Jazz Library

In the 1950s, Hampton Hawes was the most exciting and technically gifted pianist in Los Angeles. Pianist and author Tim Richards guides Alyn Shipton through the highlights of Hawes' trio recordings made with the likes of saxophonist Art Pepper, works which are considered landmarks in the history of jazz piano. After a period in prison, Hawes emerged a changed man - Richards also selects the key recordings from his later more contemplative years.

Although he is not as well known in the UK as in America, where he is the best-known broadcaster on jazz, pianist Dr Billy Taylor is a hugely influential musical figure. He joins Alyn Shipton to select highlights of a recording career that includes work with Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker, backing the great saxophonist Ben Webster and leading a widely celebrated trio.

Pianist Sir George Shearing died on 14th February 2011. In an archive interview, he joins Alyn Shipton to look back over the highlights of his recording career, from early triumphs in London to the debut of his famous quintet in America, as well as his long-running partnership with Mel Torme.

Best known as the powerhouse behind the 1960s Woody Herman band, Jake Hanna was one of the most versatile and experienced drummers in jazz before his death in February 2010.Alyn Shipton presents an archive interview with Hanna in which the drummer selects the highlights from his recorded work, including discs with Herman, Harry James, Marian McPartland and Toshiko Akiyoshi.When Jake Hanna joined Harry James, the bandleader sent his wife to collect him and his drums from the station - not everyone can claim to have been met off a train by Betty Grable.This is just one of the stories that Jake Hanna tells Alyn Shipton in his highly entertaining account of his recording career, which also includes work with Bing Crosby and re-launching the career of Rosemary Clooney as a jazz singer.

Guitarist Joe Pass recovered from narcotic addiction to launch a stellar international career as arguably one of the finest exponents of his instrument in jazz history. Alyn Shipton is joined by guitarist John Etheridge to select highlights from Pass' voluminous catalogue, including his work with Oscar Peterson and his multi-volume series entitled Virtuoso.

Alyn Shipton is joined by drum expert Richard Pite to select highlights from Shelly Manne's prolific recording career, showing his total mastery of percussion in any idiom. Manne spanned more different styles of jazz than almost any musician, ranging from the swing groups of Coleman Hawkins to the free jazz of Ornette Coleman.

Roland Hanna was one of the most dazzlingly talented of pianists until his untimely death from a viral infection in 2002. Just weeks before he fell ill, he met Alyn Shipton for what turned out to be his final interview, looking back on his long and distinguished recording career, including his brilliant contribution to Mingus Dynasty.

The late, great tenor saxophonist Teddy Edwards talks to Alyn Shipton. Shortly before his death in 2003, Teddy Edwards met Alyn to discuss the highlights of a long and illustrious recording career. One of the most original voices in West Coast jazz, he settled permanently in Los Angeles in 1944 and created a distinctive and original bebop style.

Gwyneth Herbert joins Alyn Shipton to select the high points of Nat King Cole's work as a hugely influential pianist, charismatic vocalist, and one of the most combative of all jam session players. Music includes Straighten Up and Fly Right, Nature Boy and the legendary After Midnight sessions.

Bud Shank was one of the major figures in West Coast Jazz before his death in April 2009. To commemorate Bud and his music, Alyn Shipton selects Shank's key recordings, with the help of a 1992 archive interview with the man himself, covering his work with Stan Kenton, Shorty Rogers, the LA Four and many of his own groups.

Alyn Shipton is joined by Tom Perchard to select the highlights from trumpeter Booker Little's recorded catalogue. Before his death in 1961 aged 23, Little was seen as one of the brightest hopes of jazz in the 1950s, forging a new compositional and playing style that offered a way forward from bebop that was strikingly original.

Singer Christine Tobin guides Alyn Shipton through the jazz-oriented repertoire of Joni Mitchell, including her work with Wayne Shorter, Jaco Pastorius and Herbie Hancock. Mitchell often employed jazz musicians on her recordings, but she was also fascinated by Charles Mingus, making an album of his music shortly before his death.

Dave Liebman came to fame as the saxophonist in Miles Davis's 1970s band, but he has had a formidable career since the 1980s as a bandleader in his own right, often specialising on the soprano instrument, but also returning to the his first love, the tenor. He joins Alyn Shipton in front of an audience at Cheltenham Town Hall to select the highlights of his recordings.In this Jazz Library, Dave Liebman, who was the Cheltenham Jazz Festival's artist in residence in 2009, joins Alyn Shipton to look back over his extensive catalogue of recordings, including free solo improvisations, reinterpretations of classical music, tributes to John Coltrane and interpretations of standards. A virtuoso musician who is also a leader in the world of jazz education, Liebman shows his mastery in a variety of settings from playing completely unaccompanied to working with a full-scale big band.

Eighty-one-year old Bob Wilber is one of the leading clarinettists and saxophonists in traditional jazz, and he joins Alyn Shipton to look back at the highlights of a career that began when Bob was a teenage pupil of the great Sidney Bechet. The programme covers recordings from the 1940s to the present day and includes Wilber's dramatic recreations of Ellington for the Francis Ford Coppola film The Cotton Club.

South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela joined Alyn Shipton to discuss his finest recordings.For Hugh Masekela, jazz and political activism go hand in hand. As he guides Alyn Shipton through his recording career, we hear of his first band, the Jazz Epistles, cruelly cut short when the Sharpeville Massacre led to large public gatherings being banned on the eve of its first national tour. We follow him to London and New York, with his early American album Grrrr! and his London session Music Is Where The Heart Is with revolutionary saxophonist Dudu Pukwana. Hugh then traces his career as an exile through discs made in New York, and in Botswana, where he recorded during the years he was unable to enter South Africa. His music blends jazz and Afro-Pop, using the characteristic sounds of South African choirs and voices as essential ingredients alongside his distinctive trumpet and flugelhorn playing, creating music that always evokes his homeland, but never loses touch with the African-American jazz that inspired his vision of freedom.

Few families have produced three such exceptional musical brothers as Percy, Jimmy and Tootie Heath, a bassist, saxophonist and drummer who have worked at the highest level. On one of their last visits to London before Percy's death in 2005, Alyn Shipton talked to all three of them about their collective and individual careers in jazz, introducing not only the finest albums they made together, but their discs with other musicians as varied as Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon and Wes Montgomery.The Heath Brothers band was a legendary ensemble in jazz from the 1970s to the death of bassist Percy Heath in 2005. All three brothers, Percy, saxophonist Jimmy and drummer Tootie, were masters of their art, and there was a collective magic about their appearances together. But in this programme Percy also talks about his work with Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Quartet, Jimmy remembers his earliest records with John Coltrane when they were fellow members of Dizzy Gillespie's band, and Tootie recalls the thrill of accompanying Wes Montgomery and Dexter Gordon. We also hear their work together on the albums 'Triple Threat' and 'As We Were Saying'.

In a programme recorded at the Gateshead Jazz Festival 2009, Alyn Shipton is joined by saxophonist Joshua Redman to look back at his best recordings. These include his early quintets and quartets, his trios with organist Sam Yahel, right up to more recent albums, all of them marked out by Redman's consistent balance between exploration and instrumental virtuosity.

American singer Sheila Jordan joins Alyn Shipton in front of an audience at the Gateshead International Jazz Festival 2009 to select the highlights from her half-century as arguably one of the most adventurous and individual singers in jazz. The programme features her minimal settings and explorations of timbre and timing, from her 1960s classic Portrait of Sheila to her most recent recordings.

In a special tribute to drummer Louie Bellson, who died in February 2009, Alyn Shipton presents an archive interview with the man himself, in which he selects key records from his career. Including discs with Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman and Louis Armstrong as well as albums by his own big band and by his wife of 37 years, Pearl Bailey.

British bassist Peter Ind joins Alyn Shipton to select the highlights from his long recording career, mainly on his own Wave label which he founded in the 1950s. As well as collaborations with such great American players as Duke Jordan, Warne Marsh and Lee Konitz, he explains his fondness for working in duo with guitarists or other bass players.

Singer Gwyneth Herbert has proved herself an insightful commentator on the recordings of fellow vocalists on Jazz Library, but in this week's programme she shares her enthusiasm for the pianist Brad Mehldau, who is one of the most challenging and innovative of contemporary jazz players. With a repertoire ranging from Broadway songs to the works of contemporary rock players, his music seldom stands still. He is a romantic player in the grand tradition of Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett, but also a fearless experimenter with time, and musical structure.Gwyneth Herbert joins Alyn Shipton to pick Mehldau's finest recordings, as a soloist, with his trio and with the bands of Lee Konitz and Charles Lloyd.Brad Mehldau performs at the 2010 London Jazz Festival.

The tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon was one of the first tenor saxophonists in jazz to adopt the bebop style in the 1940s, going on to become one of the most influential and distinctive soloists of the 60s and 70s. Soweto Kinch joins Alyn Shipton to select Gordon's finest recordings, ranging from his early days with Billy Eckstine to his Oscar-nominated performance in Bertrand Tavernier's film "Round Midnight".

Alyn Shipton is joined by vintage-drum expert Richard Pite to select the highlights from Krupa's many recordings. As well as his work with Benny Goodman, the programme spans Krupa's playing from the 1920s to the late 1950s, including his epic battles with Buddy Rich and his famous recordings with Anita O'Day and Roy Eldridge.

Trumpeter, author and broadcaster Ian Carr is considered by some to be one of the most influential figures in British jazz. Alyn Shipton features an archive interview, in which Carr selects some of his finest recordings. These include music by the Rendell-Carr Quintet, the Emcee Five and Nucleus, as well as movements from Neil Ardley's suite Kaleidoscope of Rainbows.

Alyn Shipton interviews veteran saxophonist Benny Golson, who turns 80 in 2009, and who is to be honoured at the Kennedy Centre in Washington DC for his lifetime achievements in jazz. The programme features Golson looking back at his career with musicians including Art Blakey, Lee Morgan and Dizzy Gillespie as well as his own Jazztet, plus a preview of his new 80th birthday album New Times, New 'Tet.

Alyn Shipton talks to the prolific American composer and alto saxophonist about the landmarks in his career, beginning with his early days with Claude Thornhill and Stan Kenton and progressing to his work on Miles Davis's Birth of the Cool and with Lennie Tristano and his circle.

Alyn Shipton explores the best examples of recordings by pianist Bud Powell, who died in 1966 aged 41 and altered the course of jazz piano through his bebop innovations of the 1940s.He left an impressive legacy of recorded work, although this also charts his slow decline as a consequence of mental illness and addiction problems.Shipton is joined by pianist Geoff Eales to consider the largest body of Powell's work, for the Blue Note label.

Alyn Shipton and Gwyneth Herbert select highlights from the recorded catalogue of the jazz singer and pianist known as the High Priestess of Soul. The programme includes part of an archive interview by Alyn with Nina herself, recorded on her last visit to Britain, as well as her best songs ranging from Porgy through Mississippi Goddam to I Put a Spell on You.

Author and critic Brian Morton joins Alyn Shipton to select the essential examples of bandleader Sun Ra's work.Born Herman Blount, he was as famous for his exotic headgear and claims that his inspiration and music came from outer space, as his band The Arkestra. Yet beneath the exotic image, Ra was a highly creative musician, redefining the structure and sound of the jazz big band.

The King of Swing, and one of the finest of all jazz clarinetists, Benny Goodman recorded prolifically, and was as dazzlingly talented in a big band setting as in a small group. He encouraged multi-racial bands, with his trio, quartet and sextet, and helped bring guitarist Charlie Christian to a wider audience.Alyn Shipton is joined by John Dankworth, who shares some of his keen insights into Goodman's style, his selection of key recordings and his personal reminiscences of Benny, with whom he played for the first time in 1949.

Alyn Shipton is joined by Polish trumpeter Tomasz Stanko to help select the finest examples of his recorded work that should be in any jazz collection.One of the most celebrated jazz musicians in Europe, Stanko looks back on his collaborations with Krzysztof Komeda and Edward Vesala, and discusses the albums he has made under his own name, including Litania and Leosia.

The man who was Duke Ellington's amanuensis, co-pianist and arranger is not so well-known in his own right. In tonight's programme Ellingtonian specialist Brian Priestley joins Alyn Shipton to look at Strayhorn's small catalogue of records under his own name, and also separates out his immense personal contribution to Duke Ellington's work for both large and small bands, as composer, arranger and instrumentalist.

Alyn Shipton is joined by one of the most famous Ellingtonians of all, trumpeter Clark Terry, to look back over his recordings. In addition to his work with Ellington, Terry was also a member of Count Basie's famous orchestra and he also discusses his discs with the late Oscar Peterson, including the amusing Mumbles.

Dave BrubeckTo celebrate pianist Dave Brubeck's 87th birthday, Alyn Shipton introduces part of a conversation with Brubeck recorded during his quartet's 40th anniversary tour of the UK, in which he selects some of his favourite recordings from a catalogue that includes over 100 albums.As well as such perennial favourites as Take Five by his historic quartet with Paul Desmond, Brubeck also looks at his collaborations with Gerry Mulligan, the London Symphony Orchestra and his present day band with saxophonist Bobby Militello.

John Etheridge helps Alyn Shipton select highlights from the catalogue of fellow jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery, explaining how he achieved his unique sound. Montgomery is considered to have been one of the most innovative players on his instrument and developed a technique that combined the rapidity of bebop with a mellow romanticism.

Alyn Shipton talks to gifted South African jazz pianist Abdullah Ibrahim about the highlights in his recorded catalogue. Ibrahim discusses discs from the apartheid era, when he was both an exile and, on a brief return home, the creator of the freedom anthem Mannenberg, as well as his international work as a solo pianist, bandleader and composer.

Alyn Shipton presents a special tribute edition of Jazz Library devoted to Oscar Peterson, who died in December 2007 and is regarded as one of the greatest jazz pianists. The programme not only suggests the essential Peterson CDs, but also calls on the help of the man himself, with an extended interview recorded in 2000.

Django ReinhardtThe first European jazz musician to make a significant impact on the world stage, guitarist Django Reinhardt's effect was felt throughout jazz.John Etheridge, leader of the Django tribute band Sweet Chorus, joins Alyn Shipton to select the finest recordings by the gipsy genius. From the Hot Club Quintet of France to Reinhardt's solo waltzes, and from his later electric guitar triumphs such as Nuages to his wartime big band discs, this covers all the essential Reinhardt recordings for any jazz collection.

Cab CallowayChristmas Day marks the centenary of one of the most outsize talents in jazz, the Hi-de-Ho man himself, Cab Calloway.To select from such recorded gems by Cab as Minnie the Moocher, St Louis Blues and Nagasaki, Alyn Shipton is joined by the singer's grandson Calloway Brooks, who leads the present day Calloway Orchestra and has an encyclopedic knowledge of his grandfather's work.

Alyn Shipton concludes his conversation with the great Sonny Rollins, and brings his survey of the saxophonist's recorded output up-to-date.The programme includes excerpts from Rollins' latest album Sonny Please, and looks back at his work from the time of his 1950s political protest, by way of his score for the Michael Caine film Alfie, and his long association with the Milestone record label, which produced some of his most memorable albums.

Sonny Rollins joins Alyn Shipton to select the key recordings from his voluminous catalogue.Widely regarded as a major living exponent of the tenor saxophone and an innovator since the end of the 1940s, here Rollins focuses on his early years, from albums made with Emo Hope and Kenny Dorham to his masterpieces Tenor Madness and Saxophone Colossus. On the way he discusses calypso, trio improvising and his close friendship with Thelonious Monk.

Jelly Roll MortonAlyn Shipton is joined by Morton specialist Martin Litton to explore the work of Jelly Roll's band, the Red Hot Peppers, as well as the solo discs. The self-proclaimed 'inventor of jazz', Jelly Roll Morton was a colourful figure, with diamonds in his teeth and gold on his fingers. He was also the first musician to appreciate the potential of the 78 rpm record for creating miniature jazz compositions. Including a contribution from Morton's last living sideman, 99-year-old Lawrence Lucie.

Starting his life as a child star tap dancer, Buddy Rich became one of the most gifted drummers in jazz history. To survey the prolific recorded output of "The Man From Planet Jazz", Alyn Shipton is joined by British drummer Ralph Salmins, covering both Rich's discs under his own name, and his stellar appearances with other musicians.

Widely regarded as one of the great innovaters in Jazz Piano, Andrew Hill passed away in April of 2007. To celebrate his life Alyn Shipton and Trumpeter Bryon Wallen, who worked regularly with Hill, select highlights from the pianist's recorded catalogue.

Trumpeter Art Farmer was one of the most lyrical and inventive players in jazz. Alyn Shipton is joined by Ian Smith (who met and interviewed Farmer) to select his finest recordings, which include his work with Gerry Mulligan, Horace Silver and Hank Mobley, as well as the many famous albums he made under his own name such as 'Farmer's Market'.

Singer Christine Tobin guides Alyn Shipton through the best work from Billie Holiday's early and late career. Widely acknowledged as one of the finest singers in jazz history, Billie Holiday's short life produced a remarkable recorded legacy, in which anguish blended with ecstasy as she sang of unrequited love. Her voice changed with age and hard living, and among the highlights are Good Morning Heartache, My Man and the emotional wasteland of Strange Fruit, a song about a Southern lynching.

In this Jazz Library podcast, Alyn Shipton is joined by saxophonist Soweto Kinch to assess the legacy of the highly influential and innovative saxophonist, John Coltrane and select the most essential Coltrane recordings – from acclaimed albums such as Blue Train and Giant Steps to some of his lesser-known works.

Pat Metheny joins Alyn Shipton for this Jazz Library podcast. One of the most technically skilled jazz guitarists ever to record, he helps Alyn to select some of the highlights of his work not only in his own groups, but also with Ornette Coleman, Charlie Haden, Jim Hall and many other great names of jazz.

Pianist and bandleader Chick Corea himself guides Alyn Shipton through some of his finest recordings. Few musicians in jazz have the extraordinary stylistic range of Chick Corea. His work ranges from acoustic bebop to rock fusion, from free jazz to the classic Miles Davis Quintet, as well as his own groundbreaking ensembles Return to Forever and the Elektric Band.

Alyn Shipton is joined by Trumpeter Arturo Sandoval to choose key recordings in Cuban Jazz including music from Dizzy Gillespie, Machito, Cubanismo and Sandoval himself.