It's all a-kickin' off in the Ball Claw Room!

[Serial_Apologist]

As part of Music Matters (Sat 17 Nov, 12.15pm) Sarah Mohr-Pietsch explores gender representation in UK jazz today.

Sat 17 Nov
4pm - Jazz Record Requests

Can someone tell them at Radio Times that it is NOT Geoffrey Smith who presents this programme, please? Or do I have to make a complaint to the muppets who produce the thing? The contestants on The Apprentice could probably do a better job.

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

Once more the Wag of Bayreuth ensures no J to Z this weekend, so........

12midnight - Geoffrey Smith's Jazz
Geoffrey Smith previews the fizzing cornucopia of the London Jazz Festival, which opened yesterday and features a galaxy of stars, from guitarist Bill Frisell and pianist Abdullah Ibrahim to singers Bobby McFerrin and Madeleine Peyroux.

Anyone arriving late will be sent down to the Clore Ballroom, to join those who write phrases such as "fizzing cornucopia", for re-education.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00016rs

Mon 19 Nov
11pm - Jazz Now
Soweto Kinch presents Dave Douglas and Uplift in concert at the London Jazz Festival, with Bill Laswell, Mary Halvorsen, Rafiq Batia, Jon Irabagon and Ches Smith.

New generationists meet up with The Lounge Lizards; but will our friends on the Experimental etc thread see this? Or shall we keep it all to ourselves??

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00016tr

Also next week, Billy Strayhorn is Composer of the Week

[Serial_Apologist]

Jay to Zee fans will have summing to look forward to when today's sesh in the Ball Claw Room at the Festival Hall comes up for broadcast: Tim Garland playing his ass off accompanied just by acoustic bass, Yuri Golubev - what a bass player! Tim had attachments to his tenor, soprano and bass clarinet, non-visible from where I was sat, allowing him to do the complex improvised lines that are his forte multiplied in parallel harmonies, changeable at will. Any possible charges of flashness were mitigated by Garland's sheer musicality and intense commitment, in that style that owes as much in saxophone timbre to Jan Garbarek as to Mike Brecker in phraseology, with extraordinary textures achieved in the rendering of a Scottish folk tune on the "augmented" bass clarinet. This was preceded by the first set, a medium-sized young group of I presume British players, led by a possibly American flute player called Jamie Baum, playing her quite complex charts. Some nice floaty improvising from the rest of her front line, including a French horn. I think we've heard her before. I left as Ethan Iverson was commencing a solo set with a London dedication - a 12-bar stride-styled London tribute made explicit by having a Big Ben chimes intro. Although this was ingeniously presented to emulate the quasi-bitonal overtones effect in bell ringing, in my case what followed failed to live up to raised expectations, and in any case I'm more respectful of Mr Iverson's talents as a perceptive commentator on others than, implicitly, himself. He has an in-house residency at this years LJF, one of the gig titles, "Raising Hell with Henry Purcell", perhaps offering some indication - notwithstanding our friends Cath Roberts' and Dee Byrne's involvement in this.

My other earmarks for this year's festival are pianist Kit Downes, appearing solo at the Festival Hall next Friday (23rd), and Trish Clowes's My Iris band opposite Avishai Cohen's trio at the Barbarism the following night - Trish's set will be recorded for future broadcast.

[Old Grumpy]

Jay to Zee fans will have summing to look forward to when today's sesh in the Ball Claw Room at the Festival Hall comes up for broadcast: Tim Garland playing his ass off accompanied just by acoustic bass, Yuri Golubev - what a bass player! Tim had attachments to his tenor, soprano and bass clarinet, non-visible from where I was sat, allowing him to do the complex improvised lines that are his forte multiplied in parallel harmonies, changeable at will. Any possible charges of flashness were mitigated by Garland's sheer musicality and intense commitment, in that style that owes as much in saxophone timbre to Jan Garbarek as to Mike Brecker in phraseology, with extraordinary textures achieved in the rendering of a Scottish folk tune on the "augmented" bass clarinet. This was preceded by the first set, a medium-sized young group of I presume British players, led by a possibly American flute player called Jamie Baum, playing her quite complex charts. Some nice floaty improvising from the rest of her front line, including a French horn. I think we've heard her before. I left as Ethan Iverson was commencing a solo set with a London dedication - a 12-bar stride-styled London tribute made explicit by having a Big Ben chimes intro. Although this was ingeniously presented to emulate the quasi-bitonal overtones effect in bell ringing, in my case what followed failed to live up to raised expectations, and in any case I'm more respectful of Mr Iverson's talents as a perceptive commentator on others than, implicitly, himself. He has an in-house residency at this years LJF, one of the gig titles, "Raising Hell with Henry Purcell", perhaps offering some indication - notwithstanding our friends Cath Roberts' and Dee Byrne's involvement in this.

My other earmarks for this year's festival are pianist Kit Downes, appearing solo at the Festival Hall next Friday (23rd), and Trish Clowes's My Iris band opposite Avishai Cohen's trio at the Barbarism the following night - Trish's set will be recorded for future broadcast.

Look forward to those broadcasts on several grounds.



OG

[Jazzrook]

As part of Music Matters (Sat 17 Nov, 12.15pm) Sarah Mohr-Pietsch explores gender representation in UK jazz today.

Sat 17 Nov
4pm - Jazz Record Requests

Can someone tell them at Radio Times that it is NOT Geoffrey Smith who presents this programme, please? Or do I have to make a complaint to the muppets who produce the thing? The contestants on The Apprentice could probably do a better job.

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

Once more the Wag of Bayreuth ensures no J to Z this weekend, so........

12midnight - Geoffrey Smith's Jazz
Geoffrey Smith previews the fizzing cornucopia of the London Jazz Festival, which opened yesterday and features a galaxy of stars, from guitarist Bill Frisell and pianist Abdullah Ibrahim to singers Bobby McFerrin and Madeleine Peyroux.

Anyone arriving late will be sent down to the Clore Ballroom, to join those who write phrases such as "fizzing cornucopia", for re-education.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00016rs

Mon 19 Nov
11pm - Jazz Now
Soweto Kinch presents Dave Douglas and Uplift in concert at the London Jazz Festival, with Bill Laswell, Mary Halvorsen, Rafiq Batia, Jon Irabagon and Ches Smith.

New generationists meet up with The Lounge Lizards; but will our friends on the Experimental etc thread see this? Or shall we keep it all to ourselves??

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00016tr

Also next week, Billy Strayhorn is Composer of the Week

S_A ~ I emailed Radio Times about their persistence in naming Geoffrey Smith as the presenter of JRR.
They've got it wrong again this week and I've just had a reply saying "I will ensure our listings team are aware".

JR

[Serial_Apologist]

S_A ~ I emailed Radio Times about their persistence in naming Geoffrey Smith as the presenter of JRR.
They've got it wrong again this week and I've just had a reply saying "I will ensure our listings team are aware".

JR

Thanks for doing that, JR. I wonder if that was an algorhythmic reply?

Oh and by the way, I don't think it was Geoffrey Smith presenting Geoffrey Smith's Jazz last Saturday, but someone on-site. I did miss the beginning, however.

[Ian Thumwood]

Still working my way through the Dave Douglas gig. This musician is so consistent it is frightening. I like the idea of him working with Halvorson - a pairing which was always on the cards at some point, I suppose.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

I can't see that this has been picked up but it's on R3 tomorrow (23rd Nov) at 7.30pm...

Eddie Parker’s Debussy Mirrored Ensemble
Radio 3 in Concert:
Former Loose Tubes flautist and composer Eddie Parker and his ensemble take inspiration from Debussy. Part of the EFG London Jazz Festival.

Release date: 23 November 2018
2 hours, 28 minutes

The hills are alive with the sounds of Dave Bussy. As memorably played by a young Oliver Reed. The very "Image".

[Serial_Apologist]

I can't see that this has been picked up but it's on R3 tomorrow (23rd Nov) at 7.30pm...

Eddie Parker’s Debussy Mirrored Ensemble
Radio 3 in Concert:
Former Loose Tubes flautist and composer Eddie Parker and his ensemble take inspiration from Debussy. Part of the EFG London Jazz Festival.

Release date: 23 November 2018
2 hours, 28 minutes

The hills are alive with the sounds of Dave Bussy. As memorably played by a young Oliver Reed. The very "Image".

Thanks Bluesie, would have missed this! By coincidence I am right now waiting on my DVD of the Ken Russell Debussy fillum. The ones on Elgar and Mahler come part of the package.

While we're at it, I now notice there are works by Anthony Braxton, Richard Muhal Abrams and our own Alex Hawkins on this coming Saturday's Hear & Now, starting at 10 pm.

[Serial_Apologist]

Still working my way through the Dave Douglas gig. This musician is so consistent it is frightening. I like the idea of him working with Halvorson - a pairing which was always on the cards at some point, I suppose.

One of the best jazz b/casts I've heard all year.

[teamsaint]

I can't see that this has been picked up but it's on R3 tomorrow (23rd Nov) at 7.30pm...

Eddie Parker’s Debussy Mirrored Ensemble
Radio 3 in Concert:
Former Loose Tubes flautist and composer Eddie Parker and his ensemble take inspiration from Debussy. Part of the EFG London Jazz Festival.

Release date: 23 November 2018
2 hours, 28 minutes

The hills are alive with the sounds of Dave Bussy. As memorably played by a young Oliver Reed. The very "Image".

Anybody catch this, and any thoughts ?
I heard a good chunk of it and was left rather unmoved, really.

But I’d like to be persuaded that it was better than I thought on first listen.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

I heard it and thought it "pleasant" enough in a background kind of way, but that's not what Debussy, or indeed Jazz, should really be. Where was the edge? There were a couple of times where you could sense how the set up might work, but few, and overall it was pretty lightweight, albeit well intentioned. The revealing thing to me was the actual Debussy pieces played in the interval, and how incisive they were in contrast.

[Serial_Apologist]

I heard it and thought it "pleasant" enough in a background kind of way, but that's not what Debussy, or indeed Jazz, should really be. Where was the edge? There were a couple of times where you could sense how the set up might work, but few, and overall it was pretty lightweight, albeit well intentioned. The revealing thing to me was the actual Debussy pieces played in the interval, and how incisive they were in contrast.

This chimes with my suspicions. Debussy's most characteristic mature works (those from the Chansons de Bilitis onwards) don't lend themselves to jazz or even free improvisational treatment, being in themselves improvisational in spirit if not pre-planning - I have no idea the extent to which Debussy pre-formulated shape and detail - so that although free improvising soloists - and I'm thinking especially of Keith Tippett's solo piano marathons - often reference influences including Debussy's, it is by assuming his free flowing way of dealing in continuities and discontinuities rather than emulating. Poise is everything in Debussy. And the problem is that Debussy has already done it so well it can't be improved on, more probably spoilt. Ravel presents options more amenable to modification and elaboration in this sense because his music falls more straightfordly into conventional moulds that jazz can make something out of in the jazz equivalent of classical theme/variations/theme recap. It is not surprising that Ravel's adaptations of Debussyian harmonic methods (modality, parallelism, added-note triads etc) as well as his own harmonic imprints, have had the greater influence on straight ahead jazz, whereas Debussy's influence is more subliminal on all the musics and composers who have falen under his spell and responded in so many different ways, if you think of Stravinsky, Bartok, Holst, Messiaen, Boulez and Ligeti. Anyway, I'm going to have to listen before further prejudgement.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

I'd be interested in your take. I was trying not to be too hard on Eddie Parker because he's obviously sincere about this and he's given it real thought. I just didn't think anything was added, in fact the reverse, and the most interesting bits were those away from Debussy.

[Ian Thumwood]

I have been listening extensively to the Belmondo Brother's "Hyme au soliel" this week which is essentially a collection of jazz re-working of French composers including Ravel, Boulanger and Durufle. There are no Debussy interpretations on this record but one of the best tracks on the album is actually a chanson composed by Faure. I think the comment by SA about Ravel is salient. I originally felt that there was a kinship between Debussy and Ravel who are often lazily grouped together as "French Impressionists." The more I listen, the more abstract Debussy seems whereas Ravel seems far more formal. Listening to Ravel these days, I can hear as much of an influence from his teacher Faure as I can Debussy in his work. Faure is an interesting composer in his own right. In the hands of lesser pianist, the music he wrote for piano doesn't make much impression and it takes someone like Kathryn Stott to release the potential in the music. Faure almost seems unique in this respect. I cannot think of many other composers whose piano music left so much for the performer to bring their music to life.

I believe Stott also studied jazz with Jacki Byard. I cannot find any link on the internet to this but seem to recall reading somewhere that she originally was torn between playing classical music an jazz. I might be mistaken though. Could have read it in some programme notes when she played the Turner Sims once. Can anyone shed any light on this ?

[Serial_Apologist]

I have been listening extensively to the Belmondo Brother's "Hyme au soliel" this week which is essentially a collection of jazz re-working of French composers including Ravel, Boulanger and Durufle. There are no Debussy interpretations on this record but one of the best tracks on the album is actually a chanson composed by Faure. I think the comment by SA about Ravel is salient. I originally felt that there was a kinship between Debussy and Ravel who are often lazily grouped together as "French Impressionists." The more I listen, the more abstract Debussy seems whereas Ravel seems far more formal. Listening to Ravel these days, I can hear as much of an influence from his teacher Faure as I can Debussy in his work. Faure is an interesting composer in his own right. In the hands of lesser pianist, the music he wrote for piano doesn't make much impression and it takes someone like Kathryn Stott to release the potential in the music. Faure almost seems unique in this respect. I cannot think of many other composers whose piano music left so much for the performer to bring their music to life.

Absolutely spot on there about where Ravel's conceptions differed from Debussy's, Ian. Ravel thought in terms of closed melodies and forms, Debussy much less so - melodies begin then meld into something else less directionally defined. When I first encountered his music in my teens, my thoughts were often along the lines that he was remarkably good at getting himself into a corner from which escape seemed impossible, then getting out of it like some musical Houdini! Mind, when he did write fully formed melodies, they could be wonderful: eg "La fille aux cheveux de lin", or the beautiful "La plus que lente" waltz. Faure didn't appeal to me for a long time, apart from the more obvious lighter works such as the "Dolly Suite" for 2 pianos and the incidental "Pelleas et Melisande" suite; then suddenly the subtlety of his harmonic approach, particularly in the later music, with its unexpected modulations, resolutions, and even foreshadowings of atonality, and the way they help shape the formal set-ups, became a passion I can return to time and time again.

I believe Stott also studied jazz with Jacki Byard. I cannot find any link on the internet to this but seem to recall reading somewhere that she originally was torn between playing classical music an jazz. I might be mistaken though. Could have read it in some programme notes when she played the Turner Sims once. Can anyone shed any light on this ?

Really? I've checked Wiki and there is no mention of any Jaki Byard connection. Stott is one of the finest interpreters of the "English Impressionists" such as John Ireland, Frank Bridge and Arnold Bax, whose influence is apparent in at least one strain of British post-bop from the 1960s on, starting with Mike Garrick and continuing through John Surman, John Taylor (who mentions it in one broadcast interview I have on cassette) and Norma Winstone.

That Ravel influence on jazz people goes back much further, of course: it can be heard in Earl Hines's piano style way back in the late 1920s, maybe even Jelly Roll Morton's. Bix Beiderbecke is said to have loved Debussy. And I think one can attribute the uses big band arrangers made of triads with tacked on semitones, and of course whole tone passages, to Debussyan harmonic practice. saxophone choirs harmonised that way are an instant marker for recognising Duke Ellington, right through from the early 1930s. I was surprised Donald Macleod in last week's COTW did not mention Billy Strayhorn's clear pilfering of the opening four bars of the second of Ravel's "Valses nobles et sentimentales" for his own "Chelsea Bridge" - which he wrongly (imv) attributed to Debussy's influence!