Surman on the Mount

[Serial_Apologist]

No J to Z this week - instead a "curated" mix from 50 works by Stravinsky. I wonder what he would make of that. People might like to know that AACM-associated saxophonist Julius Hemphill comes up during the New Music Show (10pm).

Sat 10 April
12midnight - Freeness
Corey Mwamba revisits an archive performance by a ten-piece ensemble led by Devon-born saxophonist John Surman recorded in 1969 as a one-off broadcast for German public radio (and released by Cuneiform Records in 2011). Plus a solo piano piece by Bheki Mseleku, and the Australian Art Orchestra collaborating with sound artist Shoeb Ahmad in an exploration of her teenage experiences.

This should be well worth it for the Surman alone.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000v232

Sun 11 April
4pm - Jazz Record Requests
Alyn Shipton plays music from every decade in the long career of English trombonist and band leader Chris Barber, who died last month, aged 90.

A good spread by the looks of it, with Gospel recordings from Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Alex Bradford included.

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

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000v2jq

[cloughie]

No J to Z this week - instead a "curated" mix from 50 works by Stravinsky. I wonder what he would make of that. People might like to know that AACM-associated saxophonist Julius Hemphill comes up during the New Music Show (10pm).

Sat 10 April
12midnight - Freeness
Corey Mwamba revisits an archive performance by a ten-piece ensemble led by Devon-born saxophonist John Surman recorded in 1969 as a one-off broadcast for German public radio (and released by Cuneiform Records in 2011). Plus a solo piano piece by Bheki Mseleku, and the Australian Art Orchestra collaborating with sound artist Shoeb Ahmad in an exploration of her teenage experiences.

This should be well worth it for the Surman alone.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000v232

Sun 11 April
4pm - Jazz Record Requests
Alyn Shipton plays music from every decade in the long career of English trombonist and band leader Chris Barber, who died last month, aged 90.

A good spread by the looks of it, with Gospel recordings from Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Alex Bradford included.

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

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000v2jq

Love the thread title S_A, just waiting to be preached with what could be atititude!

[Old Grumpy]

Love the thread title S_A, just waiting to be preached with what could be atititude!

Alleluia!

[Serial_Apologist]

Love the thread title S_A, just waiting to be preached with what could be atititude!

"Blessed be the cheesemakers??? I thought John Surman came from Devon, not Somerset!"

[Jazzrook]

No J to Z this week - instead a "curated" mix from 50 works by Stravinsky. I wonder what he would make of that. People might like to know that AACM-associated saxophonist Julius Hemphill comes up during the New Music Show (10pm).

Sat 10 April
12midnight - Freeness
Corey Mwamba revisits an archive performance by a ten-piece ensemble led by Devon-born saxophonist John Surman recorded in 1969 as a one-off broadcast for German public radio (and released by Cuneiform Records in 2011). Plus a solo piano piece by Bheki Mseleku, and the Australian Art Orchestra collaborating with sound artist Shoeb Ahmad in an exploration of her teenage experiences.

This should be well worth it for the Surman alone.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000v232

Sun 11 April
4pm - Jazz Record Requests
Alyn Shipton plays music from every decade in the long career of English trombonist and band leader Chris Barber, who died last month, aged 90.

A good spread by the looks of it, with Gospel recordings from Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Alex Bradford included.

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

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000v2jq

Surprisingly, it looks as though JRR's tribute to Chris Barber is going ahead as planned. No 'Freeness', though.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/schedules/p00fzl8t/2021/04/11

JR

[cloughie]

Surprisingly, it looks as though JRR's tribute to Chris Barber is going ahead as planned. No 'Freeness', though.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/schedules/p00fzl8t/2021/04/11

JR

Seems very strange - largely back to normal on Sunday until 5pm curfew!

[Serial_Apologist]

I was really looking forward to tonight's "Freeness" - a broadcast of a live session from a John Surman ensemble at arguably the pinnacle of Surman's collaborations and creativity. If not tomorrow, then when?

[Ian Thumwood]

When I was discovering jazz as a teenager in the 1980s, I heard Charles Fox play a track called "my friends" that John Surman made with Karin Krog which really shocked me at the time. For ages I had a perception of Surman's music being really difficult to get in to as it seemed so alien. It took me about five years later to finally get the music when I heard "The amazing adventures of Simon, Simon" which was an epiphany for me. This was a duet album made with Jack DeJohnette who I subsequently found out is in his law.

It is ages since I heard this record but I think he was a major force in jazz through the 70s ,80s and 90s. No one was doing what he was doing , especially with regard to employing technology. I know there is a tendency to praise his work with the Trio in the 1960s on this board, but I felt when there was loads of fuss about the generation of British players who emerged in the 1980s, Surman's work displayed a level of maturity and authority at that time which truly made it stand out. i think he has mellowed over the years yet I always enjoy his music. He is a top bloke too. (My copy of the Bach 48 was signed by him! "Enjoy this real music." )

[Quarky]

Just wondering whether Ottilie Patterson is underrated as a Jazz/ Blues singer in the grand scheme of things. I suppose she was essentially locked in with Chris Barber, which prevented her reaching a wider audience?

[Serial_Apologist]

Just wondering whether Ottilie Patterson is underrated as a Jazz/ Blues singer in the grand scheme of things. I suppose she was essentially locked in with Chris Barber, which prevented her reaching a wider audience?

She did that one album "3000 Years With Ottilie" with orchestral backings for Gomelsky's Marmalade label in 1969, which was well removed from Trad jazz connections, if not others:

http://www.discogs.com/Ottilie-Patterson-3000-Years-With-Ottilie/release/8313214

Of which, Gomelsky wrote for the track from it on the contemporaneous Marmalade compilation LP which I have:

"Ottilie was one of the great performers of the almost legendary cycle of the Traditional Jazz revival in Britain during the 'fifties. She and her husband, Chris Barber, after one of their many trips to the U.S.A., certainly contributed more than anyone to the introduction of Chicago Rhythm and Blues in England, therefore setting the basis for the tremendous musical revolution which has taken place over the last few years. Trapped, as was Chris, for a long time by the unjustifiable need for journalistic 'pigeon-holing', the work contained in this LP is a gesture of liberation. Her inspiration - literary as in the case of Shakespeare's sonnets and ancient Latin poetry set to music, folkloristic, as with old and not so old Irish ballads and ditties, and her blues experience she found deep inside herself - owes very little if anything to the contemporary scene. She has had to wait all this time to find her own artistic essence. This is why the results are so commandingly authentic".

By serendipity the same would be said many years later of Julie née Driscoll, features in two tracks with Brian Auger and The Trinity elsewhere on this album.

[Quarky]

She did that one album "3000 Years With Ottilie" with orchestral backings for Gomelsky's Marmalade label in 1969, which was well removed from Trad jazz connections, if not others:

http://www.discogs.com/Ottilie-Patterson-3000-Years-With-Ottilie/release/8313214

Of which, Gomelsky wrote for the track from it on the contemporaneous Marmalade compilation LP which I have:

"Ottilie was one of the great performers of the almost legendary cycle of the Traditional Jazz revival in Britain during the 'fifties. She and her husband, Chris Barber, after one of their many trips to the U.S.A., certainly contributed more than anyone to the introduction of Chicago Rhythm and Blues in England, therefore setting the basis for the tremendous musical revolution which has taken place over the last few years. Trapped, as was Chris, for a long time by the unjustifiable need for journalistic 'pigeon-holing', the work contained in this LP is a gesture of liberation. Her inspiration - literary as in the case of Shakespeare's sonnets and ancient Latin poetry set to music, folkloristic, as with old and not so old Irish ballads and ditties, and her blues experience she found deep inside herself - owes very little if anything to the contemporary scene. She has had to wait all this time to find her own artistic essence. This is why the results are so commandingly authentic".

By serendipity the same would be said many years later of Julie née Driscoll, features in two tracks with Brian Auger and The Trinity elsewhere on this album.

I guess Ottilie's and Chris's heydays were in the period of Trad vs. Mod, with a wide gulf between them, and as Gomelsky says, they got pigeon-holed.