Friday, March 27, 2009

Bonanza night on BBC4 - Dave Brubeck Quartet in Jazz 625 at 7.30pm, Dizzy Gillespie in Jazz 625 at 11pm, with 1959: the Year that Changed Jazz at 10pm. Caveat 1: these are the completely pointless early 1990s BBC2 re-edits of Jazz 625 with celebrity introductions (EDIT: I've never been happier to be wrong. Despite the billing indicating that the Slim Gaillard-introduced re-edit would be used, Brubeck was the 1964 original with Steve Race all present and correct. I'll forgive the periodically-wowing audio track and the couple of seconds missing at the start of 'Sounds of the Loop'. EDIT 2: Gillespie is the Humph-fronted original, not the Neneh Cherry-led repackaging I've endured for 20 years. I am wanking as I write this.). Caveat 2: I'm not sure that an equally cogent case couldn't be made for just about any year between 1935 and 1965. However, glass half-full and all that. Here's a bit from the Brubeck show - the awesome power of Joe Morello much to the fore:

Hey kids. Come and join me on Twitter. I am chronicling each of my bowel movements in as much detail as I can in 140 characters. I can't help but feel that this is what all communications technology has been working towards since the invention of the telegraph.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Glad tidings for missing episode hunters. News reaches us from Vienna of a 2-inch quad tape of Josef Fritzl's appearance on the Austrian version of Ask the Family being found, misfiled, in the ORF archives. Meanwhile, there are unconfirmed reports from the BBC archives at Windmill Road, Brentford, that a reel of 16mm mute Ektachrome featuring Jade Goody being chased by a gigantic Dougal has been found propping up a coffee machine in the Film Exam department.