The Afterword

Musings on the byways of popular culture

Menu

Navigation

You are here: Home / Forum / Consecutive Compendium of Culture – Just jack up your jukebox of joyous jazz, jive, jit, jump blues, jungle

Consecutive Compendium of Culture – Just jack up your jukebox of joyous jazz, jive, jit, jump blues, jungle

by 81 Comments

You’ve been so forthcoming so far on this alphabetic odyssey – given lots to enjoy.
That 10th letter of the alphabet is calling out for music, film, art, books, anything beginning with ‘j’. Take it away!
.
Here’s one of my favourite jovial pictures – by Augustus John:

.
And below is a fine old Scottish ballad, which seems appropriate right now – Just Like Honey:

0

Comments

      • I listened to the new master of Zoolook a coupla weeks ago and was pretty knocked out. It sounds better than it did in 1984, and I loved it then.

        If you listen to the noisy middle bit of Magnetic Fields I and Souvenir of China you can sort of hear this coming in terms of the stuff he does with sound effects and jaggedy noises.

        I love a bit of teleological criticism me.

  10. Following ten failed attempts to directly reply @salwarpe..
    May I add that, although the rest of their work didn’t do it for me, James’ Stutter album still gets played regularly in this sewer.
    Mind, Sit Down was a significant step in the crazy paving of my love live – which prompts the thought that a little-celebrated but significant “J” is the humble Jiffy bag:

    (Ballboy – Songs For Kylie)

  12. You Brits have Friday Night Comedy, Have I Got News For You and Mock The Week on constant rotation and the Tories are more entrenched in the government benches than before. Maybe you should beg John Oliver to come back?

  22. None more J than J.J.
    J.J. has one of the worst Greatest Hits compilations I own. Too many uptempo songs, when it’s his ultra laid-back stuff that I really love him for. Like this:

  28. John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman

    Sheer class, sheer cool and soulful beauty. Born of deep technical talent, of difficult lives, delivered elegantly

  32. Johns Children.
    Formed in 1965, managed by Simon Napier-Bell who introduced Marc Bolan to the band.
    Almost out-Who’d The Who on the German Tour of 1967 – and were promptly chucked off the Tour.

    Third single “Desdemona” was banned by the BBC for suggesting that she should “lift up he skirt and fly”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jwct8twEIo

    Fourth single “Midsummer Nights Scene” was never released – a number of copies were used as frisbees in Hyde Park, but those that remain command high prices (somewhere north of £3.5k) if they ever appear at auction

    • Thanks for that, @mike_h – the first time I heard Louis Prima, I was on holiday and I mistook him for that other famous Louis (Armstrong).
      This was great to see, not least because the woman standing next to him intrigued me. Who was this deadpan creature, as motionless as he was jumpy? An infectiously funny pairing, I ‘m glad now to know about Keely Smith.

    • Syl Johnson – that is a fucking excellent song he@s singing there, @alias – thanks for that, really glad to have heard that for the first time. I’ll be checking out some more from him.

      The other two tracks were good, too – but that blew me away.

  45. Jets To Brazil’s Orange Rhyming Dictionary is one of my favourite ever records. This is my favourite track, a beautifully tender account of a lonely suicide (it’s all laughs round my way)

      • sticking with American post hardcore stuff, how about Jimmy Eat World? These days dull purveyors of by the numbers rock, for a little while they were something really good, as this starting-vaguely-grungy-then-drifting-off-into-mellow-hypnotic-guitar-and-wordless-vocals-before-going-a-bit-drum-n-bass-made-by-people-who-have-read-about-drum-n-bass-and-don’t-quite-get-it-but-make-some-good-noises-anyway epic demonstrates

  51. How about authors? The fourteen year old Kid Dynamite and his pals were big fans of James Herbert, and could have told you the page numbers of every dirty and / or gross scene (memory that is now lost like tears in rain, alas).

    Then there is Jonathan Carroll, whose magical tales of the numinous intruding into everyday life are much loved by myself and at least one other member of the parish (@simonl from memory?).

    Junichiro Tanizaki’s Makioka Sisters is a classic Japanese novel, but I am only twenty pages in so far….

  53. Jojje Wadenius, great Swedish guitarist who has performed with so many big names.
    But, if you’re of my generation THIS is the one tune that you know. And will sing, loudly, when you get drunk. With some extra emphasis on the heavy breathing in the middle of it…
    I give you the theme tune to (excellent) Swedish animated kids TV series “Kalles Klätterträd”, brilliantly performed by Jojje Wadenius:

  56. Justified.
    Best tv I’ve seen in quite a while. Sparking dialogue, witty & quick, & characters ya just love, or in some cases, ya just love to hate. Boyd Crowder’s my fave bad guy ever!Just watched the very final episode a few weeks ago, biting my knuckles as I did, praying my favourite characters (by the end they were ALL my fave characters) weren’t going to get killed off in a final bloody showdown. Television perfection. Sigh! Shall miss the verbal badinage between these two.

Leave a Reply