Please come and be part of the audience for The Kitchen Cabinet, a new BBC Radio 4 series aimed at anyone who cooks, not just the experts. The Telegraph has tipped it as one of the Top Ten Food Trends of 2012!

We are recording one of the programmes at a fantastic venue in Melton Mowbray, on Tuesday 7th February 2012.

Hosted by Jay Rayner, the show will also feature:

• Peter Barham – the food scientist who is a consultant for Heston Blumenthal and Noma in Copenhagen (which some consider to be the best restaurant in the world)
• Rachel McCormack – the Glaswegian cook who is also an expert on Catalan cooking
• Stefan Gates – self-styled food adventurer and Gastronaut
• Allegra McEvedy – chef, food writer and regular on Radio 4’s Loose Ends

The show is witty, fast-moving and irreverent, but packed full of information that may well change the way you think about cooking. You’ll have the opportunity to ask anything and everything to do with food and cooking, find out lots of great stuff you didn’t know before, and enjoy plenty of good-humoured conversation.

TICKETS ARE FREE, and available by email:

Doors open at 6pm, the event starts at 6.30pm, and will be finished around 8pm.

Listen out for The Kitchen Cabinet on Radio 4.  It’s on Tuesday afternoons at 3pm from 7^th February, or you can catch up with it on the BBC iplayer after the first broadcast.

Jay Rayner in action

In addition, a trick or two about growing Edemame, and a debate around growing banana plants in blustery Spalding.

Once a month we are putting on three acts in one night. The idea is that we mix up the genres, the generations and maybe even the fans. We’ll feature one of the most talked about acts of the moment, a unique solo performance and an up and coming band we think deserves wider notice.

So on Monday Jan 30th our headliner is Orphy Robinson playing with the brilliant saxophonist Steve Williamson and Pat Thomas. Manchester guitarist Stuart McCallum will be playing a solo and much hyped trumpet player Yazz Ahmed and her trio will get things rolling.  Bar opens from 6pm with first band at 8.30.

The venue is amazing, the acoustic superb. The acts get to perform in the round. The audience, close and intimate, all around them. I’ll also be chatting to the musicians throughout the night, giving  them the opportunity to explain their work. The audience can ask questions too.

Plus I’ll be doing something I haven’t done for a while (at least in public) and DJing, playing jazz and beyond, old and new.

And all this for just £7!

The night has been put together by The Cockpit, Somethin Else, Prodigal Jazz, and Loudwater Partners. We are all doing it for free, in fact Loudwater are subsidising the whole affair. This means all the profits go to the artists and furthermore we are recording everything for musicians to use as they please.

I’ve wanted to curate and host a night like this for many years so I’m really excited.

Please come and join me as a guest on this first night and help spread the word.

Full venue and event details and location info at www.thecockpit.org.uk

Jez Nelson

On top of that, we’ve got our video and radio crews preparing to head down at the event at the O2 in February, to provide all the backstage video footage for the website, and syndicate BRITs radio content across the UK and the world.

Follow the official Twitter and Facebook feeds – run by us – to stay up to date with everything that’s happening at the UK’s biggest music bash.

Please come and be part of the audience for a new BBC Radio 4 series aimed at anyone who cooks, not just the experts.  We are recording one of the programmes at a breathtaking venue in Whitechapel, London, on Tuesday 17^th January 2012.

Hosted by Jay Rayner, the show will also feature:

• Peter Barham – the food scientist who is a consultant for Heston Blumenthal and Noma in Copenhagen (which some consider to be the best restaurant in the world)
• Henry Dimbleby – food writer and entrepreneur who was one of the founders of the Leon chain
• Angela Malik – Scottish-Indian chef who is known for combining Asian flavours with fantastic and seasonal British ingredients
• Rachel McCormack – the Glaswegian cook who is also an expert on Catalan cooking

The show is witty, fast-moving, and irreverent, but packed full of information that may well change the way you think about cooking. You’ll have the opportunity to ask anything and everything to do with food and cooking, find out lots of great stuff you didn’t know before, and enjoy plenty of good-humoured conversation.

TICKETS ARE FREE, and available by email:

The event starts at 7pm, and will be finished by 8.30pm, but the bar will be open until 11pm!

Jay Rayner (plus carrots and pasta)

When you’ve been waiting 13 years to get a musician on the programme, another 10 minutes won’t hurt, especially when they’re taken up with a tribute to reeds player Sam Rivers, a musician whom Coleman was hugely influenced by, who sadly died on Boxing Day.

Then it’s into the gig, and Coleman’s trademark terse, deeply rhythmic ideas. He’s a master at weaving elaborate melodies from the smallest cells, and of somehow giving his music a sense of groove despite its intense complexity. You’d feel sorry for his young bandmates, pianist David Virelles and drummer Marcus Gilmore, if they didn’t rise to this steep challenge so well. Gilmore is especially impressive in the first set, giving an African feel in the first piece before getting ultra-fast and hip in Reflex.

So what makes Steve Coleman tick? We’ll find out in the interval as he joins Kevin Le Gendre in conversation in front of an audience at the Queen Elizabeth Hall – among those on the menu are Dave Holland and Von Freeman, and Coleman’s take on rhythm in basketball.

Steve Coleman talks to Kevin Le Gendre

Back on stage, the second part of the performance starts in circumspect fashion, gently pushed along by Virelles who, for large parts of the gig, performs almost more as a bass player than a pianist. The night finishes with a track that has the air of a Coleman classic – this gig is well worth waiting for.

The Jazz on 3 team.

We had brand new stuff from Your Demise, Architects, Lamb Of God, Narrows and Cancer Bats. And Young Guns came in to give us the first play of their new single “Bones”.

Lovely boys.