Look at them all! They're like ants!

This episode almost never happened because Olly just had to go and go to Rome didn’t he? The combination of girls, gelato and grappa were very nearly too much to resist and we almost lost him. In fact on his last day in the ancient city he was found, his arms wrapped around a Corinthian column, screaming that they’d have to prise him loose. They did and he’s back. On an aside, do you know how many tourists there are in Rome? F’ing loads of them! Absolutely everywhere like a dirty smear on a silk dress – if you’re the kind of person who clings to your sense of superiority to keep you buoyant in this world of chavs, bursting hospitals and early releases then Rome can be hard to get along with cos it’s really hard to feel elite when you’re being jostled by an overweight Texan man who inexplicably keeps trying to smell your hair as you admire the Sistine chapel.

But the episode… Golly gosh, gee and wow – this is something else. In the runup to the OXFORD JAZZ FESTIVAL your friends at GJ have pulled out the stops with a luscious playlist including:

Adam Rafferty – Chameleon: This guy beatboxes whilst he plays the guitar and he covers Herbie Hancock. Now read that again. Yeah, I know. He is spectacular and he’s playing at OxJazz so you and I get to see him LIVE! Lucky us.  Tickets and more here.

Carly Commando – Bear:  Olly loves this chick. She made a new album called ‘One Take’ and it’s available on her MySpace right bloody now – smooth and rhythmic, listen to it naked. In the bath, obviously.

The Fauxharmonic Orchestra - Beethoven Symphony No. 1 in C 1st Movement: So much more to say about this incredible guy. Paul Henry Smith takes control an enormous library of musical notes played by real orchestras and ‘conducts’ them live with two wii-motes. Seriously incredible and just the sort of thing that gets our engines running here at GJ. Check out this video for more:

Peter Gregson - Omina: Very daring, very avant-garde, Peter uses beats, licks and harmony more like a DJ than the professional cellist that he is. Peter is currently ‘genius in residence’ at The Hospital Club which has become a new obsession for us here at GJ and we often recline and dream of planning our next podcast whilst sipping a cool G&T in cool surroundings with cool people at the club. One day. One day

Clara Sanabras & The Real Lowdown - Love for Sale:  ANOTHER OxJazz artist and a doozy at that, we have a feeling she’ll be incredible live and can’t wait to find out if we’re right.  Tickets here.

It’s big, it’s clever and it doesn’t care who knows it – send us a tweet, buzz us and BOOK YOUR TICKETS TO OXFORD NOW! We got a pretty sweeet last minute hotel deal here and you should too, you can even stay in a prison which looks super foxy.

It’s awards season, ladies and gentlemen – that couple of months in the calendar  that ensures every free newspaper out there is concentrating on awkward double acts, mutton dressed as lamb, jokes sinking like lead balloons, and the ramblings of trumped up entertainers you are sure you’ve never heard of going on for longer than they should.

It was with that in mind that we recorded Episode Three of our second season. If you want to hear the conversation of two over tired graduates who have both reached the end of the honeymoon periods of their “real” jobs in the “real” world, then you are in for a treat! You probably won’t notice the difference, and we know you really came for the music, so here’s the scoop:

We kick off with the infectious snare of the  Salvatore Bonafede Trio, before enjoying the ultra laid back piano playing of the eponymous hero of the Jazz outfit.

After that we check out Tom Norris. We’re all over this guy. Like a rash. It’s bad. But Olly had cream for something else that he had, and it seems to be helping us out with this too. His album launch was on the 23rd February at the Forge, Camden and he’s going strong.

You would think that if we were playing Clair De Lune we would be focussing on the merits of the performer (Fuzjko Hemming) and whether or not he does justice to the piece. Or you would if you weren’t a regular listener. Instead we get a apoplectic rant from Olly and confused sentence structure from Alasdair. And, by the way, the synopsis Olly was referring to can be found here and it’s awesome.

After we play some proper good old fashioned Jazz from Benny Hill, or someone like that, we finale with a sublime piano solo from someone we are sure to give more time to in the future: Richard Anthony Jay. But he might have to have a song played in an angsty teen movie before he registers on Olly’s radar.

Just another regular old show from a podcast nominated for the European Podcast Awards. Oh, did we not mention that before? Oops… MORE TO COME ON THIS.  MUCH MORE.

‘Things can only get better‘ sang portly Labour party members in 1997, sweat cascading down their fat, pink little faces as they jiggled about in exuberant glee at the dawn of a new political era.  It all ended rather badly BUT the same cannot be said for the boys of GetJazzical who just keep on getting better!

Yes, the second episode, in a season that has already been described as ‘chronological’ and ‘sequential’ is upon us and it’s all about the music.  This might just be our finest musical hour.  It’s Beyonce fine.  Let’s have a delve and see what we’ve got:

Vijay Iyer – Galang:  A prominent jazz artist would never do a cover of the rapper M.I.A. I mean c’mon they’re nothing alike.  That’ll never happen.  Ever.

Westcott & Rodway – Song One:  Break out the Coronas and flick your nimble fingers in some air flamenco to a fun, strutting piece of jazz fusion.

Herman Chittison Trio – Ain’t Misbehaving:  Warm , snuggly old time jazz to get all loose to.

James Rhodes – French Suite #5, Allemande (Bach):  So, not much to say about the piece – I mean, it’s Bach.  Of course it’s aces.  Instead just listen to the playing – lovely and restrained when it needs to be and delightfully expressive where the score allows.  We’ll be featuring Mr Rhodes more in the future for sure.  TWEET HIM UP.

Beats & Pieces – Bake:  Straight from a 1950′s crime caper, seriously enjoyable bit of funky jazz.  Love it.

It’s the last ten minutes of the film.  The hero has overcome adversity, heartbreak and robots to get this far and yet he lies there motionless on the floor, life ebbing away whilst the villain laughs mockingly at his crumpled body.  ”No!” You think, surely this can’t be the end?  Not now, not when our hero only just learnt an important lesson about himself that he really knew all along.  It’s just too heartbreaking. It’s NOT FAIR!

It is, of course, at this moment that he springs from the floor with a knowing smirk before felling the shocked villain and shagging the girl – often at the same time.  In case you’ve drifted off and started thinking about dragons, this metaphor has been about US.  We ARE that hero!  Thousands of you supposed that GetJazzical had been defeated by the evil twins of actual employment and sloth but we have risen from the dusty mat and we’re ready to… do stuff!  Yeah.

So here it is -Season Two: Episode One.  The return, the reanimation, the renaissance of GetJazzical – the podcast that’s going places!  Oh yeah, the music… There’s some really ace tuneage in this Episode, we’ve got Melissa Reiner who uses the violin like Mr Gretsky used a hockey stick, Kelly Rossum who evokes the Pink Panther with his playful, mischievous jazz number, the ever brilliant Christian Calcatelli, a smooth pair of Electro Beat-niks and finally ex-marine soulful pianist EB.

Like the magnificent David Fincher film of the same same sort-of name, this episode melds (yes ‘melds’) intrigue, sex and Shostakovich into a heady thirty minutes of pure aural beatitude.*  This episode brings us full circle via the two glorious twin arcs of classical and jazz music back to our very first few episodes recorded when Alasdair still had hair and Olly still had hope.  So we mark the return of the irrepressible Hazlitt, the unstoppable Alony, the swinging Steve Blanco Trio and some dude called Billie Holiday.

GetJazzical has also, through extensive talks with it’s legion of accountants, decided to purchase a wee HD camera because HD is cool and without HD you are, frankly, a knob.  So expect the twin delights of Olly & Ali in all their gloriously unusual splendor very shortly.  That is all.

*  The film ‘Sev7en’ does not feature any Shostakovich, nor does our episode. It does however provide a pleasant alliteration.  Our show also does not feature and sex, sexiness or sextons.

“Hi! I’m Oliver Mills, when I’m not jetting off to New York to drink Espresso in trendy cafe’s, and hanging out with beautiful people in Greenwich, I like to record podcasts, showcasing contemporary Jazz and Classi…oh what’s that? Time for drinks in an underground Jazz club? Oh well, off I toodle. Alasdair, can you finish this for me…?”

It’s that time of the fornight again folks, and what an episode we have for you. Paying homage to Olly’s “fact finding mission” in Manhattan, we’ve got some very New York, New York-centric tunes for your ears, with some atmospheric pieces by Giulio Carmassi and Bob Thompson. We also visit some old friends, Bad Ass Brass, Fourplay String Quartet, and we soak up the delicious vocals of Gonville and Caius College Choir.  And finally to end this chapter of GetJazzical, we sell out, give in, and jump the shark and play some Jamie Cullum! Well…Geoff Gascoyne featuring Jamie Cullum.

So enjoy, and stay tuned, as GetJazzical is about to get bigger and better than ever before! If Olly decides to return to the UK…

P.s. Despite auditory evidence to the contrary, Olly had not just snorted his body weight in coke before recording this episode.  He was just very, very excited to be leaving.

Ok so first of all both DJs were sick during the recording of this podcast. Olly was nursing some vicious, gut-dwelling-nausea-inducing bug that refused to succumb to the privations of Pepto Bismol and Alasdair was just wracked by the sheer overwhelming tragedy of the human condition. So it’s a laid back, many would say ‘sexy’ show voiced by our two poorly anti-heroes.

Annoyingly this is PROBABLY THE BEST SHOW YET which just goes to show that being off your game and dragging a** gives great results everytime! School children would do well to remember this lesson. We’ve got some Belluruche, Sahara and a jazz singer with a voice like honey dripping off Beyoncé’s naked body. We also have Olly’s kind of classical music, and Alasdair’s kind of jazz music. It really is a jolly good romp and you should stop reading this right now and just listen to it. Why are you still reading? Why? WHY? OBEY ME!

P.s. I know I wrote the phrases ‘School children’ and ‘honey dripping off Beyoncé’s naked body’ in the same paragraph. It’s not weird. You’re weird.

Because we can – and because we have to

Emilie-Claire Barlow
“Comin’ Home Baby” (mp3)
from “Haven’t We Met?”
(Empress Music Group Inc)

Buy at iTunes Music Store

Steve Blanco Trio
“Contact” (mp3)
from “Contact”
(Art of Life Records)

Buy at iTunes Music Store

Katryn Hasler
“Wed Jan 03 11.58″ (mp3)
from “11.58″
(Tonus-Music-Records)

Stream from Rhapsody

One reason you should listen to this episode:  We say the words “…well a violin can excite you, but I think only a cello can really fill you.” Need I say more? If you need more incentives then how about Vijay Iyer?  Voted the #1 Rising Star Jazz Artist and #1 Rising Star Composer in the Downbeat Magazine International Critics’ Poll for both 2006 and 2007.  You want more?  Ok, well we’ve also got Cornelius Dufallo – the man with coolest name in the world and an emotional violin attached to his capable hands.  The smooth Kelly Rosen (cigars optional) and the eclectic & talented Okkyung Lee.

More?  You want more?  This isn’t the 90′s people, didn’t you see the G20 protests?  Huh?  Well if you will insist on being greedy this I suppose we can probably give you one more reason to listen:  Balmorhea with the resonant, driving and emotive track ‘The Winter’?  In fact we’re feeling SO generous that you can download it for FREE below and it’s even legal so you don’t have to worry about your door getting kicked in by Darth Vader’s ugly baton-wielding cousins.  We’re so good to you.

Cornelius Dufallo
“Introduction” (mp3)
from “Dream Streets”
(Innova Recordings)

Buy at iTunes Music Store

Balmorhea
“The Winter” (mp3)
from “Rivers Arms”
(Western Vinyl)

Buy at iTunes Music Store

You know those guys who want to be Olympic cyclists but just can’t be bothered with the early mornings, incessant Weetbix eating and chafed nether regions?  You know how they placate their unfulfilled ambitions by buying the latest, greatest and shiniest gear they can find?  They get the bike hand-tuned by a little old man who lives in Belgium,  lights so bright they could dazzle the sun and the kind of figure-hugging attire generally only seen in the kind of films favoured by the Home Secretary’s husband?

Well we’re not exactly that guy, but we did drop a few pennies on some very Gucci kit since Episode Two.  GetJazzical now has the knobs, wires and pop-guards needed to bring you, our discerning listener, the aural experience you deserve.  So… yeah it should sound better now, ok?

This week we’ve got the body-rocking Bad Ass Brass, the ensemble Present Music, the cool Lisa Cay Miller, some dude called ‘Count Basie‘ or something and the electro-fusion Telegraph Melts.  Get some.

Links that we are in no way legally obligated to include:

Telegraph Melts
“Septembrist” (mp3)
from “Ilium”
(Absolutely Kosher)

Buy at iTunes Music Store

Present Music, Armando Luna
“Graffiti: X. George Gershwin” (mp3)
from “Graffiti”
(Innova Recordings)

More On This Album

]]> http://www.getjazzical.com/2009/03/30/episode-three/feed/ 0 http://www.getjazzical.com/2009/03/16/episode-two/ http://www.getjazzical.com/2009/03/16/episode-two/#comments Mon, 16 Mar 2009 23:47:51 +0000 Olly http://www.getjazzical.com/?p=314

After our launch two weeks ago we’ve been amazed at the positive, constructive and ebullient feedback that has graced the GetJazzical mailbox. It seems that there really is a burgeoning contemporary classical and jazz scene out there and they are hungry! So thank you for getting in touch and allowing us to play your pioneering and progressive music. This week we’ve got the funky, fantastic Belleruche, a man who TIME magazine called “An exceptionally accomplished all-around musician.” The awesome Aussie Fourplay String Quartet, the sublime German Alony and finally a resonating track by Starr Parodi who we are fortunate enough to be interviewing for next weeks’ podcast. It’s a real treat ladies and gents, enjoy

Featured tracks: “Anything you want (not that)” -Belleruche, “Just Like U Said It Would B” – FourPlay String Quartet “Breathe” – Dave Eggar, “Lights” -Alony, “Common Places” – Starr Parodi