Check out this fellow, playing four parts himself with split-screen video. AND his name is Tom Penguin. How much better can it get?
This is astoundingly close to the sound and feel of the two original pieces. Phew…
One-man Mahavishnu sensation…
Graham Bond: Live At The BBC and Other Stories (4CD)
‘And so, over to the Graham Bond Organisation, the wildest both musically and in appearance… behind the drums sits Ginger Baker, looking like a Francis Bacon portrait in 3D… and Mr Bond himself, a Balzac in dark glasses…’
Thus said Steve Race, a somewhat po-faced man in the 1960s BBC, introducing Graham, Ginger, Mike Falana and Dick Heckstall-Smith, the 1966 incarnation of Graham’s various legendary 60s bands, on ‘Jazz Beat’ at the Playhouse Theatre.
Three years earlier, as the delightfully looser George Melly declared to an unsuspecting pipe and slippers listenership on the same station, introducing an earlier gang with the dsame Hammond-toting leader: ‘Good evening – ‘Jazz Club’, and not a banjo in sight, but of course it’s been a hard winter…’
And so began a bit of history in the making: the onslaught of R&B on the British jazz world. The three Bond Quartet sessions from 1963 (Bond, Bruce, Baker, McLaughlin) are striking in still being somewhere between jazz and R&B – Jack Bruce still playing double bass, McLaughlin’s guitar definitely more jazz than blues, the repertoire more Ray Charles than Muddy Waters. But it was the still the forefront of a big change.
Trad clubs up » Continue Reading.
Anyone speak French? Pipe up now…
My co-author John has very decently been sent a review of our book on uilleann pipers from a french magazine. Neither of us are much good at languages. John likes to share reviews on his social media pages. Anyone here fancy translating a few phrases from it into English for us before he does so?
The Wheels of the World – 300 years of Irish uilleann pipers
A la vue de pareil titre, on ne peut qu’être enthousiasmé. Mais au moment de l’ouvrir point une certaine appréhension, car ce type d’ouvrage est parfois rébarbatif. Eh bien, pas de souci avec cette brique très agréable ! Pas besoin de suivre une ligne toute tracée, car les seize chapitres vous permettent de choisir, de plonger directement à la découverte de Séamus Ennis, Willie Clancy, Leo Rawsome, John Doran, Paddy Keenan, Liam O’Flynn (de Planxty), des cornemuseux de l’Ulster … En outre, chaque chapitre est très clairement formaté, avec des commentaires de diverses personnes (cornemuseux et autres) imbriqués dans le texte. On trouve facilement les passages qui nous intéressent le plus. Ainsi on découvre que Séamus Ennis, lorsqu’il jouait des airs lents, pensait aux mots, à l’histoire racontée sur ces airs. De » Continue Reading.
Call Me [to Court] No.1
And now they’re going after the Tremeloes…
Olivia Newton John: the pub rock years
Here’s an endearing clip of Liv with Aussie pub rock colossus Billy Thorpe, singing and chatting, probably from the early 2000s…
Adam Faith + a minor key = Enya
I thought there was something a bit too familiar about Enya’s new record. Honestly, if it takes her 7 years to come up with this there’s something seriously wrong…
Detectorists!
Just a heads up that Series 2 of this fabulous (and to my mind very AW-esque) BBC4 comedy drama series (fear not, no laugh track) starts this Thursday. Four episodes of Series 1 still on iPlayer.
That said, the conceit of the trailer for Series 2 is ghastly: a faux-Hollywood Blockbuster voiceover which is not only wrongheaded (even in the context of being ‘ironic’) but actually makes the speech in the clips hard to hear. Have they learnt nothing from that ‘mumblegate’ thing last year?
Getting It Straight In Notting Hill Gate
Here is a fabulous piece of anthropology: a half-hour doc on 60s countercultural lifestyles in London, featuring nearly 5 mins of Quintessence rehearsing the title track at All Saints Church in 1969 (from 17:10 – 22:00).
http://player.bfi.org.uk/film/watch-getting-it-straight-in-notting-hill-gate-1970/
Phil Hare, fingerstyle maestro
My attention was drawn to Phil Hare today. He has a new album of instrumental pieces available, at a very modest price. See: www.philhare.co.uk
Word back issues going…
My associate Kevin B is looking to clear some space. He has, looking for a hoime (or a recycling bin) The Word: 54 issues from Nov 2007 up to and including the final issue August 2012.
Anyone in need?
Yet more pontificating pipers on air!
For anyone with 15 minutes to spare here’s John McSherry and myself chatting to Marie-Louise on BBC Radiio Ulster earlier this evening on the matter of uilleann piping and books thereon.
John plays two fabulous pieces of music (with fellow piping supremo Francis McIlduff) and gives a demonstration, and snippets of Liam O’Flynn and Séamus Ennis are played.
And on voiceover, Alan Partridge…
This is so spoof-esque they *must* be doing it deliberately… surely?
The Power of Duffy
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
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…
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…’
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…
Recent bargains in Mahavishnu collecting…
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.
It’s Billy Thorpe: let’s rock
No particular reason – I just felt like some no-nonsense Aztec energy. And here it is…
British progressive jazz box set ahoy!
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.
Asking for tea in a John Otway style
Enough said…
The Vimtoad…
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?
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?
The earliest commercially released BBC session?
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.
Songs whose titles are the only words
Inspired by the ‘final words’ thread. What songs/pieces of music can we think of where the only words involved are the title? John McLaughlin has one or two examples in his ouevre, the most obvious being ‘Are You The One, Are You The One?’ from 1978 (it’s drummer Tony Williams providing the voice).
Chelsea: time for a reappraisal?
You tell me…
