Tobin or not to bin: choices to Mullover

[Serial_Apologist]

Sat 4 Nov

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001ryxq

(different from as advertised in Radio Times)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001ryyd

Sun 5 Nov

http://www.alynshipton.co.uk/blog

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001rysm

Includes London Jazz Festival preview with artists' requests.

Fri 10 Nov

Opening LJF Gala Concert (you'll know the sort of stuff on offer) and a Late live Pizza Express calorie uptake J to Z.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001rz4k

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001ptsy

[Joseph K]

Managed to catch quite a lot of J To Z for once, since my mum is at my sister's looking after my two little nieces, so I was able to have the radio on while cooking/reheating and eating tea. I really enjoyed the Keith Jarrett track - a solo concert from Bremen 1973, if memory serves. And there was a track from the Jazz Is Dead label called 'Phoenix' which combined drum 'n' bass rhythms with jazz, which I enjoyed.

[Serial_Apologist]

Managed to catch quite a lot of J To Z for once, since my mum is at my sister's looking after my two little nieces, so I was able to have the radio on while cooking/reheating and eating tea. I really enjoyed the Keith Jarrett track - a solo concert from Bremen 1973, if memory serves. And there was a track from the Jazz Is Dead label called 'Phoenix' which combined drum 'n' bass rhythms with jazz, which I enjoyed.

Yes the Jarrett - which I hadn't heard before - was inspired and magical; however I didn't think much of anything else that was played. To mask stale idiom a lot of "the" contemporary stuff over-relies (for me is spoilt) by massive post-production, jazz in my view rarely benefitting from reverb: You (I) want to hear character undisguised, in timbral detail. The Theon Cross number was particularly bad in this respect. Goodness knows what the orchestral second track was doing on a jazz programme; usually when vital definers are vitiated there is usually somebody maybe improvising in the background at least, which I felt the harp glisses were not - this was just film music without memorability overdosing on clusters and viscous scoring, listening to which was sort of equivalent to when you try to remove a sticking plaster and it sticks to the other finger, and so it goes on until you go looking in the other room for tweezers. Teaser untweezers.

[Jazzrook]

Rather a meagre tribute to Carla Bley on J to Z.
JRR should be an improvement today with three good tracks.

JR

[Old Grumpy]

Rather a meagre tribute to Carla Bley on J to Z.

JR

I blame Wagner!

[Tenor Freak]

Glad to hear Alyn mention that more by Carla is coming down the JRR pipe over the next few weeks.

[Serial_Apologist]

Glad to hear Alyn mention that more by Carla is coming down the JRR pipe over the next few weeks.

The first of the three Carla tribute tracks I hadn't heard previously, and it was fantastic - something akin to what Monk might have composed (all those telltale whole-tone harmonies) had he been a schooled big band writer. I'd completely forgotten how crazy some of us were about Tony Dagradi's tenor back then - whatever happened to him? (I know, I should check ). As to the other two tracks, hmmm. "The Lord is Listenin'" was a bit of a predictable choice, but there you go. BTW I rather like the way JRR invites people appearing at the LJF on with their choices as one gets some of idea where the "younger generation's" interests are (said some old fart).

[Serial_Apologist]

Rather a meagre tribute to Carla Bley on J to Z.
JRR should be an improvement today with three good tracks.

JR

Interesting to hear Julian speak of Carla's importance in free jazz, whereas I wouldn't put her stuff of the last say 30 years in that bag; and it demonstrated (to me) how conservative jazz commentary has become in recent decades. The "Wynton Effect" living on, presumably. I was listening earlier to Norma Winstone's "Edge of Time" and thinking how radical it would be judged today, whereas at the time that recording was regarded as pretty straight ahead, given that nearly everybody in contemporary jazz was seizing on any excuse to take the music "out".