This cat's on the Mats

[Serial_Apologist]

Sat 21 March
5pm - J to Z
Kevin Le Gendre presents a session by Bahraini-British trumpeter Yazz Ahmed, performing from his album celebrating great women from history, including Rosa Parks and pioneering Saudi Arabian film director Haifaa al-Mansour. And influential New York jazz guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel introduces recordings that have inspired his work.

This is a repeat - I expect we'll get a lot of those from now on.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0009b97

12midnight - Freeness
Under the direction of Mats Gustafsson, the Fire! Orchestra takes on Krzysztof Penderecki's 1971 work Actions for Free Jazz Orchestra. Corey Mwamba also presents live music from the 50th anniversary homecoming gig by the Art Ensemble of Chicago. Plus absorbing tonal improvisation in a collaboration between the French group Ikue Doki and vocalist Sofia Jernberg.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000gmvf

Sun 22 March
4pm - Jazz Record Requests
Alyn Shipton with requested recordings by Coleman Hawkins, Dave Brubeck, Jimmy Smith and Mary Lou Williams.

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

[Joseph K]

This is a repeat - I expect we'll get a lot of those from now on.

Yes - I was quite looking forward to seeing Rosenwinkel's Standards Trio as well in May.

[Ian Thumwood]

I have been listening to JRR whilst working from home today. The Coleman Hawkins track with the seriously underrated Tab Smith was incredible. I have never heard this record before but have always considered Smith to be one of the most seriously underrated saxophonists of that era. He is also heard to good effect in the two Lucky Millinder tracks which also includes Dizzy Gillespie as soloist. ("Mason Flyer" and "Little John Special" which are desert island discs for big band jazz as far as I am concerned.) The other famous solo he is well known for is "Harvard Blues" , a seminal blues by Count Basie's orchestra with the great Jimmy Rushing adding the vocals. Again, this is a desert island dis for me. I was totally unaware that he had made a record with such an unaccompanied coda as that and I felt that this was a highlight, along with Bruce's Masquelero request.

However, the thing that really struck me was the Marion MacPartland track because the tune sounded really familiar but I do not know it as "Mary's Waltz." I have been scratching my head as to what this might be and recollect the tune from a Herbie Nichols Project album where it was a feature for trumpeter Ron Horton. (Whatever happened to him?) I know the tune as "The bebop Waltz" which was penned by Nichols in 1950. The MLWs composition comes from a year later. There is a copy of the lead sheet in the Roswell Rudd book which is dated and makes me think that this one was pinched from Herbie.

[Serial_Apologist]

I have been listening to JRR whilst working from home today. The Coleman Hawkins track with the seriously underrated Tab Smith was incredible. I have never heard this record before but have always considered Smith to be one of the most seriously underrated saxophonists of that era. He is also heard to good effect in the two Lucky Millinder tracks which also includes Dizzy Gillespie as soloist. ("Mason Flyer" and "Little John Special" which are desert island discs for big band jazz as far as I am concerned.) The other famous solo he is well known for is "Harvard Blues" , a seminal blues by Count Basie's orchestra with the great Jimmy Rushing adding the vocals. Again, this is a desert island dis for me. I was totally unaware that he had made a record with such an unaccompanied coda as that and I felt that this was a highlight, along with Bruce's Masquelero request.

However, the thing that really struck me was the Marion MacPartland track because the tune sounded really familiar but I do not know it as "Mary's Waltz." I have been scratching my head as to what this might be and recollect the tune from a Herbie Nichols Project album where it was a feature for trumpeter Ron Horton. (Whatever happened to him?) I know the tune as "The bebop Waltz" which was penned by Nichols in 1950. The MLWs composition comes from a year later. There is a copy of the lead sheet in the Roswell Rudd book which is dated and makes me think that this one was pinched from Herbie.

I don't know about anybody else here, but I'm making the most of the weather & getting out for walks or bike rides while the weather lasts or we're not all placed in purdah - whichever lasts longest. I'm off now to a friend over in Clapham who's 72 today - she's in self-isolation as a consequence of heavy chemo a few years ago putting her in the high risk class like myself and possibly others of us here - and is very grumpy about being restricted. But thanks for the pointers, Ian, and the benefit of your bit of knowledge about the likes of Tab Smith: will give the programme a listen later. Meanwhile best wishes to us all in these trying circs - hope you're all managing to cope: I gave up trying to keep my pecker up several years ago.

[Jazzrook]

Here's that wonderful Coleman Hawkins/Tab Smith 1944 track on YouTube:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=hB_QOc22G0k

JR

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

I don't know about anybody else here, but I'm making the most of the weather & getting out for walks or bike rides while the weather lasts or we're not all placed in purdah - whichever lasts longest. I'm off now to a friend over in Clapham who's 72 today - she's in self-isolation as a consequence of heavy chemo a few years ago putting her in the high risk class like myself and possibly others of us here - and is very grumpy about being restricted. But thanks for the pointers, Ian, and the benefit of your bit of knowledge about the likes of Tab Smith: will give the programme a listen later. Meanwhile best wishes to us all in these trying circs - hope you're all managing to cope: I gave up trying to keep my pecker up several years ago.

Buddy Guy, (a thousand miles from nowhere), "One Room Country Shack". I could have posted Mose Allison's hip version but Buddy is particularly anguished here, appropriately for the times. For all self isolating or those very soon about to. Stay COOL...

http://youtu.be/pYZc8qOk03k

BN.

[Ian Thumwood]

The thing I love about jazz from the 20s-40s is that you can discover players like Tab Smith who are relatively unknown these days or are seriously underrated and other more celebrated soloists like Dizzy Gillespie in an unusual context. Here they are together with Lucky Millinder's big band giving an early workout to the "Salt Peanuts" riff. I always think that the trumpet break by Dizzy on this record seems to mark a dividing point between swing and bop in one, three minute track. I think this is one of the greatest records by a big band in the 1940s....

[Serial_Apologist]

The thing I love about jazz from the 20s-40s is that you can discover players like Tab Smith who are relatively unknown these days or are seriously underrated and other more celebrated soloists like Dizzy Gillespie in an unusual context. Here they are together with Lucky Millinder's big band giving an early workout to the "Salt Peanuts" riff. I always think that the trumpet break by Dizzy on this record seems to mark a dividing point between swing and bop in one, three minute track. I think this is one of the greatest records by a big band in the 1940s....

And not just "Salt Peanuts", but also the equally famous Dee doobie doo riff from "One O'Clock Jump" - all rolled into the one number! Fantastic!!