Podcast 5 - Jazz: An Introduction

Jazz has become a huge area of interest for me over the last couple years. There is of course, a great deal of ambiguity as to what "jazz" means but instead of delving into that let's just note that fact and move on. It's funny to think that before 2005, I listened to essentially none. I thought it was all slow trumpet or old, big swing band stuff. While that never piqued my interest, I always kind of figured that I didn't really have any qualms with the genre. As with so many types of music, I just hadn't heard the right songs yet. So if you're new to the area, I think I've got some tunes to ease you in. Or if you're already deeply immersed, I bet there's some stuff you haven't heard before. Either way, prepare to hear genius.

Also, I didn't get a chance to actually put their song on this podcast but I wanted to share with you a song by Continental Graffiti, a local jazz group, which features the former guitarist and singer from 8 1/2 Souvenirs, Olivier Giraud. It was shot for a PBS program called iN Contex, and the quality of the video is incredible. This is just one example of the incredible talent that is consistently on display in Austin.

Continental Graffiti - Just One of Those Things

If you have questions or comments, please don't hesitate to post them to the blog. And finally, I've had a few people ask if they can share this podcast with other people. Simply put, YES! Please do. My whole reason for making this a podcast is to enable sharing. Thanks to this sharing, in the last month, the podcast was downloaded by people in the UK, Australia, and Thailand. That's awesome, but I know we can do better.

Thanks for listening and don't forget to support the artists,

Aaron

Tracklist:

1.Ocean Wave by Jack DeJohnette & Foday Musa Suso on Music from the Hearts of Masters

2.Take Five by The Great Jazz Trio on 's Wonderful

3.Raoul by Roy Haynes Quartet on Out of the Afternoon

4.Last Chance to Dance Trance (Perhaps) by Medeski, Martin, and Wood on Friday Afternoon in the Universe

5.Smash by Avishai Cohen Trio on Continuo

6.Melancholy Melody by Esthero on Wikked Lil' Grrrls

Same old directions on how to access the podcast

1. Use Itunes

-Open Itunes

- Click the “Advanced” pull down menu and select “Subscribe to a Podcast”

- Paste following URL into the box: http://feeds.feedburner.com/ActiveListener

- Click “OK” and you’re set. Downloading should begin immediately and Itunes will automatically download new episodes

2. Download the file direct

-Click the link: http://feeds.feedburner.com/ActiveListener

-Find the link that says “Play Now” under the desired podcast and right click on it

-from the right click menu select “Save link as…”

-Choose location and file name and download. This needs to be done each time I release a new podcast.