Abu Dhabi Classic FM’s popular Dinner Jazz evening programme launches tonight a weekly series of interviews with jazz greats visiting the UAE and the region.
The show’s host Surianah Mahmoud says the interviews will be interspersed throughout the show, with the musicians introducing their songs and talking about the tracks that influenced them.
Mahmoud says the new format has resulted in excitable guests. “They love it,” she says. “I wanted to do something different. They are actually taking part and they are talking about their favourite songs and the experience they felt the first time they heard it.”
The Grammy award-winning jazz pianist Billy Childs, currently performing a residency at the Jazz at Lincoln Center Doha, is the first guest. Cecilia Bertolini and Paul Brown are scheduled for the following weeks. Mahmoud says the interviews will showcase the personalities of guests who prefer to let their music do the talking.
“Let’s take Billy Childs, for example, who will be on [tonight],” she says. “Although he has won Grammys and worked with some of the best artists, he is really humble. The thing that I find talking to people such as Wynton Marsalis and others is that the bigger they are, the more humble they are. People like that are amazing.”
• Dinner Jazz is daily from 7-10pm, on Abu Dhabi Classic (owned by Abu Dhabi Media, which also owns The National), broadcasting on 91.6FM in the capital and 89.7FM in Dubai and the Northern Emirates. For details, visit www.adradio.ae
