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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.

A very long read but worth the time and effort. A.A. Gill on Brexit in 2016

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What did the late A.A. Gill think about Brexit?

“It was the woman on Question Time that really did it for me. She was so familiar. There is someone like her in every queue, every coffee shop, outside every school in every parish council in the country. Middle-aged, middle-class, middle-brow, over-made-up, with her National Health face and weatherproof English expression of hurt righteousness, she’s Britannia’s mother-in-law. The camera closed in on her and she shouted: “All I want is my country back. Give me my country back.”

It was a heartfelt cry of real distress and the rest of the audience erupted in sympathetic applause, but I thought: “Back from what? Back from where?”

Wanting the country back is the constant mantra of all the outies. Farage slurs it, Gove insinuates it. Of course I know what they mean. We all know what they mean. They mean back from Johnny Foreigner, back from the brink, back from the future, back-to-back, back to bosky hedges and dry stone walls and country lanes and church bells and warm beer and skittles and football rattles and cheery banter and clogs on cobbles. Back to vicars-and-tarts parties and Carry On fart jokes, back to » Continue Reading.

Headzup: On The iPlayer. Stewart Lee presented Late Junction on BBC Radio 3, 25th-27th December 2018

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Fans and admirers of this renowned japester might be interested to hear what his lugholes appreciate. Others may not, of course. Available for the next 3 weeks or thereabouts.

I am a returned fan of Late Junction. I used to tune in regularly 2002-2003 and then stopped apart from a couple of forays in 2008. Maybe I had other things to listen to/do. Still the same mix of the weird, the downright peculiar and the wonderful. Feel free to disagree as vehemently as you like.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001r0r

BBC iPlayer Box Set Mania. Good Or Bad?

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Sorry, expats, down-underers and furriners. This one’s probably just an annoyance to you. So many box sets. Some good, some so-so and some rather tragic. Dr. Who. 156 episodes available. Eccleston to Whittaker. Silent Witness S17-S21. Outnumbered S1-S5. McMafia. Collateral. Informer. Miranda S1-S3. Blackadder Goes Forth. Bodyguard. Killing Eve. A Very English Scandal. The ABC Murders. Gavin & Stacey S1-3. The Long Song. Our Girl S1-4. Fleabag. Death And Nightingales. Wanderlust. Mrs. Wilson. Clique S2. Bleak House. Still Game S7-8. Dynasties.

Watched any? Thumbs up or down?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer

Slipped Past My Radar: Duke Ellington Live @ Coventry Cathedral 1966.

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I decided to have a listen (on the Beeb’s new “Sounds” page) to BBC Radio 3’s “Jazz Now” programme from December 17th. As they played a few excerpts from this and spoke to TV historian Helen Wheatley at Warwick University, I realised I’d missed an important 2018 archival album and film. The album has been released on CD and as a set of FLAC files by the Storyville label. “Duke Ellington In Coventry 1966” is over an hour of delightful live Ellington music. The concert was originally broadcast on ITV’s midlands franchise of the day, ABC, in black and white. It was thought lost for the past 52 years but was unearthed in time to become part of the buildup for Coventry’s “City Of Culture” celebrations in 2021. The film is being screened today in the cathedral and will doubtless be released generally soon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gz1E3_w6Nbo&index=1&list=PLcbU8x_4WGmtKEQKx0AfHuEtF-ZJVDrdo

https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-news/jazz-duke-ellington-coventry-cathedral-15478366

ECM Join The Box Set. Art Ensemble Of Chicago And Associated Ensembles

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Bought the “January 2019” edition of Uncut, just to see what was (and wasn’t) in their End-Of-Year lists. (Ho-Hum) and for the crossword, of course. Coverdisc disappointment as per, but I noticed among the reviews this bit of limited-appeal product. A 21-CD box (with 300-page booklet) of this very non-mainstream outfit. On sale at the usual rampantly-capitalist outlets for a surprisingly non-ECM price point of around 80 of your pre-Brexit spondulicks.

Many Afterworders will shrug their shoulders and say “So what?” or something more pithy. Personally, I’m tempted to fork over some of my readies, while they still have any value, and make some shelf space/ear space for it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jjmarh8Pm8