It’s late within the night of Saturday, October twenty eighth, 1989. You flip on the television and the saxophonist David Sanborn seems onscreen, instrument in hand, introducing the eclectic blues icon Taj Mahal, who in flip declares his intent to play a number with “rural humor” and “world professionalportions.” And so he does, which leads into performances by Todd Rundgren, Nanci Griffith, the Pat Metheny Group, and professionalto-turntablisting Christian Marclay (greatest recognized at the moment for his 24-hour montage The Clock). On the finish of the present — after a vintage clip of Rely Basie from 1956 — eachone will get again onstage for an all-together-now rendition of “Never Thoughts the Why and The placefore” from H.M.S. Pinafore.
This was a roughly typical episode of Night time Music, which aired on NBC from 1988 to 1990, and in that point supplied “a number of the strangest musical line-ups ever broadforged on internetwork television.” So writes E. Little at In Sheep’s Fabricing Hello-Fi, who names only a few of its perkinders: “Sonic Youth, Miles Davis, the Residents, Charlie Haden and His Liberation Orchestra, Kronos Quartet, Pharoah Sanders, Karen Mantler, Diamanda Galas, John Lurie, and Nana Vasconcelos.”
One especially memorable broadforged featured “a 15-minute interview-performance by Solar Ra’s Arkestra that finds the composer-pianist-Afrofuturist on the peak of his experimalestal powers, moving from piano to Yamaha DX‑7 and again once more whereas the Arkestra flexes its cosmic muscles.”
“Sanborn hosted the eminently hip TV present,” writes jazz journalist Invoice Milkowski in his remembrance of the late saxman, who died final weekfinish, “not solely professionalviding informative introductions but additionally sitting in with the bands.” One night time may see him playing with Al Jarreau, Paul Simon, Marianne Religionfull, Bootsy Collins, the Purple Scorching Chili Peppers, Dizzy Gillespie, — or certainly, some not likely combination of such artists. “The thought of that present was that genres are secondary, an artificial division of music that actually isn’t necessary; that musicians have extra in common than people anticipate,” Sanborn advised DownBeat in 2018. “We wished to repredespatched that by having a present the place Leonard Cohen may sing a track, Sonny Rollins may play a track, after which they may do somefactor together.”
Having needed to pursue that concept further because the present’s cancellation — not the easiest activity, given his ever-busy schedule of reside performances and documenting sessions throughout the musical spectrum — he created the YouTube channel Sanborn Sessions just a few years in the past, a few of whose movies have been re-uploaded in current weeks. However a lot additionally stays to be discovered within the archives of the original Night time Music for broad-minded music lovers below the age of about 60 — or certainly, for these over that age who never tuned in again within the late eighties, a time period that’s lately are available in for a cultural re-evaluation. Due to this YouTube playlist, you possibly can watch greater than 40 broadcasts of Night time Music (which was at first titled Solarday Night time) and listen prefer it’s 1989.
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Primarily based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His initiatives embody the Substack newsletter Books on Cities, the guide The Statemuch less Metropolis: a Stroll via Twenty first-Century Los Angeles and the video collection The Metropolis in Cinema. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Faceguide.