Airwaves

by Brian Goslow

New England Cable News is running a series on the region's rave scene. Unlike the earlier '60s psychedelic scene, most of the people behind the sounds are faceless. Despite endless hype of the oncoming electronica revolution in Spin and Rolling Stone, how many of those groups and DJs can you name? What are the odds of being able to match the music with the maker? Non-commercial radio has long been the home to DJs capable of mixing long streams of music into an inter-global journey of the mind, but you normally would be served with a mixture of the familiar and the unknown. That's all changed, leaving your imagination in the hands of the host. Locally, that person is Kool Breeze, host of Technosis, which airs early Saturday mornings from 12:30 to 2 a.m. on WCUW (91.3 FM). He plays international techno music "from London to China," including trance music imported from the United Kingdom. "House for your brain, your mind, and especially your soul."

A FEW HOURS and several cups of coffee later, jazz maestro Kyle Warren, no less a painter of sounds, hosts the Saturday edition of A Tasteful Blend, which airs from 6 to 10 a.m. on WICN (90.5 FM). Last week's program included selections from Michael Weiss's Power Station, Jeff Kaiser's "Turn up the Choir" (spotlighting vocalist Diana Kroll), Nicholas Payton's "A Touch of Silver" from Payton's Place (Verve), featuring Joshua Redman on tenor sax, and Dexter Gordon's "Fried Bananas" from his 1977 release Sophisticated Giants (Sony Music), which sounded as hot as the day it was recorded. Also sounding fresh were the Contemporary Piano Ensemble, composed of four pianists (James Williams, Harold Mabern, Mulgrew Miller, and Geoff Keezer, who was spotlighted on Dizzy Gillespie and Kenny Clark's "Salt Peanuts"). The tropics was represented by the Latin Jazz Orchestra's "Afrodisiac" and David Sanchez's Obsesion (Sony Music).

Ernestine Anderson, whose big booming voice fills rooms, contributed "I'll Be Seeing You?" from Now and Then (WEA/Warner Bros./Quest). And if you really think Big Bad Voodoo Daddy are happening, you should check out a CD or two by this group Warren played with called the Benny Goodman Orchestra. Never heard of them? Ask your parents.

Warren also premiered area-guitarist Troy Neilson's just-released CD, Live at Luna d'Oro, featuring his take on Billy Hitchcock's "Ichibar." Neilson's spent the past decade paying his dues at area clubs, concert halls, and bookstore cafes, first with various outfits at WPI, then with Tridekduonoto and Swing Swang Swung!, and currently as a solo artist and member of the Clemente Guitar Ensemble and Ten String Swing.

DO THE TWO AFOREMENTIONED musical genres ever meet? They do on the Internet on France's Radio FG Paris (www.nirvanet.com), "a global network for local nomads." The site manages to mix pounding electro-beats and French humor with extended versions of Fatboy Slim's "Rockafella Skank," the rockabilly-meets-techno "funk soul brothers" single by former Housemartins bassist Norman Cook, which should be the song that pushes electronica into the American mainstream. All of which sets you up for the unexpected shock (and undeniable pleasure) of hearing Ella Fitzgerald's "A Tisket, A Tasket." Cutting edge indeed!