Bill Frisell’s Big Sur will resonate with KUSP listeners on many levels. The accomplished guitarist was commissioned to write the suite for the 2012 Monterey Jazz Festival; indeed, he wrote the piece at Glen Deven Ranch in Big Sur early last year. The Saturday-night premiere of “Big Sur” – then titled Music of Glen Deven Ranch was a highlight of the 2012 festival (and which listeners to KUSP’s coverage of the festival will have heard on the radio). Frisell has just this week released a recording of the Big Sur suite, joined by the same “Big Sur Quintet” with which he performed the music in Monterey: violinist Jenny Scheinman, viola player Eyvind Kang, cellist Hank Roberts and drummer Rudy Royston. The complicity borne of long musical association with each of these musicians is a particular strength of the new record (available from Okeh Records).
Vampire Weekend has graduated with full honors this time on their new third album, “Modern Vampires of the City”. What a huge and mature leap forward this is for the New York foursome who have created here 12 brilliant tracks of infectious pop rock. It’s a perfect summer album featuring one of the catchiest songs of the year “Ya Hey”. Very clever indeed.
With some 30 solo albums to his credit, there’s one thing you can always count on when it comes to jazz guitarist John Scofield – don’t count on anything! Scofield’s always going to do something completely new and different. That what makes this guitarist so unique and fresh. Scofield’s always on the quest for new sounds and musical directions – be it straight ahead jazz, gospel-blues, funk-electronica or something that sounds downright close to rock and roll – he’s a hell’uva slide player too!
President Obama encourages people to sign up for health insurance exchanges in San Jose, Calif., on June 6. Photo: Stephen Lam/Getty Images
The Affordable Care Act reaches full implementation in 2014 so what will it do for you or to you? NPR’s Julie Rovner will be gathering listener questions about the new law over the summer. Email your questions toMorningEdition@npr.org.
In the rolling Monterey hills of federally protected Fort Ord, soldiers bound for World War II, Korea, Vietnam and Panama got their first taste of combat. The base closed in 1994, but the land – now a prime hiking and cycling destination – still bears reminders of 77 years of army use.
Monterey County’s Strategic Plan to End Gang Violence says the problem costs $207,000,000 annually. As the county looks to new approaches to youth crime, KUSP’s Laura Flynn has this profile of the Silver Star Resource Center, where the county has found its most recent success.
Photo: Makoto Morisawa. Courtesy of the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art, College of Charleston School of the Arts.
Now Showing through August 25, 2013
From the Monterey Museum of Art:
“Motoi Yamamoto is an internationally acclaimed contemporary Japanese artist from Hiroshima, Japan, who creates elaborate, site-specific installations made entirely out of salt. Often in the form of large-scale labyrinths or aerial projections of typhoons, Yamamoto takes one of the earth’s oldest, most sought-after mineral elements to cover the entire gallery floors during a two-week residency at the Monterey Museum of Art—Pacific Street location.Read the rest of this entry »
Twenty Feet from Stardom, filmmaker Morgan Neville’s new documentary, is a reminder that most of pop music’s catchiest hooks, riffs and refrains were sung by voices harmonizing in the background. Neville says he wanted to put backup singers — black, female and honed in church — front and center.
“I was really more interested in people who were voices for hire,” he says, “who were able to walk into sessions never knowing what they had to do and could bring it.”
Bring it like Merry Clayton did for The Rolling Stones. In the documentary, she talks about going into the studio at 2 a.m., very pregnant with curlers in her hair, to add a kick to the iconic lick in “Gimme Shelter.”
(Send your images that you would allow us to post to: photo [at] kusp [dot] org)
by J.D. Hillard
KUSP asked listeners to send photos of water waste, conservation and the benefits of reliable water. These picture will help us report on this topic online. For an idea of what we were looking for here are some I collected recently in fields off Highway 1 south of Watsonville.
First Waste:
Water spills onto an access road where sprinklers water seedlings. Photo: J.D. Hillard
I’m ignorant about a lot of things in agriculture. So I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that equipment that would water these seedlings without spilling either doesn’t exist or is prohibitively expensive. But that muddy stream running down the access road seemed to right on target in our hunt for images of water waste. If you can give your image these allowance this story is all around – just look for water that isn’t directly serving people or habitat.
A recent community feedback meeting for the Santa Cruz desalination plant’s environmental impact report drew much opposition comment and some support for the project. Photo: Wes Sims
The Santa Cruz Sentinel reports the Soquel Creek Water District is dropping its membership with CalDesal, a statewide group advocating for the development of desalination and desalination technology to help address water shortfalls. Read the rest of this entry »
