Culture
Radio Free Athens July 27, 2024
< < Back toRadio 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.
6 – 9 p.m. Excursions – Jazz Motifs with Dr. Art Cromwell presenting Our Future Was Then: the Evolution of the Avant Garde Jazz of the ’50s
The 1950s is often described as an era divided between Post-Bop or Hard Bop and Cool Jazz, leading to misunderstanding the period as a simple distinction between East vs West coast Jazz. Such artificial demarcations conveniently ignored a decade of multifaceted, coast-to-coast developments that laid the groundwork for the subsequent expansion of the music. The decade might better be seen as containing elements of an emerging subgenre that could be called a “proto-avant garde”.
Saturday’s Excursions endeavors to open up the narrow concept of 50’s by focusing on the work of the new generation of artists, interested in adopting advanced musical theories including expansive approaches to composition, improvisation, and ensembles.
The program’s opening introduces the initial advanced interpretations of the “new”music (not yet called Bop). Next the First Bloc: “Eastern Workshops/West Coast Ghosts”, compares and contrasts Jazz from, and between both coast. The Second Bloc: “Debut Records and other Sources”, surveys music from various labels. The Third Bloc: “An Eclectic Discography”, presents a sampling of 50s advanced styles. Excursions is heard 6-9 pm as part of Radio Free Athens.