Episode 33: Adam Wilke
When I told my good buddy in Maine that I was preparing to do a Badass Records Podcast episode with Adam Wilke, he asked me to let him know when it dropped as he'd always considered today's guest as something of an "exotic mystery," and when I heard that, I thought he'd nailed it. Or at least I could see how someone who'd only met him once would say that.
Now, though...things're different.
Now, I've had Adam Wilke in the chair, and -- I gotta tell ya' -- I consider myself a lucky dude for having had this opportunity.
I've always wondered if and when jazz would work its way into my life, and were it to, would it stay. I still swim around in that same lake of curiosity, but I feel closer to it now. Its depths seem less unknown, its waters once murkier. I feel compelled to depart from the single-Sonos-in-the-kitchen situation, to return to the exploration of a household sound system. The notion of filling multiple rooms with jazz rattles around in my brain, suggests the added perk of education.
Anyway, Episode #33 -- or as I like to call it, The Zdeno Chara episode -- was really fun.
Adam's had a fascinating go of things, and once you've had a listen, I think you'll agree: We gotta get this guy giggin' again!
But before I get ahead of myself, it's important to own the fuck-ups, first. Long story short, a camera crapped out on me (again), and I skipped one of my guest's records (again). And I had to figure out a way to be okay with it so that the show could -- as they say -- go on. So, that's what I'm doing.
I hope I've figured out a way to avoid SD cards frying out on me for now, and I need to be a little more careful with my preparation approach, but even if I iron out those wrinkles, I'm certain to make errors in other ways down the road. It's an imperfect thing, this process, when you're the one doing it all. And none of those goofs or gaffes make the thing any less fun or cool (to me), so...gotta roll with it.
Adam and I examined the following records, though:
Ellington at Newport (1956)
Monk Plays Ellington (1956)
Full House (1962) by Wes Montgomery
Grant Green's Idle Moments (1965)
Sinatra at the Sands featuring The Count Basie Orchestra (1966)
Miles by the Miles Davis Quintet (1956)
Cookin' with the Miles Davis Quintet (1957)
Relaxin' with the Miles Davis Quintet (1958)
Workin' with the Miles Davis Quintet (1960)
Miles Smiles, the Miles Davis Quintet (1967)
B.B. King's Live at the Regal (1965) was part of the gig, too, but I accidentally overlooked it in transferring Adam's list from one place to another to another. I'm checkin' it out now, though, and you should, too. He also said he'd been into anything by Charlie Parker, Red Garland, McCoy Tyner, and Tito Puente, so I dug in to Jam Session (1952), Feelin' Red (1979), The Real McCoy (1967), and 1957's Night Beat, respectively, so that we could chew the fat on those cats for a second or two.
And that was that. I knew we wouldn't (or shouldn't) and definitely couldn't get through all of these in too brief a fashion, so the thing ran just over the four-hour mark. I know it's a big ask, and I know that I'm potentially losing some people with that kind of time stamp. I've considered breaking episodes up into parts for a shorter run time, but then I think about spreading a chat like this one across four weeks and I wonder how much people would look forward to tuning back in and picking up where we've left off, and I wonder how much folks might forget from one week to the next. So, I guess I'm sticking with the big, long drops for now.
This was such good fun, though. I hope you find it enjoyable, too. If you'd like to join for an episode or you know someone that'd be a good fit, please reach out via comment, e-mail, D.M., text, phone call. Whatever works. Whether you acknowledge it or not, the world deserves to hear your story. And theirs, too.
Thank you.
copyright disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the intro/outro audio. They are samples from a tune called, "The Browns at Home" by The Greyboy Allstars from their 1994 record called West Coast Boogaloo (c/o Knowledge Room Recordings).