[JPL] Alvin Batiste remembered

[Eric Jackson]

A few years ago Alvin Batiste came to Boston to be the featured soloist in our 
annual John Coltrane Memorial Concert. He and his wife Edith both came to 
town. He also spoke in a separate session.

Usually the Coltrane concert has a guest soloist. That soloist, like the other 
band members, is invited to contribute arrangements of Coltrane songs or 
songs that were associated with him. Batiste actually had the band play an  
original suite that hadn't been played before. In fact, during the concert he 
announced that he had used the Boston musicians as "guinea pigs." (I'm pretty 
sure that's the term he used.) He called them that because he wasn't sure if 
the suite he wrote was playable but since they were playing it, he was going 
to take it back to N.O. to have it played there!

I'm searching to find my recording of that concert so that I can air it this 
week. It's not commercially available but I've gotten permission to air it 
from the organizers of the Coltrane memorial concert.

Eric Jackson
8 pm - mid Mon - Thurs
WGBH Boston
89.7 FM
www.wgbh.org/jazz