Does anyone else remember that David Sanborn-hosted music show on NBC from the late '80s?

!!!

The Marclay thing was a real eye-opener for me too. I read the review of Record Without A Cover in Spin Magazine back in 1985 and it took nearly four years to finally hear what his musicdamage sounded like. I made my own tape collage shortly after.

The Greatest Lite Jazz Album of the Last Twenty Years

http://www.digitalinterviews.com/digitalinterviews/views/sanborn.shtml

DI: You produced one of the finest television variety shows, Night Music. How did that come about?

DS: I'd been doing a syndicated radio show. My manager and I had been talking about trying to do a TV show. There was a series of shows back in the '50s, where they'd get a bunch of musicians together and they'd jam. You know, Lester Young, Billie Holiday, Coleman Hawkins -- people would sit around and jam. You could see them sitting around and talking, and people would get up and play. You could see the cameras going around. I loved that informality of that; it was very non-proscenium oriented. We thought, "Wouldn't it be great to update that idea?" We gradually started developing this idea for a show, where people would come on and not do their latest hit; have a lot of collaboration. We had a lot of people from different genres come on and show how music connects up. I'm one of those people that wants to bring a lot of disparate elements together. Then we got Lorne Michaels involved as a producer on the show, and he got us Michelob as a sponsor. That was really how we were able to bring that off for a couple of years.

DI: Which performances from the show stick in your mind?

DS: Sonny Rollins, Was Not Was, and Leonard Cohen was a great one. Oh god, there were so many of them -- having Phil Woods on there; having Hank Crawford on there, who was my idol.

DI: You also showed classic film clips on the program?

DS: We showed old film clips of Louis Jordan, Thelonious Monk stuff, old footage of Mingus, and a lot of stuff from European TV. We'd show these clips of these great old jazz musicians. Then we'd have people on like the Pixies. Sonic Youth's first television appearance was on the show. We had Sun Ra and Al Green together -- that was a trip. We had a group called The Residents -- kind of "German Dada-Expressionist-Cabinet of Doctor Calagari." (laughs) They did "Let Me Be Your Teddy Bear" as a primal scream number. We had them and Conway Twitty. That was a trip. That's the one that blew the sponsors out.

#19
Guests: Fareed Haque, Rufus Thomas, Bill Frisell Band, Mary Magaret O'Hara, Sting, Carla Thomas

Songs:
When You Know You're Happy (Mary M. O'Hara)

http://www.tcpunk.com/ubb/Forum6/HTML/000156.html

Did Ann M. ever tour with Bongwater? When they played the Entry (opening for Redd Kross?? was that who they played with??) she wasn't with 'em but even without her their set was surprisingly good.

She WAS there, however, for one of the more surreal televised music events that I've ever seen... Bongwater on Night Music. Their bit started out with a noisy free-for-all that was the audio backdrop for Screaming Jay Hawkins(!) as he adlibbed some crazy mumble-jumble that included the phrase 'You dont love me yet'. And as soon as he stepped back the band abruptly started into a majestic version of Roky's 'You Don't Love Me Yet'. Furthermore, the regular Kramer/Rick Bongwater lineup was, this night, augmented by Rob Wasserman on upright bass, Hiram Bullock, Rob Weir (of the Grateful Dead) and three female backup singers who went by the name Pussywillows. Dave Rick was decked out in a mod dress and Ann Magnuson looked (and sang) like she was heaven sent. insane.

Screamin' Jay Hawkins was there, too. I'd completely forgotten about that.

The Pussywillows from Hoboken, NJ, the leader of which gained further acclaim for animating Ren & Stimpy and undergoing a solo career under the name April March. The Pussywillows back Yo La Tengo on their cover of Rex Garvin's "Emulisified" on their 1990 covers album Fakebook. The Gibson Bros. (or was it '68 Comeback) covered the same song around the same time and put it out as a single.

RIP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iO6OvHxD_m8

This thread predates YouTube, so let's post some clips in tribute!

Bob Weir, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Bongwater & The Pussywillows

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Z-fRXyVK6E

...plus Rob Wasserman

Sanborn, Van Dyke Parks, Stevie Ray Vaughan & Maria McKee covering Little Feat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCcO7gMmIEM

Sanborn, Patti Austin, Donald Fagen & many more Jazz All-Stars doing "I.G.Y."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEdSCoK-geE

re. david sanborn (r.i.p. dog): was night music the best live music show to air on american tv? gotta be top five at least. like sure there's some m.o.r. junk in there, but imagine just flipping through the channels and randomly catching sun ra or pere ubu or diamanda galas pic.twitter.com/3g6RMw5fU0

— Jess Harvell (@cheaptrickrules) May 13, 2024

https://www.brooklynvegan.com/32-videos-of-hal-willners-80s-series-night-music-that-display-his-gift-for-weird-amazing-collaborations/

Hal Willner picked the music

funny (in a sad way) that sanborn's co-host was jools holland and that this (when it ended in 1990) was the likely progenitor of the bbc's later… with jools holland, which is er… less beloved

Some real lame-ass drones behind the scenes - per Willner in that link:

Eventually, some of the Night Music staff had had it with the stuff I was putting on. A box came from Mute Records because I had booked Nick Cave. In the box was everything by Diamanda Galas. The talent coordinator gave me the tapes as a joke, thinking “this will freak him out!” But of course I just went over the moon demanding that we have to have her! The talent coordinator quit after I did that.

James Taylor Rockin' out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEBgECxtQjQ

XP You look at episode guide on Wiki, and the first season doesn't look *too* out there. There's a lot of Jazz artists, a little World Beat, some Blues. Maybe it's a little weird by network TV standards, but otoh not too far removed from what you'd get in piecemeal form on Letterman, SNL or Carson during that era, or on PBS.

But whooboy went that second season starts with Pharaoh Sanders and just escalates from there as Willner is unleashed...

Yeah, lotta good stuff about that on Hal's own thread: Hal Willner

This Ethan Iverson interview about his come up in STL and relationship with Julius Hemphill, Lester Bowie et al is really nice.

https://open.substack.com/pub/iverson/p/tt-404-david-sanborn-on-phillip-wilson

I was surprised when watching a Paul Butterfield documentary that David Sanborn was a member of his band when it became more horn based in the late 60s.

Yeah, he and drummer Phil Wilson, whom Sanborn talks about in that xpost Ethan Iverson interview, had some early adventures in 60s outcat jazz, and they also played together on Butterfield's The Resurrection of Pigboy Crabshaw, one of my high school faves, still spinning out of memory v. often--here 'tis:
http://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mdTvrT7G-_zjjyf7qVP2RYAh8ZePUeuRw
The horns are mostly backup, but usually pretty strong.