Tag: Solo Bass

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Oh Lucky Man

or is that just lucky me?

Had a marvellous gig last night – Traders in Petersfield. Nice little music venue, attached to a Thai restaurant (great food!), in small town between Guildford and Portsmouth. Enthusiastic listening (or maybe just bemused…) audience, who listened, applauded and bought CDs. What more could any self respecting solo bassist ask for?

I do feel very lucky to do what I do for a living – I get to play gigs to nice audiences, sell CDs to friendly people who email me to say thanks (as though them buying the CDs wasn’t thanks enough!), collaborate with fascinating musicians, and travel around some interesting bits of the world, from California to Petersfield. And then after all that, I get to teach bass to lots of lovely people. The trade offs against things like job security, enourmous record sales, fast cars etc. are more than worth it. :o)

‘oh what a lucky man…’ hang on, that song is about some bloke whose life goes down the pan… maybe I’ll go for something else, er… gimme a moment to think of something… ‘My Life Is Good!’… nope, next line of that is ‘…you old bag’, so that doesn’t work. Maybe songs about being grateful for stuff aren’t as prevalent as ones about people who took it for granted and ballsed things up.

anyway, I digress.

Michael Manring and I will be back at the same venue next month, and I’m really looking forward to it! I mean, I was anyway, but now even more so cos I know what to expect.

Also of note is that it was the first gig booked for me by my new booking dude for that area, Iain at Stiff Promotions – lovely bloke, insanely efficient and helpful, and an allround god-send to musicians. Bodes well for future ventures!

Soundtrack – nothing much today. I’ve had a few days of mainly silence, which has made a nice change…

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Road Tales Pt 1.

As you may be able to tell by the time this is posted, I’m jetlagged. very jetlagged. Two hours sleep, then wide awake. It’s 4.38am, and I’m trying to think of things to do, listening to Muriel Anderson’s ‘A Journey Through Time’ (Muriel’s great, and will hopefully be coming to the UK in April…), and chatting to Trip on MSN.

So California stories – flew in on Sat 10th, and got the SuperShuttle to Anaheim, where I was recording a record with Kofi Baker and Ned Evett. Got set up and crashed out.

The next three days were a mix of hanging with Ned while Kofi taught, and then recording all evening – as late as my jetlag going that way would allow us. the material was largely improvs, most of which we then played again in some sort of structured way to see what came out. It’s now all in the editing – some great material was certainly recorded, but the wheat and chaff need separating! Kofi and Ned are both marvellous musicians, so it was a lot of fun to do, and a bit of a challenge to be back playing complex rythmic twiddly stuff after lots of ambient noodling…

then, NAMM – huge trade show in Anaheim, music gear manufacturers, dealers, distributors, journos and players descend on the convention centre, in a desparate attempt to do business. the makers are trying to hawk their wares – some by just making good stuff, others by getting porn stars to stand around on their booths, or lame 80s has-been rock stars doing signings… normally means the product isn’t worth looking at.

I was playing for Modulus and AccuGroove, and doing a show report for Bass Guitar Magazine, and catching up with lots of old friends – it’s one of the downsides of being a bassist is that there are rarely more than one of us on a gig, so we only meet up in airports and at NAMM… Also got to meet up with lots of friends from talkbass, the dudepit, churchbass, TBL, the lowdown, and my street-team! the now annual tradition of dinner with David Torn, Doug Lunn and Vida Vierra was as marvellous as ever, and playing at the Bass Bash was a blast, as was my gig in the lobby of the Marriott next to the show (ah yes, solo bass goes loung-core…)

NAMM ended sunday, on monday trip and I drove to Costa Mesa for a coffee house gig lined up for us by Bob Lee – nice little coffee shop, played outside, Seth Horan turned up and did a couple of tunes and was wonderful. Trip’s set was marvellous too, and his ‘did I suck?’ question at the end was so laughable it almost warranted a kick in the plums. Lots of friendly faces turned up, including Fred Hodson from Talkbass (thanks Fred!), Kerry Getz and Jason Feddy. Crashed at Kerry’s house, and on Tuesday morning Bob Lee showed Trip and I round QSC, and they lent me a poweramp for the tour (the AccuGroove powered cabs weren’t finished in time for the tour, so I took a pair of passive ones, and used the QSC amp, which sounded great.

Tuesday afternoon was the gig at CalArts with Andre LaFosse, which went well, and included a marvellous duo version of MMFSOG. Then off to see Vida and Dani for a few days. I’ve probably spent 3 months total in California now over the last 5 years, and this was the first time I’ve been to the beach! Took a walk along Venice beach, wandered around book shops and record shops, and soaked up the atmosphere. Also took a walk round the Yogananda peace garden in Santa Monica which is a beautiful inspiring place, where I’d be spending a lot of time were I living nearby…

Wednesday night went to see Abe Laboriel playing with 3 Prime at the Baked Potato – a trip to LA wouldn’t be complete without either seeing Abe or going to the BP, and as always the band were amazing.

Friday started with breakfast with Jimmy Haslip, and was followed by the long drive to Santa Cruz, which was even longer due to it taking two hours to get out of LA! But got to Rick and Jessica Turner’s place late evening, and talked for hours. Some tours are all about heavy gig schedules and travellings. Others are all about the people you meet. This was a people tour – the gigs were great, but it was the friendships, talking long into the night, eating lovely food, plotting world domination that made this trip special. I travel half way round the world and get treated like family, it doesn’t get much better than this.

Saturday (24th Jan we’re up to), was dudepit clinic day, at Bob Streetteam’s house – 11 guys, lots of a basses, and a day of talking and thinking about music, and playing some stuff to demonstrate a few concepts which will hopefully keep the guys going til next year. Bob did a sterling job of organising and hosting the event – well above and beyond any expected level of support from a street-teamer. I’m constantly amazed at people’s generousity. There’s plenty of dark stuff going on in the world, and while governments are going about their f-ed up evil business, nice people are running counter to it, demostrating friendship and grace that makes you smile at the world, and gives you hope.

Sunday was KPIG day – Michael Manring and I playing solo and duo on this most wonderful of radio stations.

Next couple of days are spent shuttling backwards and forwards between AccuGroove world HQ (Mark’s house) in Cupertino, and Santa Cruz, catching up with more old friends and hanging out with the Turners and Muriel Anderson.

Then the ‘big’ gigs – three dates with Michael Manring and Trip Wamsley. All three gigs went really really well – loads of friends turned up, Trip and Michael both played really really well, we all sold CDs, had a blast, played some very cool trios and a tasty cover of Bruce Cockburn’s ‘Pacing The Cage’ each night. Each gig afforded us more time to see friends – staying with Bob Streetteam, and Mike Roe was great – and to play lots of fine music to lovely people. The Espresso Garden show was sold out, with lots of people unable to get in (fortunately they were able to stand by the door and listen, but still…)

Then, the long drive back to LA, introducing Trip to the delights of Prefab Sprout on the way, back to see Doug, Vida and Dani, out for Doug’s birthday, a trip round socal delivering gear back to its rightful owners, and a deep sleep.

Sunday, departure day, started with a dance class – no, I didn’t dance, much as I’d have liked to – I was part of the percussion section, which was more fun than one should have on a sunday morning. Doug dropped me at the airport, and after 74 levels of security checking, got on the plane, and fortunately sat next to a fascinating woman called Gael, and chatted for most of the way home, pausing to watch ‘Whale Rider’ and ‘School Of Rock’.

A great trip – possibly my fave trip so far to the states. some great gigs, new family, catching up with old friends, fun at NAMM, great contacts for the future, and a sense that all is not lost with the world despite the crapness of so many things from Dubya to the Dean Girls.

Doug, Vida, Dani, Rick, Jessica, Elias, Trip, Michael, Kelly M, Dan, Wally, Mark, Suzy, Bob A Kelly A, Mike, Kofi, Ned, Kerry, Bob L, DT, Seth, Becca, Jimmy, Anderson, Gael, Keith, Muriel and any others who’ve slipped my mind momentarily – many marvellous friends old and new, thankyou all. (good lord, three weeks in LA and I’ve come back an unreconstructed hippie…!)

And now it’s 5.23am, I need sleep. badly.

more on Tuesday’s gig with Theo soon…

Soundtrack – Muriel Anderson, ‘A Journey Through Time’, Mike Roe, ‘Say Your Prayers’, Luca Formentini, ‘Subterranean’ – three lovely friends with three lovely albums.

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Making it up as we go along!

Had a marvellous gig last night with Orphy Robinson and Corey Mwamba – Corey on Vibes, and Orphy on Marimba, assorted Hand percussion, steel pans, QY-70 drums, wind-synth, etc.

I had mic feeds off of both guys into my looping set-up, and mainly used the one from Corey’s vibes, given that Orphy was looping himself (with an RC-20) and making a marvellous noise without my help!

The venue was Derby Dance Centre – a lovely venue, with a very friendly audience. Slightly surprising given how intense parts of the first set were, with orphy toying with controlled mic feedback and triggering some pretty mad beats off the QY-70…

Second set was more mellow – started with me looping and processing Corey’s vibraphone, Orphy joining him for a vibes duet, and finally me coming in over the top, which drifted into a solo bass thing (which was fortunately recorded, as it was unlike anything I’ve played before…) only to have them rejoin and take it off in another different direction.

The whole gig was a lot of fun, has some magic moments, was an insense listening experience, and bodes well for more trio stuff like that in the future.

What else is happening? bits of teaching, sending out CD sales (and surprisingly sold a load of CDs at the gig, despite playing nothing that sounded remotely like the CDs at any point in the show! :o)

Soundtrack – at the moment, the sound of computers humming.

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Blogs from the Big Chair

I’ve got a new chair! This may not be very exciting for you, but it is for me (it’s a hard life, being a solo bassist. Between gigs, we have to find domestic things to keep ourselves happy) – my old office chair was not-so-slowly disintegrating, and certainly provided no adjustability or support any more, the cushion was worn out, and the whole experience was somewhat akin to sitting on a pile of supermarket baskets with a rolled up tshirt on top. not nice.

So off to Ikea yesterday. Too many leather chairs (call me a flake if you like, but the idea of sitting on the carcass of a dead cow all day really gives me the creeps), but found one really nice (and rather expensive) cloth upholstered one, went through classic convoluted Ikea process to buy it and then found an identical one in the Bargain Basement, that had a wheel missing, and no other noticeable problems, but was

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Is There Something I Should Know???

…and other such classic Duran hits were all in evidence at the gig at The Forum on Tuesday night. And what a fantastic gig it was!! Really really great to see a bunch of ‘pop stars’ who can a) write fantastic melodies, b) come up with really interesting arrangements and c) play as well as anyone. Seriously great stuff. Oh for the days when pop stars could play instruments!!! It set the dick-heads that currently litter the charts in stark relief, that’s for sure…

Anyway. What else?? Of course, the big news is that the album is here!! All the advanced orders have now been sent out, so you should be getting them early next week. the packaging, CD printing, sound quality and everything is just great – Theo came round yesterday to sort out the press-list and to sign all the extra discs, and we were like a couple of kids with new toys! I’ve been listening to the CD almost constantly since it got here on Wednesday, and it just sounds fantastic! Even though we played it, it’s still hard to conceive that it was all done live… a strange feeling indeed. Anyway, if you haven’t got it already, you can order it now! Paypal/Gemm and post are what we’ve got happening at the moment, but CDBaby will be sorted v. soon, as will evinsol, hmv and a few others…

anyway, here’s the paypal button –


One word of warning to anyone planning to do the same thing, all the backordering on GEMM decimates your rating – if you did buy the CD through GEMM, please go and give us a good feedback rating, or it looks like we’re a bunch of charlatans…!

Wednesday night was fun – Bob Lee, buddy from California was in town, so Bob and I, along with a couple of other guys from the churchbass discussion list met up for a curry. I’m always amazed at the myriad friendships that the internet facilitates – it makes a nice counter argument to www.internetisshit.org, which, while I think they’ve got a point, does take it too far… :o)

Tomorrow I’ve got my first gig in ages with Jez – you know, the piano guy on ‘Conversations’ – it’s a wedding reception, which is cool cos I don’t get to play standards very often, and playing with Jez would be a pleasure even if the gig was all TV Themes!

Soundtrack – Me and Theo (both discs), Billy Bragg, ‘Must I Paint You A Picture?’, The Cure, ‘Greatest Hits’, Scritti Politti, ‘Cupid And Psyche’, John Lester, ‘Big Dreams And The Bottom Line’ – if you’re in any way interested in solo bass and singer/songwriters, you NEED to hear John’s music – he’s seriously good – great tone, fantastic voice, fine lyrics, and all really well produced – GO AND BUY THIS CD.

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Musical Friends…

…are keeping me happy…

so sang Bruce Cockburn in 1970, and indeed it’s true in my life too.

The latest installment in musical friendship began on Friday when I went to see Lifehouse play at Shepherd’s Bush Empire. What a fantastic band!! I’ve got both their albums, but the live experience is even better, and the new guitarist is amazing. I met Sergio, Rick and Jason a couple of years ago in LA, and have seen Sergio a few times since (he came to one of my gigs in LA), so had to go see them play when they were here. Great to hear them, great to get to hang out here in London rather than in LA this time!

part 2 of musical friends was Julian’s wedding on Saturday – Julian’s a former student of mine from Drumtech, who’s now doing big business on the session scene, and deservedly so, he’s a truly brilliant drummer (he was when I was teaching him too, so I’m not taking any of the credit for that!) – anyway, his wedding was naturally full of musos, lots of whom I hadn’t seen for ages, so it was great not only to see my friend get married, but to catch up with so many old aquaintances. Add to that the full on gospel choir hymns/worship section of the service, and some fantastic food at the reception, and you’ve got a magical day.

part 3 – meeting up for a beer on Sunday afternoon with Steve McEwan and Nick Paton. I’d not met Nick before, but he was in Friends First’ – one of the bands I’ve listened to most in my whole life (their album ‘We See A New Africa’ soundtracked about three years of my life in my mid teens). It was great to meet him, and be able to give some advice on indie promotion to someone whose music has meant so much in my life.

part 4 – Denison Witmer is a singer/songwriter from Philly who played at Greenbelt this year, and was fantastic. We chatted a bit at the festival and swapped CDs, and he was playing in Brixton on Sunday night, so The Cheat and I went down to hear another stunning gig from the man. Also gave me a chance to buy his other CDs, and go for a curry with Denison and The Cheat.

Then today, met one of my occasional students, Nick, for a coffee, and had a marvellous afternoon chatting about life, music, politics and everything in between.

So, music friends have indeed been making me happy, which got me thinking, and I came up with the notion of the Pillow Mountain Records extended family – a list of artists who are good friends, and whose music I endorse wholeheartedly, and will encourage as many people as possible to check out. So anyway, so you don’t have to go rummaging through the PMR site for the list, here are the links for you to peruse. All these peoples are amazing artists, and lovely people worthy of your patronage.

www.altruistmusic.com – Andre LaFosse
(turntablist guitar)
www.petermurray.ca – Peter Murray
(singer/songwriter)
www.denisonwitmer.com – Denison Witmer
(singer/songwriter)
www.kerry-getz.com – Kerry Getz
(singer/songwriter)
www.manthing.com – Michael Manring
(solo bassist)
www.johnlestermusic.com – John Lester
(solo bass singer/songwriter!)
www.nedevett.com – Ned Evett
(fretless guitarist)
www.tripwamsley.com – Trip Wamsley
(solo bassist)
www.unguitar.com – Luca Formentini
(unguitarist)
www.calamateur.co.uk – Calamateur aka Andrew Howie
(singer/songwriter/foundsoundist)
www.julielee.org – Julie Lee
(singer/songwriter)

there you go – check ’em out!

soundtrack – right now, Julie Lee (see above), ‘Made From Scratch’; before that, Denison Witmer (ditto), ‘Safe Away’ & ‘Philadelphia Songs’; The Choir, ‘Wide Eyed Wonder’; Bruce Cockburn, ‘World Of Wonders’; Nik Kershaw, ’15 Minutes’; John Lester, ‘Big Dreams And The Bottom Line’; Joni Mitchell, ‘Travelogue’.

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Evolution or Revolution?

The music industry is changing, that’s for sure. To do what I’ve done even 10 years ago would have been a heck of a lot more difficult and expensive to get off the ground. The cost of recording studio set ups has plummeted with the home computer market, the net has thrown the doors wide on forming underground niche networks through which to make a small-scale name for yourself, and online shops are waking up to the growing sales of independent albums (interesting that while the majors are all crying ‘foul play’ over file sharing, the indies are selling more records that ever…)

Maybe people respond well to having the chance to buy CD directly from an artist – I know I do! I love browsing CD Baby looking for interesting music, having a listen to the streaming stuff and then buying a CD or two, knowing that the artists are getting the dough for their hard earned work.

So is this a natural shift, or are we about to see the collapse of the industry as we know it? The mainstream charts are getting less and less relavent to your average joe – how many ‘big’ albums have I bought in recent times? Right now, I think I own two CDs in the top 40 – Athlete’s ‘Vehicles and Animals’ and Coldplay’s ‘A Rush Of Blood To The Head’ – that’s a pretty high proportion for me! A large amount of my time is spent listening to indie stuff, self produced CDs (with nothing to distinguish them as self produced other than the care and attention that’s gone into them, and the rather more matey sounding sleeve notes!)

But, if the truth be told, there are times when I wonder if the record company route might be easier – someone else to do the work. Then I read articles like this one by Steve Albini – he produced In Utero by Nirvana, and here outlines the details of a major ‘rock’ deal (some fruity language again, so avoid if easily offended). Thanks, but no thanks, I’ll stick with ‘jamming econo’ as the mighty Mike Watt calls it – the DIY ethic is a powerful one, and it doesn’t take much searching to find like-minded souls with whom to share a thought and a word of encouragement. I’ve met loads of indie musos through Looper’s Delight, the solo bass network, and just through gigs, web surfing, at NAMM and so on. Tomorrow I’m meeting up with a very fine solo bassist called John Lester, another solo bassist ploughing a furrow in London, and making some amazing music (check out his site, he’s great).

Anyway, I thank God I had the chance to go indie when I did, and that it’s all working out so well… looking forward to putting out the new record with theo, and then starting work on the next solo one! I’ve done loads of practicing over the last few days and am getting a few ideas together for new tunes… what fun…

Soundtrack – Terje Rypdal, ‘Skywards’, Duke Special, ‘Lucky Me’, and an advanced copy of Andre LaFosse’s album ‘Normalise’, which is marvellous. I mean, really really good! not easy listening by any stretch, but some of the most adventurous, funky, glitchy fascinating sounds ever to come from a guitar… Go and have a listen to some of the tracks in Andre’s MP3 archive, and then order the CD…

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There ain't nothing like The Dame

Just been listening to Dame David Bowie (was it Smash Hits who christened him that?? I think so… whoever it was, it does seem to fit…) Anyway, been listening to Heathen, his album before the brand new one, released about a year or so ago. And it’s really really good! like, marvellous. What a great thing it is to be in your 50s and still producing great art, carrying yourself with dignity and exercising the kind of creative freedom that Bowie seems to wield.

Anyway, what have I been up to, I hear you ask. Well, I finished that transcription for Total Guitar, though I haven’t heard back from them, so I’m waiting to hear if it’s OK or not…! I’m sure it will be.

Been practicing a lot – got the bug again a few days ago, after a while off from feeling inspired by new solo ideas. I was still enjoying playing the tunes in my set, but wasn’t hearing anything new. Then yesterday, I started to get some more ideas. Can’t wait to get my new bass, which should be here by the end of September… hopefully. As soon as it arrives, I’ll start work on the next solo album.

Hang on! Talk of a next solo album is all too previous, given that ‘For The Love Of Open Spaces’ by Steve Lawson and Theo Travis isn’t out yet. At this moment in time, I’m listening through the extra material for the preorder CD special. IF you remember, last time I released a CD, the extra disc was ‘Lessons Learned From An Aged Feline Pt 1’, which features some of my favourite solo work anywhere – as you can see, this extra disc thing is not just a way of farming out a load of left over rubbish, for us it’s about getting more music out there, making it available and of course creating the incentive for you lovely people to part with your hard-earned crisp ‘n’ folding before the thing is even released. The reasons for this should be fairly obvious – we don’t have an external record company with a bottomless pit of cash. It’s us, doing it for ourselves, like the sisters, so any money we can make back before the thing is even out is a huge help to the cause.

So we release additional CDs, which entice you into buying more stuff, give us the chance to get more music out there, and help to pay the bills. Everyone’s a winner, baby!

So where was I? Ah, yes, the extra tracks for the Lawson/Travis album – these are freakin’ fabulous!! Easily good enough to have made it onto the CD itself. So do make sure that as soon as the new album goes on sale, you get a copy ordered. It’ll be a strictly limited edition…

Advert over. Start of new advert… :o) – I discovered the other day that my CDs are available at www.towerrecords.com and www.hmv.co.uk – just go to either site and search on my name! Wahey, solo bass goes mainstream! I guess the HMV one means that you can also order it from any HMV shop, so please do – it’ll really help with the distrubution of future CDs if you go and get Not Dancing and Conversations there now…

Tonight, I’m off into town to see Cathy Burton play – she’s a fab singer/songwriter, and is at Sound in Leicester Square tonight, on at 9.15 if you fancy it…

The Aged Feline was at the vets again this morning – good news is his weight’s gone up a bit (been going down for months), bad news is, his kidneys are failing a little more… hoping we can fix ‘im up soon… poor darling.

Soundtrack – right now, me and theo. also, David Bowie, ‘Heathen’; Michael Manring, ‘Thonk’; Denison Witmer, ‘Recovered’; Calamateur, ‘Son Of Everyone EP’; Athlete, ‘Vehicles And Animals”; Vigroux/Cury/Rives/Lawson;

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Trip the light fantastic

there’s a really cool interview with Trip Wamsley over at www.talkbass.com at the moment – Trip is a fantastic solo bassist, with a new CD out called ‘It’s Better This Way’, that I can’t recommend highly enough – head over to his site to get a copy, he’s very good indeed. The interview is marvellous, written by Max Valentino (another fine solo bassist), and mentions me a few times, which is nice, but not the only reason why it’s a cool interview – for someone who is clearly as mad as a sack-full of badgers, Trip makes a lot of sense in interviews.

Soundtrack – right now, Bill Frisell, ‘Ghost Town’ (another one of my most listened to albums in my whole life – at one point is spent a few weeks both in my CD player and my Minidisc player, so I was permanently listening to it), before that, Horace Silver, ‘Jazz Masters’; Mary Chapin Carpenter, ‘Time, Sex, Love’; Ghost 7, ‘New Directions In Static’; Joe Burcaw, ‘Dichotomy Theorem’ and Chris Bowater, ‘Still’ – I played on this one, the session was a couple of months back, and Dan Bowater who engineered and co-produced it has done a fantastic job – it’s a worship/devotional/gospel album, and I play loads of melodic fretless stuff on there, and a few bits of Ebowed ambient stuff that blends right in with the keyboards and string pads. Very nice stuff.

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duets…

What a fine week! – Monday, as mentioned was a day recording with Theo. Thursday was a day recording with BJ Cole, and Friday was a day transfering music from Patrick Wood’s ADAT to my computer, and then recording a bit too. These three duo projects are rather fun and invigorating and are producing all manner of fascinating music. The duets with BJ are from a looping perspective going to be the most technically demanding, as we tend to be heading towards tracks with lots of sections, which is great, cos it’ll force me to learn some new EDP tricks – probably time to pay Andre’s site another visit. Talking of looping – there have been some rather heated discussions on the looper’s delight mailing list the theme of what on earth ‘live looping’ means – does it refer to a technical approach to music making? does it imply anything specific in terms of style/genre/aesthetic? is it enough of a hook to build a festival round? While the discussion has been fascinating, the main bizarre thing about it has been just how upset some people have got with it all – it’s way too easy to let email lists encroach on your ‘real’ life, and also to get disagreements mixed up with personal attacks…

Anyway, duets – lots of cool stuff already played/recorded, and lots more to come. I’ll be editing some of what’s already gone, and will hopefully have some stuff up on the site soon… Talking of duets, If you’re in Southern California, Todd Johnson – solo bassist extraordinaire – is hosting a fantastic series of duet gigs in a coffee shop in the Santa Clarita Valley – see Todd’s Site for more info…

what else? Yesterday – teaching and gardening – gardening should have just involved cutting the lawn, but The Small Person had left a large pile of sticks on the lawn, which last time I’d cut the grass I just cut round. So this time the sticks were still there, and the grass had grown through it, making moving the sticks a bit of a big job. Anyway, I did move them, and cut the rest of the lawn, but was knackered afterwards. How dull was that? you don’t care to you? and quite rightly so, there are far more pressing bits of info you could be reading.

And today? church this morning, followed by a day of musical tinkering – bass practice, listening to duet stuff, drum programming etc. The off to see The London Improvisors Orchestra – lots of very skilled musicians making a very inspiring racket. The ones I’d heard of included BJ Cole (who’d suggested I go along), Evan Parker, John Edwards and Steve Beresford.

Soundtrack – lots of interesting stuff over the last few days. Michael Jackson, ‘Off The Wall’, Holly Penfield, ‘Fragile Human Monsters’, an Esquivel compilation (do a search for him on line – he’s great), Medeski Martin and Wood, ‘The Dropper’, and right now I’m listening to Jeff Kaiser/Brad Dutz, ‘The Order Of Her Bones’ – an experimental duet CD for trumpet and percussion, Jeff’s own pfMENTUM records, which is also the label that released Ted Killian’s fantastic ‘Flux Aeterna’ album.

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