Take me to Myele dear.

[Serial_Apologist]

Sat 5 Feb
5pm - J to Z
Jumoké Fashola presents highlights of a concert given by up-an-coming New Zealand-raised drummer Myele Manzanza, recorded in November on the J to Z Presents stage at the London Jazz Festival. Plus a performance from pianist and organist Kit Downes ahead of the release of his new trio-format album Vermilion.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00147hl

Question: why does a New Zealand-born musician need to come to this country to perform jazz? Because the only music able to be played standing on one's head is rock and roll.

12midnight - Freeness
Corey Mwamba with music, including a concert by double bassist Joëlle Léandre, accordionist and vocalist Pauline Oliveros and trombone player George Lewis-Corey, recorded in July 2014 by the national Czech radio station as part of the VS Interpretation Festival in Prague. Plus melodic motifs from pianist Aki Takase and saxophonist Daniel Erdmann.

Note: this is a repeat.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001075k

Sun 6 Feb
4pm - Jazz Record Requests

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

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00147jk

A wee plug if I may for CPE Bach as next week's COTW - a fascinating figure by any measure. If you want to find out what befell classical music between Bach (JS) and Haydn & co, it sort of parallelled what happened between Swing and Bebop, almost exactly 200 years before - and the funny thing is, few in the West had a representative picture until after the fall of Soviet Communism because a large proportion of CPE's scores had been snaffled away from Germany by the occupying Red Army during WW2!

[Serial_Apologist]

Is anyone else confessin' to the problem I'm having nowadays with J to Z and Freeness - namely that these programmes reel off tracks one after another bearing no or little more relationship one to the next than Jazz Record Requests, where one would not demand or expect it? We're told this is by this person and how wonderful s/he/it is, just listen, you can definitely hear the church background etc, but who they are, who they all are, even what nationality or town they come from, seldom gets a mention, leaving one flailing with no context and the often additional problem if like me you're a bit unretentive memory syndromatic of names that are certainly no giveaway. So it's like, yes, this week had a lot of good stuff, though goodness knows who by, and where it fits into my diminishing apprehension of an overall picture? Perhaps I'm not listening hard enough! - maybe all you need is pen and paper to note down names and check on Google! after it's all over and you are no longer applying present-centred mindfulness - but musician websites don't give you much these days, not beyond new recordings to buy, gigs to attend - seldom age. I did enjoy hearing Kit Downes talking about his selection of inspiring tracks, some of them names I recognised and could maybe spell approximately enough to let the algorhythms figure me out... but does not knowing anything much really matter these days, about anything??

[Ian Thumwood]

I caught some of J-Z after driving back from the Saints v Coventry match which went in to extra time and therefore I was someway in to the programme when I started having listened to the match report on the local radio. The Grant Green track was terrific but I have to admit that it really exposed the differences between what was happening in the US in the 1960s and the current European scene when Kit Downes was asked to make his selections. The details are available on the programme's website if you are interested enough to want to find out. I have to admit that I find Mr, Downes' own music to be all too typical of the kind of output ECM specialise in these days and , whilst beautiful in some respects, it is not where my interest in jazz lies. I can appreciate it yet I find it somewhat depressing that Eicher continually churns out these identikit piano trios from Europe. The selection of inspirations was mixed. The sax / guitar duo reminded me of Jimmy Guiffre but the next track of solo piano with extra-musical samples was just gimmicky.

There is something about Mr Downe's intonation and description of the music which is oddily off-putting. It did not leave me with much enthusiasm for his selections although it did make me think just how different the qualities he looks for in music as a professional musician and teacher is so different from my own as a fan. Much of his enthusiasm seemed to be for things which I had considered to represent the malaise in jazz in the first decade of the 2000s that I now thought we had passed. Granted that my own tastes are so very different from those expressed by Kit , it would not have been difficult to come to the conclusion that jazz had nothing to do with Black , American culture. Was the Geri Allen track his own choice ? I missed the end of the programme as I has a call when I got back home. I am imagining that some of the fellow posters on here such as Jazzrook and Bluesnik would have shared my lack of enthusiasm.

[Old Grumpy]

Is anyone else confessin' to the problem I'm having nowadays with J to Z and Freeness - namely that these programmes reel off tracks one after another bearing no or little more relationship one to the next than Jazz Record Requests, where one would not demand or expect it? We're told this is by this person and how wonderful s/he/it is, just listen, you can definitely hear the church background etc, but who they are, who they all are, even what nationality or town they come from, seldom gets a mention, leaving one flailing with no context and the often additional problem if like me you're a bit unretentive memory syndromatic of names that are certainly no giveaway. So it's like, yes, this week had a lot of good stuff, though goodness knows who by, and where it fits into my diminishing apprehension of an overall picture? Perhaps I'm not listening hard enough! - maybe all you need is pen and paper to note down names and check on Google! after it's all over and you are no longer applying present-centred mindfulness - but musician websites don't give you much these days, not beyond new recordings to buy, gigs to attend - seldom age. I did enjoy hearing Kit Downes talking about his selection of inspiring tracks, some of them names I recognised and could maybe spell approximately enough to let the algorhythms figure me out... but does not knowing anything much really matter these days, about anything??

Can't say it worries me too much, S_A. I don't listen to Freenees, more than a minimum dose of [lower case] freeness freeks [sic] me out. Regarding J to Z, what I miss most is a tracklisting which can be viewed whilst listening to the programme (Alyn's is exemplary). This last week I have been in enforced isolation and able to indulge in more linear broadcastng than usual.

I suspect your needs and mine will differ as I do not have the knowledgeable perspective on the music that you have.

OG

[Quarky]

Is anyone else confessin' to the problem I'm having nowadays with J to Z and Freeness - namely that these programmes reel off tracks one after another bearing no or little more relationship one to the next than Jazz Record Requests, where one would not demand or expect it? We're told this is by this person and how wonderful s/he/it is, just listen, you can definitely hear the church background etc, but who they are, who they all are, even what nationality or town they come from, seldom gets a mention, leaving one flailing with no context and the often additional problem if like me you're a bit unretentive memory syndromatic of names that are certainly no giveaway. So it's like, yes, this week had a lot of good stuff, though goodness knows who by, and where it fits into my diminishing apprehension of an overall picture? Perhaps I'm not listening hard enough! - maybe all you need is pen and paper to note down names and check on Google! after it's all over and you are no longer applying present-centred mindfulness - but musician websites don't give you much these days, not beyond new recordings to buy, gigs to attend - seldom age. I did enjoy hearing Kit Downes talking about his selection of inspiring tracks, some of them names I recognised and could maybe spell approximately enough to let the algorhythms figure me out... but does not knowing anything much really matter these days, about anything??

Yes, you're probably right, S_A. I was just looking at Weekend Jazz programmes in 2008 (BBC Genome), roughly the period when I started listening more seriously to R3. Two hours of Jazz Library, highly thematic, JRR, and 1.5 hours Jazz Line-up, a Jazz Concert, in one typical weekend. It can't be denied that Jazz is nowadays seriously under resourced and under represented.

However, the problem seems to run throughout Radio 3, with no end of complaints about Dumbing Down of Classical Music, and lots of Magazine - type programmes replacing more serious programmes. I won't go on.

My feel for the situation is that the people that run BBC Audio don't really care about Radio 3, nor serious music of any description.

Excuse my rant.......

[Joseph K]

A wee plug if I may for CPE Bach as next week's COTW - a fascinating figure by any measure. If you want to find out what befell classical music between Bach (JS) and Haydn & co, it sort of parallelled what happened between Swing and Bebop, almost exactly 200 years before - and the funny thing is, few in the West had a representative picture until after the fall of Soviet Communism because a large proportion of CPE's scores had been snaffled away from Germany by the occupying Red Army during WW2!

Listening now.