Hey, y’all! Hope you’re doing your best. We’re back on the air this week, and it’s time for yet another walk-through of the history behind the subjects of tonight’s episodes of Talkie Time and The Jazz Program on datafruits.fm!
Talkie Time: Murder by Experts - Prescription For Murder / Two Can Die As Cheaply As One
(This program schedule was originally aired January 9, 2024.)
If you enjoy the last program on tonight's show, by the way, and you want to dive deep into H.Q. Masur's oevure, J. Kingston Pierce's "Killer Covers" has a great write-up on the man's work, with some great starting points to dive in at.
Hosted by Robert Author and David Kogan –best known for creating the Mysterious Traveler, which….oh buddy, that’s a series we’ll get to eventually–Murder By Experts has one of the more interesting formats in old-time radio.
Like many formats from other shows of the time period, Murder By Experts starts with an appeal to authority. But rather than getting J. Edgar Hoover’s blessing to crack open case files (This Is Your FBI) or by paying some cash to down-and-out newspaper folk in exchange for dramatizing a story they broke (The Big Story), the Experts in Murder By Experts are crime fiction writers–“experts of the ““art of murder” itself. With that as the premise, you know you’re in for some interesting joints.
We’ve got two for you tonight, starting out with John Dickson Carr introducing a selection by Bruno Fischer (who fans of the pulps may recognise as the author of The Ben Helm series and “House Of Flesh”, among other fantastic joints”. It’s “Prescription For Murder”, which originally aired on June 4, 1949.
Following that up, we’ve got “Two Can Die As Cheaply As One”, originally airing on April 17, 1950 and featuring Brett Halliday introducing a selection by Harold Q. Masur, which pulp fans may recognize as the creator of Scott Jordan, the lawyer-turned-investigator from books like “Bury Me Deep” (shown to the left here[^1]) and the 1962 short story compilation, “The Name Is Jordan”.
The Jazz Program: Pat Martino - Interchange (1994) / Nightwings (1996)/ The Return (1987)
Let's face it--neither you nor I will never be as cool as Pat Martino. There are just some things we all will have to live with.
(This program schedule was originally aired January 9, 2024.)
One of the most legendary guitarists to ever hold the instrument, the late Pat Martino should need no introduction. He entered the jazz scene in the late late 1960s with “El Hombre”, and proceeding to continuously knock in virtuosic performance after virtuosic performance until a bout with amnesia due to an aneurism in 1980 knocked his memories out from under him.
That didn’t stop him, though, and he re-taught himself guitar and kept delivering fantastic records one after the other until his final album “Formidable” on High Note Records in 2017. Martino’s work is captivating, inventive, and–if you’ve ever tried to play guitar at all–utterly mind-blowing. Sadly, Pat passed away in 2021, but his music still continues to blow the minds of jazz heads the world over.
We’ve got three of his records from his time with the Muse label tonight, starting with his first performance back under his own group after relearning the guitar–and, it seems, re-discovering himself in the process–on 1987’s masterpiece “The Return”. We’ll be following that up with 1994’s “Interchange”, and we’ll finish up the evening with 1996’s “Nightwings”.
It should be noted that it took every ounce of restraint in me to not include one of my favorite soul-jazz records here–Bobby Pierce’s “Introducing Bobby Pierce” from 1972 (or “Piercing, as the Muse re-release is known), which features Pat on guitar. We’ll get to Bobby’s orange-covered classic another time, though, don’t worry.
Aaand that’s it for this week! Unfortunately, we’re back to re-runs this week–I’ve got this month’s Clippings to write, as well as a few other projects and deadlines to close out–but hopefully we’ll be back to new sets and new programming again soon!
If you’re reading this the day of, and you can make it in tonight, come hang out in the chat with us on Datafruits! We’ve got a good crowd of folks in the chat every week, and whether you have a suggestion for a future show or just want to hang out and chat with fellow jazz enjoyers, you’re welcome here with us.
You’re all amazing and don’t let anyone tell you that you’re not. Stay safe out there, and I’ll see you back again next week. Same time, same station.