Jazz In The City
Jazz FM
Living World
Radio 4
In the face of overwhelming populist adoration, I feel inadequate sometimes, because I loathe much of the Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper album, I recoil at the hyperbole layered onto the lives and works of Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley, I have developed a serious suspicion of marketing manipulation to canonise musicians and performers and, particularly, in the context of this review, I just don’t get Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue album – a somewhat sacred recording to aficionados, but as dull as dull can be in patches. I remember getting involved in a major argument with a jazz fan who summarised that I was just being deaf, blind and stupid. In his own rebellious, non-politically-correct way, he may be right. Even cool jazz fans are prone to anger, man.
Listening to Jazz In The City, a series devised to allow corporate leaders a chance to explain themselves and their businesses in between choosing their favourite jazz records, Ian Powell, chairman of PricewaterhouseCoopers, selected “All Blues” from the Davis album as his first piece of music. I wondered whether this was a cheeky choice to appeal to the many critics of the financial sector after the credit crunch fiasco or a genuine example of his love for this music genre. Either way, it set me on edge a little about this curious programme. It sounded like an opportunity to give a substantial amount of free promotional airtime to companies in a non-confrontational format. Certainly, Powell took advantage of his free rein to sound confident and reassuring about his company in particular and accountants and their value to the City in general.
The two presenters (why two?) were just placid bystanders and their attempt “to bring the City and business to life” using jazz as a benign ingredient sounded awkward and contrived at times. To be fair, it is a new series and may find its feet in due course, with future guests including Willie Walsh from British Airways. “Kind of Blue” might just resurface either as a piece of music or as a summary of current industrial relations in his commercial world. However, it is highly unlikely that he and other forthcoming guests will be challenged, because Jazz In The City tries very, very hard to be, well, nice and, hats off, making the City sound nice is probably a high achievement at the moment.
Think more of piranha, shark and, indeed, pike and come with me to the River Frome in Dorset where the latter was the star topic in Living World, a charming programme tucked away in the early hours of Sunday morning. It is fishing folk chatting with each other and making the subject of angling, anglers and cold rivers sound interesting and fun, but with some risks and dangers along the way. Presenter Lionel Kelleway joined retired fish biologist Mike Ladle as they discussed pike, one of Britain’s most ferocious, fearsome predators. Fishermen respect the pike and handle them with care because their mouths are lined with rows of sharp teeth and they even have more teeth on their tongues.
Any poor unfortunate fish or human digit caught in a clamped pike’s mouth is a goner, as Ladle had found out from painful experience. I might not understand jazz but I think I understand fishing, even though I have never done it. I like to watch fisher folk from a distance, but all that soggy bottom and wriggling maggots stuff dissuades me from getting too involved.
Radio programmes such as Living World do what radio does best. They hook you in, entertain and educate, then leave you feeling good about the world. And when you feel good about the world the last thing you need is the blues.
Joe Cushnan
