Culture
This week on Radio Free Athens: May 6, 2023
< < Back toATHENS, Ohio (WOUB) – Radio Free Athens (RFA) is broadcast Saturdays on WOUB 1340 AM and allows community volunteers and Ohio University students to present music and interview content through a format-free, host-driven program. Find the schedule and details about Saturday’s programs below. Listen to 1340 AM at this link.
SCHEDULE: May 6, 2023
9 a.m. – 12 p.m. DJ Grumpy Grandma
12 p.m. – 3 p.m. Chelsea
3 p.m. – 6 p.m. Michael T.
6 p.m. – 9 p.m. Excursions: Jazz Motifs w/ Dr. Art Cromwell
Excursions: Jazz Motifs w/ Dr. Art Cromwell (6 p.m. – 9 p.m.)
Excursions will be offering a “prequel birthday celebration” this Saturday for composer/arranger Gil Evans, born in Toronto May 13, 1912. Gil’s family moved to California where he eventually attended a college in Stockton. Radio brought Ellington, Armstrong, and other Jazz artists’ music into his life. After forming a band, Gil eventually toured the Pacfic Northwest from San Fransisco to Vancouver.
Service in the Army during WWII brought Gil to NY, where he met and eventually became the arranger for Claude Thornhill’s Orchestra.
Living in NYC after the war, Gil’s apartment became a meeting place for young “modernists”-as they were called-John Lewis, Gerry Mulligan, Miles Davis, John Carisi, all who talked about new approaches to Jazz, and who collectively were responsible for the compositions and arrangements for the legendary 1949-50 “Birth of the Cool” recordings.
While Miles was under contract with Columbia in 1955, he was given a choice of arrangers for forthcoming recordings. Miles immediately chose Gil, and the beginning of an extremely fruitful recording relationship until 1965.
This Saturday’s program will follow Gil’s journey through several iterations of his orchestra featuring his arrangements of Hendrix, Mingus, Monk, Porgy & Bess, as well as his own challenging compositions, executed by a who’s-who of artists.