Veteran broadcaster Geoffrey Smith is to step down from presenting Jazz Record Requests, the long running Radio 3 Saturday afternoon listeners’ request show, which he has presented since 1991. Alyn Shipton, who presents Jazz Library until next month when that show is to be axed, takes the Michigan-born Smith’s place with a plan to draw in a broader, and slightly younger listenership to the venerable JRR, Radio 3’s most listened-to jazz show.

Smith, the son of a pianist, who has written a book on the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan and is a biographer of Stéphane Grappelli, recently wrote a lengthy guide to jazz for BBC Music Magazine. Smith is believed to be about to begin a new show on Radio 3 called Geoffrey's Jazz.

His leaving will cause no small sense of outrage with the show’s legion of fans who admire the American's lack of waffle and vintage choices, and could well incur the wrath of the station’s fearsome lobbying group the Friends of Radio 3. To much younger listeners the show is something of an anachronism but to its many admirers JRR  is an institution and a jewel in Radio 3’s non-classical music coverage. Its defenders would argue that earlier forms of jazz do not get much needle time on radio and so the programme is vital in terms of in-depth historical coverage. The new presenter Alyn Shipton says: “I hope that listeners will continue to shower ideas on the programme, for music old and new, well-known and not so well-known, and that I will continue to learn from their astute listening and desire to share their choices, much as I have been able to do during Geoffrey Smith’s long stewardship."

"Geoffrey Smith is an important part of the BBC Radio 3 jazz presenting team," a Radio 3 spokesperson says. "His new show Geoffrey’s Jazz will launch later this year and will be a personal view of jazz, its history, its players and key themes. With Alyn Shipton taking over Jazz Record Requests, Radio 3 continues to be committed to jazz across the station with the same number of shows dedicated to exploring this important genre.”

– Stephen Graham

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