Jazz on Radio 3

[Alyn_Shipton]

No doubt this will lead to more "research publications" from Jazz Services. If anyone can be bothered to sit through it, this is my take on their deeply flawed work on jazz and broadcasting: http://vimeo.com/16690553

[french frank]

Alyn's post has been copied over from the Jazz Services thread in the hope that it will generate a different line of discussion (Jazz Services can still be discussed on the earlier thread).

I'm having difficulty rewinding the video without starting it from the beginning each time, but a few comments from the first 10 minutes or so:

1. Re the number of listeners to jazz on Radio 3 compared with theJazz and Gilles Peterson on Radio 1: as HC reported in The Envy of the World, way back when a Prom was broadcast on the Third Programme, that same Prom would get a much bigger audience when repeated on the Home Service - because the Home Service had a much bigger listenership. I think one could predict that JRR would get more listeners on Radio 2 - but it ain't going to be moved to Radio 2 so it will keep its very respectable, but smaller, audience on R3.

2. British jazz on BBC radio: to me, as a primarily classical music listener, that seems an odd concern. Why would Stephen Hough be considered a more welcome performer on Radio 3 than Murray Perahia just because he's British? Classical music is a global culture - many international performers have homes in London, New York and Paris. Just as Western classical music originated in Europe, jazz, excluding its ultimate roots, originated in America. To favour British artists, I would say, is (to use Alyn's terms) 'outdated and protectionist'.

3. Jazz hived off on to a ghetto digital station? Well, it wouldn't be a BBC station, that's for sure ... I agree that jazz should take its place in the musical and cultural mainstream. Scheduling problems are created on Radio 3 and need to be looked at.

4. The job is to make people realise than Radio 3 exists at all? Hmmm, yes, hence all the jumping up and down squeaking 'look at us we're Radio 3, accessible, welcoming and fun-loving'

5. Alyn - were those average ages that you quoted correct? I'd say they weren't. Surely, it must have been 59.9 down to 59.3 or at a pinch 53.9. The figures you quoted would make Radio 3's average age lower than Radio 4's or Radio 2's.


Interesting that the talk was given on 15 October 2010 - 2 years to the day before Roger's interview with Mark Damazer.

More points to follow on Radio 3's jazz coverage.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

jazz is art .... it needs expression on R3 that acknowledges this, just as classical music and contemporary music was seriously treated on the Third Programme and early eras of R3 ... jazz is neglected in the quality and timing of the programming and we are left with playlist programming at the midnight hour mostly ..

i find the elitist argument applied to any art fallacious ...F1 Motor Sport Golf Football are 'minority' interests ...

the main argument for me is about the quality and timing of programming not the total share of output tho needless to say more would be welcome ... on R3 but it can also be on R2 and R6 as and local stations too as it is .... the BBC does a relatively good job for jazz, but lets itself down with the lack of intelligent and authoritative documentary programmes on R3

[Lateralthinking1]

ff, Yes, TheJazz has mutated into (back into?) Jazz FM, hence my first set of comments. Alyn used the middle-of-the-night timing of Gilles's show then as an example of people wanting background sound. By contrast, R3 invites people to concentrate. He was perhaps too diplomatic to single out TheJazz so that is why I have attempted it. I think it is background sound during the daytime for many, just as is BBC Radio 2. Alyn did comment on the commercial stations in the round. Many spend £7m doing what Planet Rock achieves on a million. To get the audience figures up, you can make use of "Selector", a computerised device that churns out a few hundred records to make listeners feel comfortable. Programmes on Classic FM are often pre-recorded, with links inserted.

Alyn has commented a little on your second point on the other thread. He implied that some have always preferred British jazz. Evidence can be found from the 1920s. Arguably, post-war restrictions with reference to the Musicians Union have made this an ongoing, if sporadic, cultural milestone on the critical path. On your third point, Alyn said that digital reception was hopeless beyond the M25. According to this forum's members earlier in 2012, not a great deal has changed in two years. On your fourth, readers might wish to observe the television commercial for Zane Lowe's show on Radio 1, as Danny Baker did this week. By the look of it, the BBC has pots of gold in the Blue Peter garden. Provide me with the budget and I will get professionals working on a short film featuring young executives in a jazz club. All very coffee table and so nothing to frighten the horses but achingly cool and unnervingly vibrant. A Radio 3 logo at the end with no reference to content. I believe that is how these things are done.

The reason why surveys in this area are difficult is that there are only so many things one can learn from (a) a random sample of the population and/or (b) a sample of lifelong jazz enthusiasts. One can safely say that anyone who is keen on jazz at age 20 is a natural. The BBC would have to find enough people aged 25, 30, 35 and 40 who now listen to its jazz programmes but didn't, say, five years ago and find out why. Independent surveyors can be more rangy and consider those who have turned to jazz in the same period without necessarily tuning into Radio 3. How, though, do you locate them? How would you describe them in any invitation to take part? It's tough to do but they are the ones you need to give you reasons to help others come on board.

There are many interesting questions you could ask more generally. For example, does anyone have any statistical information on whether attending live events regularly encourages greater or lesser radio listening? And what of genres, like jazz, where a significant number of people perform? Do performers listen to more radio or less? I would have thought that the percentage of jazz performers as a percentage of jazz enthusiasts is far higher in Britain than, say, the percentage of hip-hop or soul music performers as a percentage of hip-hop or soul enthusiasts. That could make a difference. As for the idea that jazz is dying, I rather doubt it. My impression is that there is more live jazz, and indeed folk music, than in several recent decades. Arguably, the concept of a "scene" is now more nebulous but so it is everywhere. There are just so many competing interests. I hope this is helpful.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

In Dicken's Bleak House he describes the real business of the law as expanding its business.

Anyone who expects anything from R3 at this stage of the game is frankly fking stooooopid. It's the numbers that count, that justify the license, that justifies the...core business...that justifies "US".

Jazz... go figure.

BN,

[french frank]

the main argument for me is about the quality and timing of programming not the total share of output

Well, the commercials have the saying: 'Ratings by day, reputation by night' - because far more radio listening is done during the daytime, a larger, broader audience which defects to television in the evening. I think if there was a significant amount more jazz on Radio 3 it would start going down the JazzFM road (which is what R3's daytime classical music is doing - and this is precisely what ClassicFM/RadioCentre complains of). To increase the quality jazz in the evenings would mean competing for airtime with Late Junction, World Routes and classical music, as well as the speech programmes. As Alyn said, the specialist programmes ('reputation') are in the evenings when people can concentrate - and Radio 3's programmes should be worth concentrating on.

This seemed to be Alyn's argument: not more hours of output (necessarily), but 'quality, originality, invention and perpetuation of the tradition'.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

BBC Quantity vs Quality at this hour! Next you'll be talking about fearless cutting edge journalism! Fkg Hilarious! Hey, women, simpletons and children, the Titanic has hit the iceberg and jazz is long dead weight over the side. Well, who missed it.

It's every career for itself.

Owl of Minerva flys at Sunset.
Be on it.


BN.

[french frank]

BBC Quantity vs Quality at this hour! Next you'll be talking about fearless cutting edge journalism! Fkg Hilarious! Hey, women, simpletons and children, the Titanic has hit the iceberg and jazz is long dead weight over the side. Well, who missed it.

It's every career for itself.

Owl of Minerva flys at Sunset.
Be on it.


BN.

Well, as Alyn pointed out, they were saying all the same things about jazz in 1925.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Frank, we are offered crumbs and we act as if we influence the bakery. I think this entire debate misses what the BBC now is, its market dynamic and the funding mechanism as the control factor. Its not about quality or publlc interest. Numbers drive budgets.

BN.

Btw, I always thought it interesting that there are so few critical academic studies of the current BBC...then again look at the hastle Georgina Bawn had getting hers published.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Georgina Bawn had getting hers published.

and excellent research it is too ...

if you had seen the enthusiasm in that young man's face El Senor you might just reconsider your pessimism ... then again ....

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

"Oh well, a young man aint nothing in the world these days"....Mose Allison.

BN.

Unless he's Jamie Cullen on R2.

[Quarky]

Well, the commercials have the saying: 'Ratings by day, reputation by night' -

This seemed to be Alyn's argument: not more hours of output (necessarily), but 'quality, originality, invention and perpetuation of the tradition'.

This thread raises any number of issues, on which I am not equipped to comment.

However speaking from personal experience, as a Jazz fiend in my youth, going away from music as a young man, and then returning with a vengeance over the past five years or so, I found:
1. Radio / CDs were the prime source of music, especially BBCiPlayer. As regards going to concerts, Jazz clubs, or worse still actually playing Jazz, too old and too busy to make any significant effort!
2. Out of the possible contenders for favourite form of music, Jazz eventually won out as first love over Classical, Contemporary, and Gym/Dance (pop) music. However it was a trip worth taking!
3. I would certainly have not returned to Jazz without the programmes on Radio 3 - Jazz Library, and recently Geoffrey Smith's programme.
4. So well done Radio 3, 1 down, only another 70 million odd to go!

But Jazz on the Radio is only one part of the overall Jazz effort. Probably much more important is the London Jazz festival (I may make an effort to get to a concerts or two, if not sold out), and music played at clubs.

Ultimately however, the value of Jazz as a living music must be its capacity to encourage people, especially young people, to pick up an instrument and actually try and play the music.

[french frank]

Alyn made the point that 18% of the R3 podcast downloads - if I understood this correctly - were for Jazz Library (the talk was given in October 2010). Two things about that: one is that when there is so little jazz (on Radio 3) there is likely to be rather more of a reliance on time-shifting and podcasts, since the notion of 'linear radio' is hardly applicable for one programme during the day (not much linearity there). But also, classical music was singled out by the BBC Trust as the one genre which would not be allowed to have - originally - more than a one minute excerpt on any podcast (I'm not sure whether that hasn't been increased to 2 minutes now). The one exception (I believe) is the podcast of the weekly specialist charts from the breakfast programme. But there the entire aim of the charts is to plug the latest releases and the industry welcomes the podcast as a welcome (free?) addition to their marketing efforts, from which listeners can sample the products and hopefully buy.

Ultimately however, the value of Jazz as a living music must be its capacity to encourage people, especially young people, to pick up an instrument and actually try and play the music.

I know someone who is a folk musician and he's always saying how impressed he is at the number of young people that turn up for the 'pub' events. Don't know about jazz, but can't see why it should be very different.

Alyn did mention R3's coverage of jazz from the LJF, Cheltenham and Bath. It might be a bit too 'Radio 3' for some jazz fans , but he might have mentioned that there are now regular BBC/Radio 3 jazz commissions and jazz musicians have been included in the New Generation Artists scheme (to say nothing of regular jazz at the Proms) - the aim of which is to give a boost to the careers and profile of the best young jazz players.

This isn't intended as an apologia - by any means - of the BBC's coverage of jazz but adds a couple more tiny crumbs.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Lets all join hands and contact Jelly Roll Morton...or .Brian Morton?

Ignore my cynicism, Im a scorpio.

BN.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

feliz cumpleaños El señor, otro nacido bajo una mala señal