Geoffrey Smith's Jazz Podcast
1) Chet Baker
The fallen angel of West Coast jazz, Chet Baker (1929-88) won a huge popular following as trumpeter and vocalist while fighting a life-long battle with drugs. Geoffrey Smith surveys a troubled, iconic...Show More
2) Abbey Lincoln
Pop songs, protest, poetic musings - vocalist Abbey Lincoln (1930-2010) explored a passionate spectrum of styles on her way to being hailed as the premiere jazz singer of her time. Geoffrey Smith pick...Show More
3) Sutton, Hyman and Wellstood
Ever since the 1920s, stride piano has been party-time music, and it still is. Geoffrey Smith celebrates its two-fisted, tuneful energy with three modern stride masters, Ralph Sutton, Dick Hyman and D...Show More
4) Anita O'Day and June Christy
Anita O'Day (1919-2006) and June Christy ( 1925-1990) were queens of big band singing in the 1940s and 50s, starring with Gene Krupa and Stan Kenton before going solo. O'Day was hot, Christy was cool,...Show More
5) Kenny Wheeler
In honour of what would have been Kenny Wheeler's 85th birthday, Geoffrey Smith chooses favourite works by the revered trumpeter-composer who died last October, including excerpts from his portrait ...Show More
6) Joe Harriott
Jamaica's gift to British jazz, altoist Joe Harriott (1928-73) mixed bebop fire with intuitive, free-form improvisation and Indo-Jazz fusion, producing a series of groundbreaking recordings before his...Show More
7) Sonny Rollins Road Shows
On the day tenor saxophone legend Sonny Rollins turns eighty-nine, Geoffrey Smith celebrates the man hailed as the greatest living jazz musician with a selection of tracks from Rollins’ own archive o...Show More
8) Duke Ellington Sacred Concerts
Deeply if unconventionally religious, Duke Ellington regarded the three Sacred Music Concerts of his last years as “the most important thing I have ever done.” Geoffrey Smith selects highlights from t...Show More
9) Bill Coleman
Though trumpeter Bill Coleman (1904-1981) played with Fats Waller and Coleman Hawkins, he made his main career in France, with the likes of Stephane Grappelli and Django Reinhardt. Geoffrey Smith salu...Show More
10) Wayne Shorter
On the weekend of Wayne Shorter's birthday, Geoffrey Smith salutes the great saxophonist-composer with music written for his own groups, and those of Miles Davis and Art Blakey.