Hartford Advocate Jazz Listings: April 1978

While cleaning out some boxes the other day I came upon an old Hartford Advocate from April 12, 1978. The Jazz, Rock and Pop listings made me wish I could go back in time and catch some of these shows John Zorn and Eugene Chadbourn, Phil Woods, Al DiMeola, Oliver Lake, And Lee Konitz. Unfortunately I had never heard of any of these people in April 1978.

Hartford Advocate Jazz Listings for April 12, 1978
Hartford Advocate Jazz Listings for April 12, 1978

I posted the clipping of Tower of Power mostly because of the Logo art for Jim Koplik and Shelly Finkel. I also included the listing below Lee Konitz because of Fountain Head (sic) and Firefox. Of course the Shaboo ad has Rhode Island’s own Roomful of Blues no doubt still with Duke Robillard on guitar at that time and Connecticut’s Eight to the Bar who also still perform.

koplik-5-12-78lee-konitz-5-12-78

shaboo-5-12-78

One of the things that I do at Jazz New England is to try to dig up some of the regional jazz lore. I grew up in Connecticut and came of age in the mid to late 1970s. I came to love jazz in a large part because there was so much jazz in Hartford, often for free. That and the fact that as WPLR and WHCN turned from early freeform FM to more commercial Album Oriented Rock I listened more and more to WWUH that played Jazz, Fusion and Progressive rock. Even before I was old enough to go to clubs there were the Peace Train and Monday Night Jazz concerts in Bushnell park and the events at Real Art Ways that all featured world class and cutting edge performers.

I’m a Rhode Islander now and Rhode Island has it’s own jazz culture and history which is suprisingly different from it’s neighbor. In the future I’ll explore it’s idiosyncrasies. Eventually I’d like to include all of New England but for now I’m going to go with what I know.

Greg Abate, Touring and a Live Album Recorded at Chan’s

Greg Abate
Greg Abate
Greg's Sextet at Chan's
Greg’s Sextet at Chan’s

Greg Abate is best known as an alto saxophonist although he also plays soprano, tenor, baritone and flute. In his earlier career Greg played with Ray Charles and the Artie Shaw Orchestra as well as the seminal RI groups the Duke Belaire Orchestra and the fusion group Channel One which he also led. He started his solo recording career in 1990 and since then has worked mainly in the straight ahead and bop idioms.

We talked about his upcoming gigs and double live album with Phil Woods and his Sextet date at Chan’s later this month, also touring in the UK, Europe and the Florida and recording with Red Rodney in the 1990s. His Most recent Album is Motif on Whaling City Records.

I’d like to thank Greg for his great patience and good humor. There were actually two interviews that went into the making of this. The first was actually the better of the two. We talked about his recent tour of the UK in more depth and the second Channel One album that was recorded and lost. The sound quality was better too. Unfortunately there was a recording failure and his side of the conversation was lost.

http://www.gregabate.com/

http://whalingcitysound.com/wcs070.htm