#0030: This Week On The Air–July 15, 2025

Hey, y’all! Hope you’re doing your best. It’s Tuesday again, and we’re back on the air this week! Read on down to learn more about what we’re playing tonight on datafruits.fm!

Talkie Time: Richard Diamond And The Case Of The Vaguely Phallic Episode Names: The Bald Head Case / Little Chiva

Sometimes, shortened forms of names don’t age as well as you’d like them to. For an example here, look no further than our buddy Richard Diamond here, who I suppose is known in some circles simply as: THE DICK.¹

Our hard-headed (no, not that head, ya dingus), jingle-singin’, down-on-his-luck piano man is back on the air with us this week, as we take a look at two of his more…let’s say “unfortunately and vaguely suggestively named” cases. Does this count as a theme night, you may ask? Sure, why not. We’ve had far dumber concepts than “Things That Sound Like Weiner” on this radio block.

First up is “The Bald Head Case”–originally aired on September 20, 1950–in which some poor sap gets his neck cracked in a hair loss salon, and Richard swoops in to figure out why the hell they even have salons that cause hair loss to begin with. Probably.

Next up, we’ve got “Little Chiva”, and just like the last time we played our boy Dicky here on the show, our good friends at OTRR have tracked down and digitized the entirety of the original script for this episode!

It is worth noting that this particular episode – in which Richard Diamond heads to Haiti on a rip-off of a Johnny Dollar Script ² – has not aged well in the slightest. But, if you can stomach the Very Period-Accurate Imperialist And Racist Tropes (and that is a big ask), I highly recommend giving it a readthrough. Checking out the hand-written liner notes on an original radio play script is far more interesting than any awful jokes I could make at that radio play’s expense.

I’m breaking character a bit here, but genuinely, go page through this and support the OTRR. They’re a fantastic organization.

The Jazz Program: Bugge Wesseltoft Has Conceptions Of A Jazz, Part 1: New Conception Of Jazz / New Conception Of Jazz: Sharing

Most heads don’t think of the Nordic countries when they think of jazz (at least, not as much as they’d think of the kind of music we’d play on my old radio program³), but let’s face it: Norway has produced some of the most forward-thinking jazz musicians of the 20th and 21st century.

One of the most shining examples of the region’s jazz scene is Bugge Wesseltoft, who has been making his keyboards do some insanely dancable things since the late ’80s. His improvisational compositions–which added danceable rhythms on to the electric joys of late-career Miles to form the groundwork for what acts like St. Germain and Squarepusher would eventually form into nu-jazz – were revolutionary at the time, and he hammered through his vision of the proverbial shape-of-jazz-to-come in a series of records fittingly called “New Conception Of Jazz”.

We’ve got two of the four albums to bear that name in some form or another for you this evening. To start us off, we’ve got the “mission statement”, so to speak; 1997’s New Conception Of Jazz, released on Bugge and friends’ own Jazzland Recordings label.

After that, we’re heading in an even dancier direction, with 1998’s follow-up New Conception Of Jazz: Sharing, also released on Jazzland Recordings.

This is part one of a two-night set, by the way, so be sure to tune in next week as we close out these New Conceptions. Who knows; you might even have some new conceptions of what jazz could be when you tune in tonight.

That’s all for this week! All new programming this evening; I’ve been trying to catch up on posting new and exciting things on this here blog, as you can tell from yesterday’s new What’s Been Goin’ On post, and I wanted to keep the streak rollin’ this evening.

Speaking of, if you’re reading this the day of, and you can make it in tonight, you should 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.

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