Lecture
Alyn Shipton
Wednesday 26.11.2025
Alyn Shipton
European Jazz, Part 2
Wednesday 26.11.2025
How to watch
This lecture starts on 26 November at 5:00pm (UK).
Summary
Alyn Shipton follows his initial foray into European jazz with a look at developments since 1945. Starting with German jazz in the immediate wake of World War II with Helmut Zacharias, he goes on to explore sounds from Scandinavia, from Stan Getz’s collaborations in the early ‘50s to saxophonists Lars Gullin and Jan Garbarek, plus guitarist Terje Rypdal. Music from France includes tracks from Claude Bolling, Louis Sclavis, and Jean-Luc Ponty, as well as US expatriates such as Bud Powell. Pianist Irene Schweitzer is one of the Swiss musicians covered, while Polish jazz is explored with tracks from Krzysztof Komeda and Tomasz Stańko, and Russian music comes from the Ganelin Trio and Sergey Kuryokhin. He concludes with more recent work, including Rita Marcotulli, Andy Sheppard with Espen Eriksen, and legendary Italian trumpeter Enrico Rava.
Alyn Shipton
Alyn Shipton has worked in music for many years as a writer, editor, and player. He was the publisher of the New Grove Dictionary series in the 1980s. His own books include numerous biographies, mainly of jazz musicians, including Fats Waller, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Ian Carr, and Cab Calloway. His other books include the award-winning life of singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson, and a study of the relationship between visual arts and jazz. His New History of Jazz (2001, revised 2007) won awards on both sides of the Atlantic and is now well established as one of the standard works on the subject. Since 1989 he has presented and produced programs on music and history for BBC Radio. As a double bassist, he has played with many leading British jazz groups, and he currently co-leads the Buck Clayton Legacy Band.