By the time you read this, you'll have either seen or missed the first of BBC TV's Jazz Britannica series.

The two remaining programmes, to be screened on February 4 and 11, cover the period from the 1960s, through free and electronic jazz of the 1970s and 80s, to the amazing cultural jazz mix of today.

Even if your memory doesn't stretch as far as all of the artists and venues featured the Flamingo, the Marquee and so on it should remain an instructive and entertaining series.

Word in the industry is that the recent spate of re-issues of contemporary British jazz from the 1960s and 70s is registering some big sales.

Much of this is thanks to the energy and determination of DJ and producer Gilles Peterson, whose re-treads of the old Don Rendell/Ian Carr band's albums are doing well, and not just with people who remember them first time around.

Peterson himself will be hosting a weekend of Jazz Britannica concerts at London's Barbican on February 12 and 13.

The first features a number of favourite artists of News Shopper readers, among them luminaries such as Norma Winstone, Michael Garrick, Bobby Wellins and Stan Tracey in both big band and small group settings.

The second has Courtney Pine, Jazz Jamaica, Louis Moholo, Andy Sheppard, Byron Wallen and Soweto Kinch all leading characters from today's jazz scene.

Book your tickets online at www.barbican.org.uk and stand by to watch yourself on TV later on as the concerts are being filmed for BBC4.