Episodes
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Mid Season Break Announcement
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Whiplash is a 2014 American independent psychological drama film written and directed by Damien Chazelle, and starring Miles Teller, J. K. Simmons, and Paul Reiser. It focuses on an ambitious music student and aspiring jazz drummer (Teller), who is pushed to his limit by his abusive instructor (Simmons)
Chazelle completed the script in 2013, drawing upon his experiences in a "very competitive" jazz band in high school. Soon after, Right of Way and Blumhouse helped Chazelle turn fifteen pages of the screenplay into an 18-minute short film. The short film received acclaim after debuting at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, which attracted investors to produce the complete version of the script. Filming took place in September 2013 throughout Los Angeles over twenty days. The film explores concepts of perfectionism, dedication, and success, and deconstructs the concept of ambition.
this is the first film Simon couldn't remember the name of, me of
Chazelle wrote and directed his debut feature, Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench, as part of his senior thesis project with classmate Justin Hurwitz at Harvard
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Missing episodes?
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A long time ago we did an episode on humour in jazz. you can hear it here
This is a longer investigation into it.
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in another one of our tunes we love Nick and Simon discus But Beautiful
But Beautiful" is a popular song with music written by Jimmy Van Heusen, the lyrics by Johnny Burke. The song was published in 1947.
One of five songs written by Burke and Van Heusen featured in the Paramount Pictures movie Road to Rio (1947)
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one of our under the radar pianists episodes John Williams there Jazz pianist . Yes the Star Wars guy!
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Following on from our last episode this is a special longer examination of what makes a jazz singer
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We ask is Laufey a jazz singer. what do you think?
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One of our jazz book reviews podcasts about the Novel The Horn by John Clellon Holmes-born 12th March 1926
Studied at various places Columbia 1943 and post-draft at the New School 1949 where he met Jack Kerouac and remained a life long friend
First novel published as Go a fictional book based on real characters and considered the first beat novel
The Horn was his second novel and again contains many barely disguised real-life characters
The protagonist the fictional Tenor Colossus Edgar Pool is known as “ The Horn” a jazz legend who took jazz from Swing to Bebop with his skill and invention - making him a revered alpha-male.
The book takes place on the evening of The Horn’s final day as he stumbles through New York after being outplayed [allegedly for the first time] by a young sax player.
As his friends and lovers search for him they reminisce about his life
It is a classic paean to the talented jazz musician who slowly self destructs through drink, drugs and sex
It is structured in an attempt to mimic jazz performance practices of the 1940s
Chapters are called Choruses or Riffs
In the Chorus chapters Holmes defines his key characters who talk about "The Horn"
The Riff chapters advance the narrative of his final night
The prose itself is dense, rhythmic, and lyrical, with long, flowing sentences that evoke the complexity and intensity of jazz phrasing, as words are deployed like notes in an extended solo
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we discuss the issue of notating jazz in traditional western music notation in this episode
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We discusss "Stella by Starlight" a popular jazz standard with music by Victor Young that was drawn from thematic material composed for the main title and soundtrack of the 1944 Paramount Pictures film The Uninvited. Appearing in the film's underscore as well as in source music as an instrumental theme song without lyrics, it was turned over to Ned Washington, who wrote the lyrics for it in 1946.
At one point in the film, the main character, Rick (Ray Milland) tells Stella (Gail Russell) that he is playing a serenade, "To Stella by Starlight".
an Apple Music playlist is here
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in this episode we discus the pianist and vibraphonist Eddie Costa
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in this episode we discuss the winners of the jazz categories of the grammy awards 2026
Large ensemble-christian McBrideBest Jazz Vocal Album-Portriat Samara JoyBest Jazz instrumental album -Soouthern Nights Sullivan FortnerBest Alternative Jazz Album-LIVE-ACTION-Nate SmithBest Latin Jazz -A Tribute to Benny Moré and Nat King Cole – Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Yainer Horta & Joey Calveirobest Live album Windows – Live – Chick Corea, Christian McBride & Brian BladeSimon's Apple Music Playlist Here
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In this episode we discuss the writer and dramatist Alan Plater and his connection to jazz.
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We are starting a new strand to the ever expanding tapestry of 2-5-1 : Tunes we love and why. The first of these is on the song Softly as in a Morning Sunrise by Sigmund Romberg a 32 bar AABA format tune, often in C minor, that has become a favourite amongst musicians.
Here is an Apple Music play list which is only the tip of the iceberg [or should that be Romburg?]
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Nick leads the discussion on the TV jazz show Jazz Casual. Most episodes are available on YouTube
Wikipedia describes it thus
"Jazz Casual was an occasional series on jazz music on National Educational Television (NET), the predecessor to the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). The show was produced by Richard Moore and KQED of San Francisco, California. Episodes ran for 30 minutes. It ran from 1961 to 1968 and was hosted by jazz critic Ralph Gleason. The series had a pilot program in 1960. That episode, however, has been destroyed. 31 episodes were broadcast; 28 episodes survive. Most episodes included short interviews with the group leaders"
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What is Mainstream Jazz? Is the term still relevant? Who coined the phrase?
find out in this episode
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In this episode we delve into the dark world of jazz and the detective.
Jazz has become associated with the gumshoe detective e.g. Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe and the whole world of film noir including seedy nightclubs and femme fatales. We decided to investigate further "so I drew my Smith and Wesson 9mm and Nick was soon singing like a canary"
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We have done Christmas specials before which are about Christmas jazz albums or specific Christmas jazz songs. This year we are offering suggestions for gifts for jazz lovers including among other things "the smell of jazz"
Amazon UK List Here
Previous Christmas episodes
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In this episode we discuss Philip Larkin [the English Poet] and his love of some jazz and his hatred of other jazz
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