Steven Cantor Is Back

As reported by OregonLive, Steven Cantor is back at another Portland radio station.

The Oregonian's classical music critic, David Stabler, had this to say:

Steven Cantor, the fabulous DJ who messes with our sonic sensibilities, has taken his "Beats and Pieces" radio show to KMHD (89.1 FM). If you didn't hear his show on OPB, you missed a treat.

His new show on KMHD airs from 9 p.m. to midnight Sundays.

As for the content, Cantor has tweaked it a bit because KMHD is a jazz station, after all.

"I've decided to begin each program with something by Miles Davis," he says, "something I
had actually wanted to do for some time at OPB, but I was unable to do so. What this means for this new incarnation of B&P is that it does give the show a jazz-related launching point each week."

To see why he's so good, here's the playlist of the final hour of last Sunday's show, followed by his rationale:

andrew hill - california tinge
mercan dede - engewal
jz - rooftops of vienna
karim ziad - el mouima
assad bros - agua e vinho
upper left trio - scriab-ish
scriabin - prelude op. 17 no. 1
sco - down d
sinikka langeland - treet som vekser opp-ned


so what you have here is andrew hill playing solo piano (i had just played angela hewitt performing a mvmt from one of the english suites to conclude the previous hour), followed by
turkish musician mercan dede (mixing elements of traditional turkish music w/electronics), followed by a joe zawinul tune (i've played a lot of his music in my first few shows, as tribute....he passed away quite recently.....) with north african elements, followed by a wonderful
moroccan musician (and former employee of mr. zawinul) who is creating this fantastic jazz-like contemporary music with a moroccan tinge, if you can imagine such a thing, followed by the assad brothers performing a very pretty little piece by egberto gismonti, followed by portland's own upper left trio (clay giberson, is the pianist in this group....in fact this tune i played is written by clay and, as you can gather from the title, is inspired by scriabin), followed by a scriabin prelude (for obvious reasons, but also in the same key.....that was a nice little segue) followed by a beautiful tune from john scofield's most recent album (also in the same key as the scriabin prelude), and concluding the set with another gorgeous song, this from the recent ecm album by norwegian singer sinikka langeland (also in the same key as the scriabin.....hey, it's one way i'm able to connect these seemingly disparate bits of musical beauty!!)

Now there's a DJ. Email him with your own suggestions, comments at beatzandpieces@gmail.com.

Now I just have to find out if I can catch him on Internet radio, as I can't pick up that station from here right now ...