Walking the cake.

[Serial_Apologist]

Sat Mar 24
4pm - Jazz Record Requests
Alyn Shipton plays recordings by Jamaican-born saxophonist Andy Hamilton (1918-2012).

Programme finishes 10 minutes earlier than usual, to make way for my favourite composer. This has nothing to do with me; not guilty, yer 'onour.

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

5pm - Jazz Line-Up
For Debussy's Paris. Julian Joseph presents Gwylym Simcock's jazz-influenced version of the Debussy's Children's Corner Suite. Recorded at the BBC's studios in Salford.

The more observant among you will have spotted that Kirk Lightsey quoted a snatch from the above-cited Debussy work last week, and also that Julian Joseph has ear muffs on in the linked photograph to the programme in hand, but not Gwylym. Not that this probably has anything to do with titles.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09wv7d7

12 midnight - Geoffrey Smith's Jazz
Geoffrey Smith presents his drum heroes, including Gene Krupa, Max Roach, and Kenny Clarke.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09wvbfy

Mon 26 Mar
11pm - Jazz Now
Soweto Kinch presents another chance to hear a concert by Kit Downes's trio Enemy.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09wvmzq

[Bryn]

AH, so not yet another Debussy thread. [je vais me prendre le manteau.]

[Serial_Apologist]

AH, so not yet another Debussy thread. [je vais me prendre le manteau.]

[Alyn_Shipton]

I should point out that although the Kit Downes session has been heard before, the rest of Monday's Jazz Now is new, with a feature on Kit's new organ album and an interview with Chuck Israels. (Not sure he has even been on BBC Radio before...)

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

For once, despite promises, I will DEFINITELY listen to that. Chuck Israels is a great bassist, up there with Laforo with Bill Evans, different but great lines. And the the constant in that Coltrane and Cecil Taylor date. Be interesting what the atmosphere was like in the studio on THAT date!

[Ian Thumwood]

I got in to Debussy through listening to Gil Evans having discovered that he was a huge influence in the arranger. I late rediscovered that he had also influenced Bill Evans and the relevance of his composition is perhaps even more apparent in players like Herbie Hancock. There was an interview on Front Row last night about a new play about the French composer and the ensuing discussion about him focussed on the "Golliwog's Cake Walk." It was suggested that Debussy was well aware of pre-jazz music like Ragtime even though he died within about six months after the ODJB debuted in the studio. The interview hinted that this composition also parodied Wagner. I just felt that they were ready too much in to Debussy being that switched on to jazz. There was a similar account I read about Erik Satie being a fan of Django that I encountered in a book (I think by Mike Zwerin) which always struck me as unlikely as the guitarist must have been 15 at the latest. Anyway, the Front Row discussion about Debussy was very interesting and a shame it was so short.

Personally, I feel that Ravel was the impressionist composer who took the most our of jazz albeit younger composers like Milhaud were clearly even more switched on. The Debussy and Bach influences are perhaps the two most important Classical ones if you look over the history of jazz. Bach seems to lend himself more to direct interpretation whereas I feel that Debussy is best left alone. I didn't think that Louissier track in JRR really added to Debussy but will listen later to see if Simcock fares any better. There is a practical element in Bach which makes his music a good starting point for jazz - I am not convinced that this is the case with Debussy.

By the way, the Armstrong track in JRR was terrific! I had never heard that version before and it was a really good call to have that requested.

[Serial_Apologist]

I got in to Debussy through listening to Gil Evans having discovered that he was a huge influence in the arranger. I late rediscovered that he had also influenced Bill Evans and the relevance of his composition is perhaps even more apparent in players like Herbie Hancock. There was an interview on Front Row last night about a new play about the French composer and the ensuing discussion about him focussed on the "Golliwog's Cake Walk." It was suggested that Debussy was well aware of pre-jazz music like Ragtime even though he died within about six months after the ODJB debuted in the studio. The interview hinted that this composition also parodied Wagner. I just felt that they were ready too much in to Debussy being that switched on to jazz. There was a similar account I read about Erik Satie being a fan of Django that I encountered in a book (I think by Mike Zwerin) which always struck me as unlikely as the guitarist must have been 15 at the latest. Anyway, the Front Row discussion about Debussy was very interesting and a shame it was so short.

Personally, I feel that Ravel was the impressionist composer who took the most our of jazz albeit younger composers like Milhaud were clearly even more switched on. The Debussy and Bach influences are perhaps the two most important Classical ones if you look over the history of jazz. Bach seems to lend himself more to direct interpretation whereas I feel that Debussy is best left alone. I didn't think that Louissier track in JRR really added to Debussy but will listen later to see if Simcock fares any better. There is a practical element in Bach which makes his music a good starting point for jazz - I am not convinced that this is the case with Debussy.

By the way, the Armstrong track in JRR was terrific! I had never heard that version before and it was a really good call to have that requested.

I agree that in terms of harmony Debussy was an influence. There's some dispute on how much influence Debussy had on Ravel, and this is not the place, save to say that Debussy's metric and temporal fluidity, so essential a part of his music, could only really be applied to effect in out-of-time passages in jazz - and there are examples aplenty in Gil Evans's Sketches of Spain and Porgy settings for Miles where tempo slows to a near-stasis, and of Kenny Wheeler achieving this with the Debussyian harmonies John Taylor adopted. Debussy wasn't really a "melodic" composer, except for in his early compositions, and one or two later ones where he arguably sounded closer to Ravel, who definitely was (and wasn't always an "impressionist" by any means, for that very reason). Both were influenced by Satie, who was doing "impressionist" harmonies while Debussy was still in hoc to Gounod, Delibes and Wagner. Debussy would have been more of an exemplar for jazz insofar as he formed a coherent style out of many influences, outside and well as inside the European art music tradition, and this is what jazz people do, regardless of Debussyian influence. The latter works best in jazz when it is a subliminal part of a musician's personality, not when he or she tries to base appraching it by emulation. Debussy's art is finely perched - tiny deflections can make or break its subtlety in interpretation. My feeling about Gwylym's brave effort today was that at the points where his own personality intervened one tended to think of what Debussy might have done instead!

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

In all this Debussyness, has anyone mentioned the Ken Russell, "The Debussy Film" (BBC 1965) with Oliver Reed (young/sober) playing Debussy. I think it's the best of the Ken Russell films. That may be small praise, but it's worth a look. It was on Youtube.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

In all this Debussyness, has anyone mentioned the Ken Russell, "The Debussy Film" (BBC 1965) with Oliver Reed (young/sober) playing Debussy. I think it's the best of the Ken Russell films. That may be small praise, but it's worth a look. It was on Youtube.

Still available - albeit chopped into six parts:

1): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akdlS6FVBl0

2): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhaIwKbI16g

3): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUylr8uXc1Y

4): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4Nlosjwrg8

5): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZVUxDOkipk

6): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDuUC1-QZn4

[Ian Thumwood]

i went to gear the Southampton YouthJazz Orchestra perform "Sketches of Spain" with Yazz Ahmed ast night. The first part of the gig included some Monk and Ellington as well as a re-working of a Vijay Iyer number. Howeever, the stand-out composition was an original called "1984" but a trombonist / composer which is off to Birmingham Conservatoire next year. It sounded like a Kenny Wheeler composition and, to be honest, this band was staggeringly good. I have seen them on a number of occasions and they just seem to get better and better. Most of the musicians in this year's line up appeared to be off to various music courses at universities but they were frighteningly good as soloists. Jazz has com a long, long way in this country in the last twenty years.

The second half brought on Yazz Ahmed, another "flavour of the month" trumpeter but, to be honest, she seemed to have an ability to communicate with her solos. Got to say that I was far more impressed by her than with Laura Jurd and felt that Yazz probably has the edge over her contemporary. I was not too fussed by her use of electronics to manipulate the trumpet and this tended to blot out Gil Evans exquisite writing. The closing original was intriguing in his use of Arabic influences bit, to be honest, was not a patch in the original material the band had performed in the first set. It is interesting that a lot of younger jazz musicians, especially in the UK, are putting together complex themes and rhythms together which are very clever but the music just doesn't seem to communicate. A second guest was the gurning Paul Clavis whose use of various percussion instruments sometimes intruded on the music. All in all, I just felt that the band were actually superior than the guests.