Tigran's in the tank, Walter's under the bridge.

[Serial_Apologist]

Sat 16 June
4pm - Jazz Record Requests
Alyn Shipton with listeners' music picks from a broad spectrum of jazz today, including recordings from two great British performers: saxophonist and clarinettist Jimmy Hastings and pianist John Horler.

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

5pm - J to Z
Kevin Le Gendre presents a live solo session by pianist Tigran Hamasayan, whose genre-bending compositions take inspiration from the folk music of his native Armenia as well as from the American jazz tradition. Hamasayan performs from his latest release For Gyumri. And vocalist Zara MacFarlane shares her musical inspirations.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b65ms2

12midnight - Geoffrey Smith's Jazz
A godfather of modern jazz percussion, Max Roach (1924-2007) also fought for racial equality and respect for African-American culture. Geoffrey Smith surveys his distinguished career.

I always think of Joe Harriott's reply to Mike Garrick on the question of racial equality:
Mike - "Just think, Joe, if you went to France you'd be treated more as an equal".
Joe - "I have no wish to be treated as an equal; I am superior!"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b6b0pf

Mon 19 June
11pm - Jazz Now
Featuring saxophonist Soweto Kinch at Eastside Jazz Club at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, with US saxophonist Walter Smith III and his trio.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b6p5yk

[Serial_Apologist]

No tribute, not even a mention of Jon Hiseman's death on J to Z today - unless I was sleeping, which is quite possible. Da yoof won't have heard of him, see?

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

The New York Times was very quick off the mark with a respectable (and respectful) obituary. Has there been anything similar in the mainstream UK press?

BN.

[Serial_Apologist]

Hi Bluesie

I've stuck some links to tributes on the Jon Hiseman thread. Having only just checked in following difficulties in registering last night (which some kind hostperson seems to have sorted now!) I haven't visited there yet today.

[Ian Thumwood]

SA

Amazed that you never picked up on the Jimmy Hastings / John Horler track on JRR given your enthusiasm for all thing British. Not too familiar with the clarinettist but have always thought that Horler is criminally under-rated and one of the finest jazz pianists this country has produced. I haven't seen him perform for years but he was the original pianist in Acoustic Triangle before Gwylim Simcock got the got the gig. I think Tony Coe was the original reed player too but I might be mistaken.

Both Dave and John Horler are well-known around these parts but , for me, John was only second to the late John Taylor when it came to British jazz pianists based in the UK when I was getting in to the music.

[Serial_Apologist]

SA

Amazed that you never picked up on the Jimmy Hastings / John Horler track on JRR given your enthusiasm for all thing British. Not too familiar with the clarinettist but have always thought that Horler is criminally under-rated and one of the finest jazz pianists this country has produced. I haven't seen him perform for years but he was the original pianist in Acoustic Triangle before Gwylim Simcock got the got the gig. I think Tony Coe was the original reed player too but I might be mistaken.

Both Dave and John Horler are well-known around these parts but , for me, John was only second to the late John Taylor when it came to British jazz pianists based in the UK when I was getting in to the music.

Hi Ian!

Oh I heard that track all right! Jimmy Hastings is the brother of Pye Hastings, the drummer with the early 1970s progrock band Caravan, and frequently played with them and further Canterbury offshoots Hatfield & The North and National Health. In their rrecordings we possibly have the first ever examples of a British saxophonist using circular breathing techniques. He also worked with Michael Garrick (alongside John Etheridge) in the early-mid 1980s, sometimes joined by Norma Winstone, and often playing very free, in a manner deriving from Stan Getz rather than Coltrane; so he's a more interesting player than his, for all that, capabilities as a standards interpreter might ascriptively imply. He's one of the finest flute players we have produced in jazz, as good as Stan Sulzmann, and I have two C90 sides of a broadcast he did in the early 1990s in duet with John Horler, with Jimmy mostly on flute, mostly playing Horler originals which range in influences from Fauré to Berg!

John's always been a bit of a dark horse of British jazz, firstly announcing the prominence of his musical authority in John Dankworth's band in the mid-1970s before going on to become a regular Tony Coe associate, as you inferred; and he's as good on electric as on "acoustic" keyboard [sic] although he thinks of himself as a Bill Evans follower. I describe the incisiveness of his playing as "muscular Bill Evans" analogously with the way some are described as "muscular Christians" - he's a no-nonsense kind of guy, musically and personally, not at all given to agreeing with my characterisation of Evans's 1962 album "Empathy" (Vogue) as spoilt by Shelly Manne's unsympathetic undermining of the interactivity Evans's trios depended on by over-elaborated drumming, and saying so in no uncertain terms - though we've been on friendly terms since! Hampshire menfolk with working class origins can be a tough lot - as well I remember working briefly near Southampton once!! Chatting with anlother Horler fan the other week, he rightly corrected me by pointing out the other strong influence on Horler, that of Chick Corea. As far as comparisons with John Taylor are makeable, a broadcast by a drummerless Kenny Wheeler octet fro 1985 or 6 (I'd have to check), prefacing some of the materials investigated on "Music for Large and Small Ensembles" (ECM) showed their mutual empathies to fine effect in unaccompanied improvised intros. With so many brilliant young pianists on the home scene here nowadays it's easy to take some of the oldies who tend to pop up in local pub gigs for granted, sadly. There aren't really any other pianists quite like John Horler around any more, ever since the death of the brilliant, often equally truculent, also Corea-influenced blind pianist Peter Jacobsen.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

I saw Jimmy Hastings playing with Michael Garrick and Alan Jackson at the first (and possibly last) PORLOCK Jazz Festival evening c. 1987. He was very good, straight ahead, but that was the gig. Christian Garrick played violin, can't remember the bass player. Maybe, The Man from Porlock...

BN.

[Serial_Apologist]

I saw Jimmy Hastings playing with Michael Garrick and Alan Jackson at the first (and possibly last) PORLOCK Jazz Festival evening c. 1987. He was very good, straight ahead, but that was the gig. Christian Garrick played violin, can't remember the bass player. Maybe, The Man from Porlock...

BN.

Not the Porlock tugger...???

I have a lot of Garrick stuff from around that time - will check for bass motives tomorrow.