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Podcast: The Essay
Episode: On Not Being a Jazzer
Description: Radio 3’s veteran jazz broadcaster Geoffrey Smith reflects on the changing perceptions and appreciation of jazz in Britain, through his own experience as an American settling in the UK fifty years ago. In this first programme Geoffrey questions the British term ‘jazzer’ and its jokey connotations which are in sharp contrast to the genre’s more serious Stateside identity as American classical music. There, the genealogy and pedigree of the genre is more complex, going back to the rich musical mix of New Orleans. As John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet once said, "We didn't have Bach, Be...