Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for December 30, 2017

From the frozen confines of the Doug Ashford Radio Room, we present a program largely made up of music Doug left behind on the BFR computer, assembled at the last minute to warm your souls. I'm having some problems with my computer, so I was assembling the show on the fly from the BFR library. I went for some of the basics, then filled in the gaps. Hope you enjoy.

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See the playlist after the break...

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for December 16, 2017

A very last minute production today, even more so than usual as of late. You may or may not appreciate that I've mostly (but not completely) ignored the upcoming holiday (or holidays) as I, myself, am not very jolly. (Can I qualify that sentence further? (or not))

 The second hour skews a bit towards difficult listening, but there are few festive numbers spread throughout. We continue our survey of Don Byron songs named after famous painters, and of Hal Willner tribute albums, plus a George Gershwin double-shot!

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See for yourself after the break...

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for December 9, 2017

An interesting show. Recorded during some snow that was really not worth mentioning (not that that stops me). There's an annual event called the Somerville Holiday Stroll (or something like that) that's supposed to bring people out here to Union Square, so there's Christmas music blaring from the Media Center out into the square, and probably bleeding onto the studio mic (most audible during the break around the 50-minute mark). However, it seems people are afraid of being caught in the snow like the Donner Party, so there's not much of a crowd. We did have the fire department stop by as the folks in the TV studio down the hall were using a fog machine and set off the fire alarm, but it was over before it got a chance to liven up a mic break.

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Music-wise we start out jazzy as usual, although some Latin weirdness emerges in the second set. The BFR computer once again cuts off Joe Albany's "Nearness of You". The second hour freeform set is book-ended with stuff from Hal Willner tribute albums - the Nino Rota one and another from the Monk one. There's some early and late 20th century classical music from Central Europe taking up a lot of space in between.

See for yourself after the break...

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for December 2, 2017

A qualified disaster. A freeform if not unformed program, marred by technical problems, mostly fixed here. Wait for the parts you'll like, fix yourself a cup of tea during the rest.

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See the playlist after the break...

webcast info for November 25, 2017

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Today, as the Somerville Media Center is closed for the holiday weekend, and as I am away still digesting my Thanksgiving leftovers (not pictured), we will be rebroadcasting the Unpopular Music webcast from June 3, 2017.

It one which should delight lovers of all manifestations of the Terpsichorean muse, from Bach to Björk, passing through several flavors of jazz, some film music from Bernard Herrmann, some neo-Gamelan, Brian Eno and tributes to the then recently departed Misha Mengelberg and Allan Holdsworth. The second set is one of my favorite creations. Enjoy.

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for November 18, 2017

Today I tried, I think successfully, to break up the jazz 1st hour/freeform 2nd hour by trying to keep it free form all the way through.

At least that part was successful. The execution was a bit of a disaster, which will likely be edited around for the archive, so maybe you won't notice unless you were one of the few and the proud who listened to the live webcast. For reasons that are both too long to explain here and make me look dumb, the second hour was reconfigured on the fly and then re-reconfigured as things went wrong. The archive presents the correct reconfiguration and therefore the song order differs a bit from what's below and in the back announcement. You'll figure it out.

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See the playlist after the break...

Webcast info for November 11, 2017

The Somerville Media Center is closed for Veteran's Day so today will will rebroadcast the Unpopular Music episode from October 22, 2016. As I noted at the time, the first hour is the loud hour, the second more introverted. 

RIP Katie Lee

The singer of the Unpopular Music theme song has died at the age of 98, having lived quite the life.





I discovered Real Sick Sounds from a compilation called "beat jazz - pictures from the gone world, volume 2," and eventually tracked down it's source, a collection of satirical songs on psychological themes written by Bud Freeman and Leon Pober called "Songs of Couch and Consultation." Katie was basically a hired gun as the girl singer, she worked primarily as a folk singer (Burl Ives described her as "the best cowboy singer I know.")

For Veteran's Day

You have these nineteen-year-old kids with these huge hearts, they will do what you ask them. The issue is, are you asking them to do something worthwhile? That's up to the adults, and that's where the failure comes. The failure isn't the kids saying “I'm not going to do this!” because that's not the way they are built. Nineteen-year-olds don't know to take a raincoat when it's raining, that's why they're so good at being warriors. They'll do it. They won't even ask you a question. “Alright, we'll do it.” The responsibility is on the grown-ups to make sure they're not being wasted, because they'll do what they're told, and they'll do it well. - Karl Marlantes

I've been watching the Ken Burns / Lynn Novick Vietnam War series finding a lot of it just sad and frustrating. The novelist Karl Marlantes sums it up nicely in this quote, which is in episode 7. One can oppose war, the decisions made by the grown-ups, while still respecting those who go and fight honorably in your name and wanting the best for them, and that they get what they need when they come home.

Before knowing there would be no webcast today, I had put a couple of selections aside for Veteran's Day. I present them after the break...

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for November 4, 2017

On this week's episode we devote the second hour to remembering (or even perhaps to some of you introducing) the jazz legend Muhal Richard Abrams, who died last Sunday at the age of 87. A fine pianist and composer, he is best (and perhaps most importantly) known as one of the founders of the the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, the Chicago based organization which organized concerts, and provided rehearsal space, promotion and educational resources to hundreds if not thousands of up and coming musicians from the mid-1960's to today. The AACM provided a home base for musicians who were looking to expand the jazz tradition, taking on influences from traditional African and contemporary European music, theater, dance, and poetry. The trumpeter Taylor Ho Bynum has a fine memorial/introduction in the New Yorker. Here's an excellent appreciation from Adam Shatz in the London Review of Books' blog. The trombonist George Lewis wrote a definitive history of the AACM called A Power Stronger than Itself, which is well worth digging into.

Photo by Brian McMillen / www.brianmcmillenphotography.com

Muhal is a relatively recent interest of mine. I always knew he was out there, but I sort of worked my backwards from my interests in his protégés Henry Threadgill, the Art Ensemble of Chicago and Anthony Braxton. (One use of Lewis' book is discovering where the good stuff lies in the mountain of AACM recordings.) What we present is rather arbitrary presentation from his mighty catalog.

See the playlist after the break...

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for October 28, 2017

I may promise unpopularity, but I see only now that I've programmed both Body and Soul and Autumn Leaves, two of the most popular songs ever, but in obviously transformed interpretations. But there's also some old and new jazz, blues, Brazilian, some odd-meter pop, a bit of Reggae, some bits of high-modernism, and a token Halloween number from Frank Zappa, presented with an assortment of smooth and high-contrast transitions.

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see for yourself after the break...

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for October 21, 2017

After immersing myself in Monk last week, the temptation to make this week's program out of last week's leftovers was rather strong. The temptation became even stronger as the time and energy to assemble a new program was getting shorter. So while there's one leftover, we have a somewhat arbitrary assortment of jazz, afro-pop, electronic, film music and a contemporary classical extravaganza.

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Plus, if you love bass solos, well the second set is for you.

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for October 14, 2017

Today we commemorate the one-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Thelonious Monk, one of the singular jazz pianists and composers and a personal idol of mine. If pressed to bestow such a ridiculous title, I would say he's my favorite musician ever.




However, thanks to our old friend the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we cannot play more than four tracks credited to any one artist in the time allotted for the webcast, so, as with our Ornette Coleman tribute a couple of years back, we necessarily focus on Monk the composer.

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for September 30, 2017

Today we have the kind of subdued program that seems to occur whenever I assemble the playlist wile it's raining. We have an array of jazz stylings, a bit saxophone-centric, but that's OK. The second hour has a late-20th century piano classic, and an electronic embellishment of what should be another. We also have a few bits of odd-ball pop music

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See for yourself after the break...

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for September 23, 2017

I feel fine

The world not having ended, we present today a jazzy first hour followed by a somewhat more contemplative second, keeping in mind the jazz hour is not without contemplation, nor is the contemplative hour without jazz.

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Contemplate the playlist after the break...

Hal Willner has lived the life I wished I had

Well, maybe not the pharmaceutical cocaine, but a lot of everything else.

The "extravagant, cross-genre" tribute albums are certainly an influence on the webcast. Although being in the next generation after his, I suppose, I do still have heroes, and he's one of them.

I was also a kid who went around talking to himself, locking myself in my room with a dream world, retreating into television and records. The apartment pictured above would be a dream space for me.  I'm terrible at meeting people, which probably explains the different paths of our lives. I suppose I'm also a watcher, not a doer. But Willner actually is a doer, and I'm envious of many of the things he's done.

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for September 16, 2017

As I said, I had three weeks to put the show together, but didn't finish it until almost 11.

The usual mix of jazz and what-have-you, with a few pop songs in the middle. The Cassini space probe is mourned, as are John Abercrombie, Grant Hart (through a third party) and the Cambridge nightclub Nightstage (which actually closed decades ago.) Plus "a genuine example of Socialist Realist 'machine music.'"

Mixcloud, for some reason, is not accepting my playlists when I enter them. I tried twice only to have them rejected because of unspecified errors, throwing all the work away. Sorry. (I'm not trying to drive extra traffic to the blog.)

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playlist after the break...

Webcast info for September 2, 2017

The Somerville Media Center is closed for Labor Day weekend, so unfortunately you will not be able to rest your weary weary bones to a live presentation of Unpopular Music.

Update: It was a big "if."

If all goes as planned, the episode from October 03, 2015 will be rebroadcast. This is the same one which was to rebroadcast back in July, but didn't due to some studio renovations taking place that day.

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for August 26, 2017

This week my habitual walking around shuffle play music brought up a few things that made me want to go back and take a closer listen, as it often does. And as it often does, that led me to add them to the potential Unpopular Music playlist. However, this week some of those tracks were really long.
The instinct was not to do this. But otherwise lacking inspiration (again, this week, I know...) I went ahead.

Is it too lazy to do this? Why not, it's your program. They're all music that rewards the attentive listener, so, yeah, three tracks for the second hour.

I'll be off the next two weeks, so hopefully I'll use the time to recharge. (or at least stack up some music to play.)



See the playlist after the break...

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for August 19, 2017

When I came around to put the week's program together, I really wasn't up to it. So the first half of the program is a what played on my phone's shuffle play this past week. It also skews a bit towards the "difficult listening" side of things.

The second hour stands as my contribution to the voices against today's "free-speech rally" on Boston Common. It's mostly culled from previous episodes where I felt the urge to make a statement through other people's music, like my pre-election program, 4th of July etc.

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See for yourself after the break...

Playlist for the Unpopular Music webcast - August 12, 2017

A set for (or rather, from) a hot lazy day. A bunch of long tracks in the first hour. More or less normal in the second. I wish I'd kept that metallic percussion segment going a little longer.

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See for yourself after the break...

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for August 5, 2017

Is it just me or does August always look like it's misspelled?

A mostly jazzy, somewhat lazily-compiled set today, although with a couple of curve balls.

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See for yourself after the break...

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for July 29, 2017

Mostly the program prepared for July 15, so I could get to bed early last night.

A pretty jazzy first hour leads to a freeform second hour with a few poppy things, followed by a trip through the renaissance and then to a bluesy ending.

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The archive will be posted later than usual this weekend,

see the playlist after the break...

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for July 22, 2017

In a program completely reassembled this morning, we try to break up the usual formula. So on offer we present, among other things, tracks from two of the essential jazz albums of 1993, summer jams (and remember these are my summer jams (one of which breaks the Unpopular Music Manifesto, but also is the Unpopular Music Manifesto)), some early music, and some electronic doo-dads.

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See for yourself after the break...

Webcast info for July 15, 2017

Due to some problems with the computer at BFR central control, there will be no webcast today.

Webcast info for July 8, 2017

Please note - this is not my family, nor am I in France. There are cows nearby though.

Update: or not. As you were.

There's a family to-do out of town this weekend, so today we are presenting an episode from the archives, specifically the episode from October 3, 2015. The original posting described this program as "quite possible to enjoy"

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for July 1, 2017

No festive holiday programming for 4th of July (or Canada Day for that matter, not even Paul Bley), just the usual jazz and other for the last full day of the first half of the year.

We do pay a brief tribute to the late Geri Allen, who unfortunately is one of those musicians who always impressed and intrigued me, but whose work I've never gotten around to exploring in depth.

There is some accidental continuity throughout. In most of the first set selections, fours and eights are traded with the drummer in various ways. The selections for the second hour's set feature many quotations.

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See the playlist after the break...

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for June 24, 2017

So this is the episode where I break one of the primary rules of programming Unpopular Music. It was a situation where I was looking for a track of a certain length of a certain character and it was a FM classic rock staple that ended up fitting the bill.

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Otherwise, we have a wide ranging program featuring some of the tracks I felt didn't fit together two weeks ago, now joined by more compatible music. The jazz is somewhat front-loaded, the second hour is a bit string heavy, before acquiring a quasi-African vibe. More in the Unpopular Music tradition we have musicians from the jazz and early-music worlds jamming on common ground, a punk band with a jazz drummer sitting in playing an Ethiopian song, a jazz interpretation of a baroque aria, free-jazzers playing a hard bop classic, and more.

See the playlist after the break...

Webcast info for June 17, 2017

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Due to a work obligation, and the closure of the Somerville Media Center (located at the bottom of Prospect Hill) for Bunker Hill Day, we will be rebroadcasting the episode from February 27, 2016.

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for June 10, 2017

Take two.

A kind of chaotic morning. Then when I get to the studio, instead of a film crew blocking the studio door, there was a large gathering of preteen girls filling the Somerville Media Center for some sort of event put on by the Nepali Women's Global Network.

As for the show, it's okay I guess. Mostly jazz, with a few curveballs, I didn't have a lot of time this week to work on the show, and what I had left in my "holding pen" playlist didn't really hang together. Hopefully this show hangs together well enough.

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See the playlist after the break...

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for June 3, 2017

Kind of a jazz heavy program, featuring some new(ish) acquisitions to the Unpopular Music library. However, we also visit Bach and Björk. There are some sotto voce mic breaks as a crew from the 48 film project had taken over the Somerville Media Center lobby.

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And of course, just because I had three weeks to prepare doesn't mean I didn't throw it together at the last minute. I also ended up giving myself he last minute challenge of finding something 3:10 - 3:20 that could bridge Coltrane and Björk.

See the playlist after the break...

Webcast info for May 27, 2017

Seeing as the Somerville Media Center is closed for the holiday weekend, today we are rebroadcasting the program from April 16, 2016. You may also be interested in the Memorial Day/potty-mouthed Sun Ra centennial episode from May 24, 2014.

Webcast info for May 20, 2017

I'm out of town this weekend, so in place of a live show, we will rebroadcast the episode from February 4, 2017.

Take a trip back to the early days of the Trump administration. I spent the first part of the morning at Somerville's sanctuary city rally. Listening back earlier this week, my little spiel about the event possibly makes it sound like I, myself, am an immigrant, which is not the case, although my grandfather was. I just think the vast majority of these folks are just trying to make a life for themselves, and mostly don't cause any real trouble, and should be given a chance, and the  average American, even the above or below average American as well, have nothing to fear..

As for the music, it's one of the better of my recent episodes, some folks on Mixcloud think so, too. Like America, it draws on a far flung variety of sources, somewhat influenced by the issues of the day.

We'll be back next week with a new program.

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for May 13, 2017

Having heard the Neil Young song "Hey Hey, My My" earlier this week (in the version presented in the program) I decided to start describing the program as "the more of the picture that doesn't meet the eye." Clever, no? Well, we'll see.

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As for the program itself, it starts out jazzy and the winds down other paths, culminating an FM classic rock radio staple played on toy instruments.


Peruse the playlist after the break....

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for May 6, 2017

Here we are once again. I actually felt worse after last week's show, not better, but ended up listening to a lot of music in that low energy time and came up with an easy list of things to play. It's a mostly (but not exclusively) jazz show, but within the wide range of sounds that word provides.

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See the playlist after the break....

Down the memory hole with Dave's Record Collection

Having named the webcast "Unpopular Music", several people have assumed this is the sort of thing I play. (Look right for the true explanation. I mean, I have played one of the records in the first segment, and there some things I would play (like Lawrence Welk playing "Don't think twice, it's alright", Sam the Drummer, or those generic radio commercials) if I had them, but it's not what the program's about.

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for April 29, 2017

In which your host is not quite as over the flu as he thought when he left the house, but I think not a bad show for being thrown together at the last minute, mostly things I heard in the past week. A mix of jazz, classical (old and new), blues, pop, and other.

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Oh, and remember, just because the music is being played by an orchestra, it doesn't mean you can't crank it up.

There are also a couple of my all-time favorites in here, which I'm surprised I hadn't played before (the Zorn and Putnam's Camp)

See the playlist after the break...

Music appreciation from Jonathan Demme

For some reason, I've never seen Philadelphia, and I also worked in the classical department of a record store in the years following its release (and therefore always needing to be able to hook up a customer with Maria Callas singing La Mamma Morta at any given time), so I was not expecting to be so blown away by this scene as I came across it in the Onion AV Club's appreciation piece for the late Jonathan Demme.

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for April 22, 2017

As I was assembling the program this morning, I came to realize that the challenge of this webcast, and I imagine any radio show, is in making the arbitrary sequence of musical selections seem inevitable. Perhaps this weeks selections are a bit too arbitrary to pull that off, perhaps not.

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See the playlist after the break...

Webcast info for April 15, 2017

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As we are out of town for the holidays (this year is Easter and Patriot's day rather than Patriot's Day and Record Store Day), we will rebroadcast the Unpopular Music episode from July 16, 2016. This program features a bit more pop music than is standard along with many references to the hot sweaty day on which it was recorded.

Random You Tube find of the day - Dusty Springfield and Burt Bacharach

I was doing some random research on a song and came across this.

If you've been to a concert with me, you know I'm stingy with standing ovations. This is the first time I've given a standing ovation to something on You Tube.

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for April 8, 2017

Today's program offers the typical jazzy first hour and grab bag second. A few long things as I'm having some time management issues. (Including having time to write this.)

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See the playlist after the break...

Webcast info for April 8, 2017

Due to the fact that that the Somerville Media Center hosted a 24 fundraiser for the Boston Hassle, the building ended up being closed at noon. I got a chance to load my show and let it run without commentary (which is likely an improvement.)

The playlist and archive will show up at their regular times.

I'm out of town for the holiday next week, so there will be a classic episode in my place.

See you in two weeks!!

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for April 1, 2017

I had toyed with the idea of doing an April Fool's program, playing a bunch of overplayed classic rock songs. A "songs you know by people you've heard of" kind if show as that ad, was it for Mix 98, used to go, albeit with songs I actually like, of which there are plenty.

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Instead, I decided to plow ahead with what passes for a usual show - a bunch of white-guy jazz, a trans-century, multi-genre freeform set. It does end with Fleetwood Mac, so there's that.

See for yourself after the break...

Chuck Berry talks about genre on Soul Train

Laquinta asks "Do you find blues more soothing than today's sounds?"¹ to which Chuck Berry replies "Well, to me, each type of music is a feeling, and blues, there's nothing that can replace it when you're blue. And there's nothing that can replace rock when you're reeling, and so on..."

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for March 25, 2017

Here we are once again,

We're a bit light on jazz this week, a bit more Afro-pop. Additionally, while looking for something to fill a gap, I came across a bunch of tracks that didn't fit, but seemed to kind of go well together, so they now make up most of the second hour. And it being the first weekend of spring, we have our traditional Stravinsky offering (no pun intended).

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See the playlist after the break...

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for March 18, 2017

A mixed bag today, we start with some hard bop and then jump around a bit. Maybe too many downers in the second hour, but it perks up towards the end.

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See the playlist after the break...

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for March 11, 2017

This week, Unpopular Music celebrates its third anniversary. I had planned to do something special, but instead put off assembling the program until about four hours ahead of time. We have a typically jazzy first hour, with a somewhat pretentious freeform second hour. It was also freezing cold (almost literally) in the studio, and the headphone amplifier had a short circuit. Nonetheless, it's a show I think you'll like (if you like this sort of thing, that is)!!

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See the playlist after the break...

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for March 4, 2017

A last minute creation which got off to a terrible start, but turned out OK. A pretty wide variety of music this week - some different flavors of jazz, music from Algeria and Ethiopia, French baroque, poetry readings, and a couple of pop songs. I was hesitant at first about the opera selection, but I heard a program on another station that played both Maria Callas and Patsy Cline and figured "why can't I?"

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See the playlist after the break...

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for February 25, 2017

We have a typically jazzy first hour, followed by a somewhat loose collection of odds and ends (though still somewhat jazzy) for the second. Technical difficulties around the 45 minute mark leave me a bit frazzled (I mean, "James Moody on guitar"), but we, and the BFR computer generally recover. (Although if I had to do it over again, I would have put the Grachan Moncur tune at the top of the second hour (and figured out how to correctly pronounce his first name))

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Also, a rare joint appearance by Meredith and Thelonious Monk (no relation).


See the playlist after the break...

Webcast info for February 18, 2017

Hi folks,

I have to be out of town this weekend, so in my stead we will have my pre-recorded self presenting the Unpopular Music episode from last October 8th. It's a bit on the obscure side, and the recording is a bit fuzzy, but there are many stimulating sounds.

We'll be back next week.

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for February 11, 2017

Greetings from a snowy Somerville Saturday. I was a little disheveled for most of the program. I sometimes say that the host is the weakest link in this production. This is one of those times.

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I forgot to get the random playlist that was running before my time slot to stop on time, so that Ted Hawkins track carried over past noon, but it was too good to leave out.

A relatively low jazz content this week, there's entries from Brazil and Africa, some new-classical type things from the Soviet Union, German techno-pop, some long slow quiet things, a couple of interesting pop covers and more.

Meanwhile the playlist is in its usual place after the break...

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for February 4, 2017

A show for the midway point of winter. I have not heard whether or not the groundhog saw his shadow. Doesn't matter. Winter will end whenever Trump orders it.

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However, I, alone, decide the playlist. See for yourself after the break...

Webcast info for January 28, 2017

I'm out of town this weekend, so this week you are treated to a classic episode from the archives, in particular the program from September 17th, 2016. It features some long pieces, as I was feeling lazy that week, and also some explorations of jazz and classical connections, with mixed success.

Anyway, see you next week.

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for January 21, 2017

A bit of a grab-bag today. I had some things I was going to say, but then I didn't. I thought of some others and kinda babbled them out. Wait. I shouldn't be down on myself like this. This show is awesome! Be super cool like me and listen to it. You'll thank yourself later.

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See the playlist after the break...

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for January 14, 2017

Here's a pretty loosely assembled program for you this week. It was kind of a low energy week for me. I tried not to repeat too many albums from last week, but, you know how things are.

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Also, abrupt endings and tape hiss.

See for yourself after the break...

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for January 7, 2017

The first webcast of the new year finds us waiting for in a snowstorm with the now somewhat typical raucous first hour, contemplative, yet not, as I attempt to say, somnambulant second hour.

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See the playlist after the break...