On Not Being a Jazzer

Radio 3’s veteran jazz broadcaster Geoffrey Smith reflects on the changing perceptions and appreciation of jazz in Britain, through his own experience as an American settling in the UK fifty years ago.

In this first programme Geoffrey questions the British term ‘jazzer’ and its jokey connotations which are in sharp contrast to the genre’s more serious Stateside identity as American classical music. There, the genealogy and pedigree of the genre is more complex, going back to the rich musical mix of New Orleans. As John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet once said, "We didn't have Bach, Beethoven or Mozart, so we needed to create a music that could do all the things that music can do". But to the British, argues Geoffrey, the essential value of jazz is precisely that it isn't classical. Geoffrey reminds us that the two genres overlap in key expressive features, and that the immortal names in their respective pantheons have much in common.