JAZZ 625 BBC4 Cheltenham Festival

[dave walsh]

A 90 minute celebration of this BBC2 60's series was broadcast [in b+w] on Friday night 3/5/19. Better than expected with vintage footage both technical and otherwise but they didn't seem to know about the repeats in the nineties. It was acknowledged that they had managed to "accidentally" wipe two performances by Joe Harriot [early death at 43-pre Coltrane]. This program might be ideal as a new/old source for a vintage TV. It was all in black and white then and on Friday as well. Joan Bakewell points out [in today's Guardian] that Late Night Line Up [NewsNight now] was the first BBC2 program to go out in colour. Joan B then-Emily Maitless now!

Dave W

[Nuvistor]

Excellent program, remember Jazz 625 from the 60’s, I do wonder if they were repeated on 405, I did watch them but of course Winter Hill only started 625 in 1965, perhaps repeated on 625 and that was when I saw them.

There was a one hour Radio 2 program on Sunday 5th at 9pm, so I got to listen to that but I think it was a cut down version of the TV show.

['LIVEWIRE?']

Although not a great Jazz Fan, I watched last Friday evenings BBC4 show out of interest, particularly as I didn't even have a TV in '64 (living then in an old house without an electricity supply), and didn't have one capable of receiving BBC2 until around 1972, when I converted a dual-standard set to receive BBC2 on a spare VHF channel, necessary because of the communal aerial system then in use here. All that aside it was interesting to see and hear some of the footage from those days.

[saxmaniac]

For fans of that show there's some of them on you tube. You got to see a few of the legends before the drugs got em!

[avocollector]

I recall one from the 60's on TV that was set in a Jazz club with people drinking, smoking and talking - is that the BBC one? had Chick Corea on it but other details are long gone in my memory.

[dave walsh]

Interesting but I suspect not Jazz 625 AVO as the BBC format was very formal,
no booze or fags. Steve Race was quite stiff although knowledgeable and Humphrey Lyttleton was a bit of a relief. I wonder what it was that you saw

Dave W

[avocollector]

We had a limited number of channels back then - must have been in 67-69 when I lived near Bromsgrove so whatever the ITV channel was there was the only alternative. I seem to recall Anglia but now 50 years at least later it is a bit hard to be sure.

['LIVEWIRE?']

To be pedantic, in Bromsgrove the ITV franchise was ATV (Weekdays) and ABC-TV(Weekends)until around 1968/69, when Central TV took over. It's true that then, and for maybe a decade thereafter the UK only had Three Channels. Maybe it was a case of 'Less Quantity-More quality' though.

[barretter]

The BBC also broadcast "Jazz scene at Ronnie Scott's" from the club but I can't find a listing for Chick Corea unless he was playing with Gary Burton, but 1960s seems a bit early for that.

[Junk Box Nick]

I never saw Jazz 625 in the 60s because, as a kid in the pop pirate boom, it wasn't at all to my taste and although we had a dual-standard B/W Philips set - bought before the launch of BBC2 - it was all but useless on UHF, and despite us being near line-of-sight from Sutton Coldfield. I remember that my mother was desperate to see a particular costume drama on BBC2 but she soon gave up trying to watch a ghostly 'grey & grey' image made worse by the fact that the sound tuning was out of alignment with the picture and it was necessary to find a point where the margins overlapped. (I once stuck it out for an hour to watch a Motown special.) The set was regularly away for general repairs but nothing approaching acceptable UHF reception was never achieved. If ever there was a case for renting this was it. (I never dared meddle as the risk of depriving my parents of their nightly TV fix and the consequences if disaster struck were far greater than I dared contemplate.) Curiously, the set soldiered on on 405 and remained the main source of entertainment in the household until the end of the 1970s.

I cannot remember any jazz programmes on ATV/ABC despite it being the main channel in our house. (On a pedantic note, ATV held the midlands franchise until the end of 1981. Central TV commenced on new year's day 1982.)

Given that so much tape was wiped it's great that some of these programmes still exist. I wish this material had more outings on BBC4 rather than the interminable repetition of the utterly cringeworthy Top of the Pops with its all too obvious miming and the frequently bored-looking teenage audience's autopilot dancing punctuated by orchestrated bouts of enthusiasm reminiscent of company team-building weekends.

Incidentally, there is a good series called Jazz Junctions still available on the BBC 6 Music player. Ten programmes chart the history of jazz and were originally broadcast on 6 Music at such useful hours as 4am - no doubt a time likely to least upset the station's regular listeners. If you like jazz - I've grown into the idiom and it goes well with vintage radio and hi-fi (at least my version of the latter) - make the most as, disappointingly, Radio 3 is cutting its jazz output by about half come the autumn.

[dave walsh]

There is info on Wikki Nick but rather scattered. I was a bit older than you at the time. The Programs ran from April 64 to August 1966 [allegedly]. Many were Tele-recorded onto 35mm film it says which improved the survival rate no doubt!
.
1. Duke Ellington* 21/4/64
2. Jam Session [K Baker] 26/4/64
3. Tubby Hayes 3/5/64

I seem to have found approx 27 listed here and there, including my archive, only in 64/5 [so far]. I have about 14-on VCT, including Bill Evans*/Art Blakey* and the MJQ* for example and also, the very first program. They are all in my first tranche of 800 videos that runs from 1982 and are "Up North". Wiki refers to the repeats that I have from 1990/91 plus special "tribute" programs-restorations later on, eg 2010.

The episode I'd always hoped to see again was Willie The Lion Smith [cigar chewer and War Hero] but not so far I've a DVD of him playing but it's not the BBC series! I don't have anything re 1966 [as far as I can tell] and can't find episodes from then-only 64/65. I didn't think the program had lasted 3 years

One episode listed as 19/12/64 is an "All Star Jam". I may actually have some of the audio. It's one of my "direct" tape recordings from the [live chassis] rented TV we had. I used a safety bulb between chassis and earth while I clipped an 'isolating' defunct output transformer across the speaker to feed the tape machine [a tip from Practical Television]. That tape was played a lot. The musicians filled the stage at the end and produced one very lengthy and atonal chord as a finale! Very probably Jazz 625.
All this is better than Time Team

Dave W

[Nuvistor]

Is this the Willie The Lion Smith episode?

https://youtu.be/sBhbCjSnemE

[Graham G3ZVT]

I don't know if that's what Dave was looking for, but it certainly had me transfixed.

Willie Smith's Wikipedia entry makes fascinating reading too.

[Junk Box Nick]

Fabulous!

Here it is without French subtitles and better sound.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTUB55ojVug

[dave walsh]

Well I don't know what to say really chaps. Thanks a lot. When I saw this as a teenager I was so impressed! I think you get why! One of the last Stride Piano Giants at that time. He should have been really outdated in the middle of the sixties but not at all. One of the few people Dylan didn't meet-shame! It took me years to find out that he "attacked" everything in life in much the same way! That's why he was decorated during WW2. Billy Cotton was a Racing Car Driver at Brooklands and Band Leader, also larger than life and much the same in some ways but less convincing perhaps? Brian Brocklehurst who rode around Soho as a session musician on a tiny fold up bike with a full sized bass strapped to his back. I wasn't there, just monitored things from the North. I'm hopeless with computers but until a few days ago, my way of archiving to DVD from You Tube [via a particular F View Box ] worked well but I tried to preserve some footage at HD and something went wrong. I will report back.

Thanks again to all of you-this is very important to me! I never expected such a great response. Isn't it amazing? He shouts out the key changes and explains the process. Sings like Cab Calloway. A bit of a Polymath really I suspect. Why didn't the Beeb show this one in 1991? They are always behind the [real] curve management wise but the staff help them out!

Dave W

[barretter]

There is a searchable database on the internet called "Jazz on the screen" compiled by David Meeker, who wrote "Jazz at the movies". It lists 72 "Jazz 625" programmes. It also has details of the "Jazz scene at the Ronnie Scott Club" BBC programmes, one of which, broadcast in late 1969, has Chick Corea in the Miles Davis Quintet, so that is probably what Avocollector saw.

[dave walsh]

Thanks a lot Barretter-very helpful info. The presenter mentioned a total number like that on May 7th but Wiki says 17 by one Producer and 2 by another which made me sceptical with 10 tapes [despite finding 27 programs listed myself]. So it must have run on into 1966 after all?

Dave W

[barretter]

The "Jazz on the screen" database says the last programme (no.71 rather than 72) was the Bill Evans trio recorded in March 1965.

[dave walsh]

Well that seems conclusive-thanks! I have it in my notes as 19/3/65 which is confirmation but I didn't know that it was the last in a series of 71.They did say 72 on the recent BBC4 program but [sadly] the BBC often doesn't know about itself. 1966 seems to be ruled out now. Always check your sources, as journalists used to say

I once spoke to the Chair of a Heritage Society I'm a member of. He didn't know they'd previously missed a good opportunity to buy the house that I now live in [long before I joined] due to some intransigence over the price on their part-a big mistake! I said, "So you don't know about the Society's own heritage?" I found a framed Bill Evans photo in a charity shop which was clearly one of his rare LP's. I finally I opened it all up when curiosity overcame me but unfortunately, there was no vinyl inside!

Dave

[dave walsh]

I see from the Library of Congress Data Base that I'm wrong again Barretter and there are lots of 1966 performances. What a great resource! Ideally the wonderful world of BBC "Sounds" and download our app or else! would link to it

Dave W