Podcast 406 :"I Have a Dream"

Jazz speaks for life. The Blues tell the story of life's difficulties, and if you think for a moment, you will realize that they take the hardest realities of life and put them into music, only to come out with some new hope or sense of triumph. This is triumphant music. Modern jazz has continued in this tradition, singing the songs of a more complicated urban existence. When life itself offers no order and meaning, the musician creates an order and meaning from the sounds of the earth which flow through his instrument. -        Martin Luther King, Jr., in a letter used for the program in the 1964 Berlin Jazz Festival Today America honors the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday, and given that just 50 years ago this fall he delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, I created a jazz-driven sonic collage using portions of that speech. Podcast 406 includes appropriate musical selections including: Bobby Watson & the "I Have a Dream" Project - "MLK on Jazz (Love Transforming)" from Check Cashing Day. Clifford Jordan – “Martin Luther King, Jr. / I Know Love” from Zodiac: The Music of Cecil Payne. Paul Dunham, Tony Bianco – “Reverend King” from Thank You to John Coltrane. John Coltrane – “Alabama (Takes 4 and 5)” from The Complete Impulse Recordings. Kendrick Scott Oracle – “I Have a Dream” from Conviction. Oliver Nelson – “Martin Was a Man, A Real Man” from A Dream Deferred.