OXJAZZ SPECIAL PART I: We’ve got the first in our roving-reporting-recordings of the splendiferous OxJazz Festival and it’s here NOW for your podcasting pleasure. Featured in this episode are: Alvin Roy, Seb Pipe and Dave O’Higgins. Click here for more info…

BBC INTERVIEW: The chaps at BBC Radio Oxford asked the GetJazzical boys to take care of an interview with Liane Carroll for them and for good measure they also decided to interview our heroes as well, have a gander at the video…

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.

I sit here with my tender young hands wrapped around a mug of joe so big that ‘Venti’ cups look away in shame and I pronounce the legendary GetJazzical interview with Bad Ass Brass is, finally, complete!  It may have taken weeks to do but by gosh…it’s beautiful. Well actually Olly sounds like a posh snake with a lisp and Alasdair sounds a little frightened child when you can hear him at all.  It was, in our defense, recorded on an iPhone which kept going flat.  Thanks Steve Jobs.

This interview was recorded at the Blagclub in Ladbrokes Grove during a bold, brash and brassy performance by the band and the interview features Gemma Moore who plays the Baritone saxaphone and Jon Stokes who supplies Trombone and sultry vocals.

It was our first live recording and we’d like to thank the band for having us.  Please don’t forget to check out the rest of Bad Ass Brass on their MySpace.

“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.