Jazz pour tous! (1959-1969)

Jean-Marie Peterken and Nicolas Dor present Jazz pour Tous!

The wonders of European TV archives never cease. Besides the more recent footage which is being rescued weekly from the vaults of Spanish TV (see here), we have now a bunch of programmes from RTB (Belgian public broadcaster) show Jazz por tous!, "Jazz for everyone!", which was broadcast for ten years from 1959. The show had actually started as a radio programme by Belgian aficionados Nicolas Dor (correspondent for American rag Record Changer covering Belgium, France, and the Netherlands)  and Jean-Marie Peterken, and it had a spin-off in the short-lived festival in Comblain-la-Tour, where Cannonball Adderley recorded his LP Cannonball in Europe in 1962.

Roy Eldridge's photographs: pulling a thread

Back in 2013, in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, the saga of trumpeter Roy Eldridge's earthly possessions came to light. All may have seem to be lost, but only a few days ago it was announced that the University of North Texas Music Library had "finished digitization and metadata for almost 700 photos, newspaper clippings, date books, and other documents in the Roy Eldridge Collection belonging to the Sherman (Texas) Jazz Museum." This collection can now be seen here.

As of today, the collection holds 527 photographs. Even with some damage, these are a treasure, like the numerous images of Eldridge's short-lived big band, the JATP tours with Norman Granz, or the December 7, 1945 gig by this group:

• Coleman Hawkins, "Texas Tom" Archia: tenor saxes
• Roy Eldridge: trumpet
• Thelonious Monk: piano
• Al McKibbon: bass
• Denzil Best: drums
• Helen Humes: vocals

Thelonious Monk, Helen Humes, Coleman Hawkins, Roy Eldridge
(Source)

Let it be a reminder that there is lot of jazz beyond the records.

Cifu's legacy

Picture by Jaime Massieu, October 2014

One year has already gone by since Cifu left us. He was the dean of Spanish jazz commentators, still active on national public radio, and his absence is still deeply felt. Time flies, though. Life goes on, there is music, and we are still breathing.

After the rains of sadness and tribute, In the months after Cifu's passing, happier news have been reaching our shores. One is the establishment of the association CifuJazz and its brand new website, to promote his legacy. The other one is the recovery, pushed hard by Cifu's family—his wife and daughters—of the series Jazz entre amigos, which aired from 1984 to 1991, on Spanish national television.