Musings on the byways of popular culture
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21/09/2019
Every Saturday lunchtime, 12:00 – 14:00, until December 14th. Union Chapel, Compton Terrace, London N1 2UN
A list of this season’s events below in a comment.
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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.
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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.
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Inspired by a recent exchange on Facebook, it occurred to me that I have a favourite spoon. If I go to my kitchen drawer looking for a spoon to eat my cereal (a rare occurence these days) or a bowl of soup, there is one spoon I favour above all the others. Do you have a favourite spoon?
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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.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/07/brazil-mourns-death-of-musician-joao-gilberto
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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?
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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!
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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?
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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.
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The SE Dub Collective – Ruff Ole Life.
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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.
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Is it my ears (I’m not in line for Spring Chicken Of The Year) or are my speakers sounding less punchy, less Ooh Yes! than when I bought them, quite a few years ago? I tend not to drive my amp or speakers very hard, because I live in a block of flats and I don’t want any unpleasant banging on the walls, and lately they just sound a bit flat and meh.
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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.
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This comes pretty close to it. Catchy, danceable, clever lyrics without being smartarsed.
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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.
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.
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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?
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This has made me sad. Probably the finest comic actress Britain ever produced. 93 is not bad going, mind you.
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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.coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-news/jazz-duke-ellington-coventry-cathedral-15478366
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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.
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Venue:
The Horns, Watford. WD17 3RL
Date: 29/11/2018
Stanley Dee comprise Cavan as frontman and principal vocalist with Amelia, Katy and Jen backing singers with their own featured spots. Alto and tenor saxes are played by Derek and Paul respectively, trumpet, flugelhorn, 12-string acoustic rhythm guitar and occasional vocals are from Steve, guitar from Darren, keyboards by Keith, bass by Mark and drums by Don. The gig was scheduled to start at 9:30pm and I arrived at about 8:45 as the band were completing their soundcheck, culminating in a repeated run-through of the chorus of “Midnight Cruiser”. The band and the pub’s sound man were satisfied so the band trooped off the pub’s slightly-crowded stage until start time. At 9:30 they were all back and ready to go. It must be said that “Can’t Buy A Thrill” works pretty well as a distinctly front-loaded vinyl album but is problematic as a live performance, played in sequence. “Do It Again”‘s all-percussion intro is not suited to a slightly-rowdy pub crowd but once the keyboards etc. come into play it’s all systems go. The surprise with this outfit’s rendition of the song is that female vocalist Amelia takes the lead, with » Continue Reading.
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My friend Nic Wray has written this report for the British Tinnitus Association, which might be of interest. Quite a long read but full of information. Perhaps there’s other stuff of interest to you on their page.
Nic has been Communications Manager at the BTA since June 2010. She is responsible for the BTA’s communications online and in print as well as being one half of the PR team. In addition to writing a number of the BTA’s information leaflets, she also edits the BTA’s journal, Quiet and co-edits the Annual Tinnitus Research Review. She sees providing the tinnitus community with information as a key to helping people live well with tinnitus. A graduate of the University of Sheffield, she is an Accredited PR Practitioner.
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Venue:
Milton Court Concert Hall, Guildhall School Of Music & Drama, The Barbican London
Date: 05/11/2018
The Guildhall Saxophone Ensemble conducted by ensemble director Christian Forshaw, with Angèle on piano and two percussionists. The 14 saxophonists of the ensemble comprised 3 soprano saxes, 3 alto saxes, 3 tenor saxes, 3 baritone saxes plus a bass saxophone and a sopranino saxophone, with one of the altos, one of the baritones and two of the sopranos doubling on clarinets for one piece. Interesting that out of the fourteen of them, eight were women. All three of the sopranos, one of the tenors, two of the baritones and two of the altos. The ensemble kicked off with a rendition of Philip Glass’s soundtrack music for the film “Mishima”, rearranged from the original string quartet by Forshaw. This was followed by 3 pieces by Moondog, “Dog Trot”, “New Amsterdam” and “Paris” with the addition of a huge bass drum, played by a young woman and a snare drum played by a young man. Angèle joined various members of the ensemble singing on “New Amsterdam” and singing and playing piano with the ensemble on “Paris”. There was then an interval during which the bass » Continue Reading.
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Venue:
The Broadway Theatre, Letchworth Herts UK.
Date: 05/10/2018
Friday 5th to Sunday 7th October was the annual Herts Jazz Festival, the 8th one, held this year at the Broadway Theatre & Cinema in Letchworth town centre. Organised by Herts Jazz Club, led by the formiddable team of Clark and Sylvia Tracey. Mostly it was a great venue, seating-wise and sound, but with one major drawback, upon which I’ll comment later. I splashed out for a weekend ticket (£120) to cover all 13 performances.
Further comments below.
The audience:
A high codger quota. Lots of elderly couples. Fairly well-heeled for the most part. A scattering of younger hip-creative types too. Even some teens, though all of them seemed to be with older adults. Lots of muso-talk among the punters. Quiet and well-behaved during performances. Plenty of walking sticks in evidence. a couple of wheelchair users.
It made me think..
Jazz is still mostly oldsters music. Or at least out in the sticks it still is.
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30/01/2019
Columbia Theater, Berlin January 30th Zeche Carl, Essen January 31st Botanique, Brussels February 1st Gaité Lyrique, Paris February 2nd Union Chapel, London February 4th Gorilla, Manchester February 5th Oran Mor, Glasgow February 6th St. Georges Church, Brighton February 7th
