Dizzy took the high notes, we do the lowdown

[Serial_Apologist]

Sat 21 Oct
4 pm Jazz Record Requests
Alyn Shipton with requests from a broad spectrum of jazz, including a recording featuring French violinist Michel Warlop.

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

5 pm Jazz Line-Up
Kevin Le Gendre marks today's centenary of the birth of Dizzy Gillespie with archive music and interviews, featuring the American jazz trumpeter. Plus an interview with British saxophonist Courtney Pine, who previews his new collaborative project Black Notes from the Deep.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b099vfg5

12 midnight Geoffrey Smith's Jazz
Celebrating the centenary of the birth of bebop pioneer, trumpet virtuoso, composer and bandleader Dizzy Gillespie, whose influence can still be felt today. The programme features recordings of classic performances alongside fellow jazz luminaries including Charlie Parker.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b099vgz7

Sun 22 Oct Radio 2
9 pm Clare Teal
Swing music, with musician and composer Gareth Lockrane as guest.

One of the best postbop flautists in the country, imv, and thoroughly nice bloke. You might want to leave this wavelength on for Moira Stuart's following programme, always sympathetically presented (a rarity these days) and often containing some good stuff.

Mon 23 Oct
11 pm Jazz Now
Presented by Soweto Kinch. A concert given by Sun of Goldfinger at London's Vortex, with guitarist David Torn, saxophonist Tim Berne and drummer Ches Smith.

Repeat, but of a good programme, if my memory serves me correctly, not having attended this gig.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b099wv4v

[Ian Thumwood]

Intrigued to hear the Sauter Finegan orchestra on JRR. This marks the appearance of two big bands in successive weeks which were well respected I their time but seldom considered these days. The SF orchestra was a band that some of my friends from the big band world that I mixed with in the early 1980s really loved. It was a musician's band more than any other with both Eddie Sauter and Bill Finegan having enjoyed huge reputations as arrangers in the 30's and 40's. It is strange to encounter their music again as I never considered them to have led a jazz orchestra and they always seemed too clever for their own good when I first got in to big bands. I never really liked them but listening today it was quite interesting to hear someone from that tradition write for percussion like that. I suppose they were fore-runners to contemporaries like Billy May who was equally talented and whose vision of big band music was far more encompassing than is fashionable today. I am not a fan of the SF orchestra but can admire what they were trying to do. Finegan wrote the arrangements for many of Glenn Miller's hits where Sauter (always the more musical and adventurous of the two) went on to write the charts for Stan Getz' "Focus" project which set the benchmark for jazz with strings. The band was deemed too far ahead of it's time and perhaps a tad too clever to appeal to a popular audience. It is intriguing listening to jazz arrangements and encountering something where the percussion has been precisely written out. In the past I have been a bit harsh on Sun Ra, even though I still find his music wildly erratic but I noticed listening to his early stuff just how much attention to detail he afforded the percussion which does not sound improvised in the least.

Last week someone requested "Remember" by Red Norvo's big band. This was smaller in size than many of it's contemporaries and is shamefully neglected these days. I have only ever heard handful of tunes by this band which, incidentally, had Eddie Sauter as the principle arranger.

There is an excellent book by the brilliant jazz writer Gene Lees called "Arranging the score" which touches upon this world of non-jazz big band writing and considers Bob Farnon in particular. It is a thought-provoking book even if it affords Lees the opportunity to outline some of his more conservative opinions. Never the less, Lees is one of the very greatest writers on jazz and someone whose opinion is stated with authority even if you sometimes don't always agree with his conclusions. I was put in mind of this book after hearing the SF Orchestra track.

[Alyn_Shipton]

Glad you were interested in hearing S-F, Ian (more from them next week, as it happens). Also chuffed to see your comments on Gene's book as I commissioned it! Anyone catch the two shows on Dizzy? Struck me as missing so many opportunities...but then I was rather lucky back in the day to be allowed to go and talk to loads of people about Diz for Radio 3! http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/985179da0...36fd97c7948e46

[Jazzrook]

Intrigued to hear the Sauter Finegan orchestra on JRR. This marks the appearance of two big bands in successive weeks which were well respected I their time but seldom considered these days. The SF orchestra was a band that some of my friends from the big band world that I mixed with in the early 1980s really loved. It was a musician's band more than any other with both Eddie Sauter and Bill Finegan having enjoyed huge reputations as arrangers in the 30's and 40's. It is strange to encounter their music again as I never considered them to have led a jazz orchestra and they always seemed too clever for their own good when I first got in to big bands. I never really liked them but listening today it was quite interesting to hear someone from that tradition write for percussion like that. I suppose they were fore-runners to contemporaries like Billy May who was equally talented and whose vision of big band music was far more encompassing than is fashionable today. I am not a fan of the SF orchestra but can admire what they were trying to do. Finegan wrote the arrangements for many of Glenn Miller's hits where Sauter (always the more musical and adventurous of the two) went on to write the charts for Stan Getz' "Focus" project which set the benchmark for jazz with strings. The band was deemed too far ahead of it's time and perhaps a tad too clever to appeal to a popular audience. It is intriguing listening to jazz arrangements and encountering something where the percussion has been precisely written out. In the past I have been a bit harsh on Sun Ra, even though I still find his music wildly erratic but I noticed listening to his early stuff just how much attention to detail he afforded the percussion which does not sound improvised in the least.

Last week someone requested "Remember" by Red Norvo's big band. This was smaller in size than many of it's contemporaries and is shamefully neglected these days. I have only ever heard handful of tunes by this band which, incidentally, had Eddie Sauter as the principle arranger.

There is an excellent book by the brilliant jazz writer Gene Lees called "Arranging the score" which touches upon this world of non-jazz big band writing and considers Bob Farnon in particular. It is a thought-provoking book even if it affords Lees the opportunity to outline some of his more conservative opinions. Never the less, Lees is one of the very greatest writers on jazz and someone whose opinion is stated with authority even if you sometimes don't always agree with his conclusions. I was put in mind of this book after hearing the SF Orchestra track.

The requester first heard the Sauter Finnegan Orchestra track on the Jack Jackson Show on Radio 2's forerunner, 'The Light Programme'.
I can remember listening to Jack Jackson in the early 1960s and hearing snippets from Mingus's 'Oh Yeah' album.
Radio was mostly a desert for jazz at that time and the Jack Jackson Show helped turn me on to modern jazz.
Does anyone else remember listening to the Jack Jackson Show?

JR

[gradus]

The SF orchestra takes me back to Jack Jackson too, an almost lost figure these days but a pioneer in his creative use of recorded music, in many ways a precursor to Kenny Everett. Didn't SF record a version of the Sleigh Ride from Lieutenant Kije? I seem to dimly recall JJ playing it.

[Quarky]

Sat 21 Oct
4 pm Jazz Record Requests
Alyn Shipton with requests from a broad spectrum of jazz, including a recording featuring French violinist Michel Warlop.

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

5 pm Jazz Line-Up
Kevin Le Gendre marks today's centenary of the birth of Dizzy Gillespie with archive music and interviews, featuring the American jazz trumpeter. Plus an interview with British saxophonist Courtney Pine, who previews his new collaborative project Black Notes from the Deep.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b099vfg5

One of the best programmes from Kevin Legendre.

Excellent feature on Courtney Pine.

The lowdown as far as I am concerned is that SPEED KILLS - it may be exciting at the time, but so what??

[Serial_Apologist]

One of the best programmes from Kevin Legendre.

Excellent feature on Courtney Pine.

The lowdown as far as I am concerned is that SPEED KILLS - it may be exciting at the time, but so what??

Medium tempo...