The Afterword

Musings on the byways of popular culture

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Dusted Off: My STD 305D Turntable.

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A couple of months ago I dusted off my old late ’70s turntable, which I got s/h sometime in the later ’80s. I gave it a bit of an overhaul (cartridge alignment, tracking weight, anti-skid, levelling etc) and played a couple of albums. It was reluctant to start up at first (unresponsive control touch pads – see photo) but then it decided that it was going to work after all. I’d not used it at all since then but yesterday, having moved it and the rest of my audio stuff to a new position in the room I thought I’d play an album or two. Once again it would not start up unless the relevant touch pad was repeatedly tapped until it responded. Unresponsive touch pads seem to be a common fault on these decks as they get old. After it had been playing for a bit however, the touchpad response was fine. It sounds pretty good, within the limitations of the rest of my fairly inferior setup. These decks seem to be pretty well-regarded by turntable enthusiasts. It doesn’t have the original tonearm, as the previous owner fitted a Stax UA-7 with what looks like a carbon fibre pipe » Continue Reading.

Album Running Order vs. Live Show Running Order.

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It has become a trend for heritage bands to perform their best-regarded albums live in their entirety. To my mind there are many good or even great albums that just don’t work well as live sets. The dynamic of them is just not right for live performance, usually due to that old bugbear Front Loading.

Most classic albums are too short to make a decent live set (an hour is a decent live set IMO and I expect two of them) in any case, unless you stretch the performance with extended banter, extra instrumental widdling, adding lengthy crash-bang endings or by repeating verses and/or choruses.

Alter Egos

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There are quite a few artists with alter egos for when they are doing something a bit different to what they’re known for. Paul McCartney as The Fireman, John Lurie of The Lounge Lizards as The Legendary Marvin Pontiac, Phil Collins’ jazz-prog venture Brand X, Anna Meredith’s twin careers as orchestral composer and electronic musician, Jim Mullen as jazz guitarist and his continuing membership of funksters Kokomo. One I discovered just today, rising jazz guitarist star Shirley Tetteh has also recorded some left-field pop as Nardeydey. I expect you lot could name a few more alter egoists.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS0r5NC_r5I

The 10 Best Jazz Albums of 2019?

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Here’s an interesting little list, with a short note about each selection, from Treblezine, a source with which I’ve not previously been familiar. There are a few here that I know and like and some more that I now intend to explore. Last year was a pretty good one for jazz, IMO, and this one has too. If not even better.

Any other 2019 jazz lists, anyone?

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

https://www.treblezine.com/best-jazz-albums-of-2019/?fbclid=IwAR00UgF-UQKnMJXuUptQ-Mw3y0hgUazp0SzDJSYJNsi1uJx2riyNILmXV2g

Women In Jazz: Yazz Ahmed Electric Dreams, Rosie Turton Quintet (+1), Alina Bzhezhinska

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Venue:

The Jazz Café, Camden London

Date: 03/10/2019

An excellent triple bill on a £12.50 ticket (plus £2 booking fee) got me out on a Thursday night to a venue I don’t like very much. Why don’t I like it? Virtually no seating unless you pay extra to get a table in the upstairs restaurant. Expensive bar with poor choice of beverages. Anyway. First up was a half-hour unaccompanied set by harpist Alina Bzhezhinska, playing some Alice Coltrane (Blue Nile) and Dorothy Ashby (Action Line) plus three of her own (I think) pieces. subtle looping and effects were applied but not to the detriment of the music. Pin-drop quiet from the audience, which was a very unusual thing at this venue. They loved it. After about 15 minutes setup (removing the full-size harp from a stage full of other equipment and instruments took a while)and rearrangement, trombonist Rosie Turton and her band (Johanna Burnheart – electric violin, Maria Chiaro Argirò – electric piano, Twm Dylan – double bass, Jake Long – drums and guest Ben Hayes – synths & effects) started their half-hour set consisting mainly of material from her Rosie’s 5ive album. No idea of titles except Orange » Continue Reading.

Happy Birthday Cyberspace!

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On October 29th 1969 the first message was sent through the ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency NETwork) between the four remotely located computers that it consisted of. The message was “LO”. It was supposed to be “LOGIN” but the network crashed after the first two letters. And so what eventually became the Internet was born.

https://daily.jstor.org/happy-birthday-to-cyberspace/?utm_campaign=JSTOR&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_content=1570030918&fbclid=IwAR0X4uINziDIMPn0Xtm2aEIeOPaEpRxrO30dpIPRlhdMl2Oaaupnqxq-pWc

It’s Jazz and Therefore of Limited Appeal Here

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Sheila Maurice Grey is a young British jazz trumpeter of exceptional skill. Also a vocalist, composer and visual artist but that last attribute and the singing are not what I want to talk about here. She is the bandleader of Kokoroko and plays with the female jazz septet Nérija, who have just released an excellent new album entitled “Blume” which can be found on Spotify.

Presuming the link I’ve attached works, here is some of a live set she recently played with her own band Ms Maurice at London’s Pizza Express jazz club.

If you like jazz you might like it. If you don’t you can move on to another AW thread.

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0007xy8

Planning Success For The Stables

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At a well-attended public Council meeting on August 1st, it was unanimously agreed by the Council that a Deed Of Easement would be placed on approved development works adjacent to the Stables site. The developers must inform any new residents in advance of the venue’s presence and the possibility of some noise and that their right to raise noise nuisance complaints will be restricted.

https://www.mkfm.com/news/local-news/the-stables-is-saved/

R.I.P. João Gilberto, Bossa Nova Legend

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88 and finally out on Saturday. Lots of loving tributes from his contemporaries and fans. Just a rather sour and grudging acknowledgement from Brazil’s right-wing president. I’ve avoided posting the obvious clip, even though it’s a beautiful thing, especially the full album version where he sings it first in Portugese before his missus gives us the English translation.

Brazilian guitarist/singer Mario Bakuna dedicated his set at the pub earlier this evening to his memory.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJCzA2FP5to

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/07/brazil-mourns-death-of-musician-joao-gilberto

ATM: Digitising Hidden “Pre-Tracks” fom CDs. Anyone know how to do this?

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I’m currently working my way back through my CD collection ripping everything that was previously ripped as .mp3s and replacing them with .flac files. Going relatively smoothly until I came to Ash’s “1977”. The hidden pre-track (both sides of an old single) is recognised as being present by the software I’m using (Exact Audio Copy) but cannot be ripped. I suppose I could play it and record it on another device, but I’d rather just rip it if that’s possible. EAC shows that track 1 “Lose Control” starts at 5m38s (or thereabouts) on the disc and that there is a hidden track before it but it cannot “see” it to copy it. I’m not especially bothered about the Ash album pre-track, but there are a few other albums that I’ll be ripping eventually where I’d like to rip the pre-tracks too. Any ideas, anybody?

Coming Up: BBC 4 Friday Night At 9. Jazz 625 Live: For One Night Only

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03/05/2019 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p077k8zn

“Jazz 625 Live: For One Night Only is a special 90-minute live show paying tribute to the iconic 1960s BBC Two jazz show of the same name. Broadcast live from the Cheltenham Jazz Festival and hosted by Andi Oliver, the programme will feature a house band and special guests including Gregory Porter, Charlie Watts from the Rolling Stones, Joshua Redman, Jacqui Dankworth and Cleo Laine. There will also be archive performances from the original series and interviews and features looking back at a classic time in jazz.” Broadcast in Black and White! Just like way back then!

Music Education for everyone? Or just for those who can afford it?

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Music teachers on zero-hours contracts. Schools that do not offer music education at all. Schools where music tuition is strictly extra-curricular and must be paid for. Then there’s allegations of bias against BAME, female and disabled applicants at conservatories. Is this the direction we want to be heading in?

https://www.musiciansunion.org.uk/Home/News/2019/Apr/Breaking-the-Class-Ceiling-in-Music?fbclid=IwAR341RNhXAu851EDOID_SMxwK7_VqqnmTkNAfKYvt5oYLk-Mt-PtyxRTVbg

Dolly Parton Special on Another Country with Ricky Ross. A great listen

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Spotted this on FB and gave it a listen, because Dolly is such an amazing person. Greatest female songwriter of the modern era (IMO). An all-Dolly show. First half is examples of Dolly singing hers and other people’s songs and other people singing the songs that she wrote. The second half of the show is Ricky interviewing Dolly just about her songwriting, a long-held ambition of his, which is a thing you don’t usually get with Dolly Parton interviews, unfortunately. And there are a good few more of her songs inbetween, too.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0003v88

Infection In The Sentence – Sarah Tandy

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What does it sound like?:

This is no fusion of jazz and world music, R&B, hip-hop or trip-hop. Just good, new instrumental jazz. Pianist Sarah Tandy has gathered a few top-notch young players (all friends and collaborators on other projects) from the current London scene for six original compositions ranging from the purely-acoustic to dreamy Electric-Miles-style things. On saxophone there is Binker Golding of sax/drums duo Binker & Moses and also Moses Boyd Exodus. On trumpet there is Sheila Maurice-Grey of Kokoroko, Nérija and SEED Ensemble. Sarah herself plays piano & keyboards for the Camilla George Quartet and SEED Ensemble. Bassist Mutale Chashi plays with Kokoroko. Drummer Femi Koleoso plays with the Camilla George Quartet and Ezra Collective. These young players all seem to pop up in each other’s bands and on each other’s recordings from time to time. Sarah’s acoustic piano playing reminds me of McCoy Tyner in his days with Coltrane, at times, but wilder and more intense in her soloing. On electric piano I’m reminded of how Chick Corea played on those early electric Miles Davis recordings. Again there’s more intensity when she solos. Plenty of space in the music for Binker and Sheila to get » Continue Reading.

What’s The Stupidest Thing YOU’VE Done This Week?

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Confess!

I’ll go first: Had a ticket for a gig last night and, due to a Windows update taking longer than I thought, I left the house a little later than optimal. Struggled through traffic to my destination and arrived pretty much dead on 8:00pm, only to realise I’d gone to the wrong venue and the gig was not in fact where I now was but six miles away, in the heart of London’s West End. Scurried back to the car and drove as far as Lancaster Gate tube station, parked nearby and got a tube to Tottenham Court Road, arriving at the gig dead on 9:00pm. I was just in time to catch the start of their second set as they had kicked off the first at 7:45. Considering I’d had the ticket for nearly a month, sitting in plain view on the shelf in my living room, I’ve no idea how I managed to make such a stupid blunder.