You can Stilgoe out with a Blaize as long as you have Faith

[Ian Thumwood]

Joseph

This is the Rosenwinkel gig I went to. (Nearly 18 years ago!)

I do not remember much about it, to be honest but i am sure you will love this as it is pretty much an all star line up.

[Serial_Apologist]

SA

I grew up listening to jazz in the 1980s which I think was an exciting time to get in to the music. Regardless of how you feel about the artists, the media did focus a lot of attention on players like Wynton Marsalis and Courtnet Pine as well issues such as Miles Davis switching from Columbia to Warner. I think that the media back then made people interested in jazz and this incorporated other musicians who might not have enjoyed the same degree of attention. I don't really see that happening too much these days. The fact that people no longer access their music through CDs also means new material does not neessarily get the attention it might have done. You just have to think about the coverage new alums by Marsalis, Jarrett, Joe Henderson, Kenny Wheeler, etc used to get. I just feel that there are too many differences between how the media can respond to jazz in 2022 to what it had available in , say , 1985. You now have a situation where pop / rock acts of the 1970s and 80s seem to be given the same creedance and analysis was jazz was afforded thirty- forty years ago. If jazz coverage exists in the broadsheets, it must be pretty small . I cannot recall seeing much in the Telegraph of late but the Morning Star had a good column about Mingus yesterday.

I concur about commercial issues but this is only one element with the way jazz has to struggle these days. If the media is failing to encourage an audience for jazz, it is hardly surprising that festivals like Cheltenham have to put on a programme like that. It was sponsored by Radio 2 whose commitment to jazz it hardly serious and little more than a token gesture. Go and listen to local BBC stations such as Radio Solent down here and you will discover that jazz is totally absent from it's coverage. Somewhen around the turn of the century, the media really dropped the ball with jazz with the consequence that very few musicians from the 21st century have managed to acquire the kind of following that the generation immediately before them enjoyed.

I would also add that the kind of "non-jazz" prograaming at Jazz Festivals is a self-fulfilling prophecy which will alienate true jazz fans. It does not helpt that many jazz fans do not go to gigs at all (i think Trevor Cooper, late of this board, was not atypical in this respect.) When #i go to gigs, it is usually with a friend who is much older than me and with whom I used to go with my Dad too. I have not friends of my own generation who listen to jazz. Interestingly, when I speak to "younger" fans at Vienne, it is quite interesting to see what kind of jazz they listen to and what they consider to be "innovative" and this is a million miles away what you and I might consider to be progressive.

I get the point about listening to jazz in clubs. This disadvantage with this is that they open late and tend to feature gigs during weekdays. Ignoring the fact that the nearest clubs are in London, I tend not to go out socialising during the week if it means getting in after 11pm. I will go to watch football but staying up in to the early hours during a weeknight is not an option for me. Jazz festivals are great. You get to be in with a population of people who share the same interest and who are generallyreally sociable. I love the experience. In my opinion, it has changed massively since myfirst festival in 2001 in Vienne to the last ine in 2019 and not for the better. The local Southampton Jazz Festival never got beyond three or four years and Winchester's festival is a much smaller affair - oddily Yolanda Brown was a recent visitor here.

You may be right that the switch away from CDs in media used by younger people to access music has done it for jazz journalism There is something too in what you say about festivals and conviviality - or perhaps was would be nearer the truth. Being at Cheltenham would have just pissed me off this year as wasted money. I attended the Bracknell Festival every year from 1985 to its demise and move to Crawley in the early 1990s under the new Inside-Out title, and used to be almost in tears each time when it was over at the thought of having to return to the rat race. You could get warm beer from the beer tent but even when queuing for the chilled alternative in the building between appearances there was none of the pushing I-was-here-first charade on permanent display in bourgeois mainstream society - these were like the little bits of another way of doing things John Stevens would speak of in advocating his Spontaneous Music Ensemble as a recommended life principle. I remember Mike Westbrook agreeing on the conviviality of festivals as (for him) a welcome break from months spent in isolation on a festival commission - the downside (again, for him) being that you might discover someone else had been thinking along similar lines but had ended up realising it better! Nowhere was an unfortunate truism about composed jazz more honestly revealed!!!

[CGR]

Jazz UK - Spitting Fire turned out to be much more interesting than I had expected, with some genuine innovation before Shabaka's harshness rounded the programme off - interesting rhythm ins and outs with the earlier vocalists, new names to me, making me want to go back and really listen out for the singular interplay at work there - it offers scope for development. A real relief following the earlier dross. The Scott documentary seemed to consist of familiar stuff, adding revelations about the "inner" man, and about his working relationship with Pete King.

The music contained in the Spitting Fire programme was hardly revolutionary. That sort of stuff has been around for decades. Still, it's nice to see younger audiences at jazz gigs and if it generates an interest in the music then good.