.... playing for years

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Alyn covers the best of 2013 but ends in '66 with an hallucination from Stan Tracey and an awful lot of sax players

JLU

Julian Joseph presents a concert set recorded at the 2008 London Jazz Festival by the late pianist Stan Tracey and a tribute from his long-time collaborator Bobby Wellins. Plus highlights of a special 80th birthday concert by saxophonist Wayne Shorter and his quartet, featuring Danilo Perez on piano, John Patitucci on bass and drummer Brian Blade, accompanied by the BBC Concert Orchestra. Recorded at the Barbican as part of the 2013 London Jazz Festival.

Geoffrey presents highlights from his show in 2013 and also ends wit a Stan Tracey piece for large ensemble at Appleby in 2004

Jez does Wayne and highlights too ...

current quartet shows he still at the top of his game. Despite his status as an international jazz legend, Shorter is happy to play in the background when needed, allowing pianist Danilo Perez, bassist John Patitucci and drummer Brian Blade plenty of room to breathe as they re-work his genre-bending compositions, many of which stretch back to the 60s. It's golden era stuff, given a fresh lease of life through the Quartet's deft improvisation.

Also on the programme, some of the best music recorded for Jazz on 3 in 2013, including tracks from sessions by Alexander Hawkins and Hello Skinny, as well as performances by Rudresh Mahanthappa, Laura Jurd and Brass Mask.

[Old Grumpy]

Just catching up with JRR on i-player - thanks for Barber Blues Alyn!

[Serial_Apologist]

Top young names on the Brit scene from Jez to look forward to!

[Ian Thumwood]

I really enjoyed JRR this week but was staggered by the Dave Holland track. I love DH's recorded output and have seen his bands perform live on a few occasions to great aplomb. The "classic" quintet with Chris Potter and Robin Eubanks, etc was something special and, in many respects, typified what I would consider to be "great jazz." This latest group was such a marked contrast that it was hard to believe it was the same bandleader. I'd not heard the record before but had read the conflicting opinions of this record with some fans not like the fact that the electric guitar was so up in the mix. This is about the rockiest group DH has led and the results were a bit surprising when you consider more "outside" players like Craig Taborn were on-board. It was an ok track yet not a patch on the "Expressions" group from 20-odd years ago that nailed the influence of hip hop to contemporary jazz or the aforementioned Quintet. Wish that DH would go back to being more "acoustic" and straight ahead. I think he does this better than so many of his contemporaries, hearing him play jazz rock is a little bit of a let down.

[Quarky]

Laura Jurd really going places - and her Singer Kinzella(?) - wow!