Please note: I am not knocking the quality of output from programmes like Jazz on 3! Rather the quantity that is allowed by the schedulers.
The upshot is a limited ability to show the range of what is going on over here.
The pressures on Jazz on 3 have clearly been growing. We now have such a range of exciting music here. For example, at the Vortex alone, we have it from the "youngsters" such as World Service Project and Match & Fuse through to visitors coming such as ICP Orchestra in January. It is clearly impossible for the programme makers to cover this properly in the limited time slots that they have.
The vibrancy is increasingly being recognised abroad.
So - and strangely perhaps - while, for example, Jazz on 3 has been unable to schedule airplay of Dice Factory, especially because they've been recording sessions by Brass Mask (both including Tom Challenger), the album has already been played on France Musique (the French equivalent) at 7 p.m. on a weekday.
Also, Austria radio had a one hour (i.e. full 60 minutes) interview with Led Bib's leader/drummer Mark Holub on ORF 1(which is a mix of Radio 3 and Radio 4 in its programming).
The BBC schedulers no doubt would argue for similar criteria amongst their classical programming - how many hours a week of artists like Gergiev or of particular composers. But of course they have so many more hours to play with that they can afford to be much more expansive.
Of course, the BBC can seem quite defensive. But I think that it shows a limited focus on this music on the main music channels. Bits and pieces do, thank God, creep in elsewhere in non-specialist scheduling. Stuart Maconie and Cerys Matthews on 6 Music.
I look at this with dismay all the more, as I have my own show, Babel Babble, on NTS (www.ntslive.co.uk). And I am finding the range of new stuff that I have to balance with other things, thrilling. So we have another example of people taking advantage of the internet to move away from the more well-known outlets. But the BBC has been, until now, a sign of quality, which is why we listen to it and has a listenership which is much much higher.
By the way, the BBC does have some available bandwidth for jazz. It's BBC 5 Live Extra. We wouldn't mind the few hours a week of football, cricket or whatever, if we could have the other hours.
3 comments:
Hey Babel...have you missed whats happening on Late Junction on BBC Radio3...looking at your blog you have indeed. of course more, much more is always good, vital and neccessary... but big up what there is, you cats. Bestively Max Reinhardt http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01p9hv9
Apologies for leaving it out.
Nevertheless, Late Junction too has had its hours trimmed. (Wasn't it originally every night?) And there was also Mixing It, which had a range of music crossing between the different shows.
If you read Jazz Outside, by Ian Carr, the situation seems a bit better than in 1973, where he reckoned there was about 30 minutes a week. But given the exponential rise in types of music that people are interested in, for which we must be thankful to the likes of ECM, Womad and more, it doesn't give adequate time to reflect all this.
The encouragement is that albums now have more chances than ever of getting on these lists, as there are more and more of them around. Allaboutjazz.com has a range of excellent writers, but then look around at Peter Slavid, Birdistheworm, Dan Paton, Peter Bacon and more. All knowledgable, modest enough not to be giving more than their own slants on what is going on. That having been said, even though I have a radio show of my own on NTS, I am not going to give out my own list of favourites.!The encouragement is that albums now have more chances than ever of getting on these lists, as there are more and more of them around. Allaboutjazz.com has a range of excellent writers, as does Londonjazz, but then look around at Peter Slavid, Birdistheworm, Dan Paton, Peter Bacon, Dan Spicer and more. All able to judge validly, knowledgable, modest enough not to be giving more than their own slants on what is going on. That having been said, even though I have a radio show of my own on NTS, I am not going to give out my own list of favourites.!
Post a Comment