KSDS 88.3 Blog

By Matt Silver

You ever have a stretch of days where everything — every task, every responsibility, every obligation whether big or small — just feels way harder, way more fraught with obstacles and landmines than it ought to?

Hi there, Matt Silver of KSDS coming to you from our innovation labs here on the campus of San Diego City College with good news and bad. Here’s the bad: despite our best efforts, time travel remains only theoretically possible at this time. Decreased government funding of public media has all but guaranteed that our time machine development project won’t be ready for the next pledge drive. 

The good news is that here at KSDS, we’re mighty resourceful.

Saxophonist, composer, and arranger Jack Montrose, pictured here in 1954. His arrangements would be recorded that year by ensembles led by Chet Baker and Clifford Brown. Photo by William Claxton.

By Matt Silver

A man with talent wants the world. Even if he’s too modest or mannered to announce it aloud, or to himself, there’s a part of him that sees one possible future where everything breaks his way. But what does such a man deserve? Maybe it’s fair, if harsh, to say that he doesn’t deserve anything. That no one deserves anything. But if you’ve some combination of natural talent, acquired skill, and the nerve to open yourself to the world’s judgment, all you can really ask for is a window of a few years to show what you’re capable of, come what may. 

By Matt Silver

By my rough count, this past week’s broadcast was the 50th distinct episode of Breaking Jazz to air here on KSDS. I hope you’ve found the programming to be fresh yet familiar, comfortable yet adventurous, clever yet heartfelt, athletic yet soulful. 

I hope you’ve encountered here virtuosity that’s more than just an intellectually stimulating exercise in sound. Virtuosity in service of tuneful music making. Music to help you better grasp for a moment’s peace or excitement or transcendence or whatever makes life awe-inspiring or worthwhile for you personally. 

Anyone who’s watched Seth McFarlane’s “Family Guy” knows his love for both the Sinatra and Great American Songbooks runs deep. It also comes as no surprise that such a brilliant voiceover artist is one heck of a singer!

By Matt Silver

With his new album, Lush Life: The Lost Sinatra Arrangements, Seth McFarlane walks the musical roads Sinatra left untaken, singing a dozen charts that were originally written for the Chairman — by Nelson Riddle, Billy May, and Don Costa — but never recorded. Anyone who's ever watched Family Guy knows of McFarlane's abiding love for and encyclopedic knowledge of 20th century music and culture, most particularly popular song and dance. But, for as much recognition as he receives for brilliance as a producer, actor, illustrator, comedian, and voice actor — all of which is deserved — McFarlane might also reasonably be called one of the most astute pop cultural historians and commentators of our time.

Don’t miss SING! SING! SING! THIS Saturday morning, June 28, at 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET, when host Will Friedwald interviews the brilliant writer, actor, comedian, and vocalist Seth McFarlane.

Seth McFarlane, the brilliant writer, actor, illustrator, voiceover artist and comedic mind behind Family Guy, Ted, The Orville, and A Million Ways to Die in the West, also happens to be a wonderful vocal interpreter of American popular song.

Terence Blanchard has composed original music for over 80 motion pictures; for his efforts, he’s been nominated for two Academy Awards.

By Matt Silver

Versatility is one thing; possessing the aptitude to match a boundless musical curiosity is another. Leonard Bernstein had both; Terence Blanchard also has both. Bernstein’s jazz-infused compositions for stage and symphony orchestra bridged jazz and classical music in boundary-breaking new ways, lending credence to his senior thesis at Harvard, in which he asserted that “jazz is the universal basis of American composition.” Blanchard, in a career now in its fifth decade, has consistently expanded upon Bernstein’s thesis, riffing on classical motifs with his Grammy-winning jazz ensembles and enlivening operas, symphony orchestras, and scores upon scores of (film) scores by reminding audiences that jazz is not just an idiomatic musical language; it’s also, in the right hands, an unforgettably moving narrative tool.

”Le Chat Dans Le Sac” is a 1966 French Canadian film in the style of the French New Wave, in part about the disintegration of a young couple's relationship. With music by John Coltrane.

By Matt Silver

At just 37 minutes, and comprising eight takes of only five distinct tunes, it’s hard to categorize John Coltrane’s Blue World as an album, per se.

That doesn’t make it any less spectacular.

Issued by Impulse! Records in Sept. 2019, Blue World constitutes previously unreleased recordings from John Coltrane and his classic quartet at the very peak of the their powers and cohesiveness as a unit.

On Wed., April 30, Jazz 88 will celebrate International Jazz Day 2025 by spinning selections illuminating the truly global reach of jazz. Matt Silver got a head start on the April 27 edition of “Breaking Jazz.”

By Matt Silver 

I host a new jazz release show on Sunday evenings called "Breaking Jazz," where, each week, I bring you the music and musicians of the moment — jazz as it’s being played today. This past Sunday evening, on "Breaking Jazz," I celebrated International Jazz Day 2025. I realize I was three days early to the party, but "Breaking Jazz" is but a humble weekly program; wait 'til next week, and, by then, the ship's way too far out of port.

If you’re talking about the greatest jazz big bands ever assembled, the conversation is neither fully credible nor complete without including The Terry Gibbs Dream Band. 

Killer charts by some of the greatest arrangers ever: Bill Holman, Bob Brookmeyer, Al Cohn, Shorty Rogers, Lennie Neihaus, and Marty Paich. Drum-tight ensemble playing. Solos like smart bombs: devastatingly explosive and precisely controlled. And a propulsive yet economical rhythm section. Nothing superfluous. Burning hot, yet ALWAYS cool.