Hey, y’all! Hope you’re doing your best. It’s Tuesday again, and you know what that means–it’s once again time for Talkie Time and The Jazz Program on datafruits.fm! Read on below to find out what we’ll be playin’ this evening!
Talkie Time : X Minus One - Saucer Of Loneliness / Venus Is A Man’s World
"hey, if you think THIS is bad, this is only PURGATORY!" --crow
(This program was originally aired May 14, 2024.)
Originally intended as a follow-up/revival of sorts to Dimension X (which we have yet to play on this show–don’t worry, we’ll get to it eventually), X Minus One devolved fairly quickly into a catch-all anthology of the works of some of the era’s best science fiction writers adapted to drama and set to tape.
This evening, we’ll be spotlighting some of the…er…more hormonal adaptations on the latter half of those years. Sadly, Joel and the gang didn’t answer my calls this week, or we’d have them up front to give both of these the Hercules treatment.
First up is “Saucer Of Loneliness”, originally airing on January 9, 1957 and featuring an adaptation of a Theodore Sturgeon joint which originally appeared in the pulp mag Galaxy Science Fiction in February of 1953.
In this one, an alien abducts a lonely girl about to take the long walk, and some kinda probe-related activity between “romantic and vaguely sexy” and “the kind of creepy trauma-bonding that the guy from Sadness makes records about takes place. Whether it’s the former or the latter in your book prooooobably depends on how depressed and into midnight binges of AO3 you are.
jinkies, scoob
After that, we’ve got “Venus Is A Man’s World”, originally aired on February 6th, 1957 and written by one William Tenn. I was wishy washy on the last one’s quality, sure, but this one’s a fantastic stinker–hell, Project Gutenberg has the original version from the July 1951 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction if you want to read it for yourself.
To be honest, any joint whose second sentence reads “Put me on a spaceship jam-packed with three hundred females just aching to get themselves husbands in the one place they’re still to be had—the planet Venus—and you know I’ll be in trouble.” is bound to be a train wreck of camp–
–especially seeing as 1) this was written in the ’50s, and 2) it turns out that, unfortunately for this poor sap, Venus is populated exclusively by buff, masculine, bishōnen men.
Or fortunately. Y’know, whichever. Hell, I’d have been into it.
The Jazz Program : Wayne Shorter - Speak No Evil (1966) / Night Dreamer (1964) / Juju (1965)
(This program was originally aired May 14, 2024.)
The full cover art is incredible in its own right (click the image to see it), but I appreciate the cropping in the 1978 Japanese pressing, with the paper sleeve turning the already fantastic album cover into something worth of a Japanese horror flick's Criterion release.
We’ve played exactly three tracks with Wayne Shorter in the band-leader position on this show (all three of which were for Listener Request Night, and courtesy of long-time listener and brief co-host of the show when I was out for several months, Lisafreak) and it’s time to correct that oversight. We’ve got three back-to-back Blue Note releases from (almost) back-to-back years from one of my personal favorite members of both Weather Report and The Jazz Messengers.
I say “almost” because I’d be remiss if I didn’t lead with the latest in the trilogy–namely, 1966’s Speak No Evil. One of the best hard bop records of the era, Speak No Evil is an absolute masterstroke, especially the hauntingly groovy and darkly understated third track, “Dance Cadaverous”.
Next up is 1964’s Night Dreamer, which features Blue Note’s co-founder Francis Wolff on cover art duties with some of his fantastic street photography. That’s not entirely uncommon–Francis actually did quite a bit of the cover work for the label–but the fact that the cover sports something other than a photo of the artist is relatively unique for the time, and shows a side of Wolff’s photographic lense that isn’t usually on full display.
We close out the evening with 1965’s Juju, featuring Wayne playing with a stripped-down quartet sans brass and a much more up-tempo, lively set of compositions. The title track is the stand-out on this one, but all three records are worth a listen, and we’ll be playing all three of them tonight. Come tune in.
That about covers this week’s show! My apologies for the re-runs, but as always, I’d like to hope they’re good ones.
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: on datafruits dot fm..