All That Jazz
I spent the first hour of the day answering letters from listeners, including one about the future of jazz programmes on Radio Scotland. It seems there are fears among jazz fans that we're about to turn our back on the scene. So this week I met up with Roger Spence, the Director of , an organisation which promotes jazz events in Scotland and supports festivals in Edinburgh, Dundee, Nairn and elsewhere. The truth is, we plan to launch a number of new jazz programmes in the coming year, starting in April with a weekly series called The Jazz House. Later we'll have Dr Raymond's Encyclopaedia of Jazz and I've commissioned another series of Jazzlines, which received a tremendous response from listeners late last year.
Some listeners write to tell me we shouldn't do this but should, instead, devote more time to Scottish traditional music. I disagree. I tend to think we should support live music, in all forms, as much as we can. The jazz scene in Scotland has been thriving and there are only a few commercial radio stations prepared to give it any coverage.
I hope our new line-up of jazz programmes will create a bit of a stir and Roger has offered to work with our production teams in creating new partnerships and exciting events.
So, a good meeting and after we got the main business out of the way, Roger and I compared notes about the electronic toys we'd bought our children for Christmas. Isn't it awful how kids spend so much time playing video games? I'm going to impose rationing or a time-limit on my children. Otherwise I'll never get the chance to beat my own high score. Hand me that controller, my thumbs are twitching!
