A major new ten-part documentary series Jazz Junctions, presented by renowned UK trumpeter Guy Barker, will be aired this autumn on BBC Radio Two. Launched on 6 October at 10pm, each hour-long weekly programme will explore jazz’s rich and varied 100-year history through archive clips and new interviews from many of today’s living legends, including McCoy Tyner, Wayne Shorter, Dave Brubeck, Roy Haynes, Jimmy Cobb and Ron Carter.

The series has been written by radio presenter Russell Davies with Jazzwise’s Brian Priestley and jazz writer Dave Gelly and traces not just the music’s evolution but sets it within the ever-changing social and cultural context that also exerted a huge influence on its evolution.

Each episode will focus on different aspects of the music’s development and highlight its defining moments and the larger-than-life characters that reshaped the music through innovation and imagination. Talking about the programme Guy Barker says: “As a musician, I'm really impressed with the range of talent showcased in this series and very much look forward to introducing what to me is a definitive jazz hall of fame.”

This is encouraging news from Radio Two, a station that has had a patchy history of presenting jazz in recent years, and comes at a time when Jamie Cullum’s weekly show has benefited from new live sessions recorded by Soweto Kinch, Robert Mitchell, and Marshall Allen.