Tag: recycle collective

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Euroblog #6

Euroblog 6,

OK all you travel-monkeys, I think I’ve found the world’s shittiest hotel. certainly it’s the world’s shittiest 3 star hotel (where the hell did it earn these stars? working in McDonalds?????) Hotel San Marco, just opposite Milan Central Station. Wow. The room is tiny (like the box room in your house, or if you’ve got a big house, the walk-in wardrobe), the view is of… a fire escape. Oh yes. the lighting insufficienct, the decor nasty. It’s not that dissimilar to a visit to Linda’s in Ambleside (B+B for about £16 a night, mangey dog thrown in for free, veggie breakfast is the meat breakfast with the sausage and bacon taken off the plate…) Talking of which, breakfast here is pretty hilarious too, served by Mrs Overall. One poor overworked old lady who speaks nothing but fast Italian trying to deal with requests from picky English bassists with crap Italian for decaf coffee.

Anyway, Thursday, travelled back from Venice, after a fun day with Daniel and Enrico (my Venice hosts, and the hardest working PA-by-boat team I’ve ever come across), back to LucaLand (one day, that’ll be an experimental guitar theme park). Dinner at Cascina Capuzza (without doubt my favourite restaurant in the world – every time I’m there, the veggie option is some new concoction I’d never have even thought of, and it’s always incredible. And then back to mixing/editing the last track. The potential CD is sounding pretty exciting, but it is all being played over Luca’s Genelec 1032 monitors, and recordings of old blokes with bronchial problems wheezing and spluttering would sound great through those, so the rough mixes are transferred to CD and DVD, and I then convert the CD to MP3 and copy it across to my phone for extensive listening on the train.

Friday starts with programming the new Looperlative – after the problems with my prototype, Bob sent me a production model from the States, so I need to copy all the settings into it for the foot controllers and groups etc. doesn’t take long. Lunch back at Cascina Capuzza, a vain attempt to dry the clothes I washed the night before by ironing them, and it’s back to the train station to Milan.

Now, I was supposed to be finishing up an interview for InSound magazine in Milan, but thanks to a family crisis, the journo can’t make it, which means I’m free to meet up for a drink with one of the Italian bassists I didn’t get to see in Verona, Antonella Mazza. She’s a fantastic double bassist, session player, jazzer – and we meet for a drink and a bite to eat in a bar next to the Blue Note (jazz-by-proxy). A most enjoyable chat ensues, and her hubby gives me a lift back to hotel-di-shite.

So now, I’m staring down the wrong end of 12.5 hours on a train to Amsterdam. 4 changes, with all my bags, but an evening with John Lester at the end of it to spur me on. All this getting to hang out with lovely groovy music people all over the continent is pretty fantastic, it must be said.

[update] – on the train now, having just written the press release for the Recycle Collective first anniversary (I’ll post the details ASAP, but it’s on Nov 15th, so put it in your diary now!), half an hour gone, 12 hours to go… anyone know any good jokes?

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Last night's gig.

Very enjoyable gig last night with Estelle Kokot at Octave near Covent Garden.

The enjoyableness came from playing great music with very fine musicians – Estelle’s a fab songwriter, singer and pianist, and is predisposed to stretching out her songs into long involved jams. Much fun. The drummer was Richard Spaven, a lovely understated creative player.

Fortunately that was all enough to get over the crapness of the venue. Whoever invented the term ‘dinner jazz’ needs a swift kick in the nads. Everything about the venue said ‘background music’ – very little lighting on the band, very few chairs that actually faced the band, tables not really laid out to give a good view of what’s on, no MC to introduce the music, no instructions to listen. They charge a fiver to just come in an listen, but if I’d paid a fiver to listen, I’d expect not to have to listen over the din of people talking. Next to the Octave, Thursday night’s Recycle Collective was like a night at the Royal Opera.

If the Octave sorted that out, they’d have a great little venue – it’s a nice room, not a bad PA, and God knows we need more decent jazz venues in London. As things are, this isn’t the answer. Still, it was £70 when I wasn’t doing anything else, in my home town, playing great music with great musicians, So I’m not complaining.

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Tonight's Recycle gig

I just knew that the combination of me, BJ and Theo was going to be fab. And it was. Eventually… First I had to deal with a flat tyre, and one where the nut that the monkeys in the garage in Nottingham that replaced my break pads put on was a non-standard size and shape, resulting in me having to call the flippin’ AA out, for a flat! how loserish is that? Balls, I say, and again, Balls.

Anyway, the music was magical, and made up for the hassle of the car (except for poor TSP, who tripped down the stairs and twisted her ankle while sorting out the AA man, as I was on stage at the time).

The only downside to the evening was that it being a Thursday, there were a few more people just rolling up to the venue, some of them having been told on the phone by someone that it was a Salsa night and was free to get in. So big weirdness with some of them coming in and paying, but then talking through the gig, and others not coming in… All very odd and needing to be sorted out with venue owner. Darbucka is such a great place, I love playing there, but we’ve got to get this delineation between gig and club sorted out – I don’t mind friends of the owner coming in, but I do if they’re talking and messing it up for people who are listening. Having said that, it was a pretty small crowd and the guy’s guy to make some money on the evening… So, we’ll have a chat and sort it out. If needs be, I’ll move it to another venue, but I’d really rather not, as Darbucka is perfect in every other way. You can help by putting November the 15th in your diary now! that’ll be me, Cleveland Watkiss and Huw Warren, and hopefully some after hours recycling with special guests to celebrate the first birthday of the Recycle Collective! Yay! What fun. We’ve survived a year, we’ve a shed load of fantastic musicians, some small crowds, some big crowds, a great gig at Greenbelt. It’s been a lot of fun. This next year is time to step things up a little and see if we can take it out of being a little gig once a month to biggger more marketable thing for venues out of london… any suggestions on how to do this would be greatly appreciated. After all, despite lots of people telling me they think I’m good at promo, I haven’t got a clue what I’m doing, and don’t seem to be able to get particularly big crowds along to these things, despite booking the finest musicians around. I’m not complaining, as the people who come along are lovely and appreciative and a pleasure to play for, and as the old cliche goes, the music is it’s own reward, but it’d be nice to find out the secret to getting a gig like this to happen three times a month to a coupla hundred people a time…

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Gigs over the next few days

Tomorrow night (Thursday) is this month’s Recycle Collective gig, featuring me with BJ Cole and Theo Travis – this is going to be a fantastic night for me, given that they are two of my favourite musicians to both listen to and play with. Theo, as you know, I’ve been playing with for years, and you’ve probably already got For The Love Of Open Spaces (if you haven’t, click the link to order it! :o) ) – he’s effortlessly inventive and melodic, and just gets better and better every time I hear him.

BJ is the most regular recycle guest, and keeps coming back cos he’s so much fun to play with! There’s something so unique about playing alongside pedal steel guitar, as harmony seems to work in a very different way on it to guitar, or a keyboard harmony instrument, so when BJ is laying down chords, the effect is to create a completely different kind of harmonic backdrop to what’s going on that you’d get anywhere else. He’s a fabulously creative musician, a lovely bloke, and well worth you coming out to listen to!

So that’s Thursday. Then on Saturday, I’ve got a rare ‘side man’ gig, playing for Estelle Kokot – fab piano playing jazz singer and songwriter, and ever so slightly nuts, in a good way. It’ll be a trio with her and Richard Spaven on drums, at The Octave in Covent Garden, and music starts at 9. I think it’s a fiver to get in. The songs are great, and it’ll of course be one of those rare chances to hear me playing normal bass, though I get a few solos in the set too, just no looping.

So go on, come to both, I dare you.

click here for the full details (venue address, ticket deets etc.) for Thursday’s Recycle gig.

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Steve Reich – the Cave, The Barbican, last night.

A lovely evening last night, spent with Todd Reynolds – violinist extraordinaire, who’s in town playing violin as part of Steve Reich’s ensemble in the concert series celebrating Steve’s 70th birthday. Last night’s show was The Cave, a multimedia piece based in interviews with Jews, Muslims and Americans from lots of backgrounds about Abraham and the story of his first two sons – Ishmael and Isaac. The music is all based on the rhythms and cadences of the voices, and as such changes time signature, key and tempo every couple of bars. Without doubt some of the most insanely complex and difficult to perform music I’ve ever come across. I can’t even begin to imagine how they pulled it off. The conductor, Brad Lubman, was outstanding, conducting in different meters with each hand, cueing the singers, seemingly random piano chords, and the rest of the ensemble. By no means an easy experience, largely due to it’s length and the changes in time, the music itself was actually fairly accessible, probably because the vocal cadences humanised the whole thing.

And once again, it confirmed for me what an incredible musician Todd is – having now seen him play with his former quartet, Ethel, with Joe Jackson and Todd Rungren, play solo at the Recycle Collective, improvising at the RC, playing ‘lead guitar’ with the Michael Gordon band, and now this crazy music with Steve Reich, he’s clearly one of the most remarkable musicians I’ve ever encountered. And one of my favourite people. Leo and I went down early to meet Todd for dinner before the gig, which was truncated by a 6.30 soundcheck, but after the gig Todd and Conductor-Brad both came over to the pub for a drink before heading out to Steve Reich’s birthday celebrations. A marvellous evening all round, great people, amazing music, out of this world playing and conducting, and fantastic company in the form of Leo, Todd, Brad and Julian (Seigel – top sax bloke who was at the gig too, and met us in the pub after). Great stuff.

There are a few more Steve Reich gigs on – go if you can. He’s America’s most important living composer of New Music, and a huge influence on so many people – when I was 17 and studying music AS level, he was composer of the week radio 3, and I recorded it every day and listened to those tapes over and over, writing a series of minimalist-style pieces, including a serial minimalist piece for cello and marimba, that I remember being quite good, but my memory is pretty much certainly better than the actual thing… Still, the shifting textures of so much of Steve’s work is there in much of the loop stuff I do, so it was great to finally see some of his music live.

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A solo theremin gig???

Yup, that was the first half of the gig I saw last night – Pamelia Kurstin’s gig at The Vortex was one I happened upon while looking at their website for something else entirely last week. When I saw that her two collaborators on the gig were Seb Rochford and A< HREF=http://www.liamnoble.co.uk/>Liam Noble, it was a sure thing – had to see that.

The first half of the gig was a solo looped Theremin set – Pamelia was using two DL4s and an EH Bass Microsynth – and the first 20 minutes of it was captivating. After that it was still good, it’s just tricky to sustain that level of interest without varying the arrangement ideas (would love to hear what she’d do with a Looperlative instead of the DL4s).

The second half was wonderful – lots of mad squeaky gate improv stuff with Seb on drums and Liam on piano. Both guys are such great and original improvisors, and worked really well with the theremin craziness coming from Pamelia, who veered from violin territory to clarinet tones to the sound of a pizzicato double bass. Fascinating stuff. All in all a top gig, and I’ll have to get her for the Recycle Collective next time she’s in London!

What was also most fun about the night was the number of other players that showed up – Julian Seigel, Estelle Kokot, Mandy Drummond, Phil Robson, Dylan Bates, Jason Broadbent – a most enjoyable jazz-hang! And what’s more, the Vortex are wanting to book the trio from August’s RC gig – me, seb and Andy Hamill – for a gig in Jan/Feb! Yay! And I got booked for a gig with Estelle in a couple of weeks time – more on that soon…

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MOBO drops Jazz. Jazz not happy

The one downside to being at the Recycle Collective last night was that I missed the protests outside the MOBO awards at them having dropped Jazz as a category.

I mentioned this on the blog when the issue was first raised by Abram Wilson – it’s such a nonsense to have an awards show for ‘music of black origin’ and not have jazz, unless all you’re celebrating is Spirituals and Field Hollers. Hip-hop, soul, R ‘n’ B, reggae all trace a big part of their sound back to Jazz, and, Paul Robeson aside, jazz musicians were the first worldwide black music stars.

So last night, outside the Royal Albert Hall where the awards were taking place, about 100 people gathered to protest, 20 or so musicians played, including Soweto Kinch, a former MOBO winner, led by Abram Wilson. I saw some photos at the RC last night, as John L Walters came straight to the RC from the protest – looked like a lot of fun!

So, balls to the MOBOs and their hideous bling-fest. Support jazz in the UK, peoples!

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More Recycle Magic

Favourite Day is over again til October.

Got there just after 6, so plenty of time for set-up, though TSP was coming from work which meant that the door wasn’t covered for a while (not sure what I’d do without TSP on these gigs – she’s a lifesaver).

I’ve rarely seen so many gadgets and gizmos on one stage, and even then Leo only brought half his stomp-boxes with him! I’ve only seen Jason play acoustically before, so even though I knew he did an electro-acoustic processed thing, I had no idea what that would be, so he turned up with saxes and percussion and a great TC harmonizer an airFX, JamMan and another boss multi-FX. Lots of great noises.

As is customary, I kicked things off solo (No More Us And Them, Amo Amatis Amare, Scott Peck), then Leo joined me for the duo bit. He’s just been working on a project with a ranting mad new york bloke, so had these fabulous and ever-so-slightly scary vocal samples that he brought into the piece. Great stuff.

I had a feeling when I booked Leo and Jason together that the combination would work really well, and I wasn’t wrong – the combination of my setting up progressions, Leo alternating between playing the progression and punctuating it with crazy detuned guitar noises and Jason veering from gorgeous Garbarek-esque soprano sweetness to multiphonics+harmoniser squeals made for some really fascinating music, that often drifted from really ‘out’ to very ‘in’ indeed across the course of a couple of minutes.

The Recycle Collective works so well on so many levels – from giving people who don’t often get the change to play solo to explore that, through to bringing together disparate combinations of players who otherwise might not have met, as well as just playing gorgeous music in a gorgeous venue.

Crowd was fairly small, but I had lots of apologies waiting when I got in from people intending to be there who were ill or called away by mini-tragedies.

Next one is with BJ and Theo, on October 12th – put it in your diary now!

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Recycle Collective recommended in Time Out again…

Next week’s Recycle Collective gig gets the recommended gig treatment again in Time Out this week. Here’s what they say –
Steve Lawson’s Recycle Collective/Jason Yarde/Leo Abrahams –
“Improvised, organic electronica from a fabulous trio featuring bassist and live sampler Lawson, producer/saxophonist Yarde and Brian Eno’s guitarist Abrahams.”

so there you go – we’re fabulous, it’s official, so you can’t miss it!

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Looperlative update…

Bob’s just released another Looperlative update – this thing just keeps getting better! Two great new features, one being a ‘bounce’ feature, where you can record from one or more channels to an empty channel, to either consolidate loads of tracks into one (to free up track space) or you can sample from the middle of a long loop a much shorter section, but you also get to keep the first loop (unlike a destructive resample function) – coming out of bounce mode mutes the stuff you were playing into it, but the tracks are still there unless you choose to delete them. Very handy for mangling long loops, or imposing rhythmic form onto abstract stuff.

The other new function is a ‘catch’ setting for the volume and feedback controls – so if you’re adjusting the volume on lots of tracks, when you turn one off, then go to the next track, the volume control doesn’t start at ‘off’, it waits until the value of the pedal matches the current value of the track, and only then does it do anything. This is SO useful.

This are fun times to be into looping – lots of great new musicians coming out doing loop things (JazzShark went to see Richard Bona last night and reported back that he was doing some delicious loopage), and plenty of developments going on in the looping technology front too. I still have come across a laptop set up that I’d be happy with, but in the dedicated hardware looper world, the Looperlative is a LONG way out in front at the moment – definitely the way to go. (and if you do plan to get one and you’re in the UK, email me first…)

And if you just want to see what it can do, come on down to the next Recycle Collective gig on Sept 20th!

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