Broadcast journalist Heidi Chang‘s story on Gabe Baltazar Jr. as a pioneering Asian American jazz musician aired internationally on Voice of America. The show is archived on the VOA website; click here to read and listen (and comment!). It reveals just a sampling of what is in Gabe’s autobiography, If It Swings, It’s Music.
On September 28, National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition Saturday will broadcast journalist Heidi Chang‘s profile of Gabe Baltazar Jr. as a pioneering Asian American jazz artist. The piece draws from his UH Press book, If It Swings, It’s Music, and features in-person interviews with the legendary saxophonist and coauthor Theo Garneau, along with some of Baltazar’s musical highlights.
Weekend Edition Saturday is a two-hour program hosted by NPR’s Peabody Award-winning Scott Simon. Please check your local NPR-affiliate listings for air times. For those in Hawai‘i, the Weekend Edition show will be on HPR-2, starting at 5 a.m. HST (O‘ahu listeners can tune in to KIPO 89.3).
UPDATE: The story is archived on the NPR site for listening and viewing. Click here.
To hear more from Gabe, Hawai‘i Public Radio‘s The Conversation aired an interview by Chris Vandercook in August last year.
For a sultry treat, listen to Gabe’s performance of Santana’s “Europa” at the Hawai‘i State Art Museum on July 22, 2012. . .when he was 82—fantastic!
Check out this post on Aloha Got Soul about Gabe Baltazar Jr. and take a look/listen from one of his vintage LPs from 1979, recorded with a then-young group of musicians he played with at the Cavalier (located on Kapiolani Boulevard, way back when). Read Gabe’s autobiography, If It Swings, It’s Music, for more on the “Cavalier Days” (pages 157-159) and other great jazz highlights, all in Gabe’s inimitable talk-story style!
For more on Gabe and his music, revisit our post from last May.
Even though 2013 is undeniably well underway, reviews and stories from fall 2012 can still make good reading. Here are some we missed posting earlier.
Waves of Resistance author Isaiah Walker was interviewed by Daniel Ikaika Ito/Contrast Magazine for Raynorsurf.com, dispelling not only “the burnt-out, Hawaiian surfer stereotype” but the ivory-tower professor stereotype, as well.
The October 2012 canonization of Saint Marianne focused worldwide attention on Kalaupapa, Moloka‘i, as did this article in Syracuse, New York’s The Post-Standard that quotes Anwei Skinsnes Law, author of Kalaupapa: A Collective Memory.
Glenn Wharton’s The Painted King: Art, Activism, and Authenticity in Hawai‘i was reviewed in the new open-access eJournal of Public Affairs. Read the September 2012 review here.
West Hawai‘i Today published a wonderful review geared for Kona residents of Loulu: The Hawaiian Palm in its December 16, 2012 edition. (Note: The photo next to the review shows the plant discussed in the second article appearing on the page.)
Honolulu Weekly‘s Winter Book Issue served up reviews worth repeating of several UHP titles.
• “How ‘Bout Gabe?” on If It Swings, It’s Music: The Autobiography of Hawai‘i’s Gabe Baltazar Jr.
• “Strumming Histories” on The ‘Ukulele: A History
• “Under Western Eyes” on An American Girl in the Hawaiian Islands: Letters of Carrie Prudence Winter, 1890-1893
• “Exiles at Home” on Kalaupapa: A Collective Memory
• “Lit Up by Language” on Sky Lanterns: New Poetry from China, Formosa, and Beyond
OK. Onward from here!
Besides the NPR “Crime in the City” interview with Victoria Kneubuhl that aired August 13, other “talk stories” with UH Press authors took place in the past month:
Hawai‘i Public Radio‘s The Conversation interviewed jazz saxophonist Gabe Baltazar about his memoir, If It Swings, It’s Music. Listen to the “Book ’em, Gabe-o…with a new autobiography” in the HPR archives for August 7.
Gabe was also featured in the “Old Friends” column that appeared in the August 29 edition of MidWeek, mailed to over 270,000 homes in Hawai‘i. Read the online version here.
On August 27, HPR’s The Conversation caught up with Jim Tranquada at Occidental College to talk about The ‘Ukulele: A History. Listen to the “Madeiran melody maker morphs into a jumping flea…” in the archived show.
The editor of MauiTime interviewed author Tom Coffman about his inspiring new book, I Respectfully Dissent: A Biography of Edward H. Nakamura. Read Coffman’s take on Justice Nakamura’s legacy as a labor attorney and Supreme Court justice in the August 23 cover story, “Standing Alone.”
