Cosmic Jazz welcomes ex-ICR presenter Smoothgroove for the first half hour of  the show.  His shows often revealed his jazz influences and although the sounds may not be from the traditional jazz lexicon, they demonstrate the far-reaching impact of this musical form that we love so much.

The rest of the show featured music from some excellent recent Blue Note, Soul Brother and Impulse compilations.  Special guest next week is regular listener and music guru Pete who wlll trade tracks with Derek while Neil is in China.

1. Art Ensemble of Chicago – Old Time Religion
2. Mr. Scruff & Heidi Tatum – Fresh Moodles
3. Floating Points – People’s Potential
4. Red Rack’Em – All I Ever Wanted
5. Floating Points – Love Me This Way
6. Aaron Jerome  – Subtrat
7. Kyle Hall – Rundown
8. John Coltrane – Afro Blue
9. Joe Henderson – Foregone Conclusion
10. Alice Coltrane – Galaxy in Satchidananda
11. Yusuf Lateef – Brother John
12. Max Roach – Man from South Africa
13. McCoy Tyner – Man from Tanganyika
14. Azar Lawrence – Force of Nature

There’s no Youtube clip this week (that can’t be uploaded from China!) but the feature will be back in a few weeks time.

Did anyone spot the mistake in my first comments?  Let us know through Comments if you did.

It was corrected later but there were so many jazz anniversaries in 2009 I mention numbers without thinking about which anniversary I am talking about.  I must do better.

The Jackie McLean track made a great starter. The tempo rose in the Latin section with Kenny Dorham getting things in the swing and Dexter Gordon’s Soy Califa possibly being the greatest mover. I am not sure that we have played either Jimmy McGriff or Jimmy Smith on Cosmic Jazz before but the uptempo format of this programme provided the perfect opportunity. There certailnly was no room for squares as Hank Mobley reminded us and the classic Moanin‘ by Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers remains the perfect jazz dancefloor number.

A merry Christmas and prosperous New Year to all Cosmic Jazz listeners and website visitors. We hope you will stay with us in 2010; we still have lots of music left to play and we have some guests lined  up who will bring their own selections into the studio to both entertain and inform us.

The jazz journey is a long and never-ending one.

1. Jackie McLean – Hootman
2. Lou Donaldson – Gravy Train
3. Kenny Dorham – Mamacita
4. Grant Green – Mambo Inn
5. Dexter Gordon – Soy Califa
6. Joe Henderson – El Barrio
7. Jimmy McGriff – All About my Girl
8. Freddie Hubbard – Cunga Black
9. Jimmy Smith – Back at the Chicken Shack
10. Hank Mobley – No Room for Squares
11. Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers – Moanin’
12. Horace Silver – Safari

Next week’s New Year’s Eve show is our review of the best of 2009.  Look out for a Cosmic Jazz feature coming up on our favourite music of the year.  We’ll be back with you live for our first show of 2010 on 07 January.

1. Bugge Wesseltoft – Ingebrigt Flaten
2. Dee Dee Bridgewater – AfroBlue
3. Quasimode – All is  One
4. Alberto Favero –  Cuarto Movimiento (Requiem)
5. Horace Tapscott & the Pan African Peoples Arkestra – Peyote Song No. 3
6. Oliver Nelson – Stolen Moments
7. Wynton Marsalis – A Train, A Banjo, and a Chicken Wing
8. Mulatu  Astatke & the Heliocentrics – Chik Chikka
9. Freddie Hubbard & his Orchestra – Born to be Blue
10. Bruno E – Esperanca (For Sylvia)
11. Lonnie Plaxico – Short Take
12. Gary Bartz Ntu Troop – The Drinking Song

New music this week from Grant Green via Japanese DJ Muro and Wajeed (from Detroit’s Platinum Pied Pipers) together with reissues from Gary Burton & Chick Corea and Ghana’s City Boys Band.  We also played tracks from albums that could well feature in our best of 2009 roundup – Robert Glasper’s Double Booked and Andy Sheppard’s Movements in Colour.

1. Louis Armstrong (feat. Leon Thomas) – The Creator has a Master Plan
2. Mario Biondi – No Mercy for Me
3. The Liberation Music Orchestra – Not in Our Name
4. Alberto Favero – Primo Movimiento
5. Joe Henderson – Round Midnight
6. Grant Green – Let The Music Take Your Mind (Live At Inside Out studio mix by Muro)
7. Aaron Parks – Nemesis
8. Eric Dolphy – Moods in Free Time
9. Robert Glasper Trio – Yes, I’m Country (And That’s OK)
10. Andy Sheppard – We Shall Not Go To Market Today
11. City Boys Band – Nya Asem Hwe
12. Jorge Ben – Oba La Vem Ela
13. Waajeed – Jeedo Suave
14. Gary Burton & Chick Corea – Bud Powell

Our Youtube clip this week comes from pianist Robert Glasper.  It’s a short film from last year in which the pianist talks about his background intercut with his performance at Cargo in London.

A solo show from Derek as Neil is away.  Despite Derek’s worst fears, the whole show did record for all of our Listen Again addicts [adds Neil!] so simply enjoy the music.  This week featured some of the great names of jazz and also some of the more politically conscious including Max Roach, Archie Shepp and Pharoah Sanders – as befits a programme during Black History Month.

There was a first play on Cosmic Jazz for the best track from the new Kira Neris album A Frozen Second.  Next week we hope Jacob will have some  music from Japan and Neil will have a tracks from the new Portico Quartet release Isla, Keith Jarrett’s new triple live solo CD Testament, the latest and best in the Inspiration Inspiration series (this time featuring Tony Allen and Jimi Tenor) and music from a great Don Cherry reissue.

1. Freddie Hubbard & his Orchestra – Gibraltar
2. Bill Evans – I Loves You Porgy
3. Carmen Lundy – All Day, All Night
4. John Coltrane – A Love Supreme (part 1 – Acknowledgement)
5. Archie Shepp – Blues for Brother George Jackson
6. Max Roach plus Four – Juliano
7. Yusef Lateef – Psychicemotus
8. Ravi Coltrane – Colneide
9. Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers – Kyoto
10. Barcode Trio – Esjborn
11. Indigo Jam Unit – Be
12. Kira Neris – Judy in June ( Ce matin la)
13. Lonnie Liston Smith – Astral Travellin’
14. Pharaoh Sanders – Our Roots Began in Africa

Tonight’s show featured the music choices of Richard Beckton from the Ipswich Jazz Club.  Richard included the characteristic west coast sound of Pacific Jazz Records – founded in Los Angeles in 1952 – but he also ranged far beyond this to the solo piano of Jessica Williams and the late orchestrations of Duke Ellington.  We loved the eclectic selection and – as always – Richard’s encyclopaedic knowledge of the wide world of jazz.

Derek and Neil featured new music from Jan Garbarek, Soil and “Pimp” Sessions and Kira Neris.  As always, tell us what you think of what you heard via a comment and if you missed all or part of the show, just check out the music via our Listen Again facility.

1. Jan Garbarek – Paper Nut
2. Soil and “Pimp” Sessions – Stolen Moments (feat. Jamie Cullum)
3. Jelly Roll Morton – Mamie’s Blues
4. Laurindo Almeida and Bud Shank – Blue Baiao
5. Wes Montgomery – Bock to Bock
6. Lester Bowie – Rios Negros
7. Dave Brubeck  – Softly William Softly
8. Chet Baker – Band Aid
9. Kira Neris – Together (feat. Cecilia Stalin)
10. Jessica Williams – The Greator has a Master Plan
11. McCoy Tyner – Walk Spirit, Talk Spirit
12. Gilad Atzmon – Autumn in Baghdad
13. Duke Ellington – Tourist Point of View
14. Liane Carroll – Perfect Day

Next week, we’ll have more new piano music – tracks from the epic new Keith Jarrett triple CD Testament, McCoy Tyner’s latest live solo concert and Vijay Iyer’s stunning new trio release Historicity.

On the day that new albums were released by Soil and “Pimp” Sessions and Kira Neris, Cosmic Jazz felt it was appropriate to play some of their previous work before their latest releases arrive through our letter box. There is a significant Japanese connection on the programme with Quasimode, Nation of Multiverse and What’s Up? plus a track from the Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers album Kyoto which paid homage to Japan, a country the band loved to visit.

1. Soil & “Pimp” Sessions – A.I.E.
2. Kira Neris – Open Doors
3. Joe Henderson – Gazelle
4. Roland Kirk – Roots
5. Carmen McRae – Mister Magic
6. Quasimode – Mode of Blue
7. Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers – The High Priest
8. Nation of Multiverse – African Village
9. What’s Up? – Vanity
10. Fumio Itabashi – Someday My Prince Will Come
11. Russell Gunn – Caravan
12. Gato Barbieri – Maria Domingas
13. Erik Truffaz – Siegfried

Tonight’s show features new music from Texan pianist Robert Glasper, Norwich based Red Shadow Quartet and Dub Colossus recorded in Addis Ababa – all outernational Cosmic Jazz music.  We had our usual Japanese jazz diversion with the What’s Up crew and also played a track from undervalued US vocalist N’Dambi’s second album Tunin’ Up and Cosignin’.  There’s news that a fourth album titled Pink Elephant will be released by Stax later this year.  Again, in advance of our live show on 23 September we featured more latin jazz including Yusef Lateef’s great Oscarlypso – a track we’ll definitely be spinning at Saints.

1. Dub Colossus – Black Rose (Sidestepper remix)
2. Red Shadow Quartet – Turning Point
3. Gato Barbieri – Carnavalito
4. Robert Glasper – Intro / No Worries
5. What’s Up – Get Into Trouble
6. The Misled Children and Odean Pope – Dadadun
7. N’Dambi – Bitter Bitter Blue
8. Roy Haynes and The Fountain of Youth Band – James
9. Joe Henderson – El Barrio
10. Kenny Barron – Fungii Mama
11. Manteca – Abacua
12. Mongo Santamaria – Costa D’Oro
13. Yusef Lateef – Oscarlypso
14. Beat Out Shrine – Pinkie
15. Fumio Itabashi – Rise and Shine (full edit)
16. Kenny Werner – Kothbiro
17. Dollar Brand – Anthem for the New Nation
18. Robert Glasper – Butterfly

Don’t forget to join us at Saints on 23 September!  Check out the What’s On update for more details.