Space Is The Place

As part of our Established 1990 season of programmes, we're set to broadcast a new series of specially commissioned dramas in the run up to Christmas.

Based on five pivotal moments in the lives of some of Jazz FM’s legendary artists, “Space Is The Place” will broadcast each evening in Dinner Jazz with an omnibus edition on Saturday evenings.

The stories will feature moments in the lives of jazz titans Miles Davis, Nina Simone, Louis Armstrong and the man whose album and film ‘Space Is The Place’ lends its name to this series, Sun Ra.

The first series of stories are from the ‘first lady of song’ who launched Jazz FM in 1990 – Ella Fitzgerald. Each set of stories will feature the mysterious time travelling “Jazz Traveller” who will take the listener to key moments in the lives of these artists that make them the legends they became.

Space Is The Place: CATCHUP

ELLA FITZGERALD written by Jeff Young

In this first episode, Jazz Traveller arrives on the streets of Harlem, New York in 1933 and watches a young Ella singing and dancing on the sidewalk. She tells him she’s going to be a dancer in the best nightspot in Yonkers. Full of ambition, she’s surviving by running errands for mobsters and keeping watch for a house full of ladies of the night, warning them when the cops are coming. As a young teen, she’s pulled in by the authorities and sent to brutal reform school. She escapes and has her first break singing at a talent night at the Apollo Theatre in 1934 - where the crowd love her. She starts singing and touring with Chick Webb and his orchestra. She is devasted by his death just three years later. Always looking for love, she marries her second husband, the bass-player Ray Brown and adopts her sister’s son Ray Junior. She sings with Dizzy Gillespie and then joins Norman Granz JATP - Jazz at the Philharmonic. JATP were radical in their determination to break down racial barriers by touring in parts of America where they certainly weren’t welcome. Ella’s voice was universally loved; even the southern cops who arrested her asked for her autograph. She tours all over the world with JATP but never reconciles her love of performing with her absence in Ray Junior’s life.

Jazz Traveller is there, at all these significant moments, including Ella’s famous improvisation with the vocals for Mack the Knife in Berlin in 1960. Thousands lined the streets for her funeral procession in 1996. Jazz Traveller chooses ‘I Want Something To Live For’ as her epitaph, suggesting that for once, in this song, Ella’s ‘secret soul is revealed inside her voice.’

LOUIS ARMSTRONG written by Fraser Ayres

Our second drama in our series features Louis Armstrong, jazz icon of American history and 20th century popular culture.

The story of Louis Armstrong begins in New Orleans, 1912. Delivering coal and scrap as a boy, Louis’ adoptive family the Kornegays, decide to invest in him, buying him a beaten up $5 tin horn. His playing improves and thing are looking up for Louis, until New Year’s Eve when he fires blank rounds into the air in celebration of the coming year. Immediately arrested, he is confined indefinitely to the ‘Colored Waifs Home for Boys’. Things look very bleak indeed for young Louis but the school’s music teacher, Peter Davis, nurtures Louis’ evident talent, bolstering his confidence until he becomes leader of the school band. Touring festivals, parties and parades across New Orleans, Louis’ talent shines. By 1923 Louis is living his dream, playing with his idol Joe Oliver. Pushed relentlessly by friend, pianist and second wife Lillian Hardin, Louis’ career reaches the stratospheric fame we recognise today. But with fame, comes trouble. Trapped between rival mobs and manipulative managers, he flees to Europe, where he tours for several years. Returning to the USA, for a period he becomes part of the ‘Jazz Ambassadors’ programme. But disillusioned with segregated life in the USA, he withdraws his support for the US government and cancels tours. He defiantly played in East Germany in 1965. He only returns to New Orleans, when white and black musicians can play together after the 1965 Civil Rights Act is passed. He has a huge international hit with 'What A Wonderful World' - one of his favourite songs.

MILES DAVIS written by Fraser Ayres

Our third episode in the series sees Jazz Traveller taking us back in time to Meet Miles Davis as a boy, who has a voracious appetite for finding music, even in the furious rows between his parents. We then join Miles In Paris, at the International Jazz Festival in 1949, where meets Juliet Greco for the first time, falling instantly in love. Returning to the USA, Miles is down and out on the streets, battling his drug addiction, but he is rediscovered after a performance at Newport Jazz Festival in 1955. Following this, we get a glimmer of Miles hanging out with Jimi Hendrix, where they plan to form a small band, as well as Quincy Jones as they step off stage after a famous performance live at Montreux Jazz Festival.

NINA SIMONE written by Jeff Young

Nina Simone began life as Eunice Waymon, raised in North Carolina by Methodist preacher parents. Her mother was a cleaner, her father a handyman and barber. She was the sixth of eight children. Her musical talent was evident very early on when she began playing in her parents’ church. Two white women between them ensured she was classically trained and she prepared for music school. Rejection from Curtis haunted her all her life. She scraped a living as a music teacher and then discovered she could earn a lot more by playing in bars. Dressed in a chiffon gown, she goes for a job in the Midtown Bar and Grill in Atlantic City and is told to play and sing. She changes her name there and then: Nina Simone is born.

In 1961, Nina falls for Andy: a New York police detective. He’s a man with a presence, with a gun and a jealous temper. Nina endures years of domestic violence with him. They have a daughter. Andy becomes her manager and organises tours that put her on the map. She finally plays Carnegie Hall as a singer, not as a classical pianist. She becomes an activist during the civil rights movement of the 1960s. She marches with Dr King, is friends with Stokely Carmichael and becomes close to playwright Lorraine Hansbury. She responds to the killing of black people and children in the South with music. She writes 'Mississippi Goddam', 'Young, Gifted and Black' and 'I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free'. Later describing the 1960s as the decade of death, she leaves America for Liberia: a period she describes as the happiest three years of her life. She struggles with mental illness for the rest of her life. In the late 1980s, Nina has a surprise hit with 'My Baby Just Cares For Me', plucked by an ad man from one of her first recording sessions. She hates it but it brings a new young audience to her and she sues, managing to get a generous re-use fee. Her final years are spent in the south of France. She cites Frank Sinatra and Maria Callas as ‘touched with divine genius, the pair of them.’ Bach remains her favourite. On her deathbed, aged 70, she is awarded an honorary doctorate from Curtis Institute of Music.

SUN RA written by Frazer Ayres

We finish where we began, with our guide and narrator for the series ‘Jazz Traveller’, taking us with to the Bluecoat in Liverpool to see Sun Ra and his Arkestra lift the roof with their extra-terrestrial jazz. It’s from this point that he sets out to time-travel through the history of jazz, placing himself at key moments in the lives of Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, Nina Simone and now Sun Ra himself.

Sun Ra was one of the most prolific recording artists of the 20th century. He recorded over a 1000 songs on 100 albums, widely touring his experimental free-form jazz fusion with his ever-evolving Arkestra. His theatrical performances with his huge band, all costumed up as audionauts from out of space, were legendry. Never a mainstream success, he was by any reckoning widely influential and now considered a pioneer of ‘Afrofuturism’.

In this series, our Jazz Traveller tries to tell the life-story of Sun Ra in a chronological way but is challenged at every turn. He tells us Sun Ra was born in 1914 in Birmingham, Alabama, one of the most segregated cities in the world. But Sun Ra assures him he’s from Saturn, and any attempt to pin him down to earthly time and place is wasted. Sun Ra built a band around him - the Arkestra - of highly accomplished musicians. A collective, they all lived together, played together and toured together. They shared a similar philosophy as well as remarkable musical talent. Their avant-garde freeform style referenced the history of jazz and many other musical styles. The Arkestra continued to change and evolve, claiming ‘new vibrations’ took them in new directions. They still tour and play today, many years after Sun Ra’s death.

Confused and full of questions, Jazz Traveller finally releases his convergent thinking just enough to accompany Sun Ra into space and back. He starts to understand a little more about Sun Ra’s mind-expanding philosophy and his life’s dedication to a journey towards consciousness. By the end of our series, Jazz Traveller really hears and feels the music from Sun Ra and his Arkestra. He thinks back to Ella, Louis, Miles and Nina and he realises he is listening to jazz and it’s all one song: the song of the soul.

Space Is The Place: CAST & PRODUCTION

The series is produced by Manchester based Sparklab.

Cast: Kevin Harvey, Peter Bankolé, Lloyd Thomas, Elexi Walker, Madeline Appiah, Wil Johnson, Beru Tessema, Lloyd Thomas, David Carr and George Eggay

Director/Producer: Melanie Harris

Production assistants: Eleanor Mein & Louis Blatherwick

Research: Beena Khetani

Sound design by Eloise Whitmore & Paul Cargill

The series is supported by the Audio Content Fund.

• space is the place
• established 1990