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Kings of Swing - Programme One still available

The first of my Kings Of Swing programmes for Radio 3's Jazz File was aired last Saturday. It's had a good response so far... radio pick in Time Out and the Daily Mail... waiting to hear if it made it anywhere else. The first show sets the scene - comparing Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw's very different routes to swing clarinet stardom, and features original interviews with top international clarinettists Ken Peplowski and Dick Johnson, pianist/broadcaster Marian McPartland, critic/historian Dan Morgenstern and saxophonist/historian Loren Schoenberg. Peplowski, McPartland and Schoenberg all played with Benny Goodman. Johnson was Artie Shaw's own favourite clarinettist, and the man chosen by Shaw to lead the Artie Shaw Orchestra after his own retirement (which he continues to do today). You can still catch the first show (for another 24 hours) via the BBC's Listen Again facility - go here and click "Jazz File".

Programme 2 will focus on Shaw and Goodman's different approaches to the big band, and their own clarinet styles... with examples - played for us in the studio - by both Peplowski and Johnson. Catch it on Saturday, on Radio 3, at 6pm.

Kings of Swing for Jazz File

I've recently finished the last in a series of interviews for a forthcoming Radio 3 Jazz File about Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman. It's been a real privilege, talking to people who knew or played with them, a chance to revisit some of the music that got me interested in jazz way back when I was a weird kid and put it into a context of real, living people. The series will be in three half-hours. Programmes 1 & 2 are being edited. I should have written programme 3 before the week's out, and I'm looking to record it next week. It's scheduled to go out this spring, and I'll post transmission dates (just as) soon (as I know what they are!).

Robot performs Coltrane's Giant Steps solo

It's not really that astonishing. In fact, it's not as astonishing as the fact that a human can play this. But what is astonishing is the comment war that follows it. Why are YouTubers so angry?

Michael Brecker has died

Like all jazz fans, I'm very, very sad at the news of Michael Brecker's death. Not only was he arguably the most advanced tenor saxophonist alive - still pushing forward the boundaries of what was possible on the instrument and within a chord sequence - but he was a very nice and incredibly modest man, too. I had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing him in Scotland a few years ago. I brought with me the big book of his transcribed tenor solos and got the "official" interview out of the way as soon as possible, so that I could ask the questions all the amateur tenor players wanted to ask... like who do you need to pray to/what do you need to eat/what magic words to you need to chant to play this stuff? He flicked through the book of solos he'd improvised over the previous 15 years, occasionally stopping to examine a bar or two, as if they were entirely new to him; before shaking his head and telling me he couldn't play them again, either. Clearly, this was music in the moment. On the subject of his music, he was funny and interesting. On his tone, he described how he was working on the "feminine" side... the softer-edged tone of his later acoustic work (compared to the cutting edge of his session or electric recordings). The jazz scene was a better place when he was around.

There's an interesting interview with Michael Brecker here.

Crowdsourced music

I recently came across two very interesting new web projects - Sellaband and Amie Street - with different but related approaches to marketing unsigned bands online. Sellaband takes an micro-angel investing route; Amie Street acts like a kind of supply-and-demand driven stock market for tracks themselves. Both are examples of crowdsourcing, and fascinating, so I wrote about them for the Times. Unfortunately - due to space restrictions - my interview with Amie Street's Elliott Breece didn't make it into the printed article, but - if I get time, and with Elliott's permission - I'll try to post a transcription here in the next few days.

John Abercrombie in full, on Jazz on 3

If you caught the John Abercrombie Trio broadcast, from the summer's Jazz on 3 Manchester Jazz Festival broadcast, and enjoyed it, then you might be interested to know that the full gig's being re-broadcast, tomorrow night. More details here.

Veryan Weston's Quintet Of Uncertainty - a Jazz on 3 special

If you're interested in the place where small group composition meets free improvisation, and want to know a bit more about how the music's conceived and realised, don't miss tonight's Jazz on 3, featuring pianist Veryan Weston's international quintet. For this week's show, I sat in on the rehearsal process, took photographs, acquired a bit of sheet music and talked to all the musicians involved. It meant approaching the Jazz on 3 session a little differently, focusing on the process as much as the outcome.

For more information - including a line-up, more photos, some sheet music and an extra track - go here.

UPDATE: As I suggested above, this was a bit of an experiment, and we invited feedback from listeners. (Very) thankfully, it's in and it's almost all been good... suggesting there's interest in this kind of slightly more in depth look at the creative process. I'll be meeting with the Somethin Else Productions people soon to discuss ways of perhaps incorporating it into other shows. In the meantime, it's available via the BBC's Listen Again facility until Friday, October 13. Click this, press the "jazz" button, and find Jazz On 3.

Jazz On 3

I'm back home after an intense few days in Manchester. But what a blast. I interviewed John Abercrombie, Manchester-based trumpeter/composer Richard Iles (who turned out to be one of the most gifted, and modest, musicians I've met in ages... his gig on Thursday night was a triumph, and introduced me to a very exciting saxophonist called Andy Schofield), Swedish pianist Bobo Stensen and saxophonist Joakim Milder. They were three very contrasting, but very enjoyable interviews reflecting three very different gigs. Abercrombie led his guitar-Hammond-drums line-up, with a fiery and fun Gary Versace replacing his previous organist Dan Wall. The music sounds better on the radio programme than it did in the Royal Northern College Of Music auditorium, where the guitar was a little lost in the mix. Iles's Miniature Brass Emporium was a real revelation... gorgeous arrangements for an unusual brass-heavy instrumentation, and great solos by Iles, guitarist Mike Walker and saxophonist Andy Schofield in particular. On Friday night, Bobo Stensen played music by Swedish saxophonist now deceased Borje Fredriksson. As well as Joakim Milder, he had bassist Palle Danielsson and drummer Fredrik Noren. Stensen's been one of my favourite pianist ever since I heard him with Charles Lloyd... this quartet's incredible. Friday night was frantic (the programme was broadcast shortly after the end of the Stensen gig, from an old UN ambulance, parked outside the Green Room venue), but a great buzz. You can still catch it online, via the Listen Again facility, by going here, and clicking "Jazz On 3".

Jazz in Manchester

I'm in Manchester, booked into the Palace Hotel in preparation for three days of radio work culminating in a special Jazz on 3 from the Manchester Jazz Festival, to be broadcast on Friday, on BBC Radio 3, 11.30pm-1am. This is the first time I've presented the entire show. Am I nervous? Yeah. But I'm looking forward to heading out in an hour or so to interview John Abercrombie, one of my favourite guitarists, who'll be performing tonight, down the road at the Royal Northern College (with Hammond organist Gary Versace and drummer Adam Nussbaum). In the meantime, I'm enjoying the Palace. I grew up in Manchester (left when I was 18), and the old Refuge Assurance building, opposite Oxford Road station, was always an amazing landmark, but this is the first time I've ever got to look inside. If you're ever passing, it's worth wandering into the foyer. It's grand in a way unique to turn-of-the-century Manchester.

Like music videos?

Like lists? Then head over to Pitchfork Media to see their 100 Awesome Music Videos list, and watch every video, by the likes of Spike Jonze and David LaChapelle, in all its YouTube glory.

Don't think they include this, though. Harmony Korine and Bonnie "Prince" Billy - weird but haunting isn't it:

[via PlasticBag.org]