The Big weekend has arrived

As I write we are just three or so hours away from the monster smooth jazz line-up at Pizza Express Jazz Club in London.

Dave Koz, Nick Colionne and Brian Simpson will take the stage for what promises to be a series of shows to remember.

I'll hopefully have some footage to share on Youtube and Facebook, and all three guys are going to be coming on the live show this Sunday for a chat too, so make a date for Sunday and be at the:

Sky.fm Smooth Jazz Live Show

They will be taking questions via Facebook chat so be sure to look in on Sunday at 5pm GMT, 9am Pacific and 12 Noon Eastern.

Here's the Live performance

In case you missed it yesterday, here's a clip of Oli playing live on the show. We captured it with an HD camera, so if you follow the link below and click the "HD" button below you can really appreciate it in all its glory.

Oli Silk - The Limit's The Sky

Oli Silk live in the studio today

Oli will be jetting off to the USA for a few months soon, so today he's popping in for a chat on the live show. He'll be answering listeners (and viewers) questions and playing a song or two live as well, so be there or be square. 5pm UK, Midday Eastern and 9am Pacific.

www.sky.fm/liveshow

One more encore from Pizza Express in January

Hunting through the miles of video files yesterday I found one last clean cut from the Sky.fm Smooth Jazz Week back in January.

Not only that, but I finally got my head around the various codecs, formats, resolutions, bitrates and heaven knows what else required to render an HD version of this particular song, which just happens to be a recent smooth jazz number one from Oli Silk, featuring Jaared on tenor sax, so be sure to click the little button on the video play/time bar that says "HD" to get the full experience. You could almost be there.

So here it is:

Oli Silk - Chill Or Be Chilled

Photos from our shows

For those that missed them, here are links to photos taken at the Sky.fm Smooth Jazz gigs in London.

These photo collections are stored on facebook, but you don't have to be a facebook member to view them, so here they are:

Smooth Jazz Week (Jaared, Oli Silk, Rocco Ventrella, Renato Falaschi, Greg Grainger, Frank Felix)

Marc Antoine (with Oli Silk, Greg Grainger, Frank Felix, Joe Becket)

I'll hopefully have some more to add to these in May when Dave Koz, Brian Simpson & Nick Colionne come to town.

And don't forget, to see what shows are coming up, visit

Sky.fm Smooth Jazz Events

Live Tracks on the Live Show

A chance to preview what the audience at Pizza Express Jazz club will be experiencing in May when Koz, Simpson & Colionne come to London.

Brian Simpson has kindly let me have a couple of live sound recordings of him in action to play on the live show tomorrow.

They sound great, so make a date for the show tomorrow. 12 noon US EST, 9AM Pacific, 5PM GMT.

Sky.fm Smooth Jazz Live show

The Paul Hardcastle Interview

For all those who missed it, here's the visit from the Jazzmaster.

Paul Hardcastle on the live show this Sunday

This Sunday the Sky.fm Smooth Jazz Live Show has a special guest in the studio.

Paul Hardcastle will be coming in for a chat. He's also bringing his forthcoming single "The Circle" along too.

Don't miss it.

Sky.fm Smooth Jazz Live Show. All audio feeds can be found here.

The show airs at 12 noon US EST, 9AM US Pacific and 5pm in the UK.

P.S. You REALLY don't want to miss this one!

More Marc Antoine Video Footage

OK as the title suggests, here's some more footage from Marc Antoine's visit in February.

Rather than embed the video's on the page I'll just link to them as often when there's a higher quality version available the embedded video clips don't portray them.

First a song for the real jazz heads out there. Marc did a version of Chick Corea's "Spain" which was a great tribute. Oli Silk was particularly good on Keyboards too. Here you go:

Marc Antoine - Spain

And for the benefit of those who missed it, Marc was present for the entire live show on the Sunday preceding the gigs at Pizza Express. Here it is:

Marc Antoine on the Jimi King Show

Dave Koz, Nick Colionne & Brian Simpson at Pizza Express Jazz Club

OK the big one is now on sale. Not available on the Pizza Express website yet. Telephone bookings only. 020 7734 3220.

I'd suggest that you don't wait for the website, if you want to be sure of a seat make the call.

Marc Antoine plays Hi-Lo Split

If you weren't able to make it to Pizza Express Jazz Club last week then this is the next best thing to being there. A video of Marc playing Hi-Lo Split.

Enjoy! There are a few more cuts to come...

Marc Antoine in the studio tomorrow

Tomorrow's live show will have Marc Antoine as a guest in the studio.

Marc is in London to play four nights at the Pizza Express Jazz Club in Dean Street, W1. Monday 23rd to Thursday 26th February.

Also playing at Pizza Express with Marc will be Oli Silk on keyboards, Greg Grainger from Acoustic Alchemy on drums and Frank Felix on bass.

The Thursday show is sold out. At the time of writing there still some seats available for the Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday shows.

Videos from Sky.fm Smooth Jazz Week

Whether you were there or not, you can relive the experience of the first ever Sky.fm Smooth Jazz Week at the Pizza Express Jazz Club any time you like by watching the selection of videos featured below.

If you click the arrows either side of the main frame or the little widget next to the play button on the bottom bar you'll see that there are 8 videos in all, which is around three quarters of an hour of footage, so pour yourself something appropriate, turn up the sound and have a blast.

Marc Antoine at Pizza Express

Hot on the heels of the Sky.fm Smooth Jazz Week (which was an absolute blast by the way), I'm pleased to announce that Sky.fm is presenting another series of shows in February at the famous Pizza Express Jazz Club in London's West End starring the one and only Marc Antoine.

It will be the first time that Marc has played in the UK for more than 5 years so don't delay reserving your seat if you don't want to miss him as there are only 4 shows.

The dates are Monday 23rd February - Thursday 26 February and Pizza Express are taking bookings here:


Pizza Express Jazz Club Bookings

You can also reserve seats over the phone on 020 7734 3220.

Marc will be accompanied by Oli Silk on keyboards, Frank Felix on bass and Greg Grainger from Acoustic Alchemy on drums.

The Future of Car Radio

Well it's obviously going to take a while but it looks like the future of car radio is going to begin a transformation this year. It was always going to happen of course but Blaupunkt are about to launch an in-car Internet radio receiver, that will mean that you will no longer be restricted by geographic location when it comes to your radio listening choice.

The device will rely on your mobile phone and bluetooth to receive the stations and will therefore be subject to your mobile phone network supplying the streaming facility. Of course in the USA this is already happening with some people and networks, although you do have to have to be reasonably savvy in the ways of technology to make it happen, but the forthcoming Blaupunkt units (and those that will ultimately follow) will streamline the process and make it a bit easier to do. At the moment it can be a little clunky to set it all up.

Of course in the UK only millionaires can currently dream of such things as the mobile companies rob us blind with call charge packages and the financial implications of choosing to listen to all of your in-car entertainment over the Internet don't bear thinking about, but obviously that will change... eventually.

Interesting times ahead then. The Blaupunkt systems will operate in conjunction with miRoamer, who, you'll be pleased to know already list Sky.fm Smooth Jazz amongst their featured stations (and all the other Sky channels for that matter).

More details on the Wired Blog, or if you Google "Blaupunkt Internet Radio" you should find plenty of dialogue about the whole thing.

Revised Show Times for Sky.fm Smooth Jazz Week

Pizza Express Jazz Club have changed some of their opening/show times this year. This mainly affects the weekday shows but below is a list of all of the times of our shows on the Sky.fm Smooth Jazz week.

Wednesday 21 Jan Doors 7.00pm, Show 8.30pm
Thursday 22 Jan Doors 7.00pm, Show 8.30pm
Friday 23 Jan Early Doors 6.00pm, Show 7.30pm
Friday 23 Jan Late Doors 10.00pm, Show 10.30pm
Saturday 24 Jan Early Doors 6.00pm, Show 7.30pm
Saturday 24 Jan Late Doors 10.00pm, Show 10.30pm
Sunday 25 Jan Doors 6.30, Show 8.00pm

If you haven't booked a table yet, don't forget that you can now do so online:

Pizza Express Jazz Club

You can also book over the phone on 020 7734 3220 (0044 20 7734 3220).

Tickets are selling well so don't delay. To everybody who has already booked, many thanks for supporting the first Sky.fm Smooth Jazz event at Pizza Express.

It's support like that which means that we can bring more smooth jazz artists to the UK.

Looking forward to meeting lots of friendly faces in what is now less than two weeks away!

Best wishes,

Jimi King

Oli Silk's Christmas Visit

For anybody that missed it, here's the video of the Sky.fm Smooth Jazz live show on 14th December 2008, featuring Oli Silk.

The Best of 2008

Ok here's my list of the top smooth jazz tracks from the year gone by. As always I stress that this is MY list, and not compiled from any charts, sales or the suchlike. Feel free to disregard and/or disagree with it.

1. Kim Waters – Distant Lover
2. Jessy J – Tequila Moon
3. Tim Bowman – Soul Dream
4. Michael Lington – Chuva
5. Fourplay – The Whistler
6. Streetwize – Mary Jane (All Night Long)
7. Vibes Alive – After Hours
8. Kenny G – Besame Mucho
9. Jaared – Piccadilly Circus
10. Oli Silk – Chill Or Be Chilled
11. Jessy J – Poetry Man
12. The Sax Pack – The Sax Pack
13. Joyce Cooling – Come And Get It
14. Bob Baldwin – Third Wind
15. Michael Lington – You & I
16. Dave Koz – Life In The Fast Lane
17. Earl Klugh – Sleepy Head
18. Oli Silk – De-Stress Signal
19. Paul Hardcastle – Dancing Lights
20. Andre Delano – More Than Words Can Say
21. Jaared - Cruising The Strip
22. Nate Harasim – Love’s Taken Over
23. Warren Hill – La Dolce Vita
24. Paul Hardcastle – Return Of The Rainman
25. Gerald Albright – Cheaper To Keep Her

Surprise Guest Renato Falaschi

Listeners and Viewers of the Sunday live show were treated to a surprise visit from Renato Falaschi today.

It was a special treat as he played live in the studio to a backing track he'd let me have earlier in the week. The song has no name as yet, but as you can see and hear if you click below, it's coming along nicely.



Renato is part of our line up for the Sky.fm Smooth Jazz Week in January at the Pizza Express Jazz Club in London.

Sky.fm Smooth Jazz Week

Hey, we've done it. The world's biggest smooth jazz station is putting on some gigs! The first ones are in London, England with 7 shows over 5 nights at the famous Pizza Express Jazz Club in London's Soho.

Starring Jaared, Oli Silk, Rocco Ventrella & Renato Falaschi. Four artists, One stage. The dates are January 21st through to January 25th.

These guys will be backed by Bruce Nazarian (guitar), Frank Felix (bass) and Greg Grainger (drums), so Acoustic Alchemy fans will doubtless want to come too!

It's the biggest smooth jazz event in the UK for several years and you can reserve seats NOW on the Pizza Express Jazz Club Website, so don't miss out. Places are going fast. You can also reserve seats on the phone. call Pizza Express on 020 7734 3220 (outside the UK dial 0044 20 7734 3220).

Pizza Express Jazz Club is at 10 Dean Street, London, W1D 3RW.

Peter White Interview now available

It seems like quite a few people missed Peter White's visit to the live show studio last week, so if you are one of those who were not present then worry no more, here it is. The frame rate is a little jumpy unfortunatley, but the audio is great so enjoy!

Update on the live show today

Sorry to report that Jaared will be unable to attend the live show today.

Peter White is still coming though, so be sure to join us. We'll be using a different camera angle too, which might come as a surprise to regular viewers. The visit by Oli Silk a few weeks back highlighted the fact that our current camera has such a wide angle view that in its regular position it tends to give the guest a somewhat "leprechaun" like quality.

So for the duration of the show today the view will be very much "face on".

Yeah I know, scary thought.

Peter White & Jaared on the Live Show this Week

Make a date in your diary for this Sunday and the live show as there'll be two guests in the studio because both Peter White and Jarred will be popping in for a chat.

So please come to the party, and if you are a member of Facebook, then make sure that you're friends with Sky Smooth Jazz, then you can use the Facebook chat facility to send messages straight through to the guys in the studio.

The show is at 12 noon US EST, 9AM Pacific and 5PM GMT

Some New Sky.fm Smooth Jazz Wallpaper

More doodling downtime in the office a couple of weeks back resulted in a new slice of wallpaper which I'd thought I'd share with Sky Smooth Jazz fans.

It features a sort of 3d version of the Sky logo on a very funky blue background and should fit all desktops up to 1400 pixels wide. Just be sure to set it to "center" rather than "stretch" when you set it up otherwise it will probably appear squashed up.

Click on the thumbnail below to go to the full size version (note that Firefox users will probably have to click once more on the bigger one as FF tends to auto reduce things to fit browser windows these days).

Oli Silk played live in the studio

Oli Silk paid another visit to the Sunday Live Show today and brought along some tracks from his forthcoming CD "The Limit's the Sky". He also played along live to "Deuces Wild" too. Here's how it went.

The Smooth Jazz 'Hot' Parade

I thought it would be a good way of keeping you up to date on what's hot amongst the recent stuff to hit the playlist on Sky.fm Smooth Jazz. So here are the current top ten, as decreed by me and our lovely listeners, both on the forums and on the live Sunday show. This list has nothing to do with sales. It's all to do with feedback and what basically gives us a warm fuzzy feeling inside.

I can't say when the list will be updated, but here's the selection that's currently special around the end of August.

1. Gerald Albright - I Stand Accused
2. Vibes Alive - After Hours
3. Paul Hardcastle - Marimba
4. Nate Harasim - Loves Taken Over
5. Michael Lington - You & I
6. Tim Bowman - Sweet Sundays
7. Oli Silk - Chill or Be Chilled (Remix)
8. Dave Koz - Life In The Fast Lane
9. Andre Delano - More Than Words Can Say
10. Dave Stewart/Candy Dulfer - Lily Was Here

We now have a group on Facebook

There's now a Sky.fm Smooth Jazz Live Show Group at Facebook.com. You can find it here:

Sky.fm Smooth Jazz Live Show Facebook Group

We also have a facebook identity in the name of "Sky Smooth Jazz". You can hopefully use this as another way of sending messages to the studio during the live show with the Facebook chat facility. To be able to interact in this way you need to add Sky Smooth Jazz to your friends here:

Sky Smooth Jazz

Of course you can also chat with other mutual friends at the same time as well.

New Live Show Special Edition Mugs

A few of our regulars asked about the possibility of special "Sunday live show" mugs a while back. Some people also expressed a desire for some Caesar mugs too.

So I guess these ought to make everybody happy! The view shows them front and back.

Get them here

New Live show vid on Youtube

If you missed it you'll be pleased to know that Jaared's visit to the studio for the live show a couple of weeks back is now up and running on Youtube. Link follows.

Jaared on Sky.fm Smooth Jazz

Peter White in The UK

We don't get many smooth jazz artists that make it across the Atlantic to the UK, but Peter White makes it back to his homeland at least once a year and he always brings Jaared along on Sax too. So for the benefit of anyone here in the UK who doesn't already know, they'll both be here as from April 28th with several nights at the Pizza Express Jazz Club in London's Soho, plus a couple of extra dates at The Stables in Milton Keynes and 1 Club in Ascot. PW will also have his brother Danny (of Matt Bianco) on keyboards.

I'll be attending the Pizza Express gig on Thursday May 1st and look forward to meeting any Sky.fm Smooth Jazz listeners who can make it along. Links to book tickets are below:

Pizza Express Jazz Club
The Stables
1 Club