Advice and guidance to those interested in building a library of jazz recordings.
Recorded in front of an audience at the 2009 London Jazz Festival, British saxophonist John Surman joins Alyn Shipton to look back over his recording career. As one of the country's finest saxophonists, Surman's copious output since the 1960s includes many gems, and among those discs explored in the programme are those by his long-running quartet, his partnership with drummer Jack DeJohnette, and his work with the Norwegian singer Karin Krog.
Looking forward to her appearance at the 2009 London Jazz Festival, Cleo Laine joins Alyn Shipton to select some of the finest recorded performances from her distinguished career. DISC 1 Title: Just a Sittin' and A Rockin' Artist: Cleo Laine Composer: Ellington, Strayhorn, Gaines Album: I Hear Music Label: Salvo (Union Square) Number BX403 CD3 Track 13 Personnel: Cleo Laine (vocals), Clark Terry (trumpet), Mark Whitfield (guitar) John Dankworth Orchestra. DISC 2 Title: Mr and Mississippi Artist:...
To choose the finest recordings by Stan Getz, Alyn Shipton is joined by the great saxophonist's biographer Dave Gelly. Together, they pick the critical high points of Getz's work, from the 1940s Woody Herman Orchestra, through to his many small groups, and by way of the bossa nova craze to his final quartet of the 1980s.
To mark jazz violinist Stuff Smith's centenary year in 2009, Alyn Shipton meets fiddle player Chris Garrick to celebrate one of the most unusual instrumentalists in jazz. They chart a course through the available recordings, from the 52nd Street days of Stuff's Onyx Club Boys to his latter-day triumphs as a soloist in Europe, and also present new releases of previously unavailable material.
Until his untimely death in 2009, Rashied Ali was widely regarded as the doyen of free jazz drummers. He made his name in John Coltrane's quartet and went on to a wide range of musical activity in the forty-two years since Coltrane's death. More of a colourist than a rhythm player, Rashied Ali changed the role of jazz drumming for ever. In a candid interview with Alyn Shipton he explains the importance of John Coltrane to his life and work, and selects the finest records they made together, befo...
Looking forward to guitarist Bill Frisell's appearance at the 2009 London Jazz Festival, Alyn Shipton is joined by Phil Robson to select Frisell's finest recordings. Spanning from 1984 to the present, his discs encompass a huge range of styles and effects, pushing forward the boundaries of what it is possible to achieve on the guitar.
Chris Barber is one of Britain's best-loved bandleaders. He joins Alyn Shipton to select highlights of his recordings from 1953 to the present, not only featuring his own bands, but also his collaborations with Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Louis Jordan, John Lewis and many other visiting Americans.
Singer Carmen McRae was a protegee of Billie Holiday but soon grew beyond that early influence to develop her own distinctive musical personality. Singer Christine Tobin joins Alyn Shipton to pick the highlights from the more than 60 albums that McRae made before her death in 1994.
The jazz composer and theorist George Russell was a major innovator in jazz for over 50 years. In an archive interview with Alyn Shipton, Russell looks back at the highlights of a recorded repertoire that began with Dizzy Gillespie's big band and went on to encompass modal jazz and the dawn of jazz rock fusion. George Russell was a ceaseless experimenter - spending most of his life writing his theoretical masterwork on Lydian Modal theory - but on the way writing extended compositions for Dizzy ...
Pianist and composer Carla Bley joins Alyn Shipton to choose her essential records, from the jazz opera Escalator Over the Hill via her various big bands, to her current small groups.
In the 1950s, Hampton Hawes was the most exciting and technically gifted pianist in Los Angeles. Pianist and author Tim Richards guides Alyn Shipton through the highlights of Hawes' trio recordings made with the likes of saxophonist Art Pepper, works which are considered landmarks in the history of jazz piano. After a period in prison, Hawes emerged a changed man - Richards also selects the key recordings from his later more contemplative years.
Although he is not as well known in the UK as in America, where he is the best-known broadcaster on jazz, pianist Dr Billy Taylor is a hugely influential musical figure. He joins Alyn Shipton to select highlights of a recording career that includes work with Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker, backing the great saxophonist Ben Webster and leading a widely celebrated trio.
Pianist Sir George Shearing died on 14th February 2011. In an archive interview, he joins Alyn Shipton to look back over the highlights of his recording career, from early triumphs in London to the debut of his famous quintet in America, as well as his long-running partnership with Mel Torme.
Best known as the powerhouse behind the 1960s Woody Herman band, Jake Hanna was one of the most versatile and experienced drummers in jazz before his death in February 2010. Alyn Shipton presents an archive interview with Hanna in which the drummer selects the highlights from his recorded work, including discs with Herman, Harry James, Marian McPartland and Toshiko Akiyoshi. When Jake Hanna joined Harry James, the bandleader sent his wife to collect him and his drums from the station - not every...
Guitarist Joe Pass recovered from narcotic addiction to launch a stellar international career as arguably one of the finest exponents of his instrument in jazz history. Alyn Shipton is joined by guitarist John Etheridge to select highlights from Pass' voluminous catalogue, including his work with Oscar Peterson and his multi-volume series entitled Virtuoso.
Alyn Shipton is joined by drum expert Richard Pite to select highlights from Shelly Manne's prolific recording career, showing his total mastery of percussion in any idiom. Manne spanned more different styles of jazz than almost any musician, ranging from the swing groups of Coleman Hawkins to the free jazz of Ornette Coleman.
Roland Hanna was one of the most dazzlingly talented of pianists until his untimely death from a viral infection in 2002. Just weeks before he fell ill, he met Alyn Shipton for what turned out to be his final interview, looking back on his long and distinguished recording career, including his brilliant contribution to Mingus Dynasty.
The late, great tenor saxophonist Teddy Edwards talks to Alyn Shipton. Shortly before his death in 2003, Teddy Edwards met Alyn to discuss the highlights of a long and illustrious recording career. One of the most original voices in West Coast jazz, he settled permanently in Los Angeles in 1944 and created a distinctive and original bebop style.
Gwyneth Herbert joins Alyn Shipton to select the high points of Nat King Cole's work as a hugely influential pianist, charismatic vocalist, and one of the most combative of all jam session players. Music includes Straighten Up and Fly Right, Nature Boy and the legendary After Midnight sessions.
Bud Shank was one of the major figures in West Coast Jazz before his death in April 2009. To commemorate Bud and his music, Alyn Shipton selects Shank's key recordings, with the help of a 1992 archive interview with the man himself, covering his work with Stan Kenton, Shorty Rogers, the LA Four and many of his own groups.
Alyn Shipton is joined by Tom Perchard to select the highlights from trumpeter Booker Little's recorded catalogue. Before his death in 1961 aged 23, Little was seen as one of the brightest hopes of jazz in the 1950s, forging a new compositional and playing style that offered a way forward from bebop that was strikingly original.
Singer Christine Tobin guides Alyn Shipton through the jazz-oriented repertoire of Joni Mitchell, including her work with Wayne Shorter, Jaco Pastorius and Herbie Hancock. Mitchell often employed jazz musicians on her recordings, but she was also fascinated by Charles Mingus, making an album of his music shortly before his death.
Dave Liebman came to fame as the saxophonist in Miles Davis's 1970s band, but he has had a formidable career since the 1980s as a bandleader in his own right, often specialising on the soprano instrument, but also returning to the his first love, the tenor. He joins Alyn Shipton in front of an audience at Cheltenham Town Hall to select the highlights of his recordings. In this Jazz Library, Dave Liebman, who was the Cheltenham Jazz Festival's artist in residence in 2009, joins Alyn Shipton to lo...
Eighty-one-year old Bob Wilber is one of the leading clarinettists and saxophonists in traditional jazz, and he joins Alyn Shipton to look back at the highlights of a career that began when Bob was a teenage pupil of the great Sidney Bechet. The programme covers recordings from the 1940s to the present day and includes Wilber's dramatic recreations of Ellington for the Francis Ford Coppola film The Cotton Club.
South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela joined Alyn Shipton to discuss his finest recordings. For Hugh Masekela, jazz and political activism go hand in hand. As he guides Alyn Shipton through his recording career, we hear of his first band, the Jazz Epistles, cruelly cut short when the Sharpeville Massacre led to large public gatherings being banned on the eve of its first national tour. We follow him to London and New York, with his early American album Grrrr! and his London session Music Is Wher...
Few families have produced three such exceptional musical brothers as Percy, Jimmy and Tootie Heath, a bassist, saxophonist and drummer who have worked at the highest level. On one of their last visits to London before Percy's death in 2005, Alyn Shipton talked to all three of them about their collective and individual careers in jazz, introducing not only the finest albums they made together, but their discs with other musicians as varied as Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon and Wes M...
In a programme recorded at the Gateshead Jazz Festival 2009, Alyn Shipton is joined by saxophonist Joshua Redman to look back at his best recordings. These include his early quintets and quartets, his trios with organist Sam Yahel, right up to more recent albums, all of them marked out by Redman's consistent balance between exploration and instrumental virtuosity.
American singer Sheila Jordan joins Alyn Shipton in front of an audience at the Gateshead International Jazz Festival 2009 to select the highlights from her half-century as arguably one of the most adventurous and individual singers in jazz. The programme features her minimal settings and explorations of timbre and timing, from her 1960s classic Portrait of Sheila to her most recent recordings.
In a special tribute to drummer Louie Bellson, who died in February 2009, Alyn Shipton presents an archive interview with the man himself, in which he selects key records from his career. Including discs with Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman and Louis Armstrong as well as albums by his own big band and by his wife of 37 years, Pearl Bailey.
British bassist Peter Ind joins Alyn Shipton to select the highlights from his long recording career, mainly on his own Wave label which he founded in the 1950s. As well as collaborations with such great American players as Duke Jordan, Warne Marsh and Lee Konitz, he explains his fondness for working in duo with guitarists or other bass players.
