Amy abilities, heavy Mettler and Sollid Couture

[Serial_Apologist]

Sat 17 July
5pm - J to Z
Kevin Le Gendre puts the spotlight on emerging talent, with music from 2018 BBC Young Jazz Musician winner Xhosa Cole, session highlights from Scottish saxophonist Matt Carmichael and the best new jazz from the BBC Introducing uploader.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000xzrx

12midnight - Freeness
Corey Mwamba meets US pianist, poet and vocalist Amina Claudine Myers, who is receiving a lifetime achievement award at this year's Vision Festival in New York. She talks about her own work and picks a track that has influenced her and that she considers to be an outstanding example of improvisation. Elsewhere, light and exploratory improvisation floats through the air played by Norwegian folk and jazz musician Torgrim Sollid's ensemble; and pianist Lisa Cay Miller, guitarist Vicky Mettler and double bassist Raphaël Foisy-Couture create music that swings.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000xzs3

Sun 18 July
4pm - Jazz Record Requests

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

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000xzmz

Also, programmes this week marking the tenth year of singer Amy Winehouse's death:

Radio 2
Sat 17 July
9pm - Legacy of a Lioness: Amy Winehouse - 1/2

BBC 2
Fri 23 July
9pm - Reclaiming Amy

10pm - Amy Winehouse at Porchester Hall: BBC Sessions

[Serial_Apologist]

Disappointing music from the young intenders on today's J to Z, I felt. Was this a case of choice of tracks with the limited time? There is a danger that if the impression left was of a mix of staleness of ideas, electronics surplus to requirements, and of people trying to run before learning how to walk, their more gifted immediate predecessors on the home scene now being mostly ignored by the programme will get forgotten in the general amnesia of the pandemic.

[Old Grumpy]

Disappointing music from the young intenders on today's J to Z, I felt. Was this a case of choice of tracks with the limited time? There is a danger that if the impression left was of a mix of staleness of ideas, electronics surplus to requirements, and of people trying to run before learning how to walk, their more gifted immediate predecessors on the home scene now being mostly ignored by the programme will get forgotten in the general amnesia of the pandemic.

J to Z truncated by opera again. Back to 1.5h again next week, but 1h later to accommodate a Music Planet Womad special - fair doos

OG

[Ian Thumwood]

Disappointing music from the young intenders on today's J to Z, I felt. Was this a case of choice of tracks with the limited time? There is a danger that if the impression left was of a mix of staleness of ideas, electronics surplus to requirements, and of people trying to run before learning how to walk, their more gifted immediate predecessors on the home scene now being mostly ignored by the programme will get forgotten in the general amnesia of the pandemic.

This crossed my mind sometime ago and I wondered if it was particularly unique to the British jazz scene. As long as I have been a fan of jazz, the British press have loved picking up the next "trend" in jazz and then have a habit of dropping their interest as soon as something new comes along. About 15 years ago there was a fascination with band like Acoustic Ladyland and Polar Bear but you can go back even further and rattle off plenty of names from the 80s and 90s who no longer enjoy the same kind of profile. It is a strange scenario because I think that some really decent musicians have almost been cast in to the wayside. I cannot recall the last time I heard anything by Dave O'Higgins, for example or read any reviews of bands like Pinski Zoo. There are musicians like Xero Slingsby who had a cult reputation yet I am sure there is not a generation of fans who will be oblivious to who was making convincing jazz from the 1970s onwards. On top of this, there are brilliant composers like Pete Hurt who are in a crazy situation of only having issued two albums under their name.

I think it is a strange situation. Musicians from the 1960s are rightly lauded but there is almost something temporary about the status of younger musicians who have their moment in the sun yet seem unable to cement a long term reputation. Hearing the Scottish group last night, it remainder of the Bancroft brothers and the Caber label - musicians who looked to put Scottish jazz firmly on the map yet they seem to have totally disappeared.

It is a strange situation and may reflect a lack of patience with the British media and maybe society in general where there is always the look out for the new. Consequently, few British jazz musicians these days get to build up a legacy akin to the earlier general of players like Surman, Taylor, Wheeler, Holland, etc. I don't think that this is anything to do with ability and more attributable to the constant need to find something new. I liked the Xhosa Cole track last night but the opening track seemed even less compelling than Winchester City's friendly match yesterday afternoon which was equally uninvolving. The cricket should be more entertaining this afternoon, though.....

[Serial_Apologist]

This crossed my mind sometime ago and I wondered if it was particularly unique to the British jazz scene. As long as I have been a fan of jazz, the British press have loved picking up the next "trend" in jazz and then have a habit of dropping their interest as soon as something new comes along. About 15 years ago there was a fascination with band like Acoustic Ladyland and Polar Bear but you can go back even further and rattle off plenty of names from the 80s and 90s who no longer enjoy the same kind of profile. It is a strange scenario because I think that some really decent musicians have almost been cast in to the wayside. I cannot recall the last time I heard anything by Dave O'Higgins, for example or read any reviews of bands like Pinski Zoo. There are musicians like Xero Slingsby who had a cult reputation yet I am sure there is not a generation of fans who will be oblivious to who was making convincing jazz from the 1970s onwards. On top of this, there are brilliant composers like Pete Hurt who are in a crazy situation of only having issued two albums under their name.

I think it is a strange situation. Musicians from the 1960s are rightly lauded but there is almost something temporary about the status of younger musicians who have their moment in the sun yet seem unable to cement a long term reputation. Hearing the Scottish group last night, it remainder of the Bancroft brothers and the Caber label - musicians who looked to put Scottish jazz firmly on the map yet they seem to have totally disappeared.

It is a strange situation and may reflect a lack of patience with the British media and maybe society in general where there is always the look out for the new. Consequently, few British jazz musicians these days get to build up a legacy akin to the earlier general of players like Surman, Taylor, Wheeler, Holland, etc. I don't think that this is anything to do with ability and more attributable to the constant need to find something new. I liked the Xhosa Cole track last night but the opening track seemed even less compelling than Winchester City's friendly match yesterday afternoon which was equally uninvolving. The cricket should be more entertaining this afternoon, though.....

I couldn't agree more, Ian. And it has been a bee in my bonnet going all the way back to the 1980s when the likes of Stan Tracey and Keith Tippett rightly complained bitterly about their neglect by the prominent broadcasting outlets. Stan: "I dread it whenever I hear talk about a 'jazz revival', because I know I will not get any work". There couldn't be a more blatant exemplification of the commodification of music - which, to me, epitomises why jazz is in its nature and practices anti-capitalist. Jazz being a music which by its very attraction cannot be repeated the way pop groups expect to have to reproduce their recordings in concert pretty much note-for-note is, by definition, damaged by this kind of obscurement and, by contrast, media obsession with youth and looks: however technically brilliant when young the finest jazz musicians peak with maturity, jazz being a music born of experience and experiences.

[Serial_Apologist]

I hadn't heard that Mingus track before - surely the freest of any Mingus unit? What chord changes??!! Love the wit of the quotes in Curson's and Dolphy's solos - Eric even managing a scrap from Ornette's When Will The Blues Leave if I'm not mistaken. Knocked the rest of the tracks into a hocked cat!

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

I hadn't heard that Mingus track before - surely the freest of any Mingus unit? What chord changes??!! Love the wit of the quotes in Curson's and Dolphy's solos - Eric even managing a scrap from Ornette's When Will The Blues Leave if I'm not mistaken. Knocked the rest of the tracks into a hocked cat!

No cats were harmed in the making of this album. Here yer go Governor, the complete album, Migus Presents Mingus Candid 1960. An essential addition to every home...and I'm sure it played in the flat/ and background music of Ken Russell's famous 60s film profile of new British painters, Peter Blake etc. Cor blimey, how hip was yesterday...

http://youtu.be/mqkR2u9cMvM

[Serial_Apologist]

No cats were harmed in the making of this album. Here yer go Governor, the complete album, Migus Presents Mingus Candid 1960. An essential addition to every home...and I'm sure it played in the flat/ and background music of Ken Russell's famous 60s film profile of new British painters, Peter Blake etc. Cor blimey, how hip was yesterday...
http://youtu.be/mqkR2u9cMvM

Wow thanks Bluesie! By coincidence I was watching Ken Russell's The Rainbow yesterday.

[Ian Thumwood]

I hadn't heard that Mingus track before - surely the freest of any Mingus unit? What chord changes??!! Love the wit of the quotes in Curson's and Dolphy's solos - Eric even managing a scrap from Ornette's When Will The Blues Leave if I'm not mistaken. Knocked the rest of the tracks into a hocked cat!

i think that "All the things the you are" is used as the basis of the head but the absence of a chordal instrument makes this difficult to follow. I am sure that the standard is in there somewhere. I had only heard "Folk Forms No,1" from this album an the music really put me in mind of Joe Harriott's Free Form album which I was playing last week when I worked at home. That is interesting too and a great album. I think one of the tunes on that album also used the changes of "I got rhythm" as a basis for further exploration. Forget which track, but you can clearly hear the changes.

Interesting to hear Mingus's precursor, Pops Foster on the track by JC Higginbotham too.

[Quarky]

. Cor blimey, how hip was yesterday...
http://youtu.be/mqkR2u9cMvM

Agreed - many thanks!