Colosseum's Jon Hiseman featured on BBC Radio

Jon Hiseman is the subject of an hour-long BBC Radio 3 programme "Jazz Library" to be broadcast on Saturday June 4th at 4 pm. Alyn Shipton talks to Jon about his five decades as a drummer playing with many legendary musicians like Graham Bond, Jack Bruce etc., his experiences with his own groups Colosseum, Tempest and Colosseum ll, before returning to his role as drummer with Paraphernalia, the jazz-fusion band led by talented composer and saxophonist Barbara Thompson (also Jon's life partner) as well as his role of  record producer for those and many other bands. Alyn also plays a selection of musical tracks featuring Jon, including one seldom heard piece from the extremely rare Howard Riley Trio album "Discussions".   Absolutely not to be missed!
LJ

Does anybody know if there are plans to have this broadcast on the airwaves in Canada (possibly the CBC?)
    I live in Ottawa, Canada

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b011pks6/Jazz_Library_John_Hiseman/

Hope this works for you Presdoug.

Saw Hiseman and Colloseum at the Speakeasy way way back. Great musicians, but it didn't sound like Rock and Roll to me. Probably I was too narrow minded at the time, though I still feel uneasy about pure jazzists playing in Rock. Can't knock the guy's credentials and talent though.

Just to show how good he is

Very enjoyable interview with a nice selection of music. Sad to hear that Barbara has Parkinsons and might be her last tour. When I saw Colosseum around about 2004 she looked a bit frail then but still played beautifully. Best wishes to her and Jon. 

Partly in answer to Giselle's post...

Colosseum was probably the first group to fuse jazz and rock, with a slant towards the blues. It's true to say that Jon Hiseman, Dick Heckstall-Smith,Tony Reeves and Dave Greenslade's musical background was steeped in jazz, but ultimately they were excellent musicians for whom playing basic rock 'n' roll would have just been too limiting. All of them had played with major bands (Graham Bond, John Mayall, Geno Washington's Ram Jam Band etc). To help bridge the jazz-rock gap, Jon brought in lead guitarists who could sing (James Litherland being the first) but right from the start, most of their material was original, written collaboratively. Ultimately this is what led to this 'first edition' of the band only lasting 3 years...the flow of new material dried up, mainly because they spent so much time on the road, though Clem Clempson's departure to join Humble Pie was undoubtedly the final straw.

The current line-up, now with Barbara Thompson playing saxes in place of the much-missed Dick H-S (but otherwise the original 1971 band), is just about to set off for what may well be their final tour (playing Germany, Austria, Italy, Poland and Finland).    There will most likely be one more album of new tracks (five of which are already 'in the can') which will hopefully be released later this year.

Am I allowed one more shameless plug?  Jon's biography "Playing the Band" is still available from his website www.temple-music.com which tells the whole story.


Edited by londonjazzer - June 07 2011 at 06:03