All Over Albany

My Exit: Jim Ketterer

Happy Monday.

While you're easing back into the work week, here's a preview of tonight's WEXT My Exit show -- where the listeners get to pick their own playlists.

Tonight's eclectic mix comes from musician Jim Ketterer...

Who?
Jim Ketterer. Home base is Albany, but I have been living in Egypt for the last 15 months working for AMIDEAST, an American organization focused on education, training and cultural affairs.

How would you describe your musical style?
My parents are musicians so I grew up listening to a lot of their jazz, opera, and classical music. I have played a lot of jazz drums and classical percussion over the years and later got into funk and was inspired by the bands coming out of CBGB. I most recently played with the Arch Stanton Quartet and Tern Rounders (a band that played on WEXT).

Five songs from Jim's show:

"Reconstruction Site" - The Weakerthans
I was flying into JFK and was listening to the plane's audio system after I had to take off my iPod. Just as we were landing there was a great song playing (rare for airplane music) and told my wife how disappointed I was not to get the name of the band before the system cut off. With the little info I told her she tracked down them down and bought me the CD. A fantastic band from Winnipeg with many perfectly crafted songs.

"Swing" - Ani Difranco
The pride of Buffalo with Maceo Parker on sax. What's not to like?

"John Brown" - Session Americana
This band is based in Boston and I am good friends with the drummer's (Billy Beard) sister. I went to hear them at Caffe Lena and was blown away. The song was written by Jimmy Ryan -- and John Brown's body lies a moulderin' in the grave outside Lake Placid.

"Little Problems" - KJ Denhert
An amazing musician with a great band. I was honored to share a stage with her a couple of times at the Linda. When she is not touring around the world (this song was recorded live in Italy) you can find her at her regular gig at 55 Bar in Manhattan.

"Waters of March" - Bossacucanova
A new take on a Brazilian classic written by Antonio Carlos Jobim. Jobim wrote the original lyrics in Portuguese and then wrote another set in English (he was probably afraid that a translator would butcher the lyrical collage he had created). Cris Delanno's vocals on this cut are just perfect.

You can hear Jim's My Exit show Monday night at 8 pm on 97.7 or at exit977.org.

Here's how to schedule your own My Exit show on WEXT.