The Afterword

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The Power of Duffy

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Back in November 2013 I took part in a filmed (podcast) evening of John McLaughlin-related music and speech ahead of my book on JM, which was published in March 2014. Most of the evening went online ages back but for some reason this section was forgotten. It features Tíona McSherry performing ‘It’s Funny’, in a one-off grouping with Ali McKenzie (bass), Ronnie Greer (guitar), Scott Hamilton (piano) and Sean Randle (drums).

‘It’s Funny’ was co-written by Duffy Power and John McLaughlin and was first released on a French EP in 1966 credited to Duffy’s Nucleus. That version later appeared on the 1971 LP ‘Innovations’ by Duffy Power, collecting together several of his mostly unreleased mid 60s publishing demos. John McLaughlin, uniquely, featured an instrumental version on his own debut LP ‘Extrapolation’ in 1969.

Duffy passed on in February last year. Earlier today I finished work on a (mostly instrumental) album, which has been percolating in between books etc for three years. During the session, at Cormac O’Kane’s Red Box Studios, we had time (and remembered, at last) to upload this missing video.

I’m delighted to say the CH album will include two previously unheard Duffy Power tracks – collaborations » Continue Reading.

Van Morrison: a 70s artist

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As of today (Van’s 70th birthday). I’ve just walked home from the splendid Lamp Post Cafe (https://www.facebook.com/TheLindoresCoffeeHouse), to start about 10 hours of proofreading, and passed a stage full of Van musos soundchecking, down on Cyprus Avenue, with a couple of beefy guys and traffic cones blocking off the end of the adjoining Beersbridge Road.

I asked Van, ‘Why?’ But he told me, ‘It ain’t why, why – it just is…’

For those who are interested, a link to BBC Radio Ulster’s radio broadcast is at the end of the BBC News piece. The BBC NI TV broadcast on Sept 4 will be accessible to anyone in the UK with one of those Virgin multichannel box things (you can find all regional variations of BBC on there if you scroll down diligently enough).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-34101711

Pontifiicating pipers on air…

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Myself and John McSherry were down in Dublin yesterday, on RTE Radio 1’s ‘Arena’, presented by Horslips legend Jim Lockhart. We were promoting ‘The Wheels Of The World: 300 Years Of Irish Uilleann Pipers, out in a week or two. John recorded an exclusive solo bit of pipery for the show 20 mins before airtime – which sounds great. We got 12 minutes. If anyone’s interested, I think it only lasts on the RTE site for a day.

http://www.rte.ie/radio1/arena/

‘Monsieur McLaughlin, we have a problem – Roxy Music’s support act are stuck in traffic…’

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In 2010, Claude Nobs – Montreux Festival supremo – knew John McLaughlin and his old Mahavishnu cohort Billy Cobham were both in the vicinity. He also knew that that night’s opening act for Roxy Music were stuck in traffic hundreds of miles away. Would Le Mahavishneux care to jam with Monsieur Cobham? Why not…

Using a borrowed guitar, this was the first time the pair had played in around 26 years, since a fall-out during an attempted Mahavishnu rebrand/renaissance (John, Billy + others) in 1984. There have been a couple of shaky cameraphone clips online before but this terrific quality audio has just appeared. Bryan Ferry and the lads (much as I love Roxy) surely must have realised that there was nothing more than this…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0k94-XIlQs

Recent bargains in Mahavishnu collecting…

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Known for their 12 hour opening numbers and nine day concerts, with albums that involved more vinyl than any known shelf could withstand, it may surprise some around here to know that the Mahavishnu Orchestra made singles. Well, sort of…

There was one commercial single in the UK and US (‘Can’t Stand Your Funk’ / ‘Eternity’s Breath Part 1’, by MO Mk2 in 1975). Before that, both Spain and Japan released commercial singles in pic sleeves of ‘Open Country Joy’ from MO Mk1’s ‘Birds Of Fire’.

But… in the US there was a radio promo single of an exclusive edit of ‘Sister Andrea’, from the live MO1 LP ‘Between Nothingness & Eternity’, in mono on one side and stereo on the other. I was chuffed to pick a copy up for a few dollars on ebay yesterday. And the day before, amazingly, I came across a US mono/stereo radio promo single of ‘Open Country Joy’ and got it for a few dollars as well. I don’t think I was aware of that one before.

Add to that the recent ‘Dawn’ 2LP (white vinyl) bootleg set from a 1973 radio broadcast at Century Theatre, Buffalo, for £14 and I’m feeling » Continue Reading.

British progressive jazz box set ahoy!

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I’ve had the pleasure of being involved recently in two forthcoming releases – a box set on RPM and a single CD reissue on Hux – that celebrate a particular ‘moment’ in British jazz.

The RPM box, ‘Turtle Records’, is now advertised on Spin CDs’ website, so here’s what it’s about…

It’s a 3CD clamshell box set comprising the three original LP releases from legendary British jazz producer Peter Eden’s own label, Turtle Records, in 1970-71. The albums are Mike Osborne’s Outback, Howard Riley’s Flight and John Taylor’s Pause, And Think Again. These have never been reissued officially before (though bootlegs appeared in the early 90s on FMR, stopped by legal intervention from Peter). Original copies would set anyone back over £800 today.

The albums have been mastered from the original tapes and I’ve created a 17,000 word/56 page booklet telling the story of progressive British jazz in and around 1970, having trawled the entirety of Melody Maker issues for that year and specifically interviewed or corresponded with Peter Eden, John Taylor, Howard Riley and other musicians on the albums – John Surman, Norma Winstone, Barry Guy – plus other musicians whom Peter Eden produced in that period: Michael » Continue Reading.

The Vimtoad…

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I saw an advert in a cinema three or four weeks ago for Vimto – something I vaguely recalled as a 1970s soft drink that sounded like a floor cleaning product and which no one I knew, perhaps no one on earth, ever drank. An advertising agency has obviously felt their brief to resurrect the dead ‘brand’ was too great a mountain to climb, brainstormed a creature called ‘The Vimtoad’ as a CGI advocate for the thing and thought, ‘What the hell…’

I had to google it the next day to make sure (seriously) that I hadn’t simply dreamed it. But no, this advert exists.

I find myself thinking now of other similarly named anthropomorphic absurdities which might be brought into CGI existence to sell other stuff:

* promoting tourism in central Africa with The Congoat

* promoting Dutch art with The Vermeerkat

* promoting other godawful fizzy drinks with The Red Bullfrog

Any others…?

Can anyone recommend hybrid SACD releases?

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Mahavishnu Orchestra’s ‘Birds Of Fire’ is coming out on something called a hybrid multichannel SACD, boasting original quadrophonic mix, surround sound blah blah blah.

I don’t have an SACD player, I don’t know how much of the audio stuff is on layers that a normal CD player can’t access…

My question is this: if I spend the£25 required to purchase a copy, to be played (whatever part of its content can be…) on a normal CD player, am I likely to experience an appreciable enhancement/difference in sound quality?

Has anyone here purchased any other SACD Hybrid versions of favourite albums?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cFJvPuIHro

http://www.musicdirect.com/p-344014-mahavishnu-orchestra-birds-of-fire-hybrid-40-multichannel-sacd.aspx

The earliest commercially released BBC session?

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During a couple of recent writing projects, I’ve come across a two situations of releases/almost-releases of BBC radio and library sessions that strike me as being in the vanguard of this sort of thing.

1. In 1968 a man at BBC Radio Enterprises wrote to Seamus Ennis with a proposal to release on LP most of a 1958 ‘Permanent Library’ session of uilleann piping (ie. recorded during a period of folk music collecting by the BBC for purely public service archival reasons, not specifically recorded for broadcast though many of their PL recordings were broadcast here and there). Ennis was between address at the time and the project never materialised, though it sounds innovative in concept. Did BBC Radio Enterprises release other single-artist LPs of BBC radio or library recordings in the 60s?

2. The other example is an October 1973 Radio 3 ‘Jazz Workshop’ session by the Howard Riley Trio which was licensed for release as a ‘current’ album by Incus Records the following year, titled ‘Synopsis’, as Howard had felt the recording/engineering quality was so good (let alone the performance).

So… was Howard’s album the first time a BBC session was released as an active, current artist’s » Continue Reading.

Bill Leader: The Man Who Paid The Pipers

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Colin H on Bill Leader

One of my ideas when I began writing The Wheels Of The World: 300 Years Of Irish Uilleann Pipers was to include a chapter or appendix on the Irish music aspect of the career of legendary English engineer/producer Bill Leader. Uniquely, he recorded several of the most significant figures in 20th century uilleann piping and during a key point in its history, when it was becoming visible to non-specialist listeners outside of Ireland.

As the book grew in size and scope, however, something had to give and I decided that a full chapter on Bill had to go. Much of the material specific to his recordings with pipers and a little on his general career was used elsewhere in the book (mostly in chapters on Finbar Furey, Séamus Ennis, Willie Clancy and Liam O’Flynn). But a draft of the planned Bill Leader chapter was two-thirds complete and I’ve finished it off, after a fashion, to present it here for the enjoyment, I hope, of Afterworders.

I should also mention that Mike Butler is currently working on a Bill Leader biography and has already created an amazing illustrated Leader discography online at: http://www.dyversemusic.com/2013/01/bill-leader-discography.html

Bill Leader: » Continue Reading.

The Wheels Of The World

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While ChimneySinging has been busy making a film about the New Wave of New Wave I’ve been busy writing a book about the Oldest of Old Waves – 18th century blues: Irish uilleann piping.

‘The Wheels Of The World: 300 Years Of Irish Uilleann Pipers’ is published internationally in September by Jawbone Press. Tomorrow, Monday June 13, I press ‘go’ on the print run. The book is a quarter of a million words and it’s been an adventure. I would never have thought to tackle it, nor thought I had the knowledge to do so (correction: the knowledge as to how to acquire the knowledge), had my friend and co-author, and piping pro, John McSherry not encouraged me.

I believe limited copies will be available, signed, from John and I via the website in the month before general publication. The website is: www.thewheelsoftheworld.com

Your friend and mine, Hannah, was a big help in doing three days of very detailed and rewarding research for me in the larger of the two main British Isles (I live in the smaller one, and plane fares/accommodation expenses are a drag).

The book is written for the interested general reader, by no means just the » Continue Reading.

A Van Morrison Recording Session

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David Attenborough (in hushed tones): ‘And here, indeed, we are priveleged to eavesdrop on something never before captured on film: a rare glimpse into the natural behaviour of a Celtic soul artiste perhaps, indeed, the very last one alive – in his natural environment, the recording studio…’

Celtic Soul artiste: ‘Take me back, take me back, take me way back… take me back to Orangefield an’ the pagan streams, down by Hyndford Street… down by Arklow on a stormy Monday… wakin’ up in TB sheets on Raglan Road, lonely an’ blue, lonely avenue … Take me back, take me way back – Sidney Bechet comin’ through the ether on Voice Of America, Willis Conover an’ David Jacobs, Unle Mac an’ Lord Reith… Hilversum, Radio Athlone, Greenwich Light Vessel, Jelly Roll Morton, Lionel Morten, Lionel Blue, Lionel Blair – listen to the Lionel, listen to the Lionel… St Dominic’s Preview, André Preview, guaranteed a sea view… Down by Avalon, down by Avalon – down by the old bull an’ bush, down by the seaside, down at the doctor’s – Wilko Johnson an’ Lee Brilleaux, pub rock, pub rock, PUB ROCK! – down, down, deeper an’ down – Star of the County » Continue Reading.

Arise, Sir Ashley of Hutchmeister

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English traditional music is celebrated in the Queen’s Birthday Honours as musician, songwriter and bandleader Ashley Hutchings is made an MBE for his services to folk music.

Born in London but now living in Derbyshire, 70-year-old Hutchings was the driving force behind several famous bands including Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span and the Albion Band. These groups enlivened the folk scene by introducing rock instruments thereby opening up traditional music to a new and younger audience.

Hutchings said: “I’m obviously very proud of this honour but it’s England’s musical tradition that’s being recognised as much as me.”

Well, okay, it’s an MBE…

Still, here’s what his publicist has to say:

In a career spanning nearly 50 years Hutchings has worked with a host of folk and folk-rock luminaries including Richard Thompson OBE, Martin Carthy MBE, Maddy Prior MBE, Shirley Collins MBE, John Tams and the late Sandy Denny (who described him as ‘one of my biggest heroes; a great man’).

During the 1970s, Hutchings worked with National Theatre director Bill Bryden composing the music to ‘The Mysteries’, ‘Lark Rise to Candleford’ and ‘The World Turned Upside Down’.

» Continue Reading.

Ornette Coleman: misadventures in Irish traditional music

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Hearing that Ornette has gone to the great free-jazz meeting in the sky led me to dig up the text below: a review from 2000 of a weird jazz/irish trad fusion event mounted at hideous cost and a reflection on it from 2003 by one of the participants, uilleann piper John McSherry. I published the text in a 2004 book on Irish music.

We only referred briefly to the Ornette experience in the book we’ve collaborated on recently (The Wheels Of The World: 300 Years Of Uilleann Pipers, due out in September), but there was an hilarious interview with another participant, Mike McGoldrick, during the writing of the recent book, where he performed almost a stand-up routine about it – a bravura long-form anecdote with sound effects which just wouldn’t have been the same in print. Ask Mike about it if you ever encounter him and he has 20 minutes to spare…

Ornette Coleman Whitla Hall, Belfast Festival Colin H Concert review: commissioned by The Irish Times, November 2000, but unpublished

Playing his only European dates this year in Belfast the very presence of the septuagenarian tenor sax legend is a real coup for the Belfast Festival’s jazz department. The » Continue Reading.

Jean Ritchie RIP

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Seemingly Jean Ritchie, godmother of Appalachian music, died this week, aged 92. A photograph in which she appears has been on my mind lately – it’s a striking, enigmatic image featuring herself and Seamus Ennis, taken in Ireland in 1952. I’ve licensed it as a cover image for my book on the history of uilleann piping, but it just never occurred to me that she was still with us. No longer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptgfRjXOkcM

Being John McLaughlin

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Another week, another Mahavishnu Orchestra tribute band, you say? Perhaps so. Still, these people strike me as entering the fray and immediately raising the bar.

And Being John McLaughlin does indeed seem to be their name. Although, obviously, they’re not. Recorded at The Royal Room (no idea what continent, guessing its North America) May 14 2015

Tristan Gianola – Guitar Alicia Dejoie – Violin Chuck Deardorf – Bass Ryan Burns – Keys John Bishop – Drums*

(* also guessing it’s not the popular Liverpool funnyman)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0s29ypnRoCc