BBC Music Jazz teams up with Jazz FM for 96 ‘solid’ hours of broadcasting with the return of BBC’s digital pop-up station.
Although the digital music station is only temporary, listeners can expect to hear a comprehensive collection of Jazz for five days straight. That’s 24 hours a day, non-stop.
Presenters for the Jazzathon include Stewart Lee, Will Young, Jamie Cullum, Jools Holland, Craig Charles, Claire Martin and Moira Stuart.
Other exclusive features include live concerts from EFG London Jazz Festival in partnership with BBC Radio 3, which are to be simulcast on the digital pop-up station, and a whopping countdown of the top 50 Jazz albums of all time from BBC Radio 3’s own Geoffrey Smith alongside Jazz FM’s Helen Mayhew.
The announcement came at the launch of the EFG London Jazz Festival this year that BBC Music Jazz would be returning from 10-14 November 2016 for five days of broadcasting.
The temporary station initially launched last year, running for 41 hours over four days. This year, however, the pop-up has larger ambitions, with an aforementioned 96 hours of content.
Controller of BBC Radio 3, Alan Davey says, “As a station Radio 3 has an illustrious history of broadcasting jazz and connecting audiences with pioneering music and culture, as well as supporting new talent and broadcasting from major festivals like EFG London Jazz Festival. What better way to help celebrate our 70th anniversary than to come together once again with our sister BBC radio stations and Jazz FM to bring an astonishing amount of new and archive content to jazz obsessives, the uninitiated and everyone in between.”
The collaboration sees public service and commercial broadcaster uniting to showcase a massive variety of Jazz music, while featuring ‘all-star’ presenters and performers. Listeners will be treated to archive rarities as well as bespoke content from BBC Radio 2, 3, 4, 6 Music, BBC Radio Scotland and Jamm FM.
Leading BBC radio highlights will feature over 25 hours of jazz documentary programming, with figures such as Miles Davis and Louis Armstrong in the spotlight.
For further programming information, including content from Jazz FM and BBC Radio 2 & 3, visit the original press release here.