A lot of people probably don’t think of jazz as something that’s all that funny, but there’s more than one way to get a laugh out of all things jazz that’s guaranteed to make you smile. We’ll talk with stand-up comic Jeff Cesario about how his former life as a jazz musician helps make him a better comedian, bring in our jazz historian Lewis Porter to talk about jazz’s vaudeville roots and how jazz lost its sense of humor in the 1950s, and take a look at jazz prankster Dizzy Gillespie and other jazz stories that’ll leave you smiling.
Host: Jeff Haas
Guests: Jeff Cesario, Lewis Porter
Music
- Bob Crosby “Big Noise from Winnetka”
- Cab Calloway “Twee-Twee-Tweet”
- Slim Gaillard “Potato Chips”
- George M. Cohan “You Won't Do Any Business if You Haven't Got a Band”
- Josephine Baker “C’est lui”
- Ma Rainey “Oh Papa Blues”
- Bessie Smith “Sobbin’ Hearted Blues”
- Louis Armstrong “Cake Walking Babies from Home”
- Clarence Williams “Squeeze Me”
- Lester Young “On the Sunny Side of the Street”
- Dizzy Gillespie “Dizzy Atmosphere”
- Dizzy Gillespie “Salt Peanuts”
- Dizzy Gillespie “Oop Bop Sh' Bam”
- Dizzy Gillespie “Umbrella Man”
- Carla Bley “Old MacDonald Had a Farm”
- Louis Armstrong “Heebee Jeebies”
- Charles Mingus “Spur of the Moment”
- Fats Waller “Your Feet’s Too Big”
- Thelonious Monk “Bemsha Swing”
- Count Basie “Splanky”
- Cab Calloway “Everybody Eats When They Come to My House”
- Louis Armstrong “Cheesecake”
Original Air Date: August 6, 2012
Radio broadcast produced by Lou Blouin and Jeff Haas
Radio broadcast audio engineering by Jack Conners and Brock Mormon
Podcast produced by Sam Boase-Miller and Erik Saras
Podcast audio remastering by Sam Boase-Miller
Transcripts and show notes by Erik Saras
Theme Song: Jeff Haas Trio & Friends “Giving In”
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The New Jazz Archive radio broadcasts originally sponsored by Chateau Chantal. The New Jazz Archive receives no revenue from podcast reissues of radio broadcasts.
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