Let Spin and Hanslip as Thieves Cheetham.

[Serial_Apologist]

Sat 22 Oct
5pm - J to Z
Julian Joseph with new and classic jazz. Plus guests, today featuring New Orleans jazz saxophonist Donald Harrison, who shares his musical inspirations, including a track performed in true New Orleans style and featuring vocals by Harrison's father, Donald Harrison Sr. Plus concert highlights from Grammy-winning German ensemble the WDR Big Band led by saxophonist Bob Mintzer, joined by saxophonist Matt Carmichael.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001d646

12midnight - Freeness
Corey Mwamba presents new jazz and improvised music with an adventurous spirit, tonight featuring highlights of a new album by pianist Meg Morley, plus recently released improvisations from Mancunian duo Mark Hanslip and Andrew Cheetham, and an exclusive excerpt of a live performance by Anil Erasian, Tom Malmendier and Ignaz Schick, recorded in September at the Meakusma Festival in Eupen, Belgium. There's also a track from Let Spin's forthcoming album Thick as Thieves.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001d64d

Sun 23 Oct
4pm - Jazz Record Requests
Alyn Shipton celebrates 100 years of jazz on the BBC with recordings by Humphrey Lyttelton, Joe Harriott and Django Bates.

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

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001d62p

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

The Joe Harriot IS "Variations on Monk" TA!

"There is a Joe Harriot "BBC" session track coming up on JRR this Sunday to mark the BBC 100th. It might be from me because I suggested Joe from a Charles Fox introduced program in the early 1960s which I heard and was enthused by. Time does fly!

If not mine, great anyway, but this is my shout.
"Variations on Monk" - Joe Harriot Quin, BBC/Gearbox remastered...http://youtu.be/a1WoIg-j-pA"

[Ian Thumwood]

Missed the first half of JRR as I was coming back fom St Mary's but thought it was great to hear these live broadcasts and reflect on the changing face of jazz since I had been a fan. It was almost an exercise in nostalgia for me , not so much for the music played but because the fact that stuff I considered radical when I first discovered jazz seemed really mainstream. The Neil Ardley track fascinated me but the best two efforts in my opinion were the Stan Tracey big band and the brilliant arrangement of another Ellington tune performmed by Barbara Thompson. I have to say the Paraphernalia were a bit of an enigma for me at the time and can remember when "Heavenly bodies" came out which seemed really old-fashioned at the time when the New Neos were in the ascendency. The track played last night was terrific and she sounded a far better saxophonist than I recalled. It did strike me what Bluesnik would have thought. It made me wish she had done far more acoustic stuff. Maybe she did - not someone I am really familiar with.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Missed the first half of JRR as I was coming back fom St Mary's but thought it was great to hear these live broadcasts and reflect on the changing face of jazz since I had been a fan. It was almost an exercise in nostalgia for me , not so much for the music played but because the fact that stuff I considered radical when I first discovered jazz seemed really mainstream. The Neil Ardley track fascinated me but the best two efforts in my opinion were the Stan Tracey big band and the brilliant arrangement of another Ellington tune performmed by Barbara Thompson. I have to say the Paraphernalia were a bit of an enigma for me at the time and can remember when "Heavenly bodies" came out which seemed really old-fashioned at the time when the New Neos were in the ascendency. The track played last night was terrific and she sounded a far better saxophonist than I recalled. It did strike me what Bluesnik would have thought. It made me wish she had done far more acoustic stuff. Maybe she did - not someone I am really familiar with.

I really enjoyed both the Ardley track and Barbara Thompson's Don't mean a thing. I'm not a fan of those Stan Tracey big band outings, I much prefer the trios or quartets. The picks for me were the Joe Harriot (thanks Alyn!) and the Johnny Dodds Perdido Street Blues, a remarkable recording quality on that from 1926. Interesting too the pianists covered, Pat Smythe, Pete Lemer, Bill Evans etc.

Anyway, a very good program again.

[Alyn_Shipton]

Very nostalgic for me. Peter Clayton bet me a fiver in the 80s that I'd end up presenting JRR, but he didn't live to collect... Great to track down the clip of Steve Race who was a brilliant help when I was doing the Shearing bio with George, and of course I broadcast many a time with Humph, who kindly played on my inaugural Jazz Notes, when I took over from Digby. Ironically I'd known Neil Ardley as a science author in my other life as a publisher, before I worked with him on jazz projects - including some epic broadcasts from Maida Vale. So my 33 years on Radio 3 may only have been a third of the timespan of the programme as a whole, but I felt connected to most of it!

[Ian Thumwood]

As a teenager the live performances introduced me to a lot of the new jazz from the 1980s and listening to the programme seemed to underscore for me just how exciting the music was back then. It helped me appreciate more "outside" forms of jazz with the best live gigs being the likes of Steve Lacy and George Lewis performing Monk with a Dutch outfit, the trio of Paul / Guiffre / Swallow, Gil Evans at the Hammersmith odeon ( where I was in the audience), Don Cherry's Nu, Henry threadgill's Very, Very Circus, Mike Gibbs with John Scofield and a performance of chamber works by Gavin Bryars that featuried Charlie Haden and used pieces by Bill Evans and Bill Frisell as the basis of extended works. At some point in the ealry 90s I stopped travelling up to London for gigs due to work commitments and subsequently gave up on Poole Lighthouse where jazz has been less and less of a feature. Too far to travel to hear jazz these days when workload makes going out on a weeknight impractical.

I haven't listened to the earliest part of the programme yet but have been disappointed not to find anything about the first time jazz was performed at the BBC. Amazed to hear the Savoy Havana Band track . I don;t think it compared too badly with a lot of America band from that era but not really a stand out. It makes you wonder who the audience for this music was . Having looked them up on line, the pianist was Billy Mayerl who I was familiar with through my piano treacher who subscribed to the "jazz school" Mayerl ran in the 1930s and was his route into jazz even though he ultimately switched his affections to Bud Powell. (He was very critical of Mayerl's jazz credentials.)

[Serial_Apologist]

As a teenager the live performances introduced me to a lot of the new jazz from the 1980s and listening to the programme seemed to underscore for me just how exciting the music was back then. It helped me appreciate more "outside" forms of jazz with the best live gigs being the likes of Steve Lacy and George Lewis performing Monk with a Dutch outfit, the trio of Paul / Guiffre / Swallow, Gil Evans at the Hammersmith odeon ( where I was in the audience), Don Cherry's Nu, Henry threadgill's Very, Very Circus, Mike Gibbs with John Scofield and a performance of chamber works by Gavin Bryars that featuried Charlie Haden and used pieces by Bill Evans and Bill Frisell as the basis of extended works. At some point in the ealry 90s I stopped travelling up to London for gigs due to work commitments and subsequently gave up on Poole Lighthouse where jazz has been less and less of a feature. Too far to travel to hear jazz these days when workload makes going out on a weeknight impractical.

I haven't listened to the earliest part of the programme yet but have been disappointed not to find anything about the first time jazz was performed at the BBC. Amazed to hear the Savoy Havana Band track . I don;t think it compared too badly with a lot of America band from that era but not really a stand out. It makes you wonder who the audience for this music was . Having looked them up on line, the pianist was Billy Mayerl who I was familiar with through my piano treacher who subscribed to the "jazz school" Mayerl ran in the 1930s and was his route into jazz even though he ultimately switched his affections to Bud Powell. (He was very critical of Mayerl's jazz credentials.)

Do try & give the whole programme a listen, Ian - I would think it would be right up your street!

[Alyn_Shipton]

I'm a bit puzzled about Ian's comment that he was "disappointed not to find anything about the first time jazz was performed at the BBC" as I gave the Radio Times reference (checked in Scannell and Cardiff's Social History of British Broadcasting) indicating that the Savoy Havana track was of exactly the kind (and date) that went out live from Savoy Hill when "dance music" began to be on air. Obviously at that point programmes were not recorded, so the band's studio work has to be taken as an indication of how they sounded on the radio. There's a book coming in the not-too-distant future from Professor Tim Wall at Birmingham City University about the history of jazz on the BBC.

[Serial_Apologist]

I'm a bit puzzled about Ian's comment that he was "disappointed not to find anything about the first time jazz was performed at the BBC" as I gave the Radio Times reference (checked in Scannell and Cardiff's Social History of British Broadcasting) indicating that the Savoy Havana track was of exactly the kind (and date) that went out live from Savoy Hill when "dance music" began to be on air. Obviously at that point programmes were not recorded, so the band's studio work has to be taken as an indication of how they sounded on the radio. There's a book coming in the not-too-distant future from Professor Tim Wall at Birmingham City University about the history of jazz on the BBC.

I might even get that!

[Ian Thumwood]

Googled first jazz broadcast on BBC and got no joy but there was a link the Prof Wall's book.

[Serial_Apologist]

Googled first jazz broadcast on BBC and got no joy but there was a link the Prof Wall's book.

If we're talking about Saturday's JRR, the link I provided at the top of this thread.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Anyone hear Guy Barker's Mingus last night? (R3 In Concert). I thought the second half was perhaps better, could have done without the narrative, better a straight reading of Mingus own words or tapes, and again, for me, a lot better if with just Barker's own core band, which sounded impressive especially if it could be cut free from it's enlarged surroundings.

[Jazzrook]

Anyone hear Guy Barker's Mingus last night? (R3 In Concert). I thought the second half was perhaps better, could have done without the narrative, better a straight reading of Mingus own words or tapes, and again, for me, a lot better if with just Barker's own core band, which sounded impressive especially if it could be cut free from it's enlarged surroundings.

Yes, I quite enjoyed the concert and recorded it via Freeview. Will listen again.
An impressive saxophonist, Lakecia Benjamin.
Interested in the Mingus track 'Noodlin'' during the interval with Tubby Hayes(vibes) and, I think, Ray Dempsey & Allan Ganley from the film 'All Night Long'.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001d66t

JR

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

It's only occurred to me now - Mingus was in London in 1961 when All Night was filmed, released 1962, so was he here playing? At Ronnie's because I thought that came later? I know he praised Joe Harriot and Harry Beckett, and I think Ronnie himself of the "Brits", but I can't find my Mingus book to check exactly why he was in London.

[Jazzrook]

It's only occurred to me now - Mingus was in London in 1961 when All Night was filmed, released 1962, so was he here playing? At Ronnie's because I thought that came later? I know he praised Joe Harriot and Harry Beckett, and I think Ronnie himself of the "Brits", but I can't find my Mingus book to check exactly why he was in London.

According to Brian Priestley's biography, Mingus was in London during July/August, 1961 only for the film 'All Night Long'.
Apparently he was 'refusing to have anything more to do with any of the band seen on screen' and commented 'Who invented jazz? Tubby Hayes and Kenny Napper?'
Mingus was rehearsing a band backstage consisting of Harry Beckett, Harold McNair & Jackie Dougan and recorded a 5-minute version of 'Peggy's Blue Skylight' which I've never managed to find.
Mingus got on 'surprisingly well with Brubeck' when he arrived in July and recorded 'Non-Sectarian Blues'.

JR