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The hosts of a jazz radio show discuss various jazz musicians and albums. They play tracks from different artists, including Zila Magossian, Corto Alto, Carla Bley, Brekkie Boy, Achmed Jarmel Trio, Jeff Parker and Hyde Pulp, Lee Morgan, Yusuf Days, and Elvin Jones. They share their thoughts on the music and provide some background information on the artists. Testing, one, two, three. So, yeah. I'm just going to leave that there. Oh, shit. That's not a good thing to do. Lean it against the copy pot, maybe. No. Or else you're going to drink that. Is it recording? Yes, it is recording. Yes, it is, yeah. Okay! Okay. Hi, everyone, and welcome to Phil and Alan's Jazz Pleasures radio show, in association with Ribble Valley Jazz and Blues. Say hello, Alan. Hi, Phil. How are you doing? I'm good. I'm very good. The weather's not so great, but I'm fine. We hope you are all well and enjoying life, and we've got another neat set of jazz-related music, which we hope you're going to enjoy. A very wide variety of stuff here for your delectation, from some iconic classics, alongside a fair load of good, interesting contemporary jazz. Again, I say, we hope you're going to enjoy that. So, let's get going with a Beirut-born woman, a pianist called Zila Magossian, now firmly established as a jazz star in Australia, with her quintet. This is a lively little starter number called On Yar, from her album The Road. It's quite a little starter number. It's short, isn't it? Yeah. It's a good way to catch people's attention. Right, OK. I'm going to just say, we hope you all enjoyed that. Next we have some of Glasgow's finest... Can I say something? Yeah, of course you can. Yeah, I like that. That's got to be one of the shortest tracks we've played. Yeah. About 1 minute 14 or something. Yeah, it's cool. Yeah, and it's from the... I think it's the album... Oh, the track? Yeah, and the track we played was Devotion, wasn't it? No, it's On Yar. Oh, On Yar. Yeah. Oh, no. One of the tracks on the album, which I listened to, is called Devotion. And I think that's a really good track. OK, cool. Well, maybe people could crack on and listen to that. The Road is the album called. Next we've got some of Glasgow's finest contemporary musicians, a band called Corto Alto. Over to you, Alan, to explain more about them. Yeah, Corto Alto, their new album released in October 2023, called Bag With Names. It includes the great Fergus MacReady on that. Yeah. And the track is called Slope. So enjoy this. I did enjoy that. Slope. I just adored it, in fact. Yeah. I keep listening to it. It appears to me that there is a guy walking up a hill, or people walking up a hill, and it's quite busy and happy, and then all of a sudden there's a bit of a break, and they all have a bit of a rest, and then they set off again. But there's a guy called Liam Shortall that coordinates Corto Alto, and apparently he plays lots and lots of musical instruments. Oh, right. Yeah. OK. Great stuff. It was good. I really enjoyed it. I hope everybody else did. And now a bit of sadness next. A real jazz supremo who has very sadly passed away since our last show, the exceptional Carla Bley, who got a job as a hat-check girl at Birdland Jazz Club in 1953 in the hope of being spotted as a pianist. Who would have guessed that she would go on to become the towering icon that won the Danby Award for Jazz Composition and Arranger countless times. A talent that demonstrates itself, I think, to extremely good effect on the choice we have made. And we could have made a very, very many. This is a live recording from a church at the Perugia Jazz Festival, a medieval church deliberately chosen. The album is the Carla Bley Big Band Goes to Church, and it is amazing. I wish I'd been there. I wish I'd been there. This track is called One Way, and there's some great bass trombone from Richard Harris. Ooh, I got it now. Yeah. OK. Just how good was that? No, I loved that. It was really nice. And what a beautiful woman she was. She was. Just amazing. I'll miss the fact there's no new stuff of hers, from her wonderful soft trios through to her amazing free jazz of the 70s and the 80s. She died on the 17th of October. Do you know what her birth name was? I thought it was January. No? OK. Not wild. OK. No, I don't know what her birth name was, no. Lovella May Borg. Yeah, I did know it was Borg, because she first of all appeared as Carla Borg, and then she changed her name to Carla Bley when she married Paul Bley, the pianist. Brilliant. OK. I did know that. She was very self-effacing, Ellen. When she was interviewed by Down Beat magazine, when she'd won an award, she said, I use jazz musicians because they're smarter and they can save your ass when things get bad. And very self-effacing, because she was really great there. Sorry about this. What the hell was that? This is just never stopping, is it? Oh, it was... It was my what's-his-name provider. Sorry. OK. OK. OK. Now some more jazz from Australia. This is a lad called Brekkie Boy. Yeah. Just turn it up, though. Hello. Sorry about that. Hello. Yes, I can. I know who you are. It's boundless, isn't it? All I wanted to know was, I tried to contact a printer yesterday. I was real difficult. Is it the YPS button on the modem that I've got? It's tiny. It's a very... OK. OK. Some more jazz now from Australia, Alan. This is an artist you've chosen called Brekkie Boy. Yeah. And the other thing I've noticed, Phil, or found out, is how much jazz is important in Australia. Yeah, yeah. I didn't realise that it goes back to the 1920s, with how it started. There's quite a few artists who are just picked by coincidence. Yeah. Australian-based, or... Yeah, yeah. But I never realised how strong jazz was in Australia, and New Zealand, when it comes to that. Yeah, yeah. Well, we played a New Zealand saxophone, didn't we, a few weeks, a few months ago? Yeah. OK. So, yeah, so we play the track. So this is Brekkie Boy, and it's called Sesco. Sesco. Yeah. Yeah. And it's almost like music from the cinema. It's very cinematic. You can imagine sitting and it being... It's lovely, actually. I really enjoyed it. Yeah. What are your favourites next? Yeah, yeah. Pianist 2, just does the business for me. This is the Achmed Jarmel Trio, from 1970. Such a real elegant player, I think. But mixed with whimsy and playfulness. This is... This is... You can hear this whimsicalness on the track, The Awakening, which we've chosen. I think it builds up very slowly, and then builds back down again. It's a really good example of how a jazz musician, a trio here, can build up a tune and then slowly take it away. Great, I love it. One of my favourites. OK. I'm getting on a bit here, sorry. So, Miles Davis, highly rated Achmed Jarmel. Yeah, and you can see why. And I didn't realise this until just yesterday, actually, but he's... Achmed Jarmel is one of the most sampled jazz musicians by hip-hop artists. Yeah, yeah. Most of his stuff is constantly sampled. And he was the king of the trio, wasn't he? Yeah, yeah. Just beautiful music. Yeah. Miles Davis, you know, said all his inspiration comes from Achmed Jarmel, which is a hell of a... It's a hell of a compliment, isn't it? It is. And you've got some nice new musicians now, haven't we? Jeff Parker and Hyde Pulp. Yeah, they made their debut with an album called Bad Juice. More recently, their music has been released on Edition Records, described as one of the most interesting labels in the UK at the moment. If I could get access to Edition Records, I would spend a bit of time, because they are producing some excellent music at the moment. Yes. Oh, this is very good. OK. Shall we decide what it is? Yeah. So, this is a track called Unified... No, Flying Dakotas it's called, isn't it? No. Unified. Oh, right. This is a track called Unified Dakotas. OK. Brilliant. It's like... It's like good jazz, with hints of indie rock and electronic music. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And the album is Days in the Desert, which is, I think, the album. It's a good sound. I've enjoyed listening to the album. Interesting. Yeah, yeah. But look out for Edition Records. I will. I will. I'm sure listeners will. Some really, truly classic, iconic jazz now, from the great trumpeter, Lee Morgan. This is a truly stellar line-up on this album. The album is called Cornbread. And this is Jackie McLean on alto sax, Hank Mobley on tenor sax, Herbie Hancock on piano, Larry Ridley on bass, and Billy Higgins on drums. It doesn't really get much better than that. And this is a track called Keora. Or K-E-O-R-A. I bloody love this track. I could listen to it all day. They really sound great together, don't they? Yeah, just terrific together. They really do. Next up for me... Yeah? We've got a new guy who's going places. Yusuf Days has released his new album this year called Black Classical Music. It's his debut album. It features 19 tracks on the album. He says the album shows where he is at the moment. I'm saying this now, but I think this is a contender for album of the year. Yeah, I think it's really... He was on the BBC Two programme. Jules Holland? Jules Holland, yeah. And he was great. I thought the band was great. Lovely little sax player. And yeah, I really enjoyed it. From South London. From London, yeah. And he's a very young man going places. A drummer, a percussionist. Yeah, it's his first solo album. His mother was from Somerset. His father was Jamaican. The youngest of four brothers. Inspired by Billy Cobham. Whoa, whoa. Can't get much better than that. Next one, one of your favourites, Elvin Jones. Yeah, we've got a couple of Elvin Jones on the show, haven't we? This is some driving hard bebop now, I think. There's... This track is... Oh God, what is this track called? Oh, I know what it is. Rancherita. Pardon? Rancherita. Yeah, Rancherita. Heavy sounds. Some driving hard jazz hard bop now. From drummer Elvin Jones and bassist Richard Davis's 1968 Heavy Sounds album. Although the real star of this track is Frank Foster on the tenor sax. I just love this track. It's... It's very long. It's 11 minutes long. So we may not play it all. We may fade it out after a bit. But I just love it. And I hope you all enjoy it. Very... It's got a sort of... It has got a very raunchy sound. OK, do you want to back announce that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, did you enjoy that? I did, yeah. I mean, it's a classic combination, isn't it, really? And you played with Coltrane right towards... Before Coltrane went way out. But by 66 I think he'd stopped, but... Yeah, they played well together. It's worth mentioning here, I think, if people don't know, on BBC iPlayer, this week, when we're recording this, which is pre-recorded, Alice and John Coltrane are the artists of the week on BBC Radio 3. So every noon there's an hour-long programme about them. And you'll be able to catch those on iPlayer. They're great. They're very biographical, very informative. A lot of experts people talk about. And they've made some great choice of music as well. Next up for me is a band that have been going for some time. 2012, I think, they started and emerged then. And they mainly record on Blue Note. Inspired by electronica as a form of music. Talking about Go Go Penguin, who were formed in Manchester. Everything Is Going To Be OK is their latest offering. It's the title of their latest album. And they've been around for a decade or so. But they continue to provide quality music. They're great. I mean, they're from my hometown, aren't they? I'm glad to like them. But they won the Mercury Prize, didn't they, in 2014. And they're still soldiering on. They're doing very well. Great to watch. Slight changes in the line-up. Yeah. I like the pianist, Kristian Ellingworth. I do like him. Yeah. Yeah. OK. Now one from me. Eric Cuvaz. Swiss trumpeter. Yeah. Never heard of him. Do you know he's released 22 albums in something like 30 years? Oh. Yeah. So. That's my shame. I don't know. Quite distinctive sounding, I think. Yeah. On the sax. Yeah. He inspired, again, another artist inspired by Miles Davis. Kind of Blue, though. It was the Kind of Blue album, specifically, when he was 16. And Rolling is his latest album. As you say, Swiss-influenced. And I think a great kind of catalogue of music. Well worth looking into. The track's called La Alapaja, which means Copper's Nark. Copper's Nark, as in the grass? It's something that grasses, yeah. For money. Yeah. Right. Shall I pick up that? Or the next one? That was a terrific choice, Alan. Really got a great riff to it. And really lovely. And your next track's another great choice, I think. Yeah. This is Fatoumata Darwara. She's from Mali. She appeared at the Glastonbury Festival 2012. And she's a great singer. Yeah. She's a great singer. Yeah. She's a great singer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 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