On yer bikes, all you Jeremiah's!

[Serial_Apologist]

Sat 19 Feb
5pm - J to Z

A repeat:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0012pdb

12midnight - Freeness
Kim Aacari sits in with music inspired by different environments. Brooklyn-based saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock's offering is a kaleidoscope of accordion, drums and electronics that create a shapeshifting bed for field recordings made on long bike rides. Producer Jeremiah Chiu and violist Marta Sofia Honer recorded late-night boat and bike rides through the Aland archipelago in the Baltic Sea under the soft glow of a baleful midnight sun. Bassist Petter Eldh celebrates his roots in the west coast of Sweden.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00147hs

Sun 20 Feb
4pm - Jazz Record Requests

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

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0014p0l

[Sir Velo]

All you Jeremiah's whats?

[Old Grumpy]

All you Jeremiah's whats?

Gotcha'

[Serial_Apologist]

All you Jeremiah's whats?

All you Jeremiah's Cassandras!

[Ian Thumwood]

I was intrigued by the few tracks of J-Z I caught between coming back from Saints v Everton and going off to play squash with my nephew. Joel Ross has been getting some good reviews in the jazz press but I was really under-whelmed by the track selected which seems like something cooked up in a student workshop. Not sure why KLG was purring over the writing as it was just a motif played over and over again. I was very irritated by it. Conversely, what I heard of Mark Vavuma was terrific. Just what I thingk contemporary British jazz should sound like, I was reminded a bit of Kenny Dorham and will have to listen again.

Did anyone hear the Ian Wilson flute+ chamber ensemble composition of Radio 3 later in the evening? I was very impressed by that although I had to turn off when the next track came on with was dreadful. Put my Janacek CD back on when that piece started to play. the flute composition is worth another listen. Ian Wilson is a new name to me.

[Serial_Apologist]

I was intrigued by the few tracks of J-Z I caught between coming back from Saints v Everton and going off to play squash with my nephew. Joel Ross has been getting some good reviews in the jazz press but I was really under-whelmed by the track selected which seems like something cooked up in a student workshop. Not sure why KLG was purring over the writing as it was just a motif played over and over again. I was very irritated by it. Conversely, what I heard of Mark Vavuma was terrific. Just what I thingk contemporary British jazz should sound like, I was reminded a bit of Kenny Dorham and will have to listen again.

Did anyone hear the Ian Wilson flute+ chamber ensemble composition of Radio 3 later in the evening? I was very impressed by that although I had to turn off when the next track came on with was dreadful. Put my Janacek CD back on when that piece started to play. the flute composition is worth another listen. Ian Wilson is a new name to me.

I was thinking how retrospective much of yesterday's J to Z was - apart from that Prince track!

[Jazzrook]

I was intrigued by the few tracks of J-Z I caught between coming back from Saints v Everton and going off to play squash with my nephew. Joel Ross has been getting some good reviews in the jazz press but I was really under-whelmed by the track selected which seems like something cooked up in a student workshop. Not sure why KLG was purring over the writing as it was just a motif played over and over again. I was very irritated by it. Conversely, what I heard of Mark Vavuma was terrific. Just what I thingk contemporary British jazz should sound like, I was reminded a bit of Kenny Dorham and will have to listen again.

Did anyone hear the Ian Wilson flute+ chamber ensemble composition of Radio 3 later in the evening? I was very impressed by that although I had to turn off when the next track came on with was dreadful. Put my Janacek CD back on when that piece started to play. the flute composition is worth another listen. Ian Wilson is a new name to me.

Enjoyed the Stan Tracey track, 'Jumpin' With Symphony Sid' from the recently discovered 1959 sessions on J to Z. Not much else.
Can you give me some details(record number etc.) of that Janacek CD.
Is it just solo piano?

Cheers

JR

[Serial_Apologist]

Disk of the week went to the Chet Baker track with Dick Twardzik, purely out of interest. Must have been one of Twardzik's last recordings; interesting to hear how Chet dealt with an up-tempo. Sorry to hear Jessica Williams has been down on her luck of late - without wishing to pry unnecessarily anyone have any information about this? I like her playing very much and enjoyed her solo number.

[Ian Thumwood]

Enjoyed the Stan Tracey track, 'Jumpin' With Symphony Sid' from the recently discovered 1959 sessions on J to Z. Not much else.
Can you give me some details(record number etc.) of that Janacek CD.
Is it just solo piano?

Cheers

JR

Jazzrook

The Janacek album is by pianist Radoslav Kvapil and is a re-issue bof a mid -1990s issue on the Alto label. It is simpy entitled "Janacek Piano music." I have another CD of his "Symphonia" which is terrific as well as a DVD of his opera "The Cunning Little Vixen" which was re-cast an an animated film. Kvapil's performance is impressive and comes on a budget label.

The piano music disc consits of the two books of "On a overgrown path" and "In the mists" as well as the two surviving movements of his piano sonata which is s;ightly less interesting than the other pieces which I think are essential. I must admit being partial to anything which has a kind of nostalgic element about it. The theme of the second movement of "In the mists" really reminds of Paul Bley.

Here is another interpreation. I wonder what SA makes of this? I have ordered the manuscript as I am fascinated by the harmony and how these pieces "work." In my mind Janacek by-passes the question of modernity. Having looked on line as the manuscript , the music looks far more "outside" than it sounds.

In a nutshell, I would recommend the Kvapil disc.

[Jazzrook]

Disk of the week went to the Chet Baker track with Dick Twardzik, purely out of interest. Must have been one of Twardzik's last recordings; interesting to hear how Chet dealt with an up-tempo. Sorry to hear Jessica Williams has been down on her luck of late - without wishing to pry unnecessarily anyone have any information about this? I like her playing very much and enjoyed her solo number.

I also enjoyed the Chet Baker/Dick Twardzik track and Jessica Williams' version of Rollins' 'Paul's Pal'.
There's some information about Jessica here:

https://www.sandybrownjazz.co.uk/YouSuggest/JessicaWilliams.html

JR

[Ian Thumwood]

I also enjoyed the Chet Baker/Dick Twardzik track and Jessica Williams' version of Rollins' 'Paul's Pal'.
There's some information about Jessica here:

https://www.sandybrownjazz.co.uk/YouSuggest/JessicaWilliams.html

JR

I saw Jessica Williams in Fareham many years ago and was less impressed by her than I would be now. This must have been in the mid 1990s when she had quite a following in the UK. I wish I had been a bit more savvy to a wider range of jazz back then. At the time I felt she was not modern enough - nowadays I am not sure that this would really matter.

[Quarky]

Enjoyed JRR greatly - all the tracks. Just Jazz, nothing more, nothing less.

Now catching up with J to Z. Liking what I hear - New Music Show and Freeness to go. I'm sure I'll find something to complain about by the end of it.

[Serial_Apologist]

Very fond of Janacek's music, Ian. I first heard his music at the age or 14, "Diary of a Young Man Who Disappeared", composed as the dramatisation of a theme taken from a contemporary news story about a young lad from a wealthy peasant family having an encounter with a gypsy girl, resulting in her becoming pregnant, the family condemning him for the relationship for quite obviously racist reasons, and him coming back to proclaim his daughter to them with a mixture of pride and astonishment before leaving forever to join the gypsies. This work contains an extraordinary piano interlude following a passage where the girl is about to seduce him, portraying their sex act - after which he wakes up alone brim full of guilt and mixed feelings - later he sees her wearing his sister's blouse, which she has stolen. The impression this made on the still innocent 14-years old me was one of the strongest musical experiences of that time. Janacek has been associated with Kodaly and Bartok in Hungary in his uses of folk music, but he was in fact of an older generation contemporary with Elgar, knew Smetana and Dvorak, and was more interested in the speech rhythms of native dialects than they were - his music being non-developmental in the academic sense but rather emotion-based using propulsive riff-like repeated rhythmic motifs. His greatest music is regarded as having been in his last few years, inspired it is thought by a love affair with a young woman when in his 70s. There's hope for some of us yet! Apart from the Sinfonietta, with its impressive opening and closing brass fanfare with accompaniment in parallel open fifths and fourths, there is a wonderfully thrilling Glagolithic Mass with dramatic solo organ intervals, and a number of late operas starting (really) with "Vixen" - whose idiom always sounds closest he got to Debussy's - partly through the uses he put the whole-tone scale to, partly because it contains some wonderful melodies, something Janacek is not generally associated with - others themed to matters of national political and social urgency encapsulating eternal issues of love, conflict, jealousy and so on. He has been called the Czech Mussorgsky in this connection. There are two visceral late string quartets worth checking out. I'm sure I could find a lot more to say about Mr Janacek!

[Serial_Apologist]

I also enjoyed the Chet Baker/Dick Twardzik track and Jessica Williams' version of Rollins' 'Paul's Pal'.
There's some information about Jessica here:

https://www.sandybrownjazz.co.uk/YouSuggest/JessicaWilliams.html

JR

Really sad to read of Jessica's travails - says so much about living in America: were she living here she would probably have been treated free on the NHS. Is there some kind benefactor out there???

[Jazzrook]

Jazzrook

The Janacek album is by pianist Radoslav Kvapil and is a re-issue bof a mid -1990s issue on the Alto label. It is simpy entitled "Janacek Piano music." I have another CD of his "Symphonia" which is terrific as well as a DVD of his opera "The Cunning Little Vixen" which was re-cast an an animated film. Kvapil's performance is impressive and comes on a budget label.

The piano music disc consits of the two books of "On a overgrown path" and "In the mists" as well as the two surviving movements of his piano sonata which is s;ightly less interesting than the other pieces which I think are essential. I must admit being partial to anything which has a kind of nostalgic element about it. The theme of the second movement of "In the mists" really reminds of Paul Bley.

Here is another interpreation. I wonder what SA makes of this? I have ordered the manuscript as I am fascinated by the harmony and how these pieces "work." In my mind Janacek by-passes the question of modernity. Having looked on line as the manuscript , the music looks far more "outside" than it sounds.

In a nutshell, I would recommend the Kvapil disc.

Many thanks, Ian.
Don't often buy classical CDs but have just ordered 'Janacek Piano Music' with Radoslav Kvapil on your recommendation.

JR