BillF

The 'fragrant' Mary Archer Jeffrey Archole Archie Bunker Sid and Doris Bonkers Baldy Pevsner Brigadier Buffy Cohen

Clifford Brown with Strings (Deezer)

Pappa Snow White Shoeless John Jackson Charlie Chan Chan Canasta Astor Piazolla Attila Zoller

Brown/Roach, Four Classic Albums (Avid) (Deezer)

Cher Sonny Claude Rains

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

John Zorn Ornette Coleman Manny Albam

Wayne Shorter, Etcetera (Spotify) Some beautiful playing here!

British expression.

Count Basie, Live in 1953! At Birdland (Spotify)

Angry Young Men Orlando Furioso Billy Fury

Captain Haddock Michael Fish Darius Guppy

I was around when said history was happening, being 19 in the pivotal year of 1959 with two years of jazz listening behind me and an enthusiasm for Bird, Miles and Monk already in place. I recall that jazzers found Coltrane a good deal more accessible than Ornette, as they could hear Coltrane working record-by-record through various approaches to reach his final, perhaps most difficult style, whereas Ornette arrived fully matured, so to speak. I first heard them (not together!) in the first half of 1959 on a weekly half-hour radio show called Jamboree Jazz Time broadcast by Radio Luxembourg. The first Coltrane I heard was "Bakai" (which, curiously, I've never heard since) and which I found different, exciting and exotic, but in no way difficult or unacceptable. The following year I heard both Coltrane and Adderley playing"sheets of sound" on Milestones and complained to fellow student Jack Massarik (later to be jazz correspondent of the London Evening Standard) about Miles hiring such tasteless players. "Things have to move on, man," he wisely replied and within months I was buying and digging a copy of Giant Steps. When the classic Coltrane quartet emerged, it had a hit with "My Favorite Things" and mass appeal among jazz fans. When I first heard Ornette - and it was probably a track from Something Else - I found it unquestionably Parkerish, but thought it crazy, as if the rulebook had been thrown away. "Is this how Bird sounded in Camarillo?" I mused. But a couple of years later I was buying Ornette, starting with This Is Our Music. Perhaps more typical was a comment from a friend on the Coleman Quartet: "Fabulous rhythm section, but I wouldn't give tuppence for the other two"! I seem to recall him buying loads of the then fashionable bossa nova albums, which I suppose figures!

The Beach Boys Sylvia Beach Sandy Shaw

John Lewis, The Wonderful World of Jazz (Atlantic)

William Butler Yeats Maid Marion B Pat Groom

Basie Jam No 2 (Deezer)

BBC Radio 3's 3-day Blue Note Records festival.

Why doesn't BBC Radio 3 have more classical music?

Count Basie and the Kansas City Seven (Deezer)

Why are there so many record stores?

Interesting! There was a time when you heard Joe Farrell's name a lot - particularly when he was Elvin Jones's sideman. But, like you, I hear nothing about him nowadays. A quick search tells me that he died tragically at the age of 49 in 1986 from bone cancer. Amazon.uk is offering three used copies of Vim 'n Vigor, one at reasonable price, two super-inflated!

Listening online to yesterday's Jazz Record Requests from BBC Radio 3. Now playing: Jay McShann, "The Duke and the Brute" from Jumpin' the Blues.

Trent Lott Shannon Tweed The Magnificent Seven

Buddy Rich, Mercy Mercy (Spotify)