WPRB Princeton 103.3 FM

New Jersey's Only Radio Station

WPRB is a community-supported, freeform radio station. Our FM signal (103.3) serves central New Jersey, Philadelphia, eastern PA and the northern tip of Delaware. We reach a global audience at wprb.com.

Serenade to a Cuckoo with Jerry Gordon

Sep 26, 2025 12:00 PM – 3:00 PM

Music

With Jerry Gordon

Serenade to a Cuckoo & Jerry's Room: first a two hour jazz show featuring new, modern jazz releases or special jazz features, followed by a one hour show of various themes that are non-jazz, including pop, r&b, rock, and blues from the forties thru the seventies! You will love it!

9.26.25

Two hours of new jazz releases followed by a tribute to Horace Silver. This is then followed by a one hour birthday tribute to BB King!

12:05 PM		Kirk Knuffke Gong Improv 1 Window
12:05 PM		Patricia Brennan Aquarius Of the Near and Far Pyroclastic Records 2025
12:14 PM		George Burton In the Labyrinth of the Free White Noise Porge Records 2024
12:17 PM		Jaleel Shaw Contemplation Painter of the Invisible BespokeJazz 2025
12:24 PM		Don Cheadle & Ewan McGregor Dialogue: "I don't like the word jazz..." Miles Ahead (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) Columbia/Legacy 2016
12:25 PM		King Tubby Dub Take Five King at the Controls Aggrovators 1980
12:29 PM		Jane Bunnett Serenade To A Cuckoo The Water Is Wide Linus Entertainment 1993
12:41 PM		Fareed Haque M'Wandishi Return to the Joyous Lake Art of Life Records 2021
12:49 PM		Linda May Han Oh Skin (feat. Ambrose Akinmusire & Tyshawn Sorey) Strange Heavens (feat. Tyshawn Sorey & Ambrose Akinmusire) Biophilia Records 2025
12:52 PM		Marley Del Prete w/ Nat Birchall Sama Movement
1:15 PM		Kari Kirkland The Boys of Summer (feat. John Daversa) The Boys of Summer (feat. John Daversa) - Single Slea Head Records 2025
1:15 PM		Kenny Barron Dolores St., S.F. The Only One (feat. Ben Riley & Ray Drummond) Reservoir Music 1990
1:51 PM		Joni Mitchell Goodbye Pork Pie Hat (Live) Joni's Jazz Rhino 2025
1:51 PM		Horace Silver Senor Blues Six Pieces of Silver (The Rudy Van Gelder Edition) [Remastered] Blue Note Records 1955
1:52 PM		The Horace Silver Quintet Nica's Dream Horace-Scope
1:53 PM		Horace Silver Filthy McNasty Doin' the Thing: The Horace Silver Quintet At the Village Gate Blue Note Records 1988
1:55 PM		Eddie Jefferson Filthy McNasty Body and Soul Original Jazz Classics 1967
2:03 PM		B.B. King Three O'clock Blues Four Classic Albums Plus (B.B. King Sings Spirituals / King of the Blues / More B.B. King / Easy Listening Blues) (Digitally Remastered) AVID Roots 1961
2:05 PM		B.B. King You Upset Me Baby The RPM Hits 1951-57 Ace Records 2009
2:06 PM		B.B. King You Upset Me, Baby The RPM Hits 1951-57 Ace Records 2009
2:10 PM		B.B. King Rock Me Baby Best Of The Blues (Digitally Remastered) Grammercy Records 2009
2:12 PM		B.B. King Help the Poor single
2:16 PM		B.B. King Sweet Little Angel (Live at the Regal Theatre, Chicago, 1964 / Edit) Greatest Hits Geffen 1998
2:23 PM		B.B. King Do You Call That a Buddy Confessin' the Blues Geffen 1965
2:26 PM		B.B. King Don't Answer the Door single
2:31 PM		B.B. King Sweet Sixteen, Pt. 1 & 2 (Remastered) The Great B.B. King Virgin Catalog

Chat is archived.

Good afternoon, everybody! Welcome to Serenade to a Cuckoo with Jerry Gordon!

afternoon jerry!

Ready Set GO!

Hi Ossy, you're the first today!

Happy Friday to Jerry and Ossy and vildachaya and everybody!

Hi Benj! You will like today's show, I promise. Sounds like you are doing well. Happy New Year.

Rick, I am so happy, as always, to see you!

Thank you - If I committed any offenses towards you this year please forgive me. May you be inscribed in the book of Life

Hi Jerry, Ossy, Rick, vildachaya & all. Happy Friday to youse!

Hang on, Benj, let me look that up.

Thanks for starting right up with putting my head in a cosmic spot

This is a very chill and spiritual opening to the show today. 🪷

Hey Christine!

Haha, a Philadelfia greeting from the great and cosmic Christine!

Patricia Brennan is a great one!

May Gritty smile upon us & GO BIRDS & Go Phils

Oh, yeah!

Amazing game last night! Just ask Rick!

Wish we could share pix - My 7month old grandson went to his first Phillies game last night - So sweet - they gave him a certificate for his first game.

I'll take a win with 8 home runs AND I'll also take a 1-0 win!

Greetings to Jerry and all listeners. Hope Rosh Hashana went well

How great is that! Vildy, you are the best grandpop ever!

A Happy 100th Birthday to Pottstown Pa Bobby Schantz . The last living Philadelphia Athletic. His first MLB manager was born during the Civil War

Hi, Patrick! Thanks so much! No Cuckoo is complete without you!

Turns out the little guy loves a pitchers duel

Benj, he must have been amazed by all the activity!

Looking forward to BB later... He was always great live. Most fun was at Dell East with a mostly Black audience

I bet!

The baby never sees 'screens' - so that was pretty great

Patrick, Bobby Shantz, what a guy. Short and great. An "A" and then a Phillie. I revered him!

Thank you for another great Friday Jerry

Hows everyone doing today

Hey Adam. The show is now official, Adam Go Get is here!

Patricia Brennan is doing a residency at the Stone at the New School in NYC from November 12-15: http://www.thestonenyc.com/calendar.php?month=2

Haha, I was just going to say Phillies fan Russ Woessner is out there somewhere. This jazz advertisement for Patrice Brennan was brought to you by Woessner, Inc.

Woessner Inc. is a beer consumption corporation.

Brennan is also playing a record release date for this new recording at Roulette in Brooklyn on December 1: https://roulette.org/event/patricia-brennan-of-the-near-and-far-record-release-show/

5 foot 6 140 lbs and won an AL mvp

VC, did you carry the young mensch the whole evening?

Patrick, I didn't remember the MVP

It’s always sunny here in Philadelphia . Found an unlabeled cassette tape and it was acWill Constantine show tribute to Duke Ellington

Nice, Patrick!

1952 24 w 7 l 2.48 era and gold glove

👍

Jerry's elevating our social consciousness here ✨️

Mok inspired this!

Mok keeps me on the proper path

loving King Tubby. thanks

50 years ago this weekend local entertainment options included Les McCann.Pharaoh Sanders. Tom Waits with Garland Jeffries.Jimmy Holmes Trio.The Lettermen with Barbi Benton.Julie Gold. Fats Domino and the disastrous cow chip tossing contest at Third Street Jazz

Cheers to Mok

Take Five in four! Nice!

there's that them

And there's that theme song again. 🎶 🐦

theme

You got it @vildachaya

I'll take Barbi Benton over the cow chip tossing contest.

darn - almost beat Christine to the punch but had a typo

Christine is unbeatable

Thank you, everybody!

Yeah, the Lettermen with Barbi Benton. Oh my!

Jaleel Shaw plays a record release date at the Jazz Gallery in Manhattan on October 10: https://jazzgallery.org/calendar/jaleel-shaw-oct-10-2025

Jerry!!!

Rarely catch the opening of your show. But I catch you sometimes man whenever I hear that I always think Arlo Guthrie."borrowed" that melody line for 'Coming into Los Angeles'

Sorry Jerry that movie was garbage and I love Don Cheadle.Took one gun incident and turned Myles into Wyatt Earp

Kurt Knuffke is performing tonight with the Matt Wilson Quartet at Small’s in NYC: https://www.smallslive.com/events/30674-matt-wilson-quartet/ Livestream!

G Jax, you old hippy, you! What a great reference!

Patrick, it was ART, man!

You're right about everything else!

Agree wholeheartedly, Patrick. Terrible portrayal of Miles. People will believe and remember that misleading movie.

Come on, guys, it's a Social Movie

That movie was great you are right Jerry! A fun wild ride. If people read before watching they'd understand maybe. It was supposed to be and was fiction. They did a great job. Caveat Emptor. Much more interesting that some old by the numbers chronological boring woo the Oscars b.s.

I rest my case. Thank you Brian D, Esq.

And said better than I could.

Best part of that movie was Phil Schaap’s cameo.

It was well publicized that it was fiction. Read before watching. Quite simple. There are bios out there to read on Miles. Some not so great but have interesting parts. He was in a bad state at that point. So the possible hallucinatory fiction license applies well to the era.

People don’t read books. People believe what they see. The movie stunk. Please excuse my eloquence.

I miss Phil Schaap

Pshhtt.... I have already given up on what the greater public believes or sees in a film due to their inability to read. That is on them. If they believe that move is real then we cannot help them. This "people" here and many others no doubt read books. And I know many many others that do. And said books can be unreliable too.

Looking to bring the debate to an end, all I can say is that the movie was "Art". And in my opinion, high art!

Cheech and Chong's Up In Smoke was high art.

One of my good friends in high school was named Art. He was always stoned. I suppose you could call him High Art.

Though he preferred to be called Arthur

Made the mistake of telling my cab Driver that I hate ThevEagles Music!! Won’t make that mistake again

I had an Uncle Hy

file:///var/mobile/Library/SMS/Attachments/31/01/3FBE63F3-E564-4933-ACCE-1EAB18B14434/tmp.gif

This boys of summer is goosebump inducing

I love the Eagles. I don't give a shit what Jeff Lebowski says. Funny I just had a big Lebowski conversation last night and this morning. It was about my cat. His name is Jacky Treehorn

I'm loving the trumpet and Kari's sultry voice. This is good music.

Yeah well that’s just your opinion Maaan!!

Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac is one of my favorite lines of any song

Brian, well, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.

Changing into their tie dye in the parking lot before the show

Every time I visit Costco I think of Kari Kirkland

I see Bobby Shantz was mentioned earlier....he used to own a bowling alley and snack stand up the road from me.

There you go! Hi, Mike!

Gerald R Fords second attempted assassin passed a way at 95 today . 1970s San Francisco was peak insanity

Hey Mike the bowling alley was in Chalfont with an ice cream bar attached.

Who was that, Patrick?

Right! Pit Catcher Lanes

Sarah Jane Moore.Not a mansonite, she served 32 years

Patrick is Zelig

Pardon my ignorance, who did the Boys of Summer cover?

Hey Jerry I now refer to Hall and Oates as Itchy and Scratchy

I ❤️ Kari Kirkland, though I'm not keen on that song. (I don't care for the original)

Hi @Bob, that was Kari Kirkland.

That would be Kari Kirkland Bob.

Christine going all Jeff Lebowski on us!Join the club

True that

It’s on Rhino: https://www.rhino.com/article/joni-mitchell-dives-deep-into-jazz-with-new-61-track-box-set-jonis-jazz-sept-5

Speaking of Joni they are officially condoiizing the Painted Bride.Saw many great jazz shows there.paving paradise and putting up

I was at Underground Arts on Callowhill last week...lots of gentrification

UA is a cool venue

Mike I worked at 12th and Buttonwood late 70s .There was a serial killer offing winos.Different vibe then.

That it is Mok

Totally different

Jerry Bob Perkins in heaven approves of this Horace Silver tribute

Patrick, you are so right!

Thanks, Patrick! The Zelig of tri-state history. Who else will tell us about the offing of winos at 12th and Buttonwood?

Thanks, Rick!

This is my favorite version of Nica's Dream.

guys, you are such an informed group, those who don't already know may enjoy looking up Nica Von Koenigswarter in Wiki, who this song was written about.

Was she in the Sound of Music?

“Horace is the Negro idea because he was playing the real thing of Bud [Powell], with all the physicality of it, with the filth of it, with the movement in attack' ~ pianist Cecil Taylor in AB Spellman’s Four Lives In The Bebop Business.

She was the lady whose apartment Charlie Parker passed away in

Pannonica by Monk is named for Nica I believe (her full first name)

Celtics radio announcer Johnny Most immortalized Jeff Roland and Ricky Mahorn as Filthy and McNasty

You are right, Brian

You are right, Patrick!

You are right, Cecil Taylor and Russ Woessner

Eddie Jefferson - the best!!!

U right, Rick!

He has certainly captured Filthy McNasty here!

Eddie Jefferson and Richie Cole this weekend 1977 at Grendel’s Lair.Where you gonna get a better deal than that.

2 years later murdered by a disgruntled dancer in Detroit.She was acquitted

How was she acquitted?

Murky Detroit court system

I don’t think Lee Morgan’s assassin served time either

I remember the BB King segment in the PBS shoe The Blues where he was in near tears explaining how joyous he was at being accepted by the young white hippie audiences on West Cosdt

I saw B B twice. The first time on this bill. He was the opening act. https://rocktourdatabase.com/sites/rocktourdatabase.com/files/1969-10-31_2.jpg And another time when he opened for some presidential candidate’s rally downtown in Philly. I forget who the candidate was. I left after B B played.

He wanted to advance his career and his $$$

Bless you Jerry

I'll take it, Adam. Thank you! Right on, Ossy!!!

Speaking of prayers please pray for me.i am spending the late afternoon at ……Kids Empire.oy oy oy

I don't know what that is but it doesn't sound like fun

Is this a DAve and Buster's like place where kids go nuts and get wired and sick?

What's Kids Empire, @Patrick? Your tone is ominous.

Man that quaker city festival looked killer.... Or um groovy

Hey Space Cowboy!

My first trip there . I thinks it’s money pit with screaming amped up kids. Franklin Institute tomorrow much better

Don't pass out in the heart. It's probably been a while since you last visited.

I just looked it up...got one near me...Jerry is right about being wired....

I'd like to request the theme song to "The Associates", the 1979 sitcom starring Martin Short.

The Heart has been there forever...probably all clogged up now

hahaha

B.B. King’s family’s legal wrangles have continued long after his death: https://www.the-sun.com/entertainment/15212215/bb-king-family-legal-dispute-singers-estate-millions/

I look forward to reading that. What the heck did BB do to deserve wrangles plural?

BB's trumpet player was James “Boogaloo” Bolden . He was quite the showman.

I remember my parents putting me on the 66 bus and saying enjoy yourself

They redid the heart

Especially at the show I saw at Dell East - He would bop his head vigorisly as the band played - then take his solo - then go back to bopping - a joy to watch him having fun

Night Life! Written by Willie Nelson

BB at the Keswick the last time said something like, You all will go home and say BB King is done, he just sits there, can't even stand up . very funny and self deprecating and then proved 'em all wrong with the first note as he killed it.

nice story,VildaMan

Allegations of poisoning: https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/bb-king-coroner-report-results-6627401/

Wut?

i recall a special episode of fresh prince of bell air, features BB King

I believe he played the Trenton War Memorial venue multiple times over the decades. Mom said she saw him staying at the hotel near the Oxford Valley Mall over here on the Bucks Co Pa side one time when he had a Trenton gig (1990s maybe?). She & Dad went to the pool there for a bit.

Yes, my friend Paul Plumeri (of the Paul Plumeri Blues Band) met him there

Used to see Paul in the Bucks Co bars back 30-40 yrs ago. Great blues player. Paul and Danny De-G were 2 of the best pickers in the area. Saw Danny back then too in the bars around same time.

Jeez...poor Danny....just crazy.

Bobby Lenti another great guitar player in the bar scene (NY transplant but logged many hours around here).

Allegations of elder abuse: https://ultimateclassicrock.com/b-b-king-elder-abuse/

Fun fact, Danny replaced Paul in Duke Williams and the Extremes....after Ritchie Sambora

Was it Paul or Danny that was considered for Fleetwood Mac touring band back in the 90s? Or maybe both?

Gotta be Danny...Paul never mentioned that to me

Ok that makes more sense

Plus, Danny went to the West coast with the Extremes in 81 so maybe he made connections

Heard it rumored around that time I saw Danny playing the blues, rock, covers etc in the bars... Bailey's in Levittown 5 Points area right around the corner from Positively Records. They used to have some good bands here and there for a short time.

Danny lived and died in Levittown....went to some bar in Levittown for a Danny fundraiser

Thanks for yet another great show - How Jerry does it I don't know - but he sure knows how to pick'em

Thanks, Benj, that's a great compliment!

Cheers, Jerry! These past three hours flew past. Like a Cuckoo. 🐦

Have a good Friday & weekend, everybody

I love it when you talk that way! Thanks, Christine!

Jerry, with you doing a birthday tribute to Horace Silver, one of my all-time favs, this show really hit home to me. In fact, the whole show was a home run! Everybody enjoy your weekend! Jerry, you and your family have a blessed Yom Kippur.

A good final sealing to our Host.

Thank you so much, Rick. When I hear it from you, it is truly blessed. Mike, you know your Torah! Everybody, thank you for listening!

Great show Jer!! Thanks for the music as always!!

Sheila, did you see Todd Rundgren coming?

Thank you, Sheila, and Happy New Year!