Goodbye J to Z - time springs forward

[Serial_Apologist]

Sat 30 March

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001slyx

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001qfq1

BBC2 - 8.35pm to 12.45am sequence of 7 programmes celebrating Ella Fitzgerald:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001xz6w

Sun 31 March

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

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001xnp0

Monday 1 - Friday 6 April

Brand new weeknight series:

11.30pm - 'Round Midnight
London-born saxophonist Soweto Kinch showcases the full spectrum of jazz classic and new, with a particular focus on the British scene. For the next four evenings guest Nubya Garcia, also a saxophonist, shares recordings from her collection.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001xnnb

Two-part interview with Soweto in LJN - scroll down to the bottom to link for Part 2:

http://londonjazznews.com/2024/03/26/looking-forward-to-round-midnight-with-soweto-kinch-part-1-interview/

[Tenor Freak]

Sorry to say goodbye to J to Z. Hopefully 'Round Midnight will be worth sitting up for.

[Serial_Apologist]

Hope you're all listening and enjoying a pleasant Easter weekend. Future generations will demand to know, where were you on the last time J to Z was broadcast?

[Ian Thumwood]

I listened to the first four tracks on J-Z and it effectively summed up for me why i no longer have any interest in most contemporary jazz. The music was also smoothed out to the point of blandness, Julian Joseph's effusive comments in inverse proportion to the quality of the music. I turned off at about the same point SA posted his comment. Most of the tracks had an element of muzak about them that left you have expecting someone to intone "the lines are busy , your call is important to us" afterwards.

I have to say that I find the presenters JJ and JF to be unbearable. I can just about abide KlG who atleast seens to grasp what good jazz should sound like. For all his kudo as a jazz pianist, JJ's tastes seem inclined towards "lite-fusion" these days. The music in the 25 mins I listened to is demonstrative of the way jazz seems to have largely abandoned the "shock of the new concept" and moved towards an instrumental version of pop music. You just end up scratching your head thinking what is the point of this music. Tonight seemed like aural wall paper. It was the kind of stuff that you might here in a coffee shop or on a commerical for a car on TV. (It would have to be for something like Volvo as i cannot think of anything less dynamic for this music to serve.)

I just don't get how J-Z can be so misguided in the kind of jazz they programme. This is still decent, hard-hitting jazz out there but J-Z never had any interest in looking at what kind of jazz will define the 2020's.Tonight's programme was indicative of the kind of dross produced which has left me having little or no interest in the current scene. There is too much "groove" obsessed music which makes you think fondly of 1970s fusion. Even the track by the bassist Hoiby , which was the most hard-hitting jazz track of the four I listened to, was anodyne and boring. It was the kind of stuff which makes me hate a lot of contemporary piano trios. I would not swap any of it for my Hampton Hawes records. Don't even get me on to comment on the track by the South Korean drummer which was like a photo copy of jazz but really had little to do with the music.

At last the programme is going to be put out of it's misery. There have been a few bright moments but, by and large, it has been a perplexing programme which always makes me wonder who the audience is for so much of the sh/t they play. It was a jazz programme that failed to cater for it's audience and did an excellent job of making jazz seem either irrelevant or an aural CV for the identikit musicians colleges seem to be churning out these days. If it had been a race horse, it would have been put down ages ago. There has been little difference between J-Z and Jazz Line up with the only change being that the presenters are worse.

I have high expectations for "Round midnight" but have to disagree with Bruce on this one. I don't think the programme has been helped by an increasingly pointless jazz scene but it might have been perceived to have performed better if is concentrated on playing music that actually sounded like jazz. I am totally on side with the likes of SA, Bluesnik and Jazzrook is calling J-Z out.

[elmo]

I don't think you liked J-Z very much Ian !!!! - but you are quite right though Dumbed down nonsense.

elmo

[Ian Thumwood]

I don't think you liked J-Z very much Ian !!!! - but you are quite right though Dumbed down nonsense.

elmo

I just feel that most jazz fans would not have listened to stuff like that played on J-Z. If anything, JRR is probably more in line with the tastes of most jazz fans. But my biggest gripe is that the presenters were too full on. i hated the gushing reviews of records which were often average at best and typically of little interest to me. Can say I only ever bought one CD on the back of J-Z and that was by Alan Ferber' big band. I cannot be bothered with most of the "jazz" they play.

[Serial_Apologist]

I listened to the first four tracks on J-Z and it effectively summed up for me why i no longer have any interest in most contemporary jazz. The music was also smoothed out to the point of blandness, Julian Joseph's effusive comments in inverse proportion to the quality of the music. I turned off at about the same point SA posted his comment. Most of the tracks had an element of muzak about them that left you have expecting someone to intone "the lines are busy , your call is important to us" afterwards.

I have to say that I find the presenters JJ and JF to be unbearable. I can just about abide KlG who atleast seens to grasp what good jazz should sound like. For all his kudo as a jazz pianist, JJ's tastes seem inclined towards "lite-fusion" these days. The music in the 25 mins I listened to is demonstrative of the way jazz seems to have largely abandoned the "shock of the new concept" and moved towards an instrumental version of pop music. You just end up scratching your head thinking what is the point of this music. Tonight seemed like aural wall paper. It was the kind of stuff that you might here in a coffee shop or on a commerical for a car on TV. (It would have to be for something like Volvo as i cannot think of anything less dynamic for this music to serve.)

I just don't get how J-Z can be so misguided in the kind of jazz they programme. This is still decent, hard-hitting jazz out there but J-Z never had any interest in looking at what kind of jazz will define the 2020's.Tonight's programme was indicative of the kind of dross produced which has left me having little or no interest in the current scene. There is too much "groove" obsessed music which makes you think fondly of 1970s fusion. Even the track by the bassist Hoiby , which was the most hard-hitting jazz track of the four I listened to, was anodyne and boring. It was the kind of stuff which makes me hate a lot of contemporary piano trios. I would not swap any of it for my Hampton Hawes records. Don't even get me on to comment on the track by the South Korean drummer which was like a photo copy of jazz but really had little to do with the music.

At last the programme is going to be put out of it's misery. There have been a few bright moments but, by and large, it has been a perplexing programme which always makes me wonder who the audience is for so much of the sh/t they play. It was a jazz programme that failed to cater for it's audience and did an excellent job of making jazz seem either irrelevant or an aural CV for the identikit musicians colleges seem to be churning out these days. If it had been a race horse, it would have been put down ages ago. There has been little difference between J-Z and Jazz Line up with the only change being that the presenters are worse.

I have high expectations for "Round midnight" but have to disagree with Bruce on this one. I don't think the programme has been helped by an increasingly pointless jazz scene but it might have been perceived to have performed better if is concentrated on playing music that actually sounded like jazz. I am totally on side with the likes of SA, Bluesnik and Jazzrook is calling J-Z out.

I don't think it's unsophistication that has killed off a good deal of what passes for contemporary jazz - if anything much of the music is highly sophisticted, but in a very contained way, one which has standardised acceptable possibilities according to current orthodoxy in such a way as to make it difficult to distinguish individual players because the style does not allow them to shine, in the way Andy Sheppard could in the 1980s and the very different figures of Alan Skidmore, Trevor Watts and Bobby Wellins in the 60s to name just 3. In some ways the problem started in the 80s with the Neos establishing norms that separated free jazz off from straight ahead post bop as if there was no continuity and therefore to BE no continuity. It was dangerous for jazz to be allowed to drift into decontriol because it could not then be bagged up as a provisional stand-in for a stagnating pop industry, feeding dross to culturally brainwashed proles. Interestingly Trevor Watts is still at a peak today in his eighties, not that we are allowed to notice: people like Paul Dunmall and Simon Picard from just before the 80s British Jazz Revival similarly. The music may have moved onto a higher plane in terms of this standardisation while only producing a handful of stars. To my mind the way they generally hark back to earlier figures is exemplified in this so-called "spiritual jazz" being genericised as being in some authentic lineage when it is mostly watered down pretend late Coltrane.

[Serial_Apologist]

I realise I could be accused of looking a gift horse in the mouth (or whatever the expression is) but I just find myself unable to deal with a whole evening of Ella Fitzgerald on BBC2 when right now there is just so much going on in the world to distract or better focus the mind. The BBC might say "Well you ask us to present quality culture and then complain" - my complaint is with this kind of -athon (Mozart-, Beethoven-, Shakespeareathons) momentary overkill at the expense of the rest of the schedule time and the underlying crumbs for the poor attitude it betrays.

[CGR]

I listened to the first four tracks on J-Z and it effectively summed up for me why i no longer have any interest in most contemporary jazz. The music was also smoothed out to the point of blandness, Julian Joseph's effusive comments in inverse proportion to the quality of the music. I turned off at about the same point SA posted his comment. Most of the tracks had an element of muzak about them that left you have expecting someone to intone "the lines are busy , your call is important to us" afterwards.

I have to say that I find the presenters JJ and JF to be unbearable. I can just about abide KlG who atleast seens to grasp what good jazz should sound like. For all his kudo as a jazz pianist, JJ's tastes seem inclined towards "lite-fusion" these days. The music in the 25 mins I listened to is demonstrative of the way jazz seems to have largely abandoned the "shock of the new concept" and moved towards an instrumental version of pop music. You just end up scratching your head thinking what is the point of this music. Tonight seemed like aural wall paper. It was the kind of stuff that you might here in a coffee shop or on a commerical for a car on TV. (It would have to be for something like Volvo as i cannot think of anything less dynamic for this music to serve.)

I just don't get how J-Z can be so misguided in the kind of jazz they programme. This is still decent, hard-hitting jazz out there but J-Z never had any interest in looking at what kind of jazz will define the 2020's.Tonight's programme was indicative of the kind of dross produced which has left me having little or no interest in the current scene. There is too much "groove" obsessed music which makes you think fondly of 1970s fusion. Even the track by the bassist Hoiby , which was the most hard-hitting jazz track of the four I listened to, was anodyne and boring. It was the kind of stuff which makes me hate a lot of contemporary piano trios. I would not swap any of it for my Hampton Hawes records. Don't even get me on to comment on the track by the South Korean drummer which was like a photo copy of jazz but really had little to do with the music.

At last the programme is going to be put out of it's misery. There have been a few bright moments but, by and large, it has been a perplexing programme which always makes me wonder who the audience is for so much of the sh/t they play. It was a jazz programme that failed to cater for it's audience and did an excellent job of making jazz seem either irrelevant or an aural CV for the identikit musicians colleges seem to be churning out these days. If it had been a race horse, it would have been put down ages ago. There has been little difference between J-Z and Jazz Line up with the only change being that the presenters are worse.

I have high expectations for "Round midnight" but have to disagree with Bruce on this one. I don't think the programme has been helped by an increasingly pointless jazz scene but it might have been perceived to have performed better if is concentrated on playing music that actually sounded like jazz. I am totally on side with the likes of SA, Bluesnik and Jazzrook is calling J-Z out.

I agree with almost every word. Well said sir.

[Jazzrook]

‘J to Z’ seemed to have a fear of playing any challenging, hard-hitting jazz and their over-enthusiastic presenters mostly preferred bland, watered-down stuff.
It’s hard to imagine anyone being converted to jazz from listening to the programme.
Soweto Kinch’s ‘Round Midnight’ should be a vast improvement and hope to stay awake to listen!

JR

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Round Midnight No1 Monday April 1 tracks

Ezra Collective

Love In Outer Space (feat. NAO)

Dave Holland Quartet

Conference Of The Birds

Daniel Santiago & Pedro Martinez

Curupira Modernista

Fergus McCreadie

Stony Gate

Nye Banfield

Four Years Later

Ayanna Witter-Johnson, London Symphony Orchestra & Gwilym Simcock

Ocean Floor Suite II: Pioneers

Nubya Garcia

Fortify

Oumou Sangaré

N'diya Ni

Charlie Rouse

When Sunny Gets Blue

Ancient Infinity Orchestra

Niyama (Live At Maida Vale
*****************


"They're writing songs of love but not for for me" - the clichés of the "new" jazz are as deadly and inane as any gone before. VERY early days obviously, wish the program well, but I suspect this is not to be for me. The Charlie Rouse track was a high spot and very good to hear it played on the "wireless".

[Quarky]

Playing Round Midnight via Sounds this morning, it made a very welcome change to Breakfast, which has gone off limits for me.
I guess that the new Controller doesn't want to disturb sleeping beauties such as my self at that time of night..
Like Nubiya's choice N'diya Ni, and Charlie Rouse.
Intelligent comments may or may not follow.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Just thinking again about Midnight and why it left me so cold. And yes, it would be idiocy to condemn a series on one episode, particularly when "some/one person of influence" seems to want to ignite a culture war around its teaching and younger practitioners. But why is it so passive? If it's the voice of the young, God knows there's enough to be angry and enraged about? The jazz of the sixties had that in spades, but there was nothing on that show that couldn't be run under a test card, the opening track in particular with that limp vocal and lyric, horn figures and drums. It's as consumerist as anything from the 70s, dressed up as significant.

[Serial_Apologist]

Just thinking again about Midnight and why it left me so cold. And yes, it would be idiocy to condemn a series on one episode, particularly when "some/one person of influence" seems to want to ignite a culture war around its teaching and younger practitioners. But why is it so passive? If it's the voice of the young, God knows there's enough to be angry and enraged about? The jazz of the sixties had that in spades, but there was nothing on that show that couldn't be run under a test card, the opening track in particular with that limp vocal and lyric, horn figures and drums. It's as consumerist as anything from the 70s, dressed up as significant.

One way the jazz-led social revolution will be defeated when it comes will be when the Archbish of C enters accompanied by Prince William to great applause and switches off the current. For me one thing common to much of the grossly over-lauded "new" jazz heard on J to Z and likewise this first programme is that so much of it doesn't really hang together. It evidences little gripping sense of necessity. insipidity rules.

[Quarky]

Tuesday's episode ramped up the musical interest a notch, IMV. I like Soweto's calm measured presentation. A different voice from the ebullient voice of Jazz Now, which didn't click with me.
It's very early days, but if he can continue as he has begun, I might become enthusiastic..

.................and the music pretty much de nos jours......