Late Night Chicago Radio - Playlist for this week.

That most laconic, laid back, jazz jock Denny Farrell honoured BSH with a mention this week.

If you haven't tuned in before now it's well worth checking out (link). Brings back to mind those Willis Conover broadcasts on the Voice of America back in the 1960s.

Sandra Jaffe (March 10, 1938 - Dec. 27, 2021)

In 1961 Sandra Jaffe and her husband Allan stopped off in New Orleans. They dropped by Larry Borenstein's art gallery to take in a jazz concert. They were so taken by the music they never left the Big Easy. Borenstein offered the couple the opportunity to take over his French Quarter gallery space to promote jazz concerts. Offer accepted, Preservation Hall was born. Allan played sousaphone in the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Sandra took care of business. Occasionally she acted as bouncer when dealing with a 'difficult' customer! 

2022: a year of great jazz to come!

Future stars, established names, venues large and small, the year ahead holds great promise across the BSH region. The jazz year began bright and early on New Year's Day with the Vieux Carré Hot 4 at Spanish City and Brian Bennett's men will be there again today (Sunday, 12 noon) to kick-off their 2022 weekly residency. A week today (Jan 9) there is an opportunity to catch the new kids on the block as the Sam Toulson Quartet calls in at Jazz Co-op HQ (The Globe, Railway St, Newcastle). BSH heard alto saxophonist Sam and the Ho brothers - Edgar, piano, Oscar, bass - at the back end of last year sitting in at a Black Swan jam session. Toulson's gig is highly recommended! And on Jan 21 pianist John Law presents his Renaissance project in the imposing setting of Durham Cathedral.

Keith Jarrett: The Art of Improvisation - BBC 4, Nov. 12

Back in the 'old days', before there were a pointless number of TV channels with + signs after them (meaning they cost you a load of extra dough) or with names of blokes you might meet in the pub, e.g. 'Dave', showing programmes with titles like 'The Neighbours from Hell' (I haven't seen one called 'Jazz Audiences from Hell' but no doubt someone is working on it), there was a simple numbering system for a more than adequate number of stations. There was BBC 1 to 4, ITV 1 to 3 and Channel 4 (it was rumoured there was a Channel 5 but, like the Yeti, I never met anyone who had ever seen it). So, on Friday nights you could sit in front of the TV, pour yourself a glass of Blue Nun and be confident that when you turned on BBC 4 there would be a fabulous music programme on Miles Davis or John Coltrane or Dizzy Gillespie or Bird with lots of original footage and very few 'talking heads'. I can also remember some great folk documentaries such as Folk Britannia and Folk Hibernia and showings of early Old Grey Whistle Test programmes with 'whispering' Bob Harris.

Competition result.

Amazingly, out of all the entries we received only two managed to identify all five. everyone else recognised the other four - Paul Edis playing flute, Alan Law blowing sax, David Gray on trumpet and Pete Gilligan playing drums. However it was the girl playing drums at the bottom right of the photo who posed the biggest challenge. Suggestions included Sue Ferris, Ruth Lambert, Debra Milne and violinist Emma Fisk... 

Jazz Time - Aycliffe Radio

Sundays 6.30-8.00 (Repeat Tuesdays 8.00-9.30) Aycliffe Radio (www.ayclifferadio.co.uk).

Happy and Healthy and Good Jazz New Year-keep those requests coming in.

Playlist for Sunday 2nd Jan 2022. 

Requests: Chet Baker, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane.

A New Year's Eve Service - Dec 31 (surprisingly!)

Adrian Cox (clarinet, vocals) 

A New Year's Eve late gig cancellation rendered Adrian Cox idle. Idle until our host pitched the idea of an early evening live stream. If one musician in Britain has cornered the online market, it's Mr A Cox, make that Preacher Cox. Our man's congregation responded in large number, in excess of seventy five logged on for an hour's worth of clarinet and vocals. Nursing the beginnings of a cold, Cox nevertheless connected with his audience, chatting casually (speed reading the stream of online comment) in between playing a few tunes. 

To Scat Or Not To Scat, That Is the Question

Scatting is an issue that all jazz singers must deal with, even if your singing, like mine, is confined to the occasional jam session or workshop. It's not compulsory as some people suppose – the great Billie Holiday never scatted.

Before I joined the jazz world I hated scat and couldn't understand why it was done. People said it was so you could sound like an instrument and improvise along with the instrumentalists, or a chance to show off vocal skills, or to add entertainment value to your singing.

A Century of Jazz: The Great and the Good

A few years ago I came across a list of the greatest jazz artists of all time which totally flabbergasted me. After the first five artists, it improves drastically, featuring – in amongst those pesky female singers – my top six in the next eight positions, but its top five - in order - were Art Tatum, Buddy Rich, Joe Pass, Django Reinhardt and Lionel Hampton. Another list I will refer to later has Tatum at 21, Django at 27, Hampton at 37 and, while Rich manages an honorary mention just outside the top hundred, alongside seventeen others, Pass isn’t included at all. Incidentally, my own list of the top hundred may only include Art Tatum from these five.   

Happy New Year

To everyone out there from all at Bebop Spoken Here!