2-5-1

Archer Street

We discuss the role of a single Soho street in the lives of musicians looking for work in London from the 1920s until the 1960s

Watch the Documentary mentioned here

Musicians Union Article here

This is our third interview with people who promote, facilitate and help proliferate jazz.

Sebastian Scotney is the driving force behind London Jazz News a hub for the promotion of new jazz releases, upcoming gigs and all things 'jazz' in London and beyond.  

Tete Montoliu was a Spanish pianist who had a long and successful career. As part of our "under-the-radar" pianists strand we discuss him and his playing style. This goes with our other episodes on pianists Mel Powell, Joe Albany, Hod O'Brien and Horace Parlan, all well worth checking out if you haven't heard those episodes.

Riverside Records only ran from 1953 to 1964 but in that time captured some of the greats of the period. Orin Keepnews was the producer of a majority of the jazz albums, and even had a tune named after him composed by Bill Evans at his anagramatical best! 

In this Episode Nick and Simon discuss Stars of Jazz  which was an American television program that ran between 1956 and 1958 and featured performances and interviews with many leading jazz performers of the time. The innovative program started on KABC-TV in Los Angeles in June 1956. It was produced by Jimmie Baker, and presented by pianist and songwriter Bobby Troup. Musicians who appeared on the show included Oscar Peterson, Billie Holiday, Art Blakey, Dave Brubeck, Stan Getz, Kid Ory, Chet Baker, and Troup's wife Julie London.  All 130 shows were filmed as kinescopes, but all but 45 were later lost. The remaining films were donated to the UCLA Film and Television Archive, where they are gradually being restored.

Another in our series of music theory podcasts, this time we focus on the whole tone scale. In music, a whole-tone scale is a scale in which each note is separated from its neighbors by the interval of a whole tone. In twelve-tone equal temperament, there are only two complementary whole-tone scales, both six-note or hexatonic scales. A single whole tone scale can also be thought of as a "six-tone equal temperament". Some early instances of the use of the scale in jazz writing can be found in Bix Beiderbecke's "In a Mist" (1928) and Don Redman’s "Chant of the Weed" (1931). In 1958, Gil Evans recorded an arrangement that gives striking coloration to the "abrupt whole-tone lines"of Redman's original. Wayne Shorter's composition "JuJu" (1965), features heavy use of the whole tone scale, and John Coltrane's "One Down, One Up" (1965), is built on two augmented chords arranged in the same simple structure as his earlier tune "Impressions"

However, these are only the most overt examples of the use of this scale in jazz. A vast number of jazz tunes, including many standards, use augmented chords and their corresponding scales as well, usually to create tension in turnarounds or as a substitute for a dominant seventh chord. For instance a G7 augmented 5th dominant chord in which G altered scale tones would work before resolving to C7, a tritone substitution chord such as D♭9 or D♭7♯11 is often used in which D♭/G whole tone scale tones will work, the sharpened 11th degree being a G and the flattened 7th being a C♭, the enharmonic equivalent of B, the major third in the G dominant chord.

Art Tatum and Thelonious Monk are two pianists who used the whole-tone scale extensively and creatively. Monk's "Four in One" (1948) and "Trinkle-Tinkle" (1952) are fine examples of this.

Nick and Simon talk about Birdland the  jazz club which  started in New York City on December 15, 1949. The original Birdland, which was located at 1678 Broadway, just north of West 52nd Street in Manhattan, was closed in 1965 due to increased rents, but it re-opened for one night in 1979 for the 30 year anniversary. A revival began in 1986 with the opening of the second nightclub by the same name that is now located in Manhattan's Theater District. The current location is in the same building as the previous headquarters of The New York Observer.

Horace Parlan is another of our 'under-the-radar' piainists,  known for working in the hard bop and post-bop styles of jazz. In addition to his work as a bandleader Parlan was known for his contributions to the Charles Mingus recordings Mingus Ah Um and Blues & Roots. 


 

What is a fakebook, where can I get one and is a real book different? These questions are answered as Nick and Simon discuss the jazz player's tune bible.

In this episode Nick and Simon discuss classic holiday albums from the past, and also look at a couple of new Christmas releases.
This year we also deal with the issue of wassailing! 

Here is an apple music playlist of some of the albums we discuss

https://music.apple.com/gb/playlist/2-5-1-christmas-special-2021/pl.u-2aRjqtKaoYZ

MERRY CHRISTMAS!