the soundtrack to the day you wish you'd had
the very talented Lorna has posted a marvellous virtual advent calendar on her website – click that link to have a look, and check back each day for a new picture!
Soundtrack – a new tune I recorded last night – finally, after a long while of no fresh ideas, I hit on one, and got a nice rough version of the tune recorded – am v. happy with it, great little jaunty shuffle tune. Far too long at the moment, but some judicious editing or more likely a rerecording may well do the trick.
How on earth did no-one get killed???
A fuel depot in Hemel Hempstead blows up, the blast is heard IN FRANCE (!!), windows and doors are blown out in houses surround the site, and yet no-one is killed. That’s amazing. A lot of amazing unthinkable things have happened in Britain of late. That no-one died in this disaster is one of the best bits of news for a long time. The blast itself is clearly not good news – the environmental impact is going to be outrageous, not to mention the huge disruption to those whose houses have been damaged in the blast – but the zero loss of life is amazing. Apparently there have only been two serious casualties so far.
The fire services are warning of potential further explosions, while the firemen and women are there working like mad to get the fire under control and out – that’s got to be one scary job! Hurrah for the fire-service.
Reports suggest that some people have been panic buying petrol, afraid of a shortage, even though a) most of the fuel burning is aviation fuel b) it’s only the fifth largest depot in the country c) if there’s a fuel shortage, USE PUBLIC TRANSPORT – don’t drive to the petrol station to make the situation worse, you morons.
Soundtrack – Stuart Ryan, ‘The Coast Road’ (fabulous solo acoustic guitarist – he played at the Eric Roche tribute gig last week, and was one of Eric’s favourite guitarists. From this CD, it’s easy to see why).
Last night was my third time at the Vortex in a week – fourth time in two weeks – this time to see Ingrid Laubrock, who was there with her quartet – Seb Rochford on drums, larry bartley on bass and Barry Green on piano.
It was a much more ‘jazz’ gig than anything I’ve been to for a while, a ‘ting ting t-ting’ gig, but with plenty of interesting moments and some really interesting compositions. It’s really nice to hear a tenor player who’s not gone the Coltrane/Brecker route – Ingrid’s sound seems closer to a Dexter Gordon/Joe Henderson sound, which her compositions are more like 70s-miles mixed with 60s Wayne Shorter and a fair dose of avante garde weirdness. All good stuff.
The main attraction for me was seeing Seb Rochford play – I did a gig with Seb a while ago ( thought it was three years ago, he says less than two years… will have to check back into my old blog…) down in Brighton, with Tess Garroway, which was a fantastic experience. He was clearly a remarkable player then, and it’s been in my mind to get him involved in something every since (I haven’t worked with a drummer on a me-project since, so it still hasn’t happened…). Since then, he’s gone on to come one of the emerging stars of the British jazz scene, with his bands Polar Bear and Acoustic Ladyland – Polar Bear having been nominated for the Mercury Music Award this year, and Acoustic Ladyland having been on Jools Holland’s show.
His play with Ingrid was fabulously inventive, deconstructing the implied rhythm of the tune into shards of time that bore little metric relation to the initial pulse but carried the intention of the tune forward in a way that ‘normal’ jazz drumming just wouldn’t have done. Really inspiring playing.
Both Polar Bear and Ingrid’s band are playing a Christmas party on 15th december at “The Others”, 6-8 Manor Road, Stoke Newington. Sounds like it could be an amazing night.
[edit – the gig with Seb was Sept 17th 2003…]
Soundtrack – Peter Gabriel, ‘Up’.
Been spending far too much time at The New Vortex this last couple of weeks – last week I was there for Dudley Philips album launch gig, then Tuesday I went to see Lleuwen Steffan and her band. Last night was the Works.
Lleuwen is the singer on that welsh hymns album I was raving about last week – still getting lots of airplay here, definitely in my top 5 of the year. The gig on Tuesday was with her band, Acoustique, which featured, unbenownst to me until I got there, my buddy Owen Lloyd Evans on bass. Their set didn’t feature any of the hymn tunes, but did have a lot of originals, sung in Welsh that sounded a bit like a more funky, acoustic Bjork. Lovely stuff. They did a couple of standards, which were fine, but it was the welsh language stuff that really shone. Definitely one to look out for and see if you can.
the Works, formerly known as WoodWorks, is Patrick Wood’s marvellous band – Patrick is surprisingly little-known on the London jazz scene, despite his band acting as breeding ground for so many great musicians in the city – the list of who’s been in the band at one time or another is nuts, from John Etheridge to Andy Gangadeen, Cleveland Watkiss to Tony Remy.
The current line-up is Patrick on keys and guitar, Mark Lockheart on saxes and bass clarinet, Neville Malcom on bass and Nic France on drums. The tunes are lovely open forms that the band jam on and stretch out live – lots of eye contact and hardcore listening going on. The small audience were much appreciative, and hopefully they’ll be playing again soon so you can go see them too!
Both these gigs are yet more evidence that the London jazz scene is producing music of a quality to rival any jazz city on the planet. the Vortex is such a vital venue, and after the sadness of the original vortex closing, it’s great to have it back with the same eclectic booking policy in a great new venue in Stoke Newington. check out their online programme on the website and go see some stuff there!
I’ll almost certainly be back there tonight for Ingrid Laubrook’s quartet, featuring the marvellous Seb Rochford on drums.
And keep an eye out for
Plan for today – some teaching this morning, Theo round this afternoon to plan our february tour promotion etc. Some bass practice/R&D for the album after that, and then to see Ingrid play tonight.
Soundtrack – The Pixies, ‘Bossanova’.
I’m a firm believer in the redemptive power of satire – take the piss, expose the myth, change the world.
One of the world’s finest satirical sources is The Onion, and one of their latest targets is the crap around file sharing – ‘‘RIAA bans telling friends about songs’…
Also on the list of truly fantastic satire is the new Saturday night cartoon double bill of Family Guy followed by American Dad. It’s fantastic subversive stuff, that somehow has ended up being commissioned by Fox! How did that happen? Like Borders selling copies of ‘No Logo’, it just baffles me… Anyway, both are required viewing, and a great guidebook to the worst excesses of the American psyche.
Soundtrack – King’s X, ‘Ogre Tones’.
Was watching a great programme on tele this evening – Dickens In America, presented by Miriam Margolyes. It was a fascinating premise anyway, following Charles Dickens’ journey into the heartland of America in the mid 19th century.
But the best thing about it was the presenter – I was reminded again why Miriam Margolyes is one of my heroes, and in my ‘most like to meet’ list along side David Attenborough, Billy Bragg and, um some other people (Peter Ustinov was on the list before he died… if the list were just a fantasy one, he’d still be on it…)
There’s just something about Miriam that I warm to, that I admire greatly, and that makes her seem like one of the most marvellous people on the planet. Every time I hear her interviewed she makes me laugh uproariously, she’s got a fantastic grasp of the english language and revels in the art of speaking (her recording of ‘the queen and I’, in which she plays every member of the British Royal Family is the biggest-selling audio book in the world).
It’s all a bit random really – most of my big heroes are political and spiritual figures – MLK, Mandela, Gandhi – same ones as everyone, really. But there are a handful of people who make me feel like Britain isn’t such a dreadful place after all, that there’s something uniquely wonderful in our heritage here, and Miriam is one of those people.
So raise a toast to La Margolyes!
Soundtrack – Abraham Laboriel, ‘Guidum’.
It’s one of those things I tell my students all the time. ‘Intention Is Audible’ – if you’re writing music just so other people who play the same instrument as you will think you’re a badass and can play faster than them, that’s going to come across in the music, and it’s very unlikely to have any emotional impact on your listeners. If you are playing out of some sense of obligation to some outside standard of what is and isn’t acceptable, the likelihood is that it’ll be plainly obvious that it isn’t from the heart. It’s why so much modern pop is as dull as shit, why not one of the TV talent shows has, as yet, produced a genuinely creative artist. That Will Young is the best we have is a sad indictment on the whole sorry charade.
Every now and again, the ‘intention is audible’ line is hammered home to me in a positive way (the negative stuff is there in so much music every day, sadly). One such experience is listening to ‘Duw A Wyr’ by Lleuwen Steffan/Huw Warren and Mark Lockheart. It’s a collection of Welsh hymns from the time of the revival, sung in welsh and given a european jazz reworking. And it’s beautiful.
But more than that, it’s deeply moving. Remember, it’s sung in welsh – there are translations on the sleeve, but I’ve intentionally avoided them thus far, as I’m allowing the music to impact me on a purely emotional level. And it works. Boy, it works. One particular track, ‘Gwahoddiad’, is one of the most uplifting things I’ve heard in years. The intention of the song is crystal clear in the performance, in the intonation of the voice. It’s incredible. Maybe I’ll have a read of the words later on. Maybe I won’t. It’s gospel music in its purest form – ‘good news’.
And it reminds me why I do what I do. Playing solo bass that isn’t all histrionic fretboard gymnastics and slapping, tapping circus tricks is definitely a ‘road less travelled’. There are very few solo bassists around, even fewer that aren’t spending their time pushing speed and agility as their main frontiers. To keep heading down this path into music where the emotional narrative is front and centre is a juggling act, given that it requires a lot of work on all those technical control and awareness issues that the twiddly stuff requires but without the pay-off that your peers rave about your wikkid skillz. Instead you get the pay-off of people being moved by what you do, being changed in some way by hearing it. I get enough of these stories from people to make it worthwhile. It’s never going to be a mainstream choice of music career (well, I guess it might be, I’d be happy to end up looping, layering and noodling on Top Of The Pops… or at least on Jools Holland’s show…), but it’s one that ultimately is so much more fulfilling for me creatively.
For any musician, learning to practice, absorb and then dismiss virtuosic technique is a huge challenge. For extreme virtuosity and emotional impact to be resident in the same player is incredibly rare – Coltrane would be one, Michael Manring another. Keith Jarrett’s one, Pat Metheny is more than capable of it. And Eric Roche, for whose family I’m playing a benefit gig on Sunday night, was definitely one, one who inspired me hugely, who encouraged me to pursue those aims, to carry the tension forward on my own journey into deeper musical understanding, and greater control of musical vocabulary and expression.
The gig on Sunday night, at Haverhill Arts Centre will be a great chance to give credit where it’s due. The rest of the bill is pretty fine too – Boo Hewerdine, Steve Lockwood and Stuart Ryan are all fabulous musicians that I’m really looking forward to playing with and listening to.
Soundtrack – Lleuwen Steffan/Huw Warren/Mark Lockheart, ‘Duw A Wyr’
I was just sending a message to my mailing list about a gig this weekend (Sunday night in Haverhill, near Cambridge, see gigs page for details), and thought I’d big up the mailing list here, as some of you may not be on it, and may not have thought to join it, thinking I post all the news here…
…well I don’t, so if you want to keep up with gig dates, cd news etc. please head over to the mailing list signup page – there you can join the ordinary mailing list, the street team mailing list or the Recycle Collective list. Or sign up for all three – you won’t get duplicates of messages if I happen to send them to more than one list (PHPlist is clever like that).
The street team, in case you were unaware, are a lovely bunch of people who help me to spread the word about what I do – they post on internet message boards, dish out flyers, put up posters and in some cases promote gigs! They’re a vital part of the stevie-plan for world domination, and I appreciate bigly all they do.
So go on, sign up now!
Soundtrack – Prefab Sprout, ‘Steve McQueen’.
Today is an important day for two reasons – one, it’s World AIDS day, and two, it’s the 50th anniversary of Rosa Parks’ monumental decision to not move on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Don’t let either of these days go unmarked in your world.
For World AIDS day, do some research into what’s causing the spread of AIDS, the places in the world where its growing fastest, and how hard it is for them to get the medication they need. Petition your elected officials to do more to fund education initiatives in the places where it’s an epidemic. In Botswana, 30% of children born have the HIV virus. 30%!!!! that’s an inconceivable statistic. The stats on the spread of AIDS across Africa are terrifying, and it’s still rolling on, there are still squabbles over drugs companies refusing licenses to produce the drugs cheaply to keep people alive, still squabbles over Catholic leaders telling men infected with HIV/AIDS not to use condoms to protect their wives – look, I’m generally fairly old fashioned, i think abstinence is generally a good idea – very few people are messed up by not having enough sex – but the idea that limiting access to contraception is more important that protecting people from the AIDS virus is ludicrous. That there are religious and cultural stigmas attached to condom useage across huge parts of the world is a travesty, and one that needs to be campaigned against virulently.
What can we do today to help stem the spread of HIV/AIDS? Check out the DATA website for more info, and ways to help.
And on the anniversary of the bus boycott, let’s not forget that Racism still exists, that Europe is becoming an evermore xenophobic continent, that an unofficial economic colour bar still operates in the US. Today, two Liverpool teenagers are going on trial for murdering a young black guy with an ice axe. That such thinking still exists in Britain today is a tragedy. That racism was ever legal in the UK,US, South Africa, etc. is a blot on all of our consciences.
I was watching a documentary the other evening about forgotten stories from the world war. One of the people mentioned was Walter Tull, who was Britian’s second black professional footballer, and first Black army officer. The tragedy of this is that at the time it was still illegal for a Black man to be an officer in the forces. That he triumphed over the racism is testimony to Walter’s strength of character (he was also from a working class background at a time when the officer’s rank was almost exclusively upper class, with a few middle class people), but it’s a disgrace to the forces that we ever had a time when people were excluded on grounds of race…
Heavy stuff, both AIDS/HIV awareness and racism, I know, but if you’re lucky enough to live a life not directly influenced by either, give thanks and use your oh so privileged position to make a change for those not so lucky…
Soundtrack – Peter Gabriel, ‘Up’.
OK – here’s how my first draft blog post looked this morning –
Finally, last night Bob and I (well bob, really – I just pushed the buttons I was told to!) got the Looperlative updated and working. I’m now vaguely conversant with the ways of Windows Hyperterminal, and have typed lots of numbers into it to make the box work. Just don’t ask me what the numbers mean, or ask me to repeat it without Bob talking me through it…
Anyway, it’s working, my MIDI pedal board is hooked up and I’m putting it through its paces. I’m going to go through my tunes and see which of them I can do on here with the software as it stands. Even at this level (with software revisions happening all the time) the feature set is great. Just having stereo in/out and 8 tracks of stereo independent loopage is fantastic, and programming a midi controller to have it do whatever you want it to do is really easy.
sadly, at that point, I think I blew it up… loose end of a power supply cable came into contact with the board… schoolboy error on my part, bit of a major f***-up, which has changed my day’s plans somewhat.
Such a shame as I was just getting to grips with what the box could do. Here’s hoping it’s mainly a software problem (at the moment I can’t tell, as not long after that happened, my rubbish power supply blew up… am off out now to get a new one).
All in all, a dreadful start to the day.
Soundtrack – Martyn Joseph, ‘Deep Blue’.