My Favorite Things at 50

Winner of the National Association of Black Journalists 2011 Radio Documentary Award (network).

Everyone knows "My Favorite Things" from "The Sound of Music" - and a good number know John Coltrane's jazz treatment of it, even if they don't think they know it.

Recorded 50 years ago on Oct. 21, 1960 and released in March 1961, Coltrane's "My Favorite Things" stands as one of the most accessible serious jazz works. This program, geared toward a general audience but also highly informative for jazz aficionados, traces the lineage of the Rodgers and Hammerstein song from the Broadway stage, where it was sung by Mary Martin, to Coltrane's adaptation of it from sheet music given to him at a New York jazz club.

Along the way we hear a rare recording of the Von Trapp Family themselves singing it, several very different versions by Coltrane, inheritors such as Outkast, and of course Julie Andrews, whose more famous rendition followed Coltrane's recording by five years - evoking the obvious question: Did he influence her?

Coltrane's early musical development and his own influences, from Thelonius Monk to Miles Davis, are explored. We also hear Coltrane in his own words, as well as new interviews with McCoy Tyner - one of the greatest jazz pianists ever and the last surviving member of the John Coltrane Quartet - and earlier Coltrane sideman Steve Kuhn. Harvard University jazz scholar Ingrid Monson and Jazz Heritage Society executive director Peter Fitzsimmons are also featured.

The project is a labor of love and gift to all stations from longtime NPR contributor Robin Washington (News & Notes, Crossroads), who is also the editor of a daily newspaper, Minnesota's Duluth News Tribune.

"Coltrane had more significant works, surely. 'A Love Supreme' readily comes to mind," Washington says. "But if you tried to explain that song to an average listener, you would lose them. Here is a definitive work that everyone knows and anyone can listen to, and the fascinating story of its evolution is something everyone can share, and enjoy."