I was going to continue on the "Jazz FM" thread, but decided this deserved a new thread, even if I am the only one really interested in it .

The full 500 favourite jazz tracks as voted for online and played over the Easter weekend has now been published. I've input the tracks to a spreadsheet and fully intend to amuse myself doing some analysis and generating lots of pretty charts from it at some point, but it's going to need a bit of research to get hold of the data I need first - should be fun in itself.

As I was inputting the data there were a number of things that jumped out at me - the first was just how frequently Miles Davis featured, this isn't a surprise - if I had to name the most influential jazz musician I think it would have to be Miles, he's been at the forefront of pretty much every post-bop jazz movement. The surprising thing is that the next most frequent artist is ..... Jamie Cullum. I don't have anything against Jamie Cullum, I think he's a good musician and I was lucky enough to see him playing at a small (100ish capacity) venue a couple of years ago as a warm-up gig prior to a Ronnie Scotts stint. I enjoyed the gig - he's not just a good musician, but also a good entertainer and he seemed to be a decent person too. But how on earth has he got 27 tracks in the top 500? To put it in some perspective, after Miles Davis and Jamie Cullum the next most frequent are Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong and John Coltrane. Each and every one an undisputed jazz great. Does Jamie Cullum really deserve to be mingling with such distinguished company?

He's cute?

He's very small.

Anyway, jazz fans are all men with beards in their 50s, surely his cuteness can't sway them that far?

I love Jamie Cullum for a modern twist on jazz/pop BUT I don't think that he should be mixing with the greats when he's only been in the limelight somewhere between 3-5 years!

Re: Jamie Cullum - I suspect it is at least partly to do with the fact that of all the people voting, not all are true in the bone jazz freaks - a lot will be people who have a vague interest and quite like jazzy stuff. People are voting for "that cute lad who plays stuff I can enjoy without necessarily engaging my brain too much" (and no disrespect to Jamie as he seems to be a fine musician - but I doubt most people are analysing their choices that much?) - and are also voting for "the one I've heard of". Betcha there are plenty of people being drawn into jazz by stations like this, and voting in the polls, for whom Miles Davis, Ella, old Satchmo, etc, are merely names they may have vaguely heard of, who they relate to a few famous songs, whereas Jamie Cullum is "that nice chap who was on Parky and whose albums I listen to in the car". His name is out there in the wider world even though he may not truly be one of the great jazzers.

To take a random example, my sister-in-law likes music but generally sticks to what she knows. I would bet good money that she knows "What a Wonderful World" by Satchmo and maybe a couple of Ella Fitzgerald greats, but that's about it, and that she may not even recognise the names of Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, or John Coltrane. But I bet she's heard of Jamie Cullum.

I kind of know that - and I'm not even too upset by it, the danger of the "vote for your favourite" type polls is that you don't necessarily get the truly influential stuff, but that that's easy to listen too. The first entry by Charlie Parker is at no 48 - his steaming bebop playing isn't easy listening, not made any easier by the fact that the recordings are often poor quality, but he's had a massive influence on just about anyone who's played after him. I'm not surprised that Jamie Cullum features, maybe I hadn't realised just how many people had bought his CDs.

I'm currently thinking very positively about theJazz and have really enjoyed a lot of the stuff I've been listening to on it tonight, I just hope that the Jamie Cullum factor doesn't send it in the same direction as the old Jazz FM, now rebranded as Smooth FM.

Ahhhhh I WONDERED where Smooth FM had come from. I agree it'd be a shame if it turned into another, especially as there IS a smoothFM.

Not sure if I know hundreds of Jamie fans, but certainly after being on Parkinson and stuff... he's well known for his brand of smooth jazzy stuff.

As I was inputting the data there were a number of things that jumped out at me - the first was just how frequently Miles Davis featured, this isn't a surprise - if I had to name the most influential jazz musician I think it would have to be Miles, he's been at the forefront of pretty much every post-bop jazz movement. The surprising thing is that the next most frequent artist is ..... Jamie Cullum. I don't have anything against Jamie Cullum, I think he's a good musician and I was lucky enough to see him playing at a small (100ish capacity) venue a couple of years ago as a warm-up gig prior to a Ronnie Scotts stint. I enjoyed the gig - he's not just a good musician, but also a good entertainer and he seemed to be a decent person too. But how on earth has he got 27 tracks in the top 500? To put it in some perspective, after Miles Davis and Jamie Cullum the next most frequent are Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong and John Coltrane. Each and every one an undisputed jazz great. Does Jamie Cullum really deserve to be mingling with such distinguished company?
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I don't think thejazz is going to go the way of Jazz FM - they're getting too many good people on board and have obviously thought it out well. Tonight they had Courtney Pine presenting and playing his choices and a lot of it was quite challenging from a mainstream audience point of view. The other day Jacqui Dankworth was presenting as was Digby Fairweather - in other words the jazz community is getting on board here which is fantastic.

Also, tonight Courtney Pine was announcing jazz local listings which will help increase jazz audiences - it's all to the good. On their website they're saying they're being innundated with emails which I can well believe. I wrote to them as soon as they started and they emailed straight back; the second time I emailed (to say please give us presenters!!!) they took months to reply because they were snowed under with emails by then, largely saying the same thing.

I hope they get somebody like Stuart Nicholson as a presenter sometime becuase he'd play all the Scandinavian stuff which definitely warrants airplay.

They're going to boost their website by early summer - I think it's turning into a fantastic resource for jazzers and budding jazzers alike - yay!!! Even my partner's dropped his cynicism and is admitting it's turning into a good station. We keep a notebook by the radio to jot down names of tracks we like and I've started downloading from Itunes at last - they have SO much jazz on there.

Oh and about Jamie Cullum - totally agree about all the comments about his preponderance in the chart - ridiculous. A couple maybe but 27???!!!??? And so many in the top 100? Nine or 10? 9.5%? That's insane - a lot of what he does can't even strictly be called jazz, although he does have a great voice and he's a good player. But I mean he barely rates himself as a good jazzer - sees himself more as a rocker with a jazz influence which I think is true. All very silly.

He's only made 2 or 3 albums so this is about 60% of his total output. Ahem! Perhaps one or two people just went on and on voting...

I voted for Coleman Hawkins' Body and Soul and was pleased to see it came in at number 16. Yay!