This year's London jazz festival is the first since the launch of theJazz, the DAB digital radio station, this spring. That's significant, because it makes the broad repertoire of classic jazz more accessible to the casual or new listener.
The BBC does have great programmes and a history of recording live concerts - with the emphasis on the serious, less economically viable events. For example, you can hear Charles Tolliver's Big Band festival gig on Friday, November 23 at 11.30pm on Jazz on 3, and the Britten Sinfonia with Gil Goldstein on November 28 at 7pm. But the BBC has a remit to support nearly every other area of music: jazz fans have to pick their times carefully. (As for Jazz FM, let's not go there...) You can't just turn on the radio at random and hear some good jazz.
But you can with theJazz. The presenters have their egos well under control, the jingles aren't too annoying, and the ads don't go on for too long. Sure it's a computer-controlled station (imagine a giant, hi-res iPod), which has made for some amusing cock-ups. The ticker-tape-style DAB credits don't always match up; there was day when every number was credited to Acker Bilk. But newspapers and magazines make similar mistakes, too - captions are a factual minefield.
Now you can go home, put on the kettle and the DAB radio knowing that you are likely to hear a piece of classic jazz before long: Duke Ellington, Stan Tracey, Billie Holiday, Miles Davis. I always enjoy the personal choices of DJs such as Mike Chadwick (who recently did an extraordinary three-hour show dedicated to the late Joe Zawinul) and Helen Mayhew. Even when they play something from an album I've already got, I enjoy their insights, and the juxtaposition with other tracks. It's a national station (you can get it via your Freeview TV if you don't have a DAB radio), but they are plugging the London jazz festival like crazy - last night Mayhew played two artists playing the festival, Sonny Rollins and Tim Garland, back to back.
When I touched on the role of the new station with an London jazz festival insider, he quickly steered me away from the subject, emphasising the importance of the BBC's new, long-term commitment to the jazz festival - something no commercial radio station would dream of doing.
On the other side, a breakfast show DJ on theJazz talked coyly of an Ian Shaw interview "on another radio station", and the festival page on their website makes no mention of the BBC's sponsorship.
But jazz isn't just about the gigs and the albums; it's about the listeners, and more jazz on the radio helps create them. TheJazz is justifiably proud of listening figures (441,000) which include 53,000 children under the age of 15. And if those kids want to know a bit more about Sonny Rollins, for example, they're probably going to listen to Radio 3, too.
