Anthony Dean-Harris

It's a little weird using this space for anything other than playlists for The Line-Up and it's not like I've been using it to sum up all the writing I've been doing in various locales like I should but I did want to make a note of another project I'm undertaking. Kyla Marshell and I are putting together a blog collective/online literary journal entitled SunDryed Affairs . The site will be a collective of voices of people primarily of color. The focus of the site will mostly be whimsical essays on various topics but to put it plainly, it can be just about whatever you want it to be because I'm asking you, dear reader, to be a part of it. Check out http://sundryedaffairs.wordpress.com/, check out our submission guidelines, and be on the lookout for the greatness to come.

Hey, thanks for bearing with me for missing a week of The Line-Up. Special thanks to Kory Cook for filling in for me last week. Last week was one of only two weeks in which I've missed doing my show and one of them was a power outage. I figure missing another for South By Southwest is good enough of an excuse. This week's show is a combo "This show is awesome so please support KRTU during our annual spring pledge drive"/"Stuff I've roundaboutly run across while at SXSW" show. It's going to get weird but still pretty cool. Dig in. Menahan Street Band - Home Again! Before I went on my trip, I hipped my family to Menahan Street Band. I totally wish I could have seen their couple of shows at SXSW but maybe another time. You can hear, they are quite awesome. Sun Ra - Lanquidity I cannot say no to Sun Ra. Seriously. This song is technically too long for me to play on this show considering I have other lengthy selections in this hour. It has little t...

I rather like this show. There were some tracks that I managed to lose the night before that didn't make it in this week (really, there was one "oh, no he didn't" track that I wanted to play that would have fit perfectly but it dropped from my memory card so it will have to wait until next week) but I think this week's selections are particularly good. You be the judge. Matt Savage - Picturesque The computer picked it, but you know how I am about computer selections. We keep a good library for a reason. Jason Moran - RFK in the Land of Apartheid I'm often finding myself coming back to this song. It'll make me stop what I'm doing to dance and whistle to it. It's that serious. Rudresh Mahanthappa & Bunky Green - Eastern Echoes This is here largely because it seems like the logical fit for the following track. This whole set was formed around the new Vijay Iyer that follows these tracks. Vijay Iyer feat. Prasanna & Nitin Mitta - Dualit...

This is actually the first time in a few weeks in which I walked into the studio without a concept for a show already in mind. Fortunately, I managed to pull together some more new stuff from some folks I've been playing lately and the computer also got my back this week by throwing in some pretty choice cuts. Altogether, your standard awesome jazz show out of San Antonio. Kyle Eastwood - Hot Box This was a computer selection but I rather like the idea of the son of Clint Eastwood as a jazz bassist with a song called "Hot Box." The Trio of Oz - I Will Possess Your Heart This one came up out of scrolling through the new additions to the computer. First, the name of the group caught my eye but once I saw this title, I thought to myself, "They can't really be doing what I think they're doing. Really?" They totally are. Austin Peralta - Ode to Love 1) Yes, I'm still loving this album and will likely be tossing it around in my head come December wh...

I don't think I have much of a theme for this week other than this being a collection of mostly new music that I got in this week. Actually, some of it is new and some of it has just been waiting for the opportunity to come to light. Brad Mehldau - Lithium The moment I'm done putting this playlist together, I'm going to tear this station apart until I find this album and rip it to my BlackBerry to have for my very own. It's new and I neeeeeed it. Nicholas Payton - Freesia feat. Esperanza Spalding If you do a standard Google, you'll run across this mixtape somewhere out there in the Wild West that is the Internet. It's free so you might as well put a little work into it. Also, it's still waiting for confirmation but Payton just got on Twitter and he is nothing if not entertaining (like hearing him talk or hearing his music). Mister Barrington - Wrong Number! I've been waiting for Owen Biddle of The Roots to get on a project like this, so I was rea...

It is a glorious day. Radiohead pulled the okey-doke on us all and released The King of Limbs a day in advance. I actually had planned to play this album in th mic breaks this evening anyway since I hoped to get the album around noon (since that's about midnight in England) but the push up in release made things much simpler. It's a good album. Not their best, but good. But I'm gushing too much about non-jazz issues. Here's this week's Line-Up. Benjamin Drazen - Inner Flights I just got Drazen's Inner Flights album this week and thought it was pretty good. It's pretty straight ahead but nice. You'll hear more of this in the future more than likely. Josh Moshier & Mike Lebrun - King's Road I've been feeling saxophone/piano combos lately so Moshier/Lebrun have come up. I like this pair and I like what they're rolling out with next even more. Austin Peralta - Capricornus The works of the Brainfeeder label have still been stuck on m...

I had an idea that I wanted to carry out for this week's Line-Up based largely on Flying Lotus' takeover of Benji B's show on BBC radio a couple of weeks ago. I listened to this set recently and I felt my life changing. I was rethinking jazz and radio and music in general and I just had to bring some of that vibe to The Line-Up this week. I think this is the most chill I've ever sounded on the radio. This may have been one of my favorite shows to have ever put together. Plus, I finally figured out how to play music in the background of my talking! Boy, is that ever complicated. Ralph Bowen - Drumheller Valley I always say that if you really want to impress me musically, get at me in my commute, especially while walking. If I can really feel walking to your song, you'll essentially open me up to the rest of your work. Bowen's "Drumheller Valley" showed up on my BlackBerry on shuffle (like everything else I play) and really moved my commute one day ...