This Year's Kisses Are Not For Me

[Serial_Apologist]

Sat 10 Feb
4.00 Jazz Record Requests
Anticipating Valentine's Day on Wednesday, Alyn Shipton plays listeners' requests such as a tongue-in-cheek duet from Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday.

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

5.00 Jazz Line-Up
Another chance to hear a performance given by saxophonist Brian Molley and his quartet on the Jazz Line-Up stage at the Glasgow Jazz Festival, recorded last July. Introduced by Julian Joseph.

We're being molleycoddled!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09r38xs

12 midnight Geoffrey Smith's Jazz
Geoffrey Smith picks highlights from the career of Norwegian jazz singer Karin Krog, who last year celebrated her 80th birthday with the release of a retrospective box set covering her work from 1967 to 2017. Krog has performed alongside Dexter Gordon, Clark Terry, and her partner British saxophonist-composer John Surman.

80 years old? Surely not!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09r3963

Radio 2 - Sun 11 Feb
9.00 Clare Teal
Big band and swing, with trumpeter Alexandra Ridout, winner in 2016 of BBC Musician of the Year.

Recommendation to those who haven't yet heard Alexandra: tune in.

Mon 12 Feb
11.00 Jazz Now
Soweto Kinch presents a concert by the Tolvan Big Band in the Royal Festival Hall's Clore Ballroom, recorded during last year's EFG London Jazz Festival. Plus Al Ryan catches up with pianist Huw Warren to discuss his newly released album.

An Irishman and a Welshman - could be the makings of a joke, but we won't rabbit on about it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09r453r

Radio 2 - Tues 13 Feb
7.00 Jamie Cullum
New and classic jazz and studio guests, with London-born, New York-based jazz pianist Andrew McCormack discussing his album Graviton and his forthcoming tour.

Another one joins the jazz brain drain. Perhaps we'll find out why. The Yanks can have him, anyway - ungrateful so-and-so.

Punters may have noted that Laura Mvula has a piece, Sing to the Moon, performed by the BBC Singers, at 3.50 on the Afternoon Concert, also next Tuesday.

[Ian Thumwood]

Sat 10 Feb
4.00 Jazz Record Requests
Anticipating Valentine's Day on Wednesday, Alyn Shipton plays listeners' requests such as a tongue-in-cheek duet from Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday.

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

5.00 Jazz Line-Up
Another chance to hear a performance given by saxophonist Brian Molley and his quartet on the Jazz Line-Up stage at the Glasgow Jazz Festival, recorded last July. Introduced by Julian Joseph.

We're being molleycoddled!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09r38xs

12 midnight Geoffrey Smith's Jazz
Geoffrey Smith picks highlights from the career of Norwegian jazz singer Karin Krog, who last year celebrated her 80th birthday with the release of a retrospective box set covering her work from 1967 to 2017. Krog has performed alongside Dexter Gordon, Clark Terry, and her partner British saxophonist-composer John Surman.

80 years old? Surely not!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09r3963

Radio 2 - Sun 11 Feb
9.00 Clare Teal
Big band and swing, with trumpeter Alexandra Ridout, winner in 2016 of BBC Musician of the Year.

Recommendation to those who haven't yet heard Alexandra: tune in.

Mon 12 Feb
11.00 Jazz Now
Soweto Kinch presents a concert by the Tolvan Big Band in the Royal Festival Hall's Clore Ballroom, recorded during last year's EFG London Jazz Festival. Plus Al Ryan catches up with pianist Huw Warren to discuss his newly released album.

An Irishman and a Welshman - could be the makings of a joke, but we won't rabbit on about it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09r453r

Radio 2 - Tues 13 Feb
7.00 Jamie Cullum
New and classic jazz and studio guests, with London-born, New York-based jazz pianist Andrew McCormack discussing his album Graviton and his forthcoming tour.

Another one joins the jazz brain drain. Perhaps we'll find out why. The Yanks can have him, anyway - ungrateful so-and-so.

Punters may have noted that Laura Mvula has a piece, Sing to the Moon, performed by the BBC Singers, at 3.50 on the Afternoon Concert, also next Tuesday.

Haven't heard from the Tolvan Big band since the 1980s when they did an album with the great Dave Leibman, This will be worth checking out.

Huw Warren is one of the nicest jazz musicians I have met. A real gent and a massive Herbie Nichols fan too.

[Quarky]

A really luminous JRR this week (unless I'm being more receptive than usual). You being one of my favourite Rollins tracks, they say he is finally retiring from the Road.

Karin Krog is one of the few truly original Jazz singers. Is there a Scandinavian tradition in female singing?

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

A really luminous JRR this week (unless I'm being more receptive than usual). You being one of my favourite Rollins tracks, they say he is finally retiring from the Road.

Karin Krog is one of the few truly original Jazz singers. Is there a Scandinavian tradition in female singing?

Probably, but particularly the late, and rather wonderful, Monica Zetterlund (Sweden). Her work with Bill Evans and Steve Kuhn especially. And as a very sardonic raconteur, revealing about Miles. Good Danish? feature film about her life a couple of years back.

Sonny Rollins has fibrosis of the lungs. So it makes it extremely difficult and painful to play at the level he desires. I posted a very good recent interview with him a few months ago.

BN.

[Serial_Apologist]

Probably, but particularly the late, and rather wonderful, Monica Zetterlund (Sweden). Her work with Bill Evans and Steve Kuhn especially. And as a very sardonic raconteur, revealing about Miles. Good Danish? feature film about her life a couple of years back.

Sonny Rollins has fibrosis of the lungs. So it makes it extremely difficult and painful to play at the level he desires. I posted a very good recent interview with him a few months ago.

BN.

That's terrible; an ex of mine has fibrosis, and is now almost totally incapacitated, even after having expansion devices fitted in her one still working lung.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

SR interview, "The Vulture" late 2017...


"Can you tell me more about how it felt when you understood that you couldn’t play the saxophone anymore?

Sonny Rollins...
A while back, I was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis. I’d play and I’d get really sick after. So I said, “Oh shit, I can’t play my horn.” I went through a period of depression; I was really low. I’d been on this life quest to try and fulfill my potential with music, and not being able to play anymore meant I wasn’t going to get a chance to do that. But I eventually came out of my depression when I realized that rather than being depressed I should be grateful. I had an opportunity to live a life as a musician, which I always wanted to do..."


A lot of saxophonists have had some form of lung disease. Hank Mobley, then Joe Henderson, Harold Land, David Fathead Newman etc all had emphysema. Not sure if it's all the years of playing in smoke filled clubs and bars. As I've said before, my mother died from emphysema, but she never played the Half Note, Well, only at weekends...

BN.

[Ian Thumwood]

Still working my way through JLU. I really liked the George Collgan track which reminded me a lot of Branford Marsalis. Goo to hear the great Rudy Royston on drums on this set. The major disappointment of the programme was the Liane Carroll track. I appreciate that she is well-considered by many on this board but the version of "Skylark" was GRP - styled Smooth Jazz at it's worst. Just the kind of thing that will get selected to be played on "Dinner Jazz." She has a good voice but the slick production did her music no favours.

[Quarky]

re. Scandinavian tradition in female singing.

There's something called "Kulning" -ancient herding calls vocalised by females. There are a lot of video clips available, e.g calling a wild swan:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy90wZbepiE

Just wondering whether Karin Krog and others draw on this tradition?

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

re. Scandinavian tradition in female singing.

There's something called "Kulning" -ancient herding calls vocalised by females. There are a lot of video clips available, e.g calling a wild swan:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy90wZbepiE

Just wondering whether Karin Krog and others draw on this tradition?

Don't know but it certainly worked for me. Although I imagine that Swedish swan was a bit p/sd having paddled all across the lake and not even been given a baguette. If it was a Welsh swan it would have ripped her arm right off. After breaking it. Like a swan.

BN.

[Quarky]

Don't know but it certainly worked for me. Although I imagine that Swedish swan was a bit p/sd having paddled all across the lake and not even been given a baguette. If it was a Welsh swan it would have ripped her arm right off. After breaking it. Like a swan.

BN.

If that is what these dames can do to a wild swan, what hope does a herd of Jazzniks have?

[Ian Thumwood]

Surprised by the lack of response to the Tolvan big band gig on "Jazz Now." I love this kind of music which takes it's cues from the wonderful Thad Jones / Mel Lewis orchestra insofar that it affords the soloists to really stretch out in the context of a swinging large ensemble. The drummer, bassist and pianist are right at the forefront in this ensemble which I think is far more enjoyable than the James Darcy Argue set the other week. I had only ever heard them before in a chart of "Softly as a morning sunrise" with Dave Leibman which was similarly hard swinging. It almost has the sense of sounding large a large jazz ensemble bolted on to the kind of rhythm section Miles had in his second quintet, not only with the way in which the three musicians let the soloists breath but also the fashion in which the groove seems to ebb and flow.
What I like about this band is that it is not at all modish. The brass and reed sections have that kind of clarity that you get with many larger European ensembles. One of the best "Jazz Now" gigs, I think. More of this stuff , please.

I see that Steve Lehman's excellent Octet is up next week - another cracking band and one which , to my ears, would tend to define what advanced jazz should sound like today. Really appreciating the more "purist" stuff offered by "Jazz Now" as opposed to the more faddish and "jazz-lite" offerings of "JLU."