Advice and guidance to those interested in building a library of jazz recordings.
Wynton Kelly was one of the most individual pianists in jazz, famous for his work with Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie and Wes Montgomery. He also led his own trio - often with fellow Miles Davis sidemen Paul Chambers (bass) and Jimmy Cobb (drums) who played with him on "Kind of Blue". Tim Richards guides Alyn Shipton through Kelly's impressive catalogue of recordings.
Richard Pite joins Alyn Shipton to pick the best discs by the founder of modern jazz drumming, Max Roach. They include pieces by many of Roach's own groups.
Despite a recording career that lasted only from 1924 to 1931, Bix Beiderbecke changed the way jazz soloists played. An influence on a par with Louis Armstrong or Sidney Bechet, his discs had an immediate and long-lasting effect. Ian Smith joins Alyn Shipton to explore the legend of the tragically short-lived Beiderbecke, and to choose his key recordings, including his small group masterpieces "Singing the Blues" and "I'm Coming Virginia" plus his later work with the big bands of Jean Goldkette ...
Ahead of the launch of his Later Works at this year's Gateshead International Jazz Festival at the Sage, Stan Tracey joined Alyn Shipton to look back at his recording career. As well as work with visiting Americans such as Zoot Sims, Ben Webster and Sonny Rollins, Stan discusses his fascination with Duke Ellington, his own big bands and quartets, his suite Alice in Jazzland, and the story behind his most recent recordings.
Clarinettist, soprano, alto and tenor saxophonist Tony Coe is one of Britain's most brilliant jazz musicians, the first non-American to be awarded the "jazz Oscar" by Denmark's "Jazzpar" prize committee. In this programme he joins Alyn Shipton to select his finest recordings, including work by his own groups, as well as with Franz Koglmann, Neil Ardley and the Kenny Clarke / Francy Boland Big Band. Coe also has strong views about the sound of the soprano saxophone and clarinet, and provides an i...
As a vocalist, Shirley Horn was expert at lending subtle treatment to old jazz standards. She was also a fine pianist, and in this week's Jazz Library singer Christine Tobin discusses the American's intimate trio sound as well as Horn's work with some of the finest big bands of the 1960s. Taking time out to raise a family, Horn returned in the 1980s and 1990s to make some of her finest recordings, including the Grammy-winning I Remember Miles.
Benny Powell grew up in New Orleans to the sound of marching bands and jazz in the air. He joined Lionel Hampton in the 1940s and went on to be a key member of the 1950s Count Basie Orchestra, staying for several years. He joins Alyn Shipton to pick highlights from his records with both leaders, plus examples of his work with Duke Ellington and also his long-running association with pianist Randy Weston, which fuses jazz and African music.
Bassist Arvell Shaw was the longest-serving member of Louis Armstrong's All Stars. As well as picking his finest discs with Armstrong (including the big band recordings) in an interview recorded in 2001, he guides Alyn Shipton through his best work with Sidney Bechet, Teddy Wilson, Benny Goodman, and Earl Hines.
Barney Kessel is one of the most prolific recording artists in jazz, yet one of the least well-known names. Fellow guitarist John Etheridge delves into Kessel's extensive catalogue to explore his legacy and help Alyn Shipton suggest the essential Kessel recordings, including early efforts with Charlie Parker, his pioneering years with Oscar Peterson and his dazzling triumphs as a West Coast studio player.
In later life, reclusive and swathed in a jewelled scarf, Peggy Lee had come a long way from her origins as a jazz singer. In this programme, Gwyneth Herbert, herself a fine interpreter of Lee's songs, explores the singer's earlier work, with Benny Goodman, as a broadcasting artist and as a pure jazz singer. As well as Peggy Lee standards such as Why Don't You Do Right and Fever, there are many examples of her jazz excellence in lesser known songs.
Despite a lifelong battle with narcotics, harrowingly related in his book "Straight Life", Art Pepper was one of the finest alto saxophonists in jazz. In this programme, British saxophonist Alan Barnes joins Alyn Shipton to choose Pepper's finest recordings, and also reveals the American's remarkable talents on the clarinet, on the tenor saxophone, and as a composer.
Duke Ellington's biographer Harvey Cohen joins Alyn Shipton to select highlights from the 1920s and 30s recordings. From the Cotton Club to national icon, author Harvey Cohen traces Ellington's finest output from the decade starting in 1928. He guides Alyn Shipton through jungle music, the first extended works and the finest Ducal small groups, as well as offering insights from his recent book 'Duke Ellington's America'.
PIanist Michael Garrick died in November 2011. In this archive interview, he joins Alyn Shipton to look back over a fifty year span of some of the finest big band and small group records in British jazz. Whether inspired by Hobbits, Thomas Hardy or J M Barrie, Garrick's musical settings were some of the most imaginative and colourful in jazz. His music took inspiration from a huge variety of sources, ranging from Indian and Burmese music and literature to English folksongs and novels. A brillian...
Joe Henderson was one of the finest tenor saxophonists in jazz. Fellow saxophonist Julian Siegel joins Alyn Shipton to assess Henderson's catalogue of discs from his early Blue Note days to his final triumphs playing the music of Strayhorn and Jobim. The programme also includes part of an archive interview with Henderson. Joe Henderson's career falls into two distinct parts, his early days as a young lion, recording with the cream of 1960s modern jazz players for Blue Note, and his remarkable co...
Bassist Steve Swallow joins Alyn Shipton in front of an audience at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival. A specialist on the electric bass, Swallow looks back at his early days on the acoustic instrument and talks about the wide variety of his work over a forty-year period. Significant partnerships include reed-player Jimmy Giuffre, trumpeter Art Farmer, the Gary Burton Quartet (with whom Swallow came to England many times) and fellow-Cheltenham Jazz Festival star John Scofield.
This month, Chicago-born pianist Ramsey Lewis celebrates his 75th Birthday and the recent release of Songs From The Heart, his latest trio recording. This acoustic format has been a central component of Lewis' sixty-year career, bringing chart success in 1965 with 'The In Crowd', a track recorded live at Washington D.C.'s Bohemian Caverns where the audience's whoops and claps became, in Ramsey's words, the 'fourth member of the band'. But, as Alyn Shipton finds out in this programme, Lewis' cata...
Prior to his appearance at the 2010 Cheltenham Jazz Festival, guitarist John Scofield joins Alyn Shipton to choose key albums from his extensive recorded catalogue. As well as his most recent disc, Piety Street, he chooses discs with Medeski Martin & Wood, Joe Lovano, Pat Metheny and Gary Burton. Scofield is one of the most famous jazz guitarists on the planet. As he tells Alyn Shipton in this programme, he was once more popular in Europe than in the USA, but that all changed after his album...
Bassist Ron Carter is one of the most influential and revered instrumentalists in jazz, famous for his work with Miles Davis's 1960s quintet. He joins Alyn Shipton to select the highlights of his recording career, ranging from his work with Miles to string orchestras and his current quartet. Producer: Alyn Shipton.
Trombonist Al Grey (1925 - 2000) was one of the most distinctive soloists in big band jazz, working with many of the most famous swing orchestras. In an archive interview, recorded just before his death 11 years ago, Al selects his key recordings with, among others, Count Basie, Lionel Hampton and Dizzy Gillespie. With his gap-toothed grin, pith helmet and extrovert trombone style, Al Grey was one of the most colourful characters in jazz. He and Alyn Shipton first met when Radio 3 broadcast Lion...
Celebrating Ornette Coleman's 80th birthday in March 2010, Alyn Shipton was joined by Scottish saxophonist Paul Towndrow to select the key recordings by Coleman, the saxophonist who developed free jazz in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Jazz Library pays tribute to the drummer Ed Thigpen who died in January. He was such a consummate percussionist that he was known as "Mr Taste". A lynch-pin of the bands of Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington and Oscar Peterson, Thigpen joined Alyn Shipton during one of his last visits to Britain to select the recorded highlights of his career.
The British-born pianist Marian McPartland has become an American national treasure, not least through her long-running radio show Piano Jazz. In this edition of Jazz Library she joins Alyn Shipton to celebrate her 92nd birthday next month, and to select the highlights both from her recordings with her own trio, and also from available CDs of her radio series. Producer: Alyn Shipton.
Pianist Keith Tippett is a musician of extraordinary breadth and vision. His projects range from the vast 50-piece orchestra Centipede - so large it had its own private plane for touring - to introspective improvised solo concerts. He joins Alyn Shipton to pick the highlights of a recorded catalogue that spans over forty years, and which not only contains his ensembles large and small, but several surprises as well. Keith Tippett is one of Britain's most inventive musicians, although nowadays he...
On 6 February 2010, Sir John Dankworth died aged 82. In this special edition of Jazz Library, Alyn Shipton introduces an archive interview in which John Dankworth selected some of his finest recordings. These range from his work with the Johnny Dankworth Seven and his big band to the settings he wrote for Cleo Laine, as well as music composed for films and television.
Erroll Garner was one of the most distinctive and original pianists in jazz. To select his finest recordings, Alyn Shipton is joined by the young British pianist Neil Cowley. The programme includes examples of Garner's earliest stride style, covers the emergence of his own individual jazz voice, and features his most popular album "Concert by the Sea". Producer Alyn Shipton.
Focusing on the jazz side of Bing Crosby, Gwyneth Herbert joins Alyn Shipton to pick Bing's jazziest recordings, ranging from his Paul Whiteman days to the swing bands of Buddy Bregman and Billy May, and including Bing's immortal discs with Louis Armstrong.
One of the highlights of 2009's London Jazz Festival was pianist Stefano Bollani's residency at Kings Place, where the Italian gave solo performances as well as concerts in duo, trio and quintet settings. Recorded in front of an audience at the festival, Alyn Shipton talks to Bollani about his varied recording career, including his latest trio outing for ECM.
Swing guitarist Lawrence Lucie died in 2009, aged 101. Not long before his death, Lucie met Alyn Shipton in New York to look back over his remarkable career, which not only included stints with Fletcher Henderson, Lucky Millinder and Benny Carter, but a long stay in Louis Armstrong's orchestra. Lucie was also the longest surviving member of Jelly Roll Morton's band, and he looks back on his work with the self-styled "inventor of jazz".
Few people did more to promote the cause of jazz in Britain than Graham Collier, who died on September 9th. He led a succession of pioneering ensembles over the last 45 years, and was a key figure in Jazz Education. Collier was still actively writing and composing right up until the time of his death. In this special memorial edition of Jazz Library, Alyn Shipton presents an archive interview with Collier, who selected highlights from his long career, from early triumphs such as Down Another Roa...
Critic and pianist Brian Priestley joins Alyn Shipton to select recording highlights from the career of drummer, vibraphonist and pianist Lionel Hampton, one of the greatest musicians of the swing era. Including his work with Benny Goodman, his many studio recordings from the 1930s and the regular working bands he led from the 1940s for the rest of his life.
