The Jazz Podcast

Kirk is a musician and writer based in Portland, as well as being a multi-instrumentalist he makes a music podcast, Strong Songs and produces and co-hosts the Triple Click video game podcast.
Today he joins the show to chat to Rob Cope about all things podcasts, jazz as well as a look into music in video games. 

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Simon’s latest project features his recently formed U.S. Jazz Octet with three front line horns and vocals. There are special guest appearances by leading U.K. jazz artists, including Tim Garland and Paul Booth and, for the first time, Simon’s arrangements appear alongside his original compositions. 

Simon explains his thinking behind For the Dreamers: “I think that, deep down, I always knew (hoped!) that I would spend some time in America one day; form a band there; do some concerts; and record an album. My only surprise is that it took me until my mid-forties to do it! I wanted to harness my love for many genres of American music, utilise local American musicians and compose music for that particularly confident way they have of playing. This is the resulting album!

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Mark joins the show to chat about his new album, Smiling. Joining the show is Olivia Cuttill as a guest host. 

Saxophonist and composer Mark Lockheart first came to prominence in the mid 1980s with the influential big band Loose Tubes. In 1992 Mark formed the eclectic co-led quartet Perfect Houseplants, a group that released six albums and collaborated with classical artists such as the Orlando Consort, Andrew Manze and Pamela Thorby. 

The mid-90s saw Mark recording and performing with many jazz, folk and pop artists, including Django Bates, Kenny Wheeler, Norma Winstone, June Tabor, Stereolab, Jah Wobble, Robert Wyatt, Prefab Sprout, Don Um Romao, Thomas Dolby and Radiohead.

In 2003 Mark joined Seb Rochford’s Polar Bear, which over a period of 12 years recorded six ground-breaking albums. The band’s second album, Held On The Tips Of Fingers, was nominated for the 2005 Mercury Award and later appeared in Jazzwise's 100 Albums That Shook the World. The band's fifth album, In Each And Every Way, was also nominated for a Mercury Award in 2013. 

In 2007 Mark was a featured soloist (along with John Pattitucci and Gwilym Simcock) in Mark Anthony Turnage's About Water, which premiered on the Southbank in June 2007. Mark collaborated several times more with Turnage, performing his A Man Descending with the Southbank Sinfonia in 2008 and more recently as one of the featured musicians in Turnage's opera Anna Nicole, which premiered at the Royal Opera House in London in 2011. 

In 2009 Mark's quintet album In Deep was released to critical acclaim. The following year saw the release of Mark's first big band album Days Like These with the Hamburg-based NDR big band. That same year Mark was awarded APPJC Parliamentary Jazz Musician of the Year 2010. 

In 2013 Mark released Ellington In Anticipation, a radical reworking of Ellington melodies with an all-star line up including Seb Rochford and Liam Noble. The album received numerous four and five-star reviews and was MOJO magazine’s Jazz Album of 2013 and nominated as Best Jazz CD of 2013 by the APPJC at the 2014 Parliamentary Awards.  

An invitation to perform at the New York Rochester Jazz Festival in 2014 led to the formation of Mark's trio, Malija, with bassist Jasper Hoiby and pianist Liam Noble. Malija's debut album The Day I Had Everything was released in December 2015 to critical acclaim. The group's second album Instinct was released in 2017 followed by a 21-date tour.  

In 2016 Mark was awarded Jazz FM Instrumentalist of the Year and also nominated for the British Composer Awards for his composition With One Voice. A few years later saw the birth of two very contrasting projects , the jazz/orchestral work titled Days On Earth for jazz sextet and 30-piece orchestra, released on Edition Records in January 2019 and a set of English Renaissance music ‘Salvator Mundi’ recorded at Temple church in London with organist Roger Sayer.

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Rob Cope chats to Olivia about her brand new album, The Whole Damn Plan, featuring guest host and long time friend of the show, Mark Lockheart. Our 7th birthday celebrated in style with one of the finest musicians of the next generation.

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Swedish jazz vocalist and composer Clara Green talks to Tara Minton about her new record, "Being Green."

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Jamil joins the show today to chat about his new album, Red Kite. He has recorded and collaborated with many artists and recorded four albums of his own music, each of which have received national and international accolades. Jazz UK writes about Jamil: His music is both swinging and sophisticated, Sheriff showing himself to be a constantly inventive arranger. Just when you think you’ve heard it all, he’ll come up with something fresh. As a composer, arranger and pianist Jamil has toured extensively throughout the UK and performed at national and international jazz festivals.

Described by The Guardian as "someone who has made a real difference to the vitality of the jazz scene in the North of England.

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Born in Detroit, raised in London and now based in Kraków, Alex Roth is a composer, guitarist, producer and interdisciplinary collaborator who over the last decade has earned a reputation as “one of contemporary music’s most innovative and impressive talents” (musicOMH). His diverse body of work encompasses improvised performances; a wide range of concert music from solo to orchestral compositions; scores for dance, theatre and film; leading numerous bands; and producing electronic music. He has collaborated with some of Europe’s leading experimental musicians, such as John Butcher, Arve Henriksen, Savina Yannatou, Kit Downes, Mikolaj Trzaska and Olga Szwajgier.

Alex leads the acclaimed improvising trio Cut The Sky (whose debut album, with Waclaw Zimpel and Hubert Zemler, was selected by Polityka as one of 2023's best releases); produces experimental electronic music as Supersigil; co-directs Sephardic music group Sefiroth (for whom he also directed the multimedia performance Arvoles Lloran por Luvia); and founded the networked ensemble MultiTraction Orchestra, whose debut album Reactor One was hailed by The Guardian as "a remarkable sonic collage by an A-list of international improvisers.”

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Today a living legend joins the show! Even for a successful composer and arranger in Hollywood, Gordon Goodwin’s numbers are impressive: A 2006 GRAMMY Award for his Instrumental Arrangement of “Incredits” from the Pixar film The Incredibles, three Emmy Awards, and thirteen GRAMMY nominations.

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Multi-award winner as best jazz vocalist - BBC Jazz Awards 2007 and 2004 and Parliamentary Jazz Awards 2018,alongside nominations from the Jazz FM Awards 2013 and Downbeat Magazine 2017 - Ian Shaw has amassed a number of highly acclaimed internationally released albums and is a popular performer both in the UK and the US. He has been cited, along with Mark Murphy and Kurt Elling, as one of the world’s finest male jazz vocalists.

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Jamie Cullum (born 20 August 1979)[1] is an English jazz-pop singer, songwriter and radio presenter. Although primarily a vocalist and pianist, he also accompanies himself on other instruments, including guitar and drums. He has recorded nine studio albums, three compilation albums, one live album and twenty-four singles. Since April 2010, he has presented a weekly Tuesday evening jazz show on BBC Radio 2.

Today he comes on The Jazz Podcast to chat to Rob Cope.

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