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The Music Show

ABC Australia
The Music Show
Latest episode

393 episodes

  • The Music Show

    John Coltrane

    25/09/2026 | 54 mins.
    In celebration of John Coltrane's centenary this week, we trace the style and influence of one of jazz's greatest musicians, composers, and collaborators. 
    We’ll hear a wide range of voices from the Music Show archive: jazz legends like McCoy Tyner, Wayne Shorter, and Gary Bartz, who played with him; artists like Branford Marsalis, Kurt Elling, Dave Liebman, Phil Slater, Andy Sugg and Lakecia Benjamin who were inspired by him; and John Scheinfeld, director of the documentary Chasing Trane.
    Music heard in the show:
    Title: A Love Supreme: AcknowledgementArtist: John ColtraneComposer: Coltrane, JohnAlbum: A Love SupremeLabel: Impulse!
    Title: My Favourite ThingsArtist: John ColtraneComposer: Hammerstein, Oscar; Rodgers, RichardAlbum: My Favourite ThingsLabel: Atlantic
    Title: Mr. KnightArtist: John ColtraneComposer: Coltrane, JohnAlbum: Coltrane Plays the BluesLabel: Atlantic
    Title: AlabamaArtist: John ColtraneComposer: Coltrane, JohnAlbum: Live at BirdlandLabel: Impulse!
    Title: A Love Supreme: PsalmArtist: John ColtraneComposer: Coltrane, JohnAlbum: A Love SupremeLabel: Impulse!
    Title: Bye Bye BlackbirdArtist: Miles Davis Composer: Dixon, Mort; Henderson, RayAlbum: ‘Round About MidnightLabel: Columbia
    Title: Greensleeves (Alternate take)Artist: John ColtraneComposer: trad.Album: Africa/Brass Sessions Vol. 2Label: Impulse!
    Title: My One and Only LoveArtist: John Coltrane, Johnny HartmanComposer: Wood, Guy; Mellin, RobertAlbum: John Coltrane and Johnny HartmanLabel: Impulse!
    Title: NaimaArtist: John ColtraneComposer: Coltrane, JohnAlbum: Live at the Village Vanguard Again!Label: Impulse!
    Title: SerenityArtist: John ColtraneComposer: Coltrane, JohnAlbum: MeditationsLabel: Impulse
    Title: Ogunde Artist: John ColtraneComposer: Coltrane, JohnAlbum: The Olatunji Concert: The Last Live RecordingLabel: Impulse!
    The Music Show is made on Gadigal, Gundungurra, and Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Country Country
    Technical production by Tegan Nicholls
  • The Music Show

    Takuya Nakamura's jazz-jungle fusion & a new book of letters between composer Larry Sitsky and Gwen Harwood

    25/09/2026 | 54 mins.
    Some might think that jazz and electronic music don't have much in common, but Japanese DJ and trumpeter Takuya Nakamura has proven all that wrong. Growing up in 1980s Tokyo, he moved to the United States in 1990 to study under the legendary jazz composer George Russell, and went on to bring this expertise to the New York jungle electronic scene. He now performs live DJ sets of jungle, trip hop, dub, and all sorts of experimental electronic music with trumpet in hand.
    Larry Sitsky may be one of Australia's most important living composers, and he's certainly the most commissioned. One of his most important creative relationships over his long career was with poet Gwen Harwood, who wrote many of the libretti for his operas. A new book filled with the substantial thirty-year correspondence between the two has just been released. Ann-Marie Priest is a longtime scholar of Gwen Harwood's work, and is the editor of the book, Fiery Tales: The Correspondence of Gwen Harwood and Larry Sitsky
    Takuya Nakamura is performing as part of Move My Way festival, on October 3 in Eora Sydney, and October 4 in Naarm Melbourne. His forthcoming album -- Shape The Future is out November 12.
    Fiery Tales: The Correspondence of Gwen Harwood and Larry Sitsky is out now via Monash University Publishing.
    Music heard in this program:
    Title: Jungle JungleArtist: Takuya NakamuraComposer: Takuya NakamuraAlbum: Mysteries of the Cosmos
    Title: The Banks of the Moldau, Act1 Sc3Artist: Raymond Myers (Rabbi Judah Loew), The Australian Opera Chorus, Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra, Christopher Lyndon Gee (cond.), Barrie Kosky (dir.)Composer: Larry Sitsky, Gwen Harwood (libretto)Album: The GolemLabel: ABC Classics
    Title: EpilogueArtist: Gerald English (tenor) as Lenz, Isabel Veale (soprano), Lyall Beven (baritone), James Christiansen (baritone), Marilyn Richardson (soprano), The Corinthian Singers, Adelaide Symphony OrchestraComposer: Larry Sitsky, Gwen Harwood (libretto)Album: LenzLabel: ABC Classics
    Title: Broken Jazz feat. Tim ReaperArtist: Takuya NakamuraComposer: Takuya NakamuraAlbum: Shape the Future
    Title: Giant StepsArtist: John Coltrane (tenor sax), Tommy Flanagan (piano), Wynton Kelly (piano), Art Taylor (drums), Paul CHambers (bass), Jimmy Cobb (drums)Composer: John ColtraneAlbum: Giant StepsLabel: Atlantic 1311
    The Music Show is made on Gadigal, Gundungurra, and Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Country 
    Technical production by Tegan Nicholls
  • The Music Show

    Four hundred years of family singing: Bob Copper

    18/09/2026 | 54 mins.
    For hundreds of years, the Copper family have sung for their own pleasure, and for the pleasure of the people of Rottingdean, the East Sussex village where the family have been living since at least the 1500s. Singing together in pubs and houses, the BBC first recorded them in 1951, and they've gone on to become stars, particularly in the United States, where they toured extensively. 
    Andy went to East Sussex to sit down with Bob Copper, the paterfamilias of the family, in 2003 when Copper was 88 years old. In 32 years of presenting The Music Show, this might be his favourite ever conversation. Enjoy listening to this wide-ranging and philosophical conversation about an unbroken line of family singers and the music of the English chalk coast.
    Music heard in the program:
    Title: The Claudy Banks; Come Write me down, Ye Powers of love Artist: The Copper Family (Bob & Jim)Composer: Trad.Album: Come Write Me Down: The Copper Family of RottingdeanLabel: Topic 
    In the interview, Bob sings parts of The Birds in the Spring, and The Threshing Song, both trads.
    Title: My Favourite ThingsArtist: John ColtraneComposers: Rodgers, Richard; Hammerstein, OscarAlbum: CMy Favourite ThingsLabel: Atlantic
    This program was originally produced by Penny Lomax and Maureen Cooney. Ce Benedict did a tiny bit of work on this version.
    Technical production by Harvey O’Sullivan
  • The Music Show

    Bryce Dessner's Trembling Earth & Bob Scott's enormous radio

    18/09/2026 | 54 mins.
    Drawing references to Kerouac, Munch, and Hildegard of Bingen, Bryce Dessner's music builds on a rich tradition of art that extends far beyond music. The classical composer (and guitarist for The National) is presenting the Australian premiere of his cello concerto, Trembling Earth, with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and talks to Andy about his influences, NY's music scene, and his new opera.
    In a new sound installation called The Enormous Radio, Bob Scott and Roslyn Oades are tuning a huge room of old radios in to the sounds of the natural world. Frogs, dingoes, flies, and goats take on a ghostly tone, as field recordings are reshaped into something almost unrecognisable.
    The Sydney Symphony Orchestra performance of Trembling Earth is on the 19th and 20th of September. And Bryce Dessner: A Portrait in Music is heading to Sydney and Melbourne.
    The Enormous Radio is on as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival from Sept 30.
    Music heard in this program:
    Title: Pond LifeArtist: Bob Scott & Roslyn OadesComposer: Bob Scott & Roslyn OadesAlbum: Sound installation
    Title: St. Carolyn By The SeaArtist: Bryce Dessner, Aaron Dessner, Copenhagen Philharmonic OrchestraComposer: Bryce DessnerAlbum: St. Carolyn By The SeaLabel: Deutsche Grammophon
    Title: Song for Ainola Artist: Anastasia KobekinaComposer: Bryce DessnerAlbum: Bryce Dessner - SolosLabel: Sony
    Title: Garcia CounterpointArtist: Bryce DessnerComposer: Bryce DessnerAlbum: Day Of The DeadLabel: 4AD
    Title: DingoesArtist: Bob Scott & Roslyn OadesComposer: Bob Scott & Roslyn OadesAlbum: Sound installation
    Title: Jane SheldonArtist: flowermuscleComposer: Jane Sheldon & Bob ScottAlbum: flowermuscleLabel: Independent release
    The Music Show is made on Gadigal, Gundungurra, and Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Country Country
    Technical production by Harvey O'Sullivan
  • The Music Show

    Benjamin Clementine isn't a jazz musician

    12/09/2026 | 54 mins.
    To mark Andy’s departure from the show at the end of this year, we’re bringing you some of his favourite conversations from 32 years on air. This week, we’ll hear the American pianist, composer and teacher Seymour Bernstein in a conversation from 2015. Bernstein died earlier this year, just before his 100th birthday, and in that long life he passed on a huge amount of wisdom about music, from how to play Beethoven to helping Ethan Hawke overcome stage fright. 
    Benjamin Clementine, who is an amazing musician, says he’s not an amazing musician. He’s a British Ghanaian singer, pianist, songwriter, and creative sponge: one of those artists who soaks up so many influences it leads to a totally unique sound which defies categorisation. He’s about to tour Australia and he tells Andy how his songs start as poems, his influences, and his sanguine attitude towards categorisation. 
    Benjamin Clementine tour dates:
    Adelaide 15 OctoberMelbourne International Jazz Festival 20 OctoberSydney 21 OctoberPerth 24 October
    Music heard in the show:
    Title: NemesisArtist: Benjamin ClementineComposer: Clementine, BenjaminAlbum: At Least For NowLabel: Virgin EMI
    Title: Gottes zeit is Die Allerbeste Zeit, BMV 106: Prelude [Actus Tragicus]Artist: Seymour BernsteinComposer: Bach, Johann SebastianAlbum: Seymour: An Introduction (Soundtrack)Label: Varese Sarabande 
    Title: Intermezzo in A major, Op.118 No.2: excerptArtist: Seymour BernsteinComposer: Brahms, JohannesAlbum: Seymour: An Introduction (Soundtrack)Label: Varese Sarabande 
    Title: GethukArtist: The Jawa Pitu BandComposer: The Jawa Pitu BandAlbum: KapindhoLabel: Independent
    Title: Pizza MindArtist: Benjamin ClementineComposer: Clementine, BenjaminAlbum: SingleLabel: Preserve Artists
    Title: CornerstoneArtist: Benjamin ClementineComposer: Clementine, BenjaminAlbum: At Least For NowLabel: Virgin EMI
    Title: Pizza MindArtist: Benjamin ClementineComposer: Clementine, BenjaminAlbum: SingleLabel: Preserve Artists
    Title: You’re the VoiceArtist: John FarnhamComposer: Thompson, Chris; Ryder, Maggie; Qunta, Andy; Reid, KeithAlbum: Whispering JackLabel: Wheatley
    The Music Show is produced on Gadigal, Gundungurra, and Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Country
    Technical production by Antonia Gauci
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About The Music Show
All kinds of music and all kinds of musicians in conversation with Andrew Ford.
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