A show featuring jazz tracks that have reached the milestone of 50!
1973 was quite a year with Skylab, Watergate, Foreman vs Frazier, The Sears Tower, the designated hitter (!), US pulling out of Vietnam, The Godfather winning an Oscar, and Imelda Marcos buying her first pair of first lady shoes! Gene Krupa, Jim Croce and J.R.R. Tolkien passed away in 1973, as did Kid Ory, Edward G. Robinson, Pablo Picasso and Betty Grable.
Elvis Presley's "Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite" was seen in over 40 countries. The Midnight Special, Don Kirshner's Rock Concert and The King Biscuit Flower Hour all made their debut in 1973. The #1 song of the year (not surprisingly) was "Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree". Cracklin' over your AM radio were singles like "Killing Me Softly With His Song", "You're So Vain", "Crocodile Rock", "Drift Away" and "Delta Dawn". Soft-rock band America won Best New Artist at the 15th Annual Grammy Awards. Gary Burton ("Alone at Last") and Freddie Hubbard ("First Light") won the jazz Grammys.
Some of the top-selling movies of 1973 were "The Sting", "The Exorcist", "Serpico", "Papillon" and "The Way We Were". Topping the tv ratings were "All In The Family", "The Waltons" and "Sanford and Son". A Big Mac was 65¢ and a chocolate shake was 35¢. A gallon of gas was 39¢. Tickets to the Superbowl were $15 (Dolphins>Redskins 14-7) .
The Monte Carlo won "Car of the Year" by Motor Trend, and a Mazda RX3 set you back $2,995. It took all 7 games for the Oakland A's to beat the Mets in the World Series. The best selling kids toy was Shrinky Dinks. The population of the world was 3.92 million, the population of Flagler County FL was 6,000; St. Johns was 35,901 (who was that "1"?).
Below is a tiny cross-section of jazz that was recorded in 1973. I have another show's worth and will likely do one more of these before the year is out. Sit back and enjoy jazz from 50 years ago in the player below, and thank you for stopping by! - Kendo
Mixed live on Mixcloud on 9-5-2023.