"Acid jazz" is a genre that has been used to describe a large variety of different artists and sounds over the years, but I feel it can be divided neatly into two categories. On one side we have experimental jazz bands (usually featuring a Hammond organ) that dabble in soul, funk and R&B, (sometimes incorporating synthesizers, turntables or other electronic sounds into the groove). And on the other side we've got DJ’s and electronic music producers that combine jazz, funk and soul samples with hip-hop and house beats. 

On this Saturday night's edition of the After Hours we’ll be listening to some of my favorite examples of that first category.  I’ll be playing some Shimmy: an album released last year as the result of a collaboration between Billy Martin (from Medeski Martin and Wood) on drums and Wil Blades on the Hammond B3 organ.  I’ve been really digging this album and think it’s amazing the grooves these guys can pump out as just an organ/drum duo. On top of that we’ll be hearing from The Greyboy Allstars, Heavy Shift, The RH Factor, Ronny Jordan, James Taylor Quartet, John Scofield, Marc Johnson’s Bass Desires and many more. If you can get down with some experimental jazz-funk-soul fusion then don't miss it (streamed live 10pm-12am CTZ right here on KRUU). Also, if you want to ckeck out the flipside of acid jazz (DJs that spin jazz, funk, hip-hop and house together) then look out for my show next week (05/25) when we'll be listening to Amon Tobin, St. Germain, Parov Stelar, Mr. Scruff, Blockhead, Skalpel and Herbaliser among others. Enjoy ;)

Black voices in 1968 were all over the charts. The music was as diverse as the first names by which we still know it today: Aretha, Otis, Marvin, Sam, Dave, Dionne, Diana, Stevie, and Sly.

And the music wasn't just soul music; it was creative souls making all kinds of music. [that's Otis Redding, left]

This week, my show will get you immersed in the palpable melodies of Stevie Wonder, feel the kick and drive of James Brown, and pulse with the reggae rhythms of Johnny Nash.

The playlist is 17 songs.

In my time of uncertainty
I'm searching for serenity
Shattered soul, how to make it whole
Won't someone tell me how?
~ Simple is Beautiful, Violette

A French native singer-songwriter living in New York, Violette was trained in classical piano as a young child.  She began writing her own songs at the age of 15 and has just released her third album, Simple is Beautiful.  Moving out of her roots in jazz to a more pop-rock sound, the album is both simple and beautiful, with just enough instrumentation to support her angelic voice without feeling sparse.

Tune in Tuesday from 9-10am Central for your weekly concentrated dose of music by female singer-songwriters! Interview with Violette at 9:30.

50 YEARS OF MUSIC - Thursdays at 9:00 AM and Sundays at 8:00 AM.

This week I'm joined by my daughter Elise, who helps choose and play soul music to turn up and enjoy. From the mid-sixties to the mid-seventies, these are songs that will make you smile, even when they're originate musically from a broken heart.

From well known and overplayed artists like the Temptations and James Brown to lesser known talents like Arthur Conley and The Shades of Blue.

Don't expect to hear Aretha Franklin sing "Respect." Instead, enjoy Otis Redding's original version, while Aretha, after one of music's most powerful 2-note intro, climb's an octave and a half in the opening 3 seconds of "Since You've Been Gone."

Fo' Immediate Release:

Ear Ye, Ear Ye!!

The Jukebox Boogaloo will now be getting your Saturday Night Soul Party started even earlier! 

Tune in at 8:00 pm (Central) for the rarest and rawest deep cuts of Soul, Funk, R & Beyond, with your host,

The Prince O'Wails,

keepin' it Surreal on the Wheels of Steel.

[SOUL PRODUCT moves to 10pm Saturdays]

Yet another all time great has passed away during our watch atop the KRUU-Soul Silo. Isaac Lee Hayes, Jr. one of the greatest songwriters of the 60's Soul era and later an icon of 70's Funk, died at the age of 65 on August 10th. So tonight (Saturday, 8/16, 10pm - 12) The Prince O'Wails and the Jukebox Boogaloo Krew take on the sad but refunkifying task of paying tribute to the man who cowrote some of the most instantly recognizable songs of the fabled Stax/Volt studio (including "Soul Man") even before he secured immortality with the Mack Daddy toasting over hat-hight-and-wah-wah groove of "Shaft." We've made a special effort to track down and acquire Isaac's definitive long-groove LP's, "Hot Buttered Soul" and "Black Moses" just for this show. So join us for two hours of Hayes-----Isaac Hayes.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Soul Brothers and Soul Sisters, Funkateers of every race, creed, age, and color of the rainbow, may we have your attention please:

It is indeed our great privilege and pleasure to announce that The Jukebox Boogaloo with the Prince O'Wails will be your new weekend star-time source for the baddest, rarest, and crate-diggin'est deep cuts of Soul, Funk, R&B, Garage, Beat, Surf, Psych, Rockabilly, and the Palm at the End of the Mind.

That's right, we'll be gettin' it ON in between your ears and underneath your pants every Saturday nite, from 10 to midnite.

It's that time of year, children: Bill O'Reilly's bloviating about the War on Christmas again, that awkward office party is just on the horizon (easy on the bourbon balls, Chucko), and we're all in frenetic robot-shopping mode. In my hometown of Hackensack, NJ, neighbors who never speak are busy trying to shame each other with Vegas-like, 20 billion kilowatt displays of pure Xtian love and pagan Santa worship on their 100 foot by 100 foot front lawns.

Which means it's time for those in the DJ business to dust off the "Christmas/Holdiay" crate and subject our listeners to a whole show of seasonal novelty tunes. When I was a snot-nosed sprout, the Christmas tunes you heard in the department store (which started in those days after Thanksgiving) were mostly the Bing Crosby/Ray Conniff stuff. Nowadays Wal-Mart is hipper and more agressive, bringing the Jingle Noize starting about September 1st and mixing in a goodly amount of boomer faves (Darlene Love anyone?) along with contemporary Kenny Chesney chestnuts. This makes the DJ's job somewhat more of a challenge. But thanks to the miracle of MP3 CDR's, there's gobs of X-mas slop on tap and mostly unheard.

The Jukebox Boogaloo, "your one-stop-shop for inter- and intra-species adult novelties and flame-retardant lingerie" (also, impossibly rare and strange FUNK, SOUL, R&B, GARAGE, GLAM, SURF, PSYCHOBILLY, and beyond) is moving just a dagnabbit closer to prime time, as The Prince O' Wails makes shift to keep it surreal on the wheels of steel Wednesday Nights from 10-11:59 PM.

Squaresville will flip and the octagon-heads will cry uncle as the Prince mercilessly pounds the airwaves with scratchy crate-diggin's from the likes of King Coleman, Bunker Hill, Spot and the Blotters, Andre Williams, Eddie Bo, and just about anything else---from Bessie Smith to Beck---that might make your evening sacrilicious and weird.

The Jukebox Boogaloo's Boogaloo Jukebox is packed this week with classic funk from the mid 60's to early 70's (and contemporary Mojo in that classic style), including plenty o' syncopated freshness from Dyke and Blazers, Bobby Byrd and the JB's, Curtis Mayfield, The Meters, The African Music Machine, Baby Huey and the Babysitters, Calypso King and the Soul Investigators, Clarence Reid, the Detroit Sex Machines, The Fantasic Johnny C, Lynn Collins, and many more.

So join the Prince on Monday Midnight, because whatsoever he plays, it's got to be FUNKY!