Byard (piano), Dannie Richmond (drums), live, Belgium, Norway, and Sweden, 1964*


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lagniappe

musical thoughts

There’s something about listening to Eric Dolphy that makes you feel glad to be alive.

—Cliff Preiss, DJ, WKCR (Columbia University), yesterday (Mingus birthday broadcast)

*****

*Set lists (courtesy of YouTube):

Belgium
00:00-00:45 Intro
00:46-05:33 So Long Eric
05:35-11:20 Peggy’s Blue Skylight
11:23-32:03 Meditations On Integration

Norway
32:30-54:46 So Long Eric
56:30-1:11:40 Orange Was The Color Of Her Dress, Then Blue Silk
1:13:53-1:16:20 Parkeriana
1:16:22-1:29:05 Take The “A” Train

Sweden
1:30:05-1:33:55 So Long Eric
1:34:02-1:52:35 Meditations On Integration
1:52:40- 1:59:50 So Long Eric

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2012

Monday, 4/23/12

Charles Mingus Quintet,* “So Long Eric,” “Peggy’s Blue Skylight,” “Meditations On Integration” (all by Mingus), live (TV show), Belgium, 1964

Mingus’s music, it seems, has everything. Call it “simple” or “complex” and you’d be both right and wrong—it’s both. Compositional elegance is balanced, exquisitely, with improvisational unruliness. Rhythmic momentum is no less—and no more—important than melodic invention. Like Ellington and Monk, he will, I’m confident, still be listened to a hundred years from now.

(Excerpts from this program have been posted previously.)

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lagniappe

art beat: yesterday at the Art Institute of Chicago

Ludovico Carracci, The Vision of Saint Francis, c. 1602

Going to the Art Institute again, after being away for a while, I felt a bit like someone who doesn’t realize he’s starving until he finds himself at a feast.

*****

*CM, bass; Eric Dolphy, alto saxophone, flute, bass clarinet; Clifford Jordan, tenor saxophone; Jaki Byard, piano; Dannie Richmond, drums.

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