Lecture
Alyn Shipton
Wednesday 21.01.2026
Alyn Shipton
Traditional Jazz Revival, USA
Wednesday 21.01.2026
How to watch
This lecture starts on 21 January at 5:00pm (UK).
Summary
Starting in the late 1930s, this movement was initiated by bands making a conscious attempt to emulate the music of the 1920s, such as Lu Watters’ Yerba Buena Jazz Band in California, who revived the style of King Oliver. Equally, musicians who had created the traditional jazz style in the 1920s got together to continue playing the music with which they had started out, the most famous example being Muggsy Spanier and His Ragtime Band, first in Chicago and then New York. Alyn Shipton follows their stories and the subsequent bands and players that picked up and developed their ideas, from Bob Scobey and Turk Murphy to Louis Armstrong & His All-Stars. He also looks at early New Orleans players who were “rediscovered,” including trumpeter Bunk Johnson.
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.