Jazz Library

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: Cleo Laine with the Johnny Dankworth Seven

Composer: Gordon

Album: I Hear Music

Label: Salvo (Union Square)

Number: BX403 CD1 Track 8

Personnel: Cleo Laine (vocals), Jimmy Deuchar (trumpet), John Dankworth (alto sax), Don Rendell (tenor sax), Bill Le Sage (vibes), Joe Muddell (bass), Eddie Taylor (drums). 4 March 1952.

DISC 3

Title: Easy Living

Artist: Cleo Laine with the Johnny Dankworth Seven

Composer: Rainger/Robin

Album: I Hear Music

Label: Salvo (Union Square)

Number: BX403 CD1 Tr 6

Personnel: as above. 6 May 1953.

DISC 4

Title: A Child Is Born

Artist: Cleo Laine

Composer: Jones/Wilder

Album: Christmas at the Stables

Label: Audio B

Number: 5011

Personnel: Cleo Laine, voc; John Dankworth, ss; John Horler, p; Malcolm Creese, b; Allan

Ganley, d; Andy Panayi, fl; Chris Garrick, vn; Matt Skelton, perc. 1999.

DISC 5

Title: PIerrot Lunaire

Artist: Cleo Laine, Nash Ensemble - Elgar Howarth (conductor)

Composer: Schoenberg

Album: Cleo Laine sings Pierrot Lunaire and songs by Charles Ives

Label: RCA

Number: LRL1 5058

Personnel: Cleo Laine, voc; Nash Ensemble - Elgar Howarth (conductor)

DISC 6

Title: Summertime

Artist: Cleo Laine and Ray Charles

Composer: George and Ira Gershwin, Heyward and Hayward

Album: I Hear Music

Label: Salvo

Number BX 403 CD 3 Track 10

Personnel: Cleo Laine and Ray Charles, with studio orchestra from the original RCA

album Porgy and Bess.

DISC 7

Title: He Was Beautiful

Artist: Cleo Laine and John Williams

Composer: Myers, Laine

Album: I Hear Music

Label: Salvo

Number BX 403 CD 3 Track 12

Personnel: Cleo Laine, voc; John Williams, g. 1976.

DISC 8

Title: Shall I Compare thee to a Summer's Day

Artist: Cleo Laine

Composer: Shakespeare, Laine, Dankworth

Album: I Hear Music

Label: Salvo

Number: BX 403 CD 3 Track 5

Personnel: Cleo Laine, voc. Personnel not listed.

DISC 8

Title: Oh Tell me The Truth About Love

Artist: Cleo Laine

Composer: Auden/Dankworth

Album: I Hear Music

Label: Salvo

Number BX 403 CD 3 Track 6

Personnel: Cleo Laine, voc; John Dankworth, cl, arr., dir. Personnel not listed.

DISC 9

Title: Bill

Artist: Cleo Laine

Composer: Kern/Wodehouse/Hammerstein

Album: I Hear Music

Label: Salvo

Number: BX 403 CD 3 Track 8

Personnel: Cleo Laine and John Dankworth Orchestra, Carnegie Hall, 1974.

DISC 10

Title: No One Is Alone

Artist: Cleo Laine and Jacqui Dankworth

Composer: Sondheim

Album: I Hear Music

Label: Salvo

Number: BX 403 CD 4 Track 2

Personnel: Cleo Laine, voc; Jacqui Dankworth, voc; ensemble arr and cond. John Dankworth.

DISC 11

Title: It was a Lover and His Lass

Artist: Cleo Laine

Composer: Shakespeare/Young

Album: I Hear Music

Label: Salvo

Number: BX 403 CD 3 Track 10

Personnel: as for disc 8.

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, before also selecting highlights of his discs with Marion Brown, Archie Shepp, Eddie Henderson and his own bands.

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 Gillespie in the 1940s, introducing Miles Davis and John Coltrane to modal jazz in the '50s, and mixing world jazz and rock with Jan Garbarek and Terje Rypdal in the 60s. His Living Time Orchestra ran from the '70s to the present decade and included innovative soloists from both sides of the Atlantic. In conversation with Alyn Shipton, who visited Russell at his home near the New England Conservatory in Boston, the composer looks back at what he considers the highlights of his work, and at his standard compositions such as All About Rosie and Ezz-Thetic.

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.