It's that Rainey day

[Serial_Apologist]

Sat 14 Sept
4pm - Jazz Record Requests

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

5pm - J to Z
Kevin Le Gendre presents live music by young London dectet SEED Ensemble, led by rising star saxophonist and composer Cassie Kinoshi, performing material from their debut album Driftglass. British pianist Zoe Rahman reveals her musical inspirations, including recordings by Alice Coltrane and Mary Lou Williams.

This is a repeat, but well worth hearing again, I think, since we've been discussing Ms Kinoshi and SEED here in recent times.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00022k2

6.30 - New Generation Artists
Featuring further performances by jazz double bassist Misha Mullov-Abbado and his group, recorded in March at the National Centre for Early Music in York as part of the Ryedale Festival, with a programme including The Infamous Grouse, Little Vision, Little Astronaut, Equinox and Hair of the Bop.

Bit of a hostage to fortune titling a work Little Vision, innit...

Immediately following this, I notice that a brand new BBC commission by Daniel Kidane is to be performed as the first item of The Last Night of the Proms, titled Woke. As far as I know, this has nothing to do with any new jazz scene.

12midnight - Geoffrey Smith's Jazz
A profile of celebrated Jamaican alto saxophonist Joe Harriott (1928-73).

This is also a repeat.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b067xbfv

Mon 16 Sept
11pm - Jazz Now
Soweto Kinch with a concert by US drummer Tom Rainey, joined by saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock and bassist Drew Gress.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008gv4

Radio Times also draws attention to Wednesday evening's Front Row (7.15pm - Radio 4) in which Sarah Wilson talks to Soweto about Another Me - an exhibition he's curating at the Southbank Centre here in London. I'd better get down there...

Among other stuff on this week. Jamie Cullum (Radio 2 - Tues 17th - 9pm) is mentioned as showcasing rising jazz stars, so you never know, there could be another genius we've not heard of.

Before that, same day, there's a Great Lives at 4.30 on Radio 4 devoted to Prince. Later, Laura Jurd regular keys tickler Eliot Galvin is to be found cross-genericising on Late Junction (11pm). You should try it, it can be fun, they say. And lastly:

Thurs 19 Sept
11pm - Late Junction
Fiona Talkington presents a mixtape compiled by composer and jazz flautist Nicole Mitchell, featuring music that showcases the Chicago music scene which she continues to champion.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

I think Ian was a strong advocate of Nicole in the past?

BN.

[Serial_Apologist]

I think Ian was a strong advocate of Nicole in the past?

BN.

I would expect so: one of the reasons for my mentioning that programme - Ian being the completist that he is when it comes to the contemporary Chicago jazz scene.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Track 3 on JRR is Sonny Rollins (Prestige 1955 "Worktime" qrt album) playing Billy Strayhorn's "Raincheck". I am assuming this is my birthday request (not my birthday, I don't have them), so many thanks to Alyn. A great track, a REALLY great album (Sonny, Ray Bryant, George Morrow, Max Roach), almost my favourite Sonny. It's a close thing.

BN.

[Jazzrook]

Track 3 on JRR is Sonny Rollins (Prestige 1955 "Worktime" qrt album) playing Billy Strayhorn's "Raincheck". I am assuming this is my birthday request (not my birthday, I don't have them), so many thanks to Alyn. A great track, a REALLY great album (Sonny, Ray Bryant, George Morrow, Max Roach), almost my favourite Sonny. It's a close thing.

BN.

Glad your request for Billy Strayhorn's 'Raincheck' by Sonny Rollins will be on JRR this Saturday.
As you know, I posted this track here a couple of weeks ago and agree that 'Worktime' is a wonderful album - on a par with 'Saxophone Colossus' imho.
Also looking forward to hearing the Tony Coe track from his almost impossible to find album 'Before The Dawn'.

JR

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

I've also got a lot of time for Sonny's "Moving out" (1954) with Kenny Dorham and Elmo Hope, partly because it was the first Rollins LP I bought (on Esquire) and the first time I heard both Kenny & Elmo. It's not as polished & assured, and apparently there were many takes, but it's imprinted on my memory now.

The other "neglected" Rollins album to me is the RCA "Now's the time", both the original and the "alternates" version, with all the extended versions Sonny didn't want released and was quite irate about when they were. Some wonderful playing nonetheless.

BN.

[Serial_Apologist]

Glad your request for Billy Strayhorn's 'Raincheck' by Sonny Rollins will be on JRR this Saturday.
As you know, I posted this track here a couple of weeks ago and agree that 'Worktime' is a wonderful album - on a par with 'Saxophone Colossus' imho.
Also looking forward to hearing the Tony Coe track from his almost impossible to find album 'Before The Dawn'.

JR

It funny how different aspects or periods of a player attract more for some people than others. For me it's the freer Rollins of the 1960s that does it, though I have the version of "How High The Moon" he recorded with Barney Kessell and an apparently unknown bassist, but with no drummer present, in '59, and it does signal all the things that for me would make Sonny so exciting when I heard him in the 1960s. I probably taped it on spec from a JRR at the time I bought my first cassette player and was on the catch-up after several years away from the scene.

JRR has been excellent in recent weeks, and there are a number of interesting tracks tomorrow - the Tony Coe: somehow I missed the release of that album, and Tony is apparently retired and not in too good health now; and a track by the presumably British bass player Michael Bolton-led band, with Mike Walker and Tim Garland, two of our best in the line-up, imv. "I Remember Clifford", with the Dizzy big band of '57, was on an LP I bought while London bedsitting in '65 and earning just £6 a week minus tips as a waiter - Verve label back then iirc. Next door said one day he hadn't realised I was into jazz, and when I asked him how he knew, he said he heard it coming through my wall at night, when he couldn't sleep! Later I swapped that LP with a bloke who was a big 1950s Basie fan, and wanted to get rid of his Ray Russell "Live at the ICA" LP, which didn't even have an inner sleeve: I thought the Dizzy was a step backwards from the Manteca/Cubana Be stuff of 10 years earlier.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

The bass player on Sonny's "How high the moon" (Contemporary Leaders) was Leroy Vinnegar.

This is "Blue & Boogie" from "Now's the time" (RCA 1964), Sonny stretching out in wonderful trio format with Bob Cranshaw and Ron McCurdy. The extended performances are him at the top of his game.

http://youtu.be/Ga4kY9oSM1I

[Serial_Apologist]

The bass player on Sonny's "How high the moon" (Contemporary Leaders) was Leroy Vinnegar.

This is "Blue & Boogie" from "Now's the time" (RCA 1964), Sonny stretching out in wonderful trio format with Bob Cranshaw and Ron McCurdy. The extended performances are him at the top of his game.
http://youtu.be/Ga4kY9oSM1I

Thanks Bluesie - I can now enter that on my index card for Sonny Rollins!

I certainly agree about that "Blue & Boogie" - amazing!

[Ian Thumwood]

I would expect so: one of the reasons for my mentioning that programme - Ian being the completist that he is when it comes to the contemporary Chicago jazz scene.

I would thoroughly recommend Nicole Mitchell's albums on Delmark with "Awakening" being particularly good. (quartet with Jeff Parker, Harrison Bankhead and Avreeayl Ra.)

It is strange that the Chicago scene has gone quiet in the media over the last 18 months. I was reliant on Delmark for a long while but the label was sold last year and the discs being released seemingly changing in style. It is not a prolific label but the likes of Jason Roebke and Josh Berman have not released records for ages now with the latter's last appearance being on the Jaimie Branch debut disc. A number of the musicians such as Mitchell and drummer Frank Rosaly have now moved elsewhere but even the once ubiquitous Jason Adasiewicz has disappeared of late.

[Jazzrook]

The bass player on Sonny's "How high the moon" (Contemporary Leaders) was Leroy Vinnegar.

This is "Blue & Boogie" from "Now's the time" (RCA 1964), Sonny stretching out in wonderful trio format with Bob Cranshaw and Ron McCurdy. The extended performances are him at the top of his game.
http://youtu.be/Ga4kY9oSM1I

Talking of Leroy Vinnegar I recently discovered his 1957 album 'Leroy Walks!' with Teddy Edwards, Gerald Wilson, Victor Feldman, Carl Perkins & Tony Bazely.
An enjoyable West Coast session which can be found on 'Jazz Bassists - Four Classic Albums'(AvidJazz) which features Vinnegar, Doug Watkins, Paul Chambers & Ron Carter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQPS2WYAK4M

JR