Hey, y’all! Good to see you. It’s Tuesday, and you know what that means; it’s once again time for Talkie Time and The Jazz Program on your favorite radio station, datafruits.fm!
Let’s see what we’ve got playing tonight…
Talkie Time: The New Adventures Of Nero Wolfe - Killer Cards / Calculated Risk
This is an advert for the Nero Wolfe comic strip, not the radio play. The Daily Cartoonist and The Stripper's Guide both have some fantastic write-ups on this obscure piece of both detective fiction and comic strip history, and I highly recommend giving both a read.
Look, I’m gonna be honest with you here; I’m a bit under the weather mentally these days. Got a touch of the SADs, perhaps, or maybe it’s the global descent into fascism, surveillance, and dystopia as we all hurtle ourselves into a future filled with global climate catastrophe, genocide, and mass extinction events. Y’know. Probably one of those.
Regardless, I’m fuckin depressed, and like many depressed Internet denizens, I like to decompress by enjoying my Blorbo Shows and laughing at the Blorbos In My Shows. Unfortunately for you, I also happen to have a show that I can inflict said Blorbos upon you with. Fortunately for you, I have good taste.
Two of those beloved blorbos of mine, as fans of Talkie Time know, are Archie Goodwin and Nero Wolfe, crime-solving cohabitators who totally aren’t gay for each other. Definitely not. Only thing Nero Wolfe puts his mouth anywhere near is fine food and booze, and Archie is neither of those.
We’ve got two episodes worth of these goobers for you this evening, starting off with “Killer Cards”, originally aired on January 12, 1951. In this one, Archie Goodwin gets kidnapped and held as ransom by goons who use his life as a down payment to convince Nero to take up a case of murder at a card table. No, again, this somehow isn’t gay. Probably. Don’t look at me like that. I know you have an AO3 account. Go be the change you want to see in the world somewhere else. We have a show to run.
Next up, it’s “The Bashful Body”, originally aired on December 29, 1950, where….you know what, I’m just gonna let you have your jokes and make you tune in to find out. Plot involves the two of them going to get flowers. Hush your mouth.
The Jazz Program: Naked City - Live At The Knitting Factory, NYC, September 18, 1993
A while back, we played Midori here on The Jazz Program. At the time, it was the craziest thing we’d played since the show came back on the air in January. Tonight, we fix that by playing something even more up the fuckin wall.
If you don’t know who John Zorn is, you’re going to find out by force tonight. The head of legendary avant-garde label Tzadik Records and leader of Painkiller, Masada, Moonchild, and many other exttreme (and extremely fascinating) bands, Zorn is a force of nature in the New York scene and somehow an even bigger force of nature when you hand him his sax and a mic.
Tonight’s focus will be his jazz-grind outfit Naked City. You could not make up a more up-my-alley band; they’re named after a 1948 crime film, took their first album’s cover art from a Weegee photograph, and feature screamin’ demon Yamanaka Eye on vocals. These cats make my beloved Dillinger Escape Plan look like schoolgirls on the hardcore front and their jazz compositions put some of the most blistering workouts we’ve played on this program to shame.
And tonight, ripped direct from the soundboards at The Knitting Factory in NYC, we’ve got one of the last shows they ever performed. Two full sets worth of some of their craziest material, starting with the entirety of the title track to Grand Guignol and only getting nuttier from there. Tune in and get your ears ripped clean off.
That’s all for this week! Thank you so much for reading, and I do hope you enjoy tonight’s show. I’m finally settled in enough to give you some all new programming tonight, and hopefully that’ll be a trend that continues.
Speaking of which: 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..
Footnotes…