This week's edition of the Big Show features a stellar "live" album that wasn't. Recorded "live in concert," that is.
The first-ever pairing of jazz greats Peggy Lee and George Shearing was supposed to be a blockbuster-type thing at the 1959 National Disc Jockey Convention, held Memorial Day weekend in Miami Beach, Fla. A live album was locked into the Capitol Records release schedule, and audio engineers would be there to capture it all on tape -- in glorious stereophonic sound -- for what would become the Beauty and the Beat! LP.
It's an important record . . . and it's a joyous listen.
IT'S ALSO an epic fraud.
On the other hand, that's pretty appropriate for an album purported to have been recorded at a DJ convention epically summarized by the Miami Herald as "Booze, Broads and Bribes." And America would soon learn all about "payola," thanks to a radio confab where the record labels ran amok and the broadcasters ran . . . amoker?
I mean, here you have a live, in-concert recording session at a convention full of bought-off, drunk-ass DJs (and a large contingent of "ladies of the evening" on the labels' dime) in a ballroom at the Americana with a tragically messed-up public-address system. What could go wrong?
WELL, if you listen to the Big Show, you sure as heck will find out. And you'll hear a bunch of great music, too . . . and not just from a legendary jazz pianist and an equally legendary jazz singer.
And you'll also hear about Omaha's connection to the whole mess.
3 Chords & the Truth . . . it's not just a freeform music show. It's an expedition. An adventure. And a blast. Don't forget to check out our organ-flavored rock 'n' roll set in Aisle 1.
I guess that's about all I have to say about that. Except. . . .
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
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