Clarinetobit: Acker Bilk

Acker Bilk, probably the most famous clarinet player in the world, has died.

This means news bulletins for the last day have been reverberating to the sound of Stranger On The Shore (or Jenny, as it was originally called when it was first released).

It's possible that Bilk, while enjoying the warmth of the tribute, might have been a little disappointed at the choice of music:

Clarinet player Acker Bilk says he is "fed up" with playing his most famous tune - Stranger on the Shore.

The 83-year-old jazz musician, who lives in Pensford, Somerset, had a worldwide hit in the early 1960s and has played it regularly ever since.

He told BBC Inside Out West reporter Alastair McKee the tune is "all right but you do get fed up with it after a bit".

Here he is, then, playing something else:

Acker Bilk was 85; he'd been ill for a short time.

Jazzobit: Dave Brubeck

There were a lot of obituaries of Dave Brubeck yesterday, with people struggling to explain how he managed to make jazz a mass market entertainment. But all they really need to do is this:

Dave Brubeck was 91.

Jazzobit: Michael Garrick

Michael Garrick, jazz pianist and composer, has died.

Garrick was mostly self-taught - he'd been drummed out of music classes for throwing a snatch of Glen Miller into a classical class recital - and formed his own quartet while still an English Literature student at UCL. Across a long career, Garrick worked with a number of names, expected and surprising, from Anita Wardell to Spike Milligan.

He was heavily involved in jazz education, alongside his composing, playing, and running his own jazz label. He was made a CBE in the birthday honours last year.

Michael Garrick was 78; he had been admitted to hospital with chest problems last week. Jonny Trunk's obituary for The Wire is highly recommended.

Pizza Express is delicious

I like a Pizza Express, me. They're doing a buy-one, get-one-for-a-quid offer for the next fortnight, too, and have just launched three new bruschettas in the starters range.

How can they ensure they can cope with the numbers that are liable to swamp their doors, I wonder?

Kasabian drummer Ian Matthews is set to return to his second band for a gig in the Soho branch of Pizza Express' Jazz Club.

"Warning: some dishes have risk of drummer from Kasabian playing jazz". Yes, that'd do it.

Trombonobit: Benny Powell

Benny Powell, trombonist with The Count Basie Orchestra has died, it was confirmed yesterday.

Powell was a member of the Basie Orchestra between 1951 and 1963, although he'd often pop back to help out on special occasions. Subsequently, he lead his own groups and got a regular gig as part of Merv Griffin's houseband. He moved into education during the 1980s; for sixteen years he had taught jazz at New York's New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music. (It does raise the question of if there's an old school teaching contemporary music somewhere in the State.)

Powell was 80. He had been having spinal surgery which appears to have led to a fatal heart attack.

The illustrated Hello: Charlie Parker

Not Charles Parker, who produced the BBC's Radio Ballads, which led to the creation of songs like this one, written by Ewan McColl, and performed here by Raymond Crooke:



And certainly not Bruce Parker, who rode the South Today desk for what seemed like an eternity:



Nor, sadly, is it Peter Parker, our current Glaswegian crushes:



No, the Beloved were hailing Charlie Parker, the legend of jazz. Not only for how he played himself, but for the way he shaped Dizzy Gillespie's sound as well:



[Buy: Peter Parker - Swallow The Rockets

Charlie Parker 10 CD Box set]

[Part of The Illustrated Hello]

Jazzobit: Johnny Dankworth

John Dankworth, one of the leading figures of British jazz, has died. His wife, Cleo Laine, announced his death at The Stables, the live music site the pair established in Milton Keynes, at a party celebrating 40 years of the venue.

Born in 1927, Dankworth took inspiration from both the UK and the US, with Benny Goodman and Charlie Parker shaping his sound. Dankworth was Britain's Musician Of The Year in 1949, signaling the start of a glorious two-decade period which would see him hailed as a composer, arranger and band leader. Constantly in demand, he worked with Duke Ellington, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Houston Ballet, the National Theatre, Karel Reisz and Ella Fitzgerald.

He picked up an Ivor Novello award for his theme for The Avengers; he invented the Summer Pops for the London Symphony Orchestra back in 1985 and in the nineties added a big band, the Dankworth Generation Band, to the quintet he was already leading.

His work making music would have been enough to fill a career, but working with Cleo Laine, Dankworth also spent much of his time on musical education and charities supporting the development of other artists. In 1969, the couple created The Wavendon Allmusic Plan, designed to help people expand their musical boundaries; this was followed by the development of The Stables as a performance and educational venue; and, in 1999, The Wavendon Foundation. This most recent charity supports musicians in need of financial aid and organisations providing musical education.

John Dankworth was knighted in 2006. He was 82.

Drummerobit: Rashied Ali

A heart attack has claimed the life of Rashied Ali.

Ali - "the free drummer's free drummer" - is best known for his work with John Coltrane during the 1960s. He'd been a casual multiinstrumentalist during his childhood, but had started to concentrate on drums while in the army. Making his way through R&B and rock acts, it was with jazz that he really found his niche. Eventually, he would replace Elvin Jones as Coltrane's lead drummer, playing on 1967's Interstellar Space. It was to be Coltrane's last work.

Ali continued to play, alongside running Ali's, a club designed to showcase the best in free-drumming which enjoyed a run of success in the decade up to 1979. He worked with a number of different acts of varying distances avant of the garde, finally conceding to a titular act of vanity in 2003 when he formed the Rashied Ali Quintet.

Ali died on Wednesday in Manhattan. He was 76.

Bookmarks: Some stuff to read on the internet: NYT critic

The New York Times' jazz and pop but mainly jazz critic Ben Ratliff is taking questions from the readers about pop, but mainly jazz:

In the last 60 years, people almost completely stopped dancing to jazz, and far fewer people grew up with pianos in the house. I think that has a lot to do with why jazz is no longer the popular vernacular art it used to be. When you dance to music (in all ways — partner dancing, stepping, headbanging — just reacting to music with your body) or when you play it, then you own it. A lot of people born since 1960 don't feel that they own jazz.

Absolutely, the media plays a role in why the average person doesn't know who Cedar Walton is. But I think the mainstream media — obviously we're not talking about jazz magazines like Downbeat, which has Benny Golson on the cover this month (a good example of the kind of artist you're talking about) — doesn't, by definition, deal with the kind of art that post-bop mainstream jazz has become, which is an art of tradition and very slow refinements.

Electroobit: Marc Moulin

Perhaps best remembered for a failed attempt to come in last during the 1980 Eurovision Song Contest, Marc Moulin of Telex has died.

Moulin had initially come to prominence as a pianist, playing acid jazz throughout Europe in the 1960s. His first band, Placebo (not that one), formed in 1974 and released three albums which jazz experts will still argue sound fresh and surprising today. But Marc was about to make a surprising career change.

Established in 1978 in order to create a specifically European sound, Telex were a creation of Moulin, working alongside Dan Lacksman and Michel Moers. Blending avant-garde and punk aesthetics with a rejection of rock and guitars, the band achieved a degree of success with deconstructed cover versions - Rock Around The Clock was their sales high for the UK, although the perhaps-too-obvious, perhaps-too-European reworking of Ca Plan Pour Moi was a better joke.

Telex went to Eurovision at the suggestion of their manager; their plans to come solidly last were frustrated when the Portuguese took to them and gave them ten points (dix points):



So coldly was their performance received that, earlier in the judging process, the host decided that she was hearing things when they were given points from Greece, and tried to redirect the points to the Dutch instead.

Equally confused were Virgin, to whom Telex were signed in the UK; they'd been trying to market the band to the Duran Duran audience only to suddenly be saddled with a Eurovision gag act. Already a difficult sell - not playing tours didn't help - the record companies started to shift the band to their tax loss column.

Even a hook-up with Sparks to provide works for the third album, Sex, couldn't help with selling the band. The band's remix of their work in 1989, showing their influence on the now-popular house music, was something of a point being made.

That was the last of Telex until a 2006 reunion release, How Do You Dance; the reactivated band also took the opportunity to remix other act's work.

In the period between Telex's bursts of activity, Moulin built a reputation amongst jazz fans and working as a producer; he also wrote extensively about music. The Belgian weekly Télémoustique which announced his death had been running a weekly column from him.

Moulin died from cancer on September 26th.

Saxobit: LeRoi Moore

The saxophonist LeRoi Moore, a founding member of the Dave Matthews Band, has died.

Born Gary Lee Moore in North Carolina, LeRoi was a classically-trained musician who had command of a wide range of instruments: bass, baritone, tenor, alto, and soprano saxophones; and the flute, bass clarinet and wooden penny whistle. He was working as a jazz musician in Charlottesville when approached by Dave Matthews to form a band in 1991; LeRoi's contribution went further than just providing performances, as he also arranged the band's music from Matthews' ideas.

Moore suffered an accident on an ATV on his farm in June; although he had appeared to be on the road to recovery he went back into hospital in mid-July and, according to the Dave Matthews Band website, had recently returned to LA to undergo physical rehabilitation.

Moore was 46. As part of the DMB, he had shared in a 1997 Grammy for best song, So Much To Say.

Jazzobit: Joe Beck

Joe Beck, session jazz guitarist, has died.

Splitting his career between farming and music, Beck worked with an impressive line-up of artists, including Gloria Gaynor, Miles Davis, James Brown and Frank Sinatra. He told George Cole in an interview for The Last Miles how he'd got into playing:

I was around five or six I found a banjo in the attic in my house and I started fiddling around with that and I was able to figure out to play a chord or two and have fun. Then I heard [Spanish classical guitarist Andres] Segovia on the radio - my mother was a classical singer and piano teacher - and I just flipped. I had never heard anything that and I said: 'that's what I want to do.' I guess I was around six or seven at that point. That Christmas I badgered my parents into me getting a guitar and we didn't have a lot of money, so they got me a guitar from Sears Roebuck, which was a catalogue store back in those days. It was a $9.95 purchase, but it lasted me for years!

He was still playing live gigs as recently as December 2007; the 62 year-old he had been fighting lung cancer.

Folkobit: Artie Traum

Artie Traum, a key player in the New York Folk scene of the 1960s, has died.

Traum formed a Woodstock-based duo with his brother, the spectacularly named Happy Traum. Represented by Albert Grossman, whose stable also included Peter Paul And Mary. A trio of successful albums followed, before the brothers went their separate musical ways in 1977. They continued to work together, however, presenting a radio show together before reuniting on record in 1994.

During the 1970s and 80s, Artie was a key member and producer for the Woodstock Mountains Revue, a loose grouping of upstate New Yorkers; in the late 90s he reworked his style radically and released a jazz album.

He is survived by his wife, Beverly, and his brother. It's believed his death was caused by lung cancer.

Not fair, cry Fairport Convention

Fairport Convention and other bands who played last year's Isle Of Wight Folk and Blues festival claim they've not been paid yet. So, they've done exactly what you or I would do. No, I mean exactly. They complained to You and Yours. Dave Pegg told the programme:

"We did a concert there which was sold out. I personally travelled all the way from France where I was on holiday and took three days out of my life.

"The audience were great. We had a really good night. We may appear to be a big name but this is our livelihood and we really do need to get paid."

Rather missing the point, the organiser admits she hasn't yet sent out any cheques but has paid other musicians:

Geri Ward, who organises the Folk and Blues festival and the Isle of Wight International Jazz Festival, says performers will get their appearance fees.

"The jazz festival musicians from last year have been paid. The majority of this year's are already paid," she said.

"The folk and blues festival is a big problem to us because we do have to find reinvestment and find sponsors.

Perhaps the idea of not paying the blues performers was that, at least, they'd be able to get some more songs out of their predicament, but we're not quite sure that saying you've paid off the jazz guys is all that reassuring. It's like Peaches Geldof saying 'yes, but I paid for the shoes, didn't I?" and hoping that will be an end of the matter.

Jazzobit: Humphrey Lyttelton

It's genuinely heartbreaking to hear of the death of Humphrey Lyttelton at the age of 86.

For his stewardship of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue over thirty-five years, and of Radio 2's Jazz programme for as long as the network has existed, his contribution to British radio is unquestionable; his journalism and writing spanned eight books, numerous contributions to the likes of Punch, and scripting the Flook cartoon strip in the Daily Mail in the late 1940s. But, at heart, Lyttelton remained a jazz musician.

His formed his first band in 1948; initially, he released the group's music on his own label before signing to EMI to be part of the Parlophone Super Rhythm Style sequence. It was with Parlophone that, in 1956, his Bad Penny Blues became the first jazz record to make the top 20.

Although at the heart of the jazz scene - his band opened for Louis Armstrong when Satchmo played London in 1956 - he was never a purist; indeed, the inclusion of more accessible, mainstream stuff in his set and the expansion of the band in the late fifties irked a number of the more stuffy fans on the jazz scene at the time. Luckily, the wider public were more open - in January this year, Lyttelton clocked up his sixtieth year as a band leader.

Lyttelton, who was 86, had recently had surgery for an aortic aneurysm.

Smooth has to keep jazz

Smooth Radio - which used to be Jazz FM - has failed to persuade Ofcom to allow it to dump its surviving jazz programming. They'd offered to cut a deal whereby Smooth would drop jazz in return for relauncing Jazz FM as a DAB network. Ofcom said it wasn't able to cut that sort of deal, and that GMG had to accept you can't buy a jazz radio station and just get rid of all the jazz.

Oddly, though, Ofcom never has a problem when companies buy indie radio stations and turn them into chart networks. But then there are probably more jazz fans than indie-eyed kids working down on the South Bank, aren't there?

Jazzobit: Miles Kington

The second tangential obituary of the day: Miles Kington, who died yesterday after a short illness, wasn't just a columnist and wit. In his early career he worked as a jazz reviewer, and also played as a member of one of the few comedy-jazz ensembles the world has seen, Instant Sunshine. It was in this role that he co-presented one of the more extravagant weeks of Jackanory, which not only saw Instant Sunshine turning the story slot into a musical extravaganza, but enjoyed on location filming of the sort rarely seen on the studio-bound series.

George Melly dies

We've just heard of the death of George Melly, comic strip writer, raconteur and jazz singer. A fuller obituary will follow.

Look out below, Average

The Average White Band nearly got squished after a roof collapsed on the stage of the Riviera Beach jazz festival in Florida just a few minutes after they finished their soundcheck.

It's not clear yet what actually caused the roof to cave in - the stage-riggers have experience of this sort of event, and although city officials are carrying out an investigation, there doesn't appear to have been any extreme weather incidents that might have led to the near-disaster. As it turned out, only one person was injured, and that was a mild cut to the elbow.

The Average White Band pulled out of the show, unhappy with the repairs made to the stage, and although the event went ahead, selective refunds are being offered to make ammends for the bands running three hours late as a result.

The Riviera Beach Jazz Festival is a little ill-charmed; last year, the event made losses of getting on for a quarter of a million dollars. The city is still embroiled in legal action to try and square that particular mess.