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Billie Holiday's moving version with Benny Carter, Harry Edison, Jimmy Rowles, Barney Kessell, John Simmons & Larry Bunker recorded in Los Angeles, 1955:
"What's New?" is a 1939 popular song composed by Bob Haggart, with lyrics by Johnny Burke. It was originally an instrumental tune titled "I'm Free" by Haggar...
Well, in the words of Django Bates' song, "You can't have everything"!
(Which I prefer to the Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want" - it always seemed ironic that Trump used it as his "battle song - against their wishes"!)
I usually only catch JLU when I am coming home in the car from football on a Saturday afternoon and, as the World Cup has been on for the last month, have not really listened. It is interesting to read your comment as I can appreciate what you are saying. I find that the programme has a strange spin on jazz. There is a lot of music I like although I rarely hear anything that is a revelation to me. However, I don't think that JLU is by any means unique in how it presents the music and you can see the same malaise in concert programmes, on line record reviews.
It does make me wonder just how relevant jazz is in 2022. I think that there is still some great music out there yet the stuff that interests me has to be hunted down. Jazz is no longer put on a plate for you. Elsewhere, I feel that there are some kinds of jazz which are well represented . Has Free Improvisation ever been healthier ? My impression , judging from reviews, is that it is really now very much part of the mainstream and gets a massive profile on album review sites. I feel that the issue is the more orthodox types of jazz are the problem. The fascination with modish stuff that started wit EST and the Nu Jazz that followed in it;s wake has come home to roost in that the was not really any long-term development of jazz artists that had occured in the previous two decades. There are very few big names in jazz these days - probably Greogry Porter, Brad Mehldau, the Marsalis brothers, Herbie and Metheny. Not sure who the other would be.
I am not sure that there is a younger audience for jazz and if there is, they are certainly not going to be valuing the music in the same way people will be doing so who grew up as fans from the 40s onwards. "Cutting edge" no longer seems to be the same innovations that we lauded as late as the 1990s. (Quite interesting to see some of the Jazz Journal reviews of British Jazz from 1970s to 90s including Mike Westbrook and Karl Jenkins material which the reviewers are seeing as far more adventurous than what is passed off today as adventurous. ) JLU is merely reflecting today's mainstream and if this appears to be weak / lightweight by older generations like ourselves, it is small wonder it is not satisfactory. The fact that there seems to be some kind of malaise in jazz is also starting to be reported in the jazz media. I don't think it will be helped by Covid.
The producers of the programmes like JLU are caught between a rock and a hard place. They have a remit to produce a radio programme about jazz. I believe radio listening figures are down and therefore they need to capture as wide an audience as possible. I also listen to BBC Radio Solent alot for the sports coverage and know that the local radio stations are going to be trimmed back. Back in the 1980s, they used to have both a jazz programme and another than featured big bands where jazz was also a large part of what was played. My piano teacher used to have a regular gig playing jazz piano on the long-defuncted Radio vistory. Fast forward to 2022 and nothing like this would ever be played on any local BBC or independent radio station. For me, JLU is effectively a middle-of-the road overview of jazz which reflects the increasingly commerical and conservative state of the music.
What worries me is the future of jazz on radio. I think Radio is a dying media form and notsomething that will interest many people who access their music via the internet. I think the BBC is obliged to give jazz the attention it deserves yet there are probably listeners of folk, C&W, Blues, Heavy Metal, Reggae , etc who are probably saying the same thing. Even Classial music on the radio is troubled with the popular favourites being played ad nauseum on stations like Classic FM. Coupled with the fact that someone under the age of 30 discovering jazz would now consider Weather Report to be vintage (!) and that they will prefer something more groove-orientated, I am not too optimistic that jazz will still be relevent in twenty year's time or if indeed there will be terrestrial radio stations around to cover it.
Many <thanks> go to DR for recording and preserving this gem from Copenhagen, 1971 - another sublime performance from the Bobby Hutcherson/Harold Land quintet.
all words are trains for moving past what really has no name
Happy birthday, John Scofield! I just came across this fantastic tune of his on facebook and while I haven't been able to find that particular version on youtube, I did find this which sounds pretty great also:
Also from the Leverkusener Jazztage 1986 or 87 ....found on an old VHS Tape......still one of my "All Time Favourites"!!!! Love Sco`s music since the late se...
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