Jason Lyon Music

Author: Jason

  • Jazz London Live

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    If you’re ever in London or thereabouts and feel like a bit of jazz, please check out JazzLondonLive for extensive listings, gig and venue co-ordinates and musician biogs. This site was launched last year to take on the baton from Mary Greig’s venerable bible, Jazz in London (40-odd years in print and never missed a month). JLL is still growing,…

  • 1959 and All That

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    There was a documentary a while ago on 1959 as the year that changed jazz for ever. It focused on Miles’ Kind of Blue, Brubeck’s Time Out, Mingus’ Ah Um and Coleman’s Shape of Jazz to Come. Of course, jazz had pretty much become set as bebop/hard bop, and there was a desire to explore…

  • On Holiday

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    Merry Christmas, Chag Channukah Sammeach, Joyous Kwanzaa and Happy Have a Nice Time Whoever You Are.

  • A Couple of Christmas Crackers

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    These two pieces are instantly recognisable as classic yuletide stuff, but they’re not hymns, carols or ’70s pop hits. They’re similar in feel and have interesting histories that you may not know. PROKOFIEV’S TROIKA In the early ’30s Prokofiev produced a score for a highly influential Soviet film called Lieutenant Kije. It was a brave and…

  • A Backstage Emergency in Fairytale Land

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    .. he Narrator has called the denizens of fairytale land together for urgent talks. He’s not in the best of moods. He casts a weary gaze around the green room and speaks. “Right, I’m told we’ve got a problem on our hands. Tonight’s story is supposed to be the Three Little Pigs, is that right…

  • A Musician’s Guide to Black Tie

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    Jazz musicians usually chafe against the whole idea of dress code, but for some gigs dem’s de rules, pal. Since many musicians don’t really dress, they just add glue to their bathwater and run through a pile of laundry, I thought it might be worth a rundown on how to get black tie right. This…

  • Rachmaninov Had Big Hands

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    Here Igudesman and Joo show how to tackle Rachmaninov’s famous C# minor Prelude if you’re a little digitally ungifted by nature. Rachmaninov was a big guy. He also had Marfan Syndrome, aka hypermobility. He could span an incredible 13th and make unusual stretches in between the fingers. Nevertheless, he generally wrote within standard compass and ability.…

  • The Value of “Huh?”

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    I was recently asked about how to play the second chord in Jobim’s Wave. I don’t think my correspondent would mind me saying that he’d got himself rather tangled up in analysis and choices of diminished chords. Here’s where the most helpful thing I’ve ever encountered comes in – it’s called the “huh?” chord. You…

  • Mr PC

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    Vielen Dank to Tomas, who enjoyed the Beethoven Buddhist Choir and added a question. What kind of a computer do I think a musician needs? This raises two immediate thoughts. First, most musicians don’t tend to have great wadges of money falling out of their trousers. Second, most musicians do tend to go without to…

  • Augmented Sixths or Tritone Subs?

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    I was recently reminded of my dusty school days when someone asked me how jazz uses augmented sixth chords. Oh, I do so love these invitations to give a fag-packet explanation and get myself into trouble… I suppose the simplest answer is that jazz uses augmented sixths all over the place, it just doesn’t think…