Responding to my criticism of new digiradio station theJazz, reader Bill Owen takes me to task – “Look again, theJazz has a truly electic playlist. Just look at the top 500 tracks voted by listeners…”
So I did. Looking at the top 100 tracks, I find that Miles leads with 14 tracks. Impressive. And Coltrane has seven in the 100. So far, so good. But Louis Armstrong only has three. Ella just one.
Jamie Cullum, meanwhile, has seven tracks in the top 100. And the focus on tracks is a bit of a giveaway - anyone who favours tracks to albums – in jazz as in classical repertoire - must have a short attention span.
As expected, theJazz is finding a populist market, just like its station owners did so successfully with Classic FM. But neither rings my bell - I much prefer BBC Radio 3, for both classical and jazz programming. It’s aimed at grown-ups.
Gerry Smith
1 comment:
I agree with you about radio 3 but don't judge thejazz by the top 100. I noticed an entry for Glenn Miller and Scot Joplin??? I find the music is good it just depends on who is the presenter.
Post a Comment