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Tunes we Love You Go to my Head

Mid Season Break Announcement

Whiplash is a 2014 American independent psychological drama film written and directed by Damien Chazelle, and starring Miles Teller, J. K. Simmons, and Paul Reiser. It focuses on an ambitious music student and aspiring jazz drummer (Teller), who is pushed to his limit by his abusive instructor (Simmons) Chazelle completed the script in 2013, drawing upon his experiences in a "very competitive" jazz band in high school. Soon after, Right of Way and Blumhouse helped Chazelle turn fifteen pages of the screenplay into an 18-minute short film. The short film received acclaim after debuting at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, which attracted investors to produce the complete version of the script. Filming took place in September 2013 throughout Los Angeles over twenty days. The film explores concepts of perfectionism, dedication, and success, and deconstructs the concept of ambition.   this is the first film Simon couldn't remember the name of, me of   Chazelle wrote and directed his debut feature, Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench, as part of his senior thesis project with classmate Justin Hurwitz at Harvard

A long time ago we did an episode on humour in jazz.  you can hear it here  This is a longer investigation into it.

in another one of our tunes we love Nick and Simon discus But Beautiful  But Beautiful" is a popular song with music written by Jimmy Van Heusen, the lyrics by Johnny Burke. The song was published in 1947. One of five songs written by Burke and Van Heusen featured in the Paramount Pictures movie Road to Rio (1947)

one of our under the radar pianists episodes John Williams there Jazz pianist . Yes the Star Wars guy!

Following on from our last episode this is a special longer examination of what makes a jazz singer

We ask is Laufey a jazz singer. what do you think?

One of our jazz book reviews podcasts about the  Novel The Horn by John Clellon Holmes-born 12th March 1926 Studied at various places Columbia 1943 and post-draft at the New School 1949 where he met Jack Kerouac and remained a life long friend First novel published as Go a fictional book based on real characters and considered the first beat novel The Horn was his second novel and again contains many barely disguised real-life characters  The protagonist  the fictional Tenor Colossus Edgar Pool is known as  “ The Horn” a jazz legend who took jazz from Swing to Bebop with his skill and invention -  making him a revered alpha-male.  The book takes place on the evening of The Horn’s final day as he stumbles through New York after being outplayed [allegedly for the first time] by a young sax player. As his friends and lovers search for him they reminisce about his life  It is a classic paean to the talented jazz musician who slowly self destructs through drink, drugs and sex  It is structured in an attempt to mimic jazz performance practices of the 1940s  Chapters are called Choruses or Riffs In the Chorus chapters Holmes defines his key characters who talk about "The Horn"  The Riff chapters advance  the narrative of his final night The prose itself is dense, rhythmic, and lyrical, with long, flowing sentences that evoke the complexity and intensity of jazz phrasing, as words are deployed like notes in an extended solo

we discuss the issue of notating jazz in traditional western music notation in this episode

We discusss  "Stella by Starlight"  a popular jazz standard with music by Victor Young that was drawn from thematic material composed for the main title and soundtrack of the 1944 Paramount Pictures film The Uninvited. Appearing in the film's underscore as well as in source music as an instrumental theme song without lyrics, it was turned over to Ned Washington, who wrote the lyrics for it in 1946. At one point in the film, the main character, Rick (Ray Milland) tells Stella (Gail Russell) that he is playing a serenade, "To Stella by Starlight". an Apple Music playlist is here

in this episode we discus the pianist and vibraphonist Eddie Costa

in this episode we discuss the winners of the jazz categories of the grammy awards 2026 Large ensemble-christian McBrideBest Jazz Vocal Album-Portriat Samara JoyBest Jazz instrumental album -Soouthern Nights Sullivan FortnerBest Alternative Jazz Album-LIVE-ACTION-Nate SmithBest Latin Jazz -A Tribute to Benny Moré and Nat King Cole – Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Yainer Horta & Joey Calveirobest Live album Windows – Live – Chick Corea, Christian McBride & Brian Blade  Simon's Apple Music Playlist Here

In this episode we discuss the writer and dramatist Alan Plater and his connection to jazz.

We are starting a new strand to the ever expanding tapestry of 2-5-1 : Tunes we love and why. The first of these is on the song Softly as in a Morning Sunrise by Sigmund Romberg a 32 bar  AABA format tune, often in C minor, that has become a favourite amongst musicians. Here is an Apple Music play list which is only the tip of the iceberg [or should that be Romburg?]