pooter dodman's jazz and other things pages

dance of the infidels

2011-02-13T08:29:00.001Z

Now less than a year away from OAPism, I realise that I’ll never be an expert in anything. Take jazz, for instance. My random ramblings here are about what I enjoy or perceive of the subject. Nothing I write should ever be taken as a pretension of expertise or even knowledge. I’m entitled to my opinion and the essence of blogs is that I can express that and the reader can take it or leave it. Perhaps that’s why I peruse numerous blogs but follow just two fairly regularly – one by a Lincolnshire photographer and the other by an American biographer writing a book about Roland Kirk. They both talk sense.

A couple of weeks ago I was in a shop leafing through a low pile of jazz LPs. It contained the usual selection of Magenta Haze and misplaced Klaus Wunderlich, but nothing I wanted. A man pushed an album across to me and said “That was in the wrong pile. It should be with jazz.” The record he referred to was “Dixieland Dance Party” by Eddie Condon, starring such luminescent names as Rex Stewart, Bud Freeman, Cutty Cuthsall and George Wetling (Quote: suggested personnel Unquote).

“I’ve never considered Eddie Condon as Dixieland, though,” the donor added. I leapt in with both feet splayed. “I don’t know. I always think of Condon and Dixieland together, although perhaps he rather leaned towards Chicago.”

What utter bosh I speak sometimes! Where did that comment come from? I’ve always been a Condon fan, ever since I read his book “We Called it Music” about five decades ago. I think I can say that Eddie played wonderful Dixieland jazz, but I’m not sure he was actually Dixieland. It’s a little like saying Jeremy Clarkson is an oaf because he behaves like one from time to time.

We chatted for a few minutes. The man obviously suffers from withdrawal symptoms caused by a dearth of people willing to talk about jazz. It turned out he was a member of Ken Colyer’s club in Great Newport Street, London, as was I in the middle 60s. Whenever I went there the club was virtually empty beyond 1am and yet almost everybody I know claims to have been a member. The place should have been heaving every night. Of course, those were in the days before jazz became an art form.

Those for whom that amorphous entity ‘the arts’ is a way of life forget one simple fact: the word ‘art’ is derived from the same root as artificial, artifice and artisan. When jazz became an art form, it began to leak the quiddity of the music. If you doubt the truth of this, review some of the old Steve Race presented BBC2 jazz nights and take a look at the implacable and statuesque bodies of the audience. And some of the musicians went so far up their own backsides I’m surprised they managed to walk off the stage.

What appealed to me about this album of Eddie Condon is that it contained the word ‘dance.’ It’s purely symbolic because I can’t dance; my four left feet keep colliding with my five right. But the inclusion of the word, especially linked to ‘party’, takes jazz back to where I’m convinced it started – out of a desire to make people dance.

Much of today’s jazz is sweet, melodic and anal. It seems to be only the old Dixielanders going out to enjoy themselves and being bothered to actually entertain the audience. Others seek deep meaning in their art and turn inwards, thus losing the precious link between instrumentalist and listener. Here’s a philosophical question: if a jazz musician plays an instrument but there is no audience to listen to it, does he still make a sound? Perhaps the question should add a corollary: if they hear sound, do they care?

My many records, CDs and downloads include cherished albums by Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman, Wynton Marsalis, Joe Harriot, Don Rendell, Sonny Rollins, Gerry Mulligan, Art Pepper, Cannonball Adderley, Art Blakey and loads more proponents of jazz from a wide range of genres. So I’m not actually the mouldy fig I probably seem.

But I do wish there were less (should that be fewer?) bollocks talked and written about the subject. And on that note, I’ll heed my own wishes. After all, what do I know?

jumpin' at the woodroffe

2010-12-19T17:09:00.000Z

I’d like to introduce you to a jazz band that you’ve probably never heard of before. It’s called “The Saxophone Choir” and consists of a soprano, several altos, a couple of tenors and a baritone. If I remember correctly, they number eight in all, occasionally augmented by other players according to availability and, presumably, the whims of the leader.

Average age in the ensemble is about 15. When I saw them, the boys and girls were resplendent in school uniform. Standing in line on a makeshift stage, each player concentrated intently on individual scores ranged on music stands in front of them, always keeping wary eyes on the leader/conductor, the class’s music teacher, a petite blonde.

She bounced around with glee, keeping time as much with her hips as her hands. That young woman had more intuitive rhythm and enthusiasm than any of this year’s contestants on the X-Factor. And her obvious enjoyment of the music was infectious. She was upbeat, so her musicians responded and proved that jazz can swing at all levels and in all genres.

The band played for about 20 minutes during a pre-Christmas bazaar in the main hall of Dorset’s Woodroffe School. It was the best 20 minutes of jazz I’ve enjoyed since Chris Barber in Grantham. I’m not sure what sort of jazz you call it. I didn’t recognise any of the numbers and I think some were home-brewed. But it was varied and funky, groovy and swinging. (Why do I cringe when I type those adjectives?)

The point is that here’s a bunch of school children taking jazz to their hearts. The tenor soloist would have received empathetic appreciation at Ronnie Scott’s and the baritone player maintained the bass line like an old professional, although the instrument almost smothered her. I hope all the band’s members keep up their interest in jazz. We need youngsters and teachers like this so the most noble music of all is kept kicking and jumping and in a position to compete with the dross churned out by Cowell, Walsh et al.

Jazz is alive and well and living in Lyme Regis.

keep on knockin'...

2010-11-28T08:51:00.000Z

Suddenly, I want to know about my Jewishness. After a life time of disinterest, if not uninterest, my curiosity has finally been pricked and I find myself seeking new knowledge about the life of a people that I feel otherwise are destined forever to be a mystery to me.

My paternal forebears were Germanic Jewish. If I go back far enough (to the late 19th century) they were all even fully-fledged Jews. Am I allowed to differentiate without breaking moral ethnic codes? I ask because strictly speaking I’m an in-betweener. I don’t actually belong anywhere. If Hitler had succeeded, I’m one of those post-war people who would have tasted the bitterness of the man’s ‘Final Solution’ by virtue of my name (Dodman is a soubriquet) and probably appearance. On the other hand, Jews don’t want to know me because my mother and grandmother were gentiles, and we all know Jewishness passes down through the maternal bloodline. So I’m stuck in the middle – out on my own: damned as if I were and damned because I’m not.

One of my first objectives, therefore, is to determine whether the Hebraic way of life is a religion, a race or a culture. I feel this is a valid starting point because I’m not in the least religious; in fact I eschew all forms of religion. Eternal life! Can you imagine anything worse? Also, if Jewishness is a race I can’t suddenly perform a Kafkaesque metamorphosis as something I’m not already. Cultures on the other hand can be learnt and assimilated.

Let me make this clear: I’m not applying for membership. I’m not even sure I know anyone well enough to ask for sponsorship. And I’m not like Treslove in ‘The Finkler Question,” the man for whom the status of vicarious Jew by association was the result of his ambition to be accepted and absorbed into Jewishness.

This is rather a ground level “Who do you think you are?” question. I’m not fussed about knowing where I fit into the theoretical grand scheme of things. Intellects far superior to mine have tried (and failed) to make philosophical sense of the meaning of life. I’m more pragmatic.

Being almost 64, I realise that if I don’t educate myself now I probably never will. I failed at school and school failed at me. As a result, I launched myself into the adult world with the belief that I’d finished learning. So I was late acquiring the inquisitive impetus to discover more. As an opsimath, I now want to know about my family’s Jewish history. Genealogy has been my pastime (pun intended) for many years, but only recently have I delved back far enough to uncover solid pedigree Jewish roots. And I’m swamped and wallowing in ignorance.

Recent research has been an eye opener. So far, I’ve found over 600 German Jews with whom I can claim a direct (if meandering) lineage. And yet I know nothing about Jewishness, motives and aspirations, life and culture, apart from what I learnt through “The Merchant of Venice.” Is this irony? I played Shylock. Could Mr Morrison at Dartford West have been more perceptive that I thought?

I have a long way to go. From what I understand from my readings, even elderly Jews who have been Jews all their lives have no idea what Jewishness is. But I’m making a start. I’m about to download ‘Oliver Twist’ to my Kindle. I shall study intently.

Shalom.

russian lullaby

2010-11-22T17:05:00.000Z

My collection of jazz on old LPs is steadily growing. However, as I’ve probably said before, real jazz fans don’t discard good recordings. This is perhaps the reason I’m often disappointed at the quality of tracks on pre-owned albums I buy. Usually only the lacklustre get into the second-hand shops. But there are exceptions.

Recently I had a grand piece of luck. Poking around in a charity shop, I noticed a Vic Dickenson record languishing beneath a pane of grubby glass at the counter. It was a little more than I usually like to pay (I was charged £2 for it) but I bought it anyway.

It’s not actually an LP. It’s a 10” long-playing single with one extended track on each side. The title: Vic Dickenson Septet Vol. 1. They really knew how to create compelling names for records back in 1953. The producers probably burnt gallons of midnight oil to come up with the sequel: Vic Dickenson Septet Vol. 2.

Here’s the good news. Side 1 is Russian Lullaby, a superb example of fifties jazz. The liner notes by Stanley Dance call it ‘mainstream,’ a genre sitting slightly awkwardly between New Orleans and Modern. Whatever type of jazz it is, Russian Lullaby swings like a catkin in a summer breeze. Now that probably seems a contradiction; a swinging lullaby sounds like an oxymoron. But take a look at the line-up of the rhythm section and genuine aficionados will understand me: Sir Charles Thompson (p) Steve Jordan (g) Walter Page (b) Les Erskine (d).

These lads might sit at the back, but they surge forward like the metaphorical Formula 1 drivers they are. And the three in the front row (Vic Dickenson (tb) – Ruby Braff (t) and Edmond Hall (cl) rise to the occasion and turn what could so easily be a desultory ramble into a championship event. And they all cross the line together. The pace isn’t fast, but it’s driven. The momentum carries it ahead of so many rivals. Too much jazz just doesn’t swing. This recording does.

At my age I need something to wake me, not send me nodding into a dribbling cocoon of senescent boredom. This Vic Dickenson is just what my psychiatrist prescribed.

red kites in the sunset

2010-11-17T19:07:00.000Z

A couple of weekends ago we trundled the motor-home down to Henley-on-Thames. As I fumbled to untangle the electricity cable, I glanced up and saw immediately above my head a red kite soaring low and languid. Then a second appeared, and a third, and yet a fourth.

What amazed me is not that these powerful birds of prey are here on the Buckinghamshire/ Oxfordshire border, but that everybody else on a packed camp site ignored them as if such sights are everyday occurrences. A man walked past carrying his toilet (we do that sort of thing when we’re camping) and he shrugged as if to say ‘so what?’

With friends, we walked into town. Close to the old bridge over the river (engines one at a time please) we encountered more red kites. They are everywhere. The lovely and knowledgeable lady in the Tourist Office bubbled as she explained that now they reckon to have over 200 breeding pairs, and the families are slowly fanning out over wider and wider territories as the wily birds organise themselves not to compete with each other for food.

They ARE everyday sights then. The last time I saw one was on the Black Isle some years ago and then it was quite a rarity. Now, it seems, just to the west of London they are more common than house sparrows.

Of course I exhibited my tourist’s credentials. Instead of enthusing over the phalanxes of rowing boats sculling up the Thames, I focussed my monocular on the sky to watch graceful kites wreathe and loop over the brows of Remenham Hill. In fact, I was so engrossed I became an obstacle to the many cyclists pounding along the tow path in pursuit of the boats. Furiously pedalling team managers breathlessly exhorted “keep contact with the water,” a little pointlessly I thought for an oar-centred propulsion system. But I suppose they have to feel they’re making some contribution other than pushing me off the footpath.

The people of Henley seem blasé about these wonderful birds in their midst. We have marsh harriers around us, but I can’t believe I’ll ever stop being excited at the sight of one quartering the dykes and field edges.

So, good luck to you Henley. Apart from red kites, the Thames and the remarkably patient staff in Pizza Express, you have very little going for you.

swing to bop

2010-11-07T17:00:00.000Z

Any jazz lover will know what BOP is. On the other hand, a birder will instinctively interpret the term as an acronym for bird of prey. Men of a certain age will give it yet another meaning: Boy’s Own Paper. I’m a jazz lover, a birder and a self-confessed former avid reader of the magazine. Note the apostrophe in the title, suggesting the magazine was mine and mine alone. If I was intended to share it, I figured the apostrophe would come after the s.

I hadn’t thought about BOP for about 50 years until I encountered a herd of cows. And I immediately recalled a tale I read from its pages when I was about 9 years old.

In the story, an intrepid explorer found himself alone and lost during a trek in the African jungle, or perhaps it was a remote part of the Hindu Kush. He’d left his gun behind, or maybe he’d lost it or run out of bullets. My memory is not what it used to be.

When he was at his weakest and most despairing, he suddenly found himself surrounded by a pride of lions, or tigers, or cheetahs. His situation was desperate. The panthers, or cougars, were evidently hungry. They sat eyeing him, slavering at the jowls and licking their licks with all the delicacy of a pack of starving wolves. Maybe they were wolves, come to think of it.

Then, the creatures started to circle him, crouching low like tabby-cat stalking a mouse. The explorer reached for his gun which would normally have been slung across his back. His hand felt something hard and long and he grasped it with a trembling fist, and dragged it quickly round to the front. With a sinking heart, he discovered it was no more than an umbrella. He was English, obviously.

What does the man do? As the big cats slowly close in for the kill, he waits until he can almost smell what they had for breakfast. And, as the leader of the pack (pride?) crouches for the ultimate tail-swishing gory leap, our intrepid hero opens the umbrella at the same time as emitting a blood-curling yell. The cats scattered and disappeared back into the bush, frightened by the awesome sight of an Englishman armed with a decorously rose-printed small bore umbrella.

If you’ve ever walked over London Bridge during a wet rush hour, you’ll appreciate that fear of the umbrella is not irrational. Big cats never risk having their eyes poked out.

The explorer lived to tell the tale. So did we. Cows can be dangerous, too. A herd of them were grazing below the bank of the River Great Ouse. As we approached, the entire bunch of them suddenly broke into a canter and hurtled up the grassy slope to greet us in one beef-mountainous stampede. I had an instant replay of the story from BOP and cursed my foolishness for not carrying a gamp. I’ve always wondered why Nicholas Crane always has an umbrella strapped to his rucksack. He never uses it in the rain, but then as far as I’m aware he’s never been attacked by a herd of thirsty jaguars. But I suppose it’s there if he ever needs it on his walks into big game jeopardy around Beachy Head.

Lacking umbrellas, we utilised our cameras so at least our next-of-kin would have photographic evidence of the culprits should we be trampled underfoot. The cows halted instantly and posed considerately, turning their more elegant profiles towards us and, while they were engrossed in their own self-importance and conceit, we slipped by unharmed.

I’ve now bought an umbrella and give thanks for the wonderful Boy’s Own Paper

there - I've said it again

2010-11-02T21:03:00.001Z

Here he goes again: recently I had an encounter in a charity shop in Sleaford. A solitary woman slouched over the counter looking bored in her job. She was a volunteer and I suppose we can’t expect unpaid staff to look as if they’re enjoying themselves. The charity is no doubt grateful for what it can get to run the place on a quiet weekday afternoon.

To her left, on a shelf below the ceiling, a vibrating loud speaker blasted out heavy rock music. It sounded like 1980s punk, but then I’m not the best judge given that I consider anything recorded after 1935 as modern music. Presumably she was either deaf or inured to the onslaught of unnecessary volume. I would have written immured there, but you’d probably think I was committing malapropism, even though ‘immured’ is probably more apposite.

As I grazed for my jazz LPs, or books not dominated by a photograph of Sharon Osborne, the music began to jar. The shop had about four customers raking through racks of clothes. They were all my age (elderly) or older. Admittedly, I seemed to be the only one flinching.

I bought a book of poetry by Ted Hughes. I’ve never understood much of his writings, but I’m a believer in trying a second time if I don’t at first succeed. As I paid, the music switched tracks to a ballistic attack of discordant guitar and pitch-free shouting.

Unfortunately, I’m generally too much of a coward to complain. But this blast of hot notes was too much. I said to the woman: “I must admit I’m not a great admirer of your choice of music.” She sniffed and replied “It’s not my choice. They insist on playing it.” We all know that ‘I’ am never responsible; it’s always ‘they’ who carry the can. But I could sense she hated me for daring to criticise. I was already identified as the day’s grumpy old man.

But damn it! I’m proud to be a grumpy old man. If we had more grumpy old men and women, albeit braver than I, this country would be a more pleasant land. Instead we accept whatever is thrown at us. I responded “Well please tell them that I find the music very off putting” and I walked out, unfortunately tripping over the doorstep as I went. I think hubris is the word; my dignity trailed limply behind me.

This is an appeal. I made the same appeal last year i.e. in the approach to Christmas. The situation seems to have deteriorated in the past 12 months. Loud inappropriate music is now becoming endemic in shops, malls, stores, narrow streets, pub, restaurants and most public places. STOP. Switch off your boring, insensitive, infuriating mechanical music and save those inevitable and unwarranted payments to the PPL and the PRS.

Shopkeepers and publicans – the fact is that the majority of your customers don’t even notice whether the music is on or off but we who are aware of it detest our lives being invaded because you are under the false belief that loud music improves trade. It doesn’t.

Let me prove it. A couple of Saturdays ago we ate at the Ebrington Arms in Kirkby-on-Bain. We heard no music at all. And the pub was heaving with customers of varying ages, all spending good money on food and drink. This amiable experience was repeated in the Wig & Mitre in Lincoln; the peace was almost sublime. On the other hand, musically-explicit pubs were standing empty, except for the ubiquitous young lad feeding a juke box over a single Diet Coke (£1.50) while his girlfriend allowed the baby to crawl all over the floor.

Peace be with you.

Kith & Kindle

2010-10-31T13:51:00.002Z

The 21st Century has taken me by the scruff of the neck. Even as I search the charity shops and second-hand stores for a record player with a crank handle and a 78rpm setting, I’ve invested in an Amazon Kindle.

It’s lovely. It’s compact and as slender as Mr Creosote’s ‘wafer thin mint.’ The software is so easy to use even I can operate it without having to call for my wife’s help (she is, incidentally, the technical manager of our little partnership, as well as CEO, treasurer, social secretary, head chef etc etc – I have yet to find my true role but I’m tolerated on the board because I own 50% of the shares).

The Kindle came with a ‘leather’ cover (optional extra). I chose the red so it stands out in a crowd, but the limelight never suits my complexion so I swapped it for Mrs Dodman’s more modest tan version. Sitting in the palm of my hand, with the ‘leather’ cover open, the Kindle feels almost like a real book. It’s a virtual book, a sort of solid textual hologram. If I want, it will even read the story to me, albeit in a voice that comes across the way Prof. Hawkins would sound if he had no idea about English punctuation and word modulation.

My first Amazon download was “The Finkel Question” by Howard Jacobson. The initial chapter is so witty and clever that I shall probably never write again. Who needs mediocrity when excellence can be had for the same price? I’m enjoying the author’s writing immensely.

BUT – I’m not reading a book. I’m reading a lot of dots on what is in reality a computer screen. Although I can pretend it’s a real book, I can’t smell the paper; I can’t turn the cover back and forth to skim quickly to see when it was written. I can’t indulge in little fantasies about he or she whom last held the book, or imagine the true meaning behind the coded message hand-written in blue ink on the frontispiece (I love second-hand books with inscriptions). And it looks very lonely on the book shelf, although it purports to be capable of holding more volumes than Sleaford library.

Worst of all, I dare not fall into a doze lest the thing crashes to the floor. If that occurs (and it does frequently I’m afraid) to a book, I’ll have the inconvenience of finding my place again but at least the spine and cover will be intact. How many times can I drop a Kindle before it takes umbrage and shuts down for ever? Manufacturers should cover such inevitable events under modern-day guarantees, but I bet they don’t.

I searched Kindle Store for books on jazz. The selection is very disappointing and the one or two which could be of interest are priced far too high for my meagre pocket.

So, the upshot is that Kindle will form a vital (but secondary) tool in my literary armoury. That’s a terrible metaphor but read paragraph 4 again. However, it’s like a Citroen C8 compared with the Citroen Dolly 2CV. It has Teutonic-style efficiency, but warmth, charm and character have somehow fallen by the wayside. Kindle will be my new friend, but it will never subvert my 60 years’ or so love affair with printed paper, board and spinal glue.

moanin' (again)

2010-10-24T19:41:00.000+01:00

A requisite of our rambles is the pint of foaming real ale in a quiet pub at the end of the weary mile. After our promenade along the Sir Peter Scott Walk, we arrived in King’s Lynn full of Friday afternoon anticipation. From Ferry Lane, we turned left and walked into Tuesday Market Place. Here’s a hint for anyone following our slightly damp footprints: don’t. Turn right instead.

The first pub, the Crown & Mitre, was inexplicably closed at about 3pm on a Friday afternoon. Disappointed, we walked around the square. Smoking drunks were lounging in the doorway of the second pub we tried; the booming music from within was noxious. The next pub had a solitary smoker slumped against the doorjamb, but when I opened the door, I saw the floorboards vibrating with the power of music. “Too noisy for us,” I explained to the bleary-eyed and slightly bemused puffing herald on the door.

On a far corner, we found similar at the 4th pub. In the gloom we could see a couple of drinkers at the bar screaming at each other, not in aggression but in a failed attempt to ride above the fusillade of notes wailing from speakers throughout the bar. We turned and left.

Peering through the window of the 5th pub we could see an elderly barman chatting to his solitary customer. A safe haven, we thought, and entered. He had one hand-pump for real ale and the clip for that was turned in the traditional symbol of no hope. No Abbot? On a Friday afternoon? Thirst overcame us and we forced ourselves to drink awful keg swill and, as we took our seats, the 50 inch television leapt into life, blasting us with full-volume drivel from Radio Blabber. We drank quickly and left.

King’s Lynn on a Friday afternoon attracts a lot of shoppers. The pubs should be doing a brisk trade. Yet all the pubs we tried were almost empty. I can’t understand why, because don’t we all love to push past drunks blowing smoke over us as we try to enter the premises? Do we not thrill at the thought of being deafened by music being pumped out at full volume so we have to shout at each other to be heard? Surely it’s a pleasure to drink sub-standard and expensive beer at sticky tables standing on even stickier carpets? Pub landlords obviously think the answer is yes to all three questions.

A typical landlord leans against the bar saying “Drink & drive and smoking bans have killed the business” or “We can’t compete with the supermarkets.” No, my friend. YOU have killed the trade, because you can see only the money you’re taking and not the money you’re losing as a result. You cater for the half-dozen and forget the hundreds looking for solace in a quiet, welcoming and pleasant hostelry. Look around you – peaceful and amiable pubs are thriving. Why do you think that is?

The music, by the way, was not jazz. And even if it was, we’d still have walked away from the clamour and noise. Jazz is not background music; it demands to be listened to and appreciated. It’s for the club, the dance hall and the concert room. Jazz should never be played as a means to smother other sounds the way Pizza Express uses it, and the way pubs use modern pop music. All loud music in inappropriate settings ultimately repels.

Gripe about loud music over. Now – about those execrable fruit machines with the flashing lights and electronic gimmickry…

solitude

2010-10-19T08:28:00.002+01:00

One of the great accolades of life, albeit usually bestowed posthumously, is to have a footpath dedicated to you. Wainwright, of course, has a lot in the Lake District. The engineer of the old MGN railway company had bestowed in his memory the cycleway from Aylsham to Norwich - Marriott’s Way. And the name (and maybe the ghost) of Sir Peter Scott, the naturalist, artist and general all-round good egg, accompanied us as we walked along the eponymous path around the south banks of the Wash.

One end of the walk is in Lincolnshire, at the faux lighthouse near to where the River Nene debouches to the Wash. Sir Peter once lived here. Perhaps this east bank lighthouse was the inspiration for him to turn apostate and abandon his habit of firing punt guns at geese in favour of portraying them on canvas. A Peter Scott is now famously a generic term for paintings of skeins of geese over bleak marshland. Certainly he was here when he set about establishing sanctuaries for the creatures. I find a certain irony about this conversion on the road to Sutton Bridge. In those days, geese were prolific; they were everywhere on the marsh. Now, most have gone. Numbers have dwindled, despite the efforts of conservationists. What moral about human intervention in nature can we draw from this?

Norfolk plays host to the other end of the trail, about 11 miles to the west, more or less at the landing stage for the little aluminium ferry which plies a dour passenger trade between West Lynn and King’s Lynn’s town centre. From a distance, the boat looks like a sampan crawling across a Chinese harbour, if we disregard the grey murky water. Some five hours after leaving the lighthouse we took our seats on the ferry, grateful to find somewhere to sit after an eleven-mile walk beneath breezy and louring skies.

In between, we’d trudged in solitude along the grassy tops of the earthen sea wall. To our left, a broad expanse of marsh, hatched with small gullies and muddy creeks. From the foot of the wall stretched a swathe of wrack of dried seaweed mingled with plastic jetsam of uncaring coaster skippers. That the wrack reaches the wall is testament to the sea’s determination not to abdicate entirely its claim on what was once rightfully shared territory. The wall is a sea defence, keeping the tide at bay for the moment so the marsh barons can continue to build their fortunes before the next (alleged) inundation because of global warming.

Inside the sea embankment is prime agricultural land, glistening brown soil being ploughed and prepared for the next crop. Don’t believe other writers when they talk about prairies – these are large arable fields, true, but the area is not devoid of trees or hedgerows. Even cows have appeared in recent years, probably to allow farmers to utilise the sea bank for grazing. Farming here is organised and professional and bland.

The skies are paramount here. They form a vast 360 degrees dome; the sea and the land share the same altitude of more or less zero metres. With the flatness of the land, and the smooth calm of the distant sea, the impression of vaulted space is unavoidable. Even RAF pilots love these skies. They visit regularly to practise dropping bombs on a nonchalant and completely tolerant common seal colony that’s been nearby for many years.

We chose the wrong day for the walk. My photographs look dull, flat and devoid of colour. But if the day had been better, we’d perhaps not have been in such splendid isolation. Apart from a couple of bait diggers squelching muddily off the marsh and two dog walkers returning to their car, we met nobody for the entire 11 miles.

memories of you

2010-08-29T07:35:00.002+01:00

A few years ago, in the middle of rural Norfolk, at the heart of a small village, an 18th century timber-beamed pub ran live jazz sessions every Friday lunch time. To the surprise, and sometimes bemusement, of casual visitors, food was dished up with a side order of Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday.

“Gimme a Pig Foot and a Bottle of Beer” seemed vaguely appropriate as ham sandwiches whizzed out through the swing doors and pints of Abbot Ale or Wherry brimmed frothily.

Over the months, quite a little clan of faithful followers evolved. Those who came by chance often returned. Village locals were a little doubting at first but soon warmed to the idea when they realised that conversations could still be heard across the low tables.

The singer was a feisty little local girl. She knew the jazz-blues songbook inside out. While she never attempted to plagiarise the originals, her delivery of standards was as good as any cover version has ever been. She was always backed by accomplished musicians capable of understanding what she was doing and where she’d be going next.

Sometimes I’d have to remind myself that I was sitting in an English country freehouse listening to a Norfolk woman rather than in a 1930s Chicago basement being bedazzled by one of the blues greats. When I stepped outside into the fresh air again, I was surprised to find a little shady village green in front of the pub rather than a great American broadway crammed with traffic, steaming vents and US cops.

That singer was Stella Goodey. I guess you’d need to be involved with the East Anglian jazz scene to know of her. She has a regular slot at a pub in Wells-next-the-Sea, has connections in France and appears at various festival venues and jazz clubs. And she’s one of the finest jazz singers I’ve ever heard.

Which brings me to the point. I’m a mediocre sort of chap. Not particularly bad at things, I similarly excel at nothing. I jockey along in the middle of the road, occasionally swerving slightly left or right to avoid collisions. I hate mediocrity, because I see it as a mortal sin wrapped in a highly reflective coating.

And it puzzles me that so many modern “jazz” singers are so mediocre yet receive such critical acclaim on radio, TV and in magazines while the likes of Ms Goodey go unsung (no pun intended). Life is unfair on far too many levels.

I was reminded of this stellar Stella when I stumbled over her website recently: www.stellagoodey.com. The find reinforced my belief in the potential intellectual nobility of the internet. How on Earth did I manage to get a learning (albeit a mediocre one) without it? How fortunate we are to live in these times.

The image above, by the way, is of a fretwork scrolled out of a sheet of timber by the very clever AM in Norwich. He doesn’t know the meaning of ‘mediocrity.’ Mind you, he’s a fan of Leonard Cohen so I suppose nobody’s perfect.

there'll be some changes made...(surely?)

2010-08-22T15:40:00.002+01:00

One of my favourite writers is H.V. Morton. In the 1920s and 30s, he wrote a series of books about places he’d visited. His first major success was ‘In Search of England’ and I recommend it still today to anyone wanting to learn a little more about our country. His style is light, lyrical and incisive.

His words are sentient. They invite the reader to touch the old stones of an ancient monastery and to hear the lilt of the Lincolnshire accent. Morton’s skill with the metaphorical pen allowed us to sniff the sea, see the hidden and almost taste the salt of the Earth. He had a way with phrases that, frankly, earned him a fortune.

Sometime before 1927 (at about page 220 in my foxed and battered edition of ‘In Search of England’) the man visited Boston. His colourful observations on the experience are accompanied by a sepia image captioned ‘Boston Stump’ – the gaunt and dramatically high tower of St. Botolph’s church.

The image above is my version, taken from the same spot on the same bridge over 80 years later. Today, a new walkway spans the muddy Witham River near the church, the concrete sill beneath the river wall has replaced steep mud banks and trees are more bosky than in 1926. But otherwise the scene has changed little. Even the vertical wooden piling thrusting up at the front end of the sill was clearly evident in the earlier photograph.

A note about trees, by the way – I’ve frequently noted that when comparing ‘then and now’ photographs of British views, both rural and urban, the scene is usually far more verdant today than in Victorian or Edwardian times. Is this a result of the shift from log burning fires – or are we simply lazier in the 21st century? Discuss.

As if to reinforce unpopular opinion that little changes in Lincolnshire, I dare to repeat here a couple of lines from Morton’s text. He wrote “Boston today is an interesting study. It is typical of the great town that has come down in the world. Like many an aristocrat, it manages to carry on bravely, so that, unless you knew of its past grandeur, there would be nothing remarkable about its present condition.” I leave this offering without further comment.

Here’s another by-the-way: the day I took the photograph, I turned my back on a Charlie Parker LP I found in one of the charity shops. Later, I regretted my decision and returned to buy it. By that time, of course, it had been sold. If you bought it, please don’t leave a message telling me what I’ve missed.

let's fly down

2010-08-18T16:32:00.001+01:00

Cromer is getting better. Once an elegant and genteel Victorian resort, the town went through a bad patch some years ago. Its haute-couture blazer wore through at the elbow, the cuffs frayed and a button dropped off. Now the seamstresses have been hard at work. A smart leather patch has been expertly sewn onto the arms, the cuffs have been turned and sparkling new brass buttons adorn the front. Today, part of the original grandeur is again being glimpsed.

Our arrival in the town had a touch of ‘good news, bad news’ about it. The good news is we parked easily and avoided the frantic crush. The bad news is we were a day early for Carnival. Never mind. We found in the town an air of expectancy, as if a band could be heard approaching from afar but the leader had yet to appear over the brow of the hill. To call the anticipation ‘fever pitch’ would be gross exaggeration. This is Norfolk. Full of character and characters it is; febrile it is not.

Yet we knew something was about to happen. For a start, the sun broke through at last. Then we saw fairgrounds and fluttering breeze-tickled bunting; the signs for extra parking; heavily laden drays delivering extra supplies to the pubs; holiday-makers wandering around with programmes in their hands; a jazz band playing. Cromer was a-buzz.

Jazz? To my delight, I encountered The Smokehouse Blue Jazz Marching Band marking time in a lazy circle on the corner by the old tobacconist’s shop, saxophones (Mick Murphy on alto), trombone, clarinet, trumpets, drum et al pumping out pure New Orleans. For what is Carnival without a jazz band? Nothing but a wan replica, a plastic Mona Lisa, a £20 note bearing the image of Cheryl Cole, a cheese and tomato sandwich made with Edam.

This band is good. Paucity of live jazz leads us to be grateful for small blessings and so we tend to consider most of what we hear as worthy, but this was beyond worthy – it was unquenched primitive excellence. Early jazz had a rawness and un-sophistication about it. Marching jazz - carnival jazz - rekindles that early enthusiasm and energy from the times when jazz was still being played as intended – to get people dancing, even, or maybe especially, at New Orleans funerals. What the music set out to do, this band seems to achieve. A small but appreciative audience applauded cheerily.

Smokehouse Blue processed along the High Street. At the band’s head, the grey-beard Grand Marshal, resplendent in black coat and hat, ceremonial sash and ornate traditional umbrella, led his musicians to that most appropriate of NO anthems – Bourbon Street Parade. Impatient cars squeezed past. Not even good jazz can be allowed to halt commerce and the traffic.

Serendipity! Around the corner was a carnival music market with a huge stock of covetable LPs for sale. I could have spent a lot of money, but I settled for a 1962 recording by the Gerry Mulligan Concert Jazz Band. I still reckon Mulligan had one of the best swing (with a small s) bands around at the time. In my choice is an irony. Mulligan purposefully formed his big band with the objective of playing music for the concert hall, not for dancing. But I can’t always square the circle.

Take a look at www.smokehousblue.com. You can listen to a few of the band’s favourite tracks.

half way up the stairs is the place where i sit

2010-08-11T07:26:00.002+01:00

Our Lincolnshire garden had an unusual visitor last week. It was sitting in the middle of the front lawn looking lost and confused. For a moment, I felt quite emotional – our first frog. The camera was to hand, so I snapped one image quickly and before I could recompose myself for a second, the frog sprang forward on its straggled rear legs and disappeared into the hydrangeas, where no doubt one of the neighbours’ many cats ate it. If the image is a little blurred, put it down to excitement rather than my novice skills.

Serendipity again – the sighting was unexpected. Frogs are common enough, but not in our garden. In France recently we heard thousands of marsh frogs singing tunelessly all round us when we camped in the Marquenterre. There, twilight trembled to the croak and rasp of a clamorous ranarian opera with a cast of thousands. They performed well into the night before the multiple-antiphony gently subsided, hopefully not because of sore throats. But les petites rascals kept out of sight. We saw not one.

Of course, as soon as I’d spotted the Lincolnshire visitor, I reached for my old copy of “Collins Field Guide to Freshwater Life” and turned to Plate 322. “Rana ridibunda” it cited. “Marsh Frog.” That’s with a capital M rather than the more generic little m I used earlier. According to the book, frogs come in all sorts of shadings and patterns, so I have no idea how we’re supposed to obtain a definitive identification. The olive-green on our lawn looked exactly like the one in my book, so - tick! But if I’m realistic, it was more likely to be a common frog

Tick and move on. The other day I bought another LP from a charity shop in Boston. Why do so many Bostonians dispose of their old jazz albums? I rarely find them elsewhere, but I can usually find something worth buying in the Market Place. This one was by someone I think I’ve mentioned before – Wild Bill Davison. Or was that Will Bill Davis? I always confuse the two.

The line-up is like a who’s who of British Jazz. The American cornet player is backed by Freddy Randall (t) George Chisholm (tb) Bruce Turner (cl/as) Lennie Felix (p) Dave Markee (b) Tony Allen (d) and Ronnie Gleaves on vibraphone. Annoyingly, the recording date is omitted, but the World Record Club issued the album in 1966 and a quick Google revealed the recording to have been made in February 1965, during Davison’s tour of England. The music is good old British trad, rhythmic and joyful and a cut above what you’ll hear in the local pub on a Sunday lunch time. And perhaps a little uninspiring.

What has this to with frogs and serendipity? A very good question.

serendipity in saltfleetby

2010-08-05T14:59:00.002+01:00

If I’ve said this before, I make no apology for repeating it. The most uplifting discoveries are those which are unexpected. Guide books tell us what we should see, but so much more pleasure is gained when we stumble over something omitted from the pages.

Saltfleetby has just such serendipity. A mile from the enigmatically named “Prussian Queen” pub, a wooden finger-post points cryptically up a sombre green lane towards “The Stump ¼ mile.” The sign seemed to us an imperative, so we dutifully followed the grassy and rutted track.

After a short distance, the path suddenly opened onto a large enclosure in a sun-mottled glade. Passing through a wooden gate, we arrived in an old graveyard, once attached to a church. In the middle of the hallowed patch, a stumpy stone tower leaned at a crazy angle as if disturbed in the act of settling down to rest. This, we learned, is the last remnant of the original St Peter’s church of Saltfleetby.

The relic stands in a shaded corner of the Lincolnshire northern flatlands and is reached by crossing a short wooden bridge over a shallow ditch. A narrow, almost deserted, country lane snakes quietly by. The tower’s large stones are weathered and eroded. The doors are sealed. One corner has sunk into the soft sub-soils of the farmland on which it was built.

At first sight, the scene could be one of abandonment to the powerful elements of nature. The cemetery surrounding the tower is rustic and uncultivated. No attempt is made to groom verges or walkways. Instead, the woods’ claim is staked and granted; the ground could have been a forest floor. Tombstones lay where they fell. Yet this is not a forsaken burial ground.

Far from it – the cemetery has tended gravestones, old and new. Some are eroded and scarcely legible now, but a few gleam in dark marble and stand testament to recent interments. The old graveyard is still very much in use. And then we found the stone plaque hoisted high onto the tower’s time-darkened wall. The old St Peter’s Church has friends.

To be precise, The Friends of Friendless Churches has adopted the tower. Apparently, the organisation accepts responsibility for some 40 disused churches throughout England and Wales. Essential maintenance is carried out to ensure that the old church continues to be accessible to the public, even if services are no longer held within the precincts.

St Peter’s Church at Saltfleetby started to subside sometime between the 14th century and 1875. A faculty was granted to allow the church to be demolished, the stones subsequently being removed to a nearby field known as Willoughby’s Close, and the new (and existing) St Peter’s Church was built from salvaged materials. The tower was to serve as a cemetery chapel until such time as “funds were available” for it to be demolished. Fortunately for the curious visitor, the money was never found. The tower remains as a monument to philanthropy.

In 1976, the decrepit tower was taken into the avuncular custodianship of the evocatively named organisation – The Friends of Friendless Churches. And so it remains - a sequestered fastness hidden away and available to be seen only by those willing to see. I’m not into contemplation, but if I were, here is where I could do it very effectively: TF 43592 89941.

you must have been a beautiful baby

2010-06-25T08:51:00.002+01:00

Early in 1947, a grumpy baby was born – me. Around the same time, another few million babies came into the world. We were what became prosaically known as “The Baby Boom.” This bulge in normal demographic patterns was a result of hundreds of thousands of servicemen being demobbed after the war. They arrived home with more on their mind than finding jobs and decent housing. They wanted to celebrate in time-honoured ways and prophylactics were probably on ration at the time. As a result, midwives had the busiest couple of years of their careers.

The baby boom was a well-known phenomenon. My first words were “I’m a baby boomer.” At school we were taught the implications of the term as a form of sex education (or at least that’s all we received in those days). Politicians of the 50s and 60s would stick their thumbs into grey waistcoat pockets and give lengthy orations about the future perils of demographic changes, although I’m not sure we’d then yet become demographs. In short, everybody, from infants to dowager aunts, knew about the baby boom. We baby boomers all understood about shifts in age to population distribution ratios. I was expecting the country to be mainly populated by elderly people by time 2010 arrives.

So why didn’t the Office of National Statistics know about it? The statisticians there have pointed an accusing finger and reprimanded me for deigning to live so long. The demographic curve is weighted heavily in favour of the elderly – we far outweigh youth. Economists and sociologists are suddenly worried. The impression I get is that these young academicians producing these scary reports have been taken by surprise, along with our politicians. Why didn’t they ask me? I’d have told them for a damned slight less than one Network Rail manager’s bonus.

Oddly, whereas the population is ageing, the very ethos of our culture is becoming increasingly youth focussed. For example, my life is blighted by incessant drum and bass powered at me from trillion-watt speakers in H-reg Astras with wound-down windows and primary-school kids at the driving wheel. Surely, if we baby-boom demographs are in the ascendency, we should be hearing Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton, the Rolling Stones and Zoot Money floating in the summer air and not just a vibrating, chest-curdling bass string?

It’s not solely that I’m now an old grumpy man. I realise I’m just an awkward statistic, an embarrassment, a non-economically-active-unit, a state liability, number 3,000,001. And I know that subsequent baby booms have probably subverted my promised status. But occasionally I’d like to be treated like an adult with a brain. I want to say “I’m in the room, you know” when they talk about me. I don’t want to be SAGA patronised; I simply want non-political proportional representation. I too was once the future of this nation. Yep – it’s all my fault.

For a while, I did consider forming an activist direct-action apolitical association to promote the interests of the elderly. I even had a name for it – the Ancients Strike Back Organisation (ASBO for short). But when I thought about it, I couldn’t face the idea of spending my evenings in meetings with people like me.

So I’ll do what’s expected. I’ll leave our streets and popular culture to youth, close my windows, turn up the volume and immerse myself in some Jelly Roll Morton, Wynton Marsalis and a bottle or two of Montana Reserve Sauvignon Blanc.

a string of pearls

2010-06-13T08:01:00.000+01:00

In desperation to avoid encounters with the World Cup, I turned to the internet. By accident, I find I’ve invented a new game. I call it the “Lester Young” for want of a more apposite title. Better suggestions will be welcomed.

7digital is a legal music download website. I pay about £7.99 for a typical album and can then listen to it for perpetuity on my MP3. I visit frequently, not necessarily to buy but to listen to the snatches of jazz they allow me to preview free before I commit to actually giving them my credit card details.

I search on a musician and am then presented with a list of albums by that artiste. Beneath the list is the inevitable beckoning finger – a section headed “Like this? Try these downloads?” And on the screen appears a box containing recommended listening which I could enjoy having declared an interest in the original artist. Click on one of them, and the process is repeated – that musician’s albums are listed and beneath is another box recommending similar performers. And so it goes on – ad infinitum if I had the patience and the download bandwidth. It’s a progression, albeit not always logical.

The game I devised is simple. The objective is to enter the name of a recording artist and then repeatedly click on the recommended others until the name of my original choice appears under the heading of “try this.” I am debarred from clicking on the same artist twice. Although I invented the game, I’m still a novice. But here’s my first attempt, starting (and finishing) with my favourite tenor saxophonist.

Lester Young – Al Cohn – Don Pullen – Cecil Taylor – Thelonious Monk – Ornette Coleman – Sun Ra – Randy Weston – Gerry Mulligan – Chico Hamilton – Charles Lloyd – Dave Holland – Chick Corea – Art Tatum – Teddy Wilson – Count Basie – Duke Ellington – Charles Mingus – Pepper Adams – Elvin Jones – Thad Jones – Art Blakey – Fletcher Henderson – Benny Carter – Clifford Brown – Roy Eldridge – Henry ‘Red’ Allen – Mugsy Spanier – Eddie Condon – Bunny Berigan – Charlie Barnet – Jimmy Lunceford – Don Redman – Bob Crosby – Glen Gray – Artie Shaw – Woody Herman – Paul Whiteman – Chick Webb – Ella Fitzgerald – Tommy Flanagan – Billy Taylor – Ahmad Jamal – McCoy Tyner – Bill Evans – Lennie Tristano – Roy Edridge (oh bugger – I’m disqualified for repetition but it’s my game so I’ll finish anyway) – Ruby Braff – Chet Baker – Freddie Hubbard – Hank Mobley – Cannonball Adderley – Lester Young. PHEW.

The progression is curiously logical, albeit sometimes in a bizarre sort of way: Art Blakey to Fletcher Henderson, for example, and I’m not sure about Woody Herman and Paul Whiteman. But I can trace the links for most of them. I wonder if the rules should limit the moves to say twenty. I’m pretty confident I could have returned to Pres with a little more judicious thought and application. And perhaps I could vary the game by trying to discover the most disjointed and incongruous sequence, maybe something like Louis Armstrong – John Coltrane – Monty Sunshine – Howling Wolf – Madonna – The Bachelors – LPO – Louis Armstrong. This is a sort of Mornington Crescent with music.

I think I must be bored.

les oinions

2010-05-17T08:23:00.002+01:00

I’ve just returned from a vacation motor-homing in France. I’d like to say that I’ve been chasing the shadows of legends such as Django Reinhardt and Sidney Bechet, but the fact is that the jazz scene in Brittany seems to be as lively as the jazz scene here. The amorphous yet ubiquitous trio is advertised in places and I did see that Maceo Parker is appearing somewhere on a Breton stage, but generally April is obviously not a good month for the jazz band in France.

We did have a brighter musical interlude in a pub in St. Malo. Playing in the background was a compilation including a couple of jazz numbers. The Visigoth behind the bar turned out to be a classically trained singer (at the Conservatoire in Paris, no less). And, as if to prove the point about the eclecticism of world music today, he later played one of his favourite albums, a sort of blend of Irish jigs and traditional Breton improvisations on Vivaldi. The band turned out to be Planxty.

Looking back over the three weeks, a few impressions now spring to mind. Pure white aubergines; Cedric the omnipresent herring gull watching us warily (we obviously don’t have guardian angels; we have guardian seagulls); bundles of bedding airing on high window sills; toilets without seats or loo paper; efficaciously stinky cheese; crepes; the sudden disappearance of fresh moules frites after the 30th April; immaculately pollarded trees; gaily painted shutters on quaint old houses; freedom from “no camping” signs; GR34; Rodin and Max Jacob; and coruscating oceans of blue coastline, craggy and fractured, hazy and breezily warm.

Before we went, somebody told me that Bretons hate the English. That is a canard of monstrous depth. I write ‘canard’ in the English meaning of a false rumour, not the French which means ‘a duck’. Wherever we went, we were met with friendship and good humour from interesting people. We saw vivid light in French eyes which seems to have been extinguished in those of the English. And my schoolboy French got me through – “Je m’appelle Pooter Dodman. Comment-allez-vous?”

For our next visit, I’m determined to learn the language. I have the first two Michel Thomas CDs and I’ve made a start on translating the poetry of Jacques Prevert. I have to run before I can walk because it’s all downhill from here. At my age, I don’t have the time to amble any more.

So for now I’ll stop rambling. But for pedants world-wide, I know many of the words I use above demand accents over some letters, but I don’t know how to find the right keys on my QWERTY system.

sent for you yesterday

2010-04-10T07:56:00.001+01:00

Earlier this week I put in an E-bay bid for an elderly Bush record player capable of playing 78rpm records at roughly the correct speed. It was never going to be an exquisite piece of furniture. But it had a multiple changing arm and classic early 1960’s design in ‘vintage’ plastic and Formica. It would be a perfect fit in the nascent music room-cum-workshop-cum-model trainset yard-cum-craft workshop-cum shed.

Mine was the sole bid. I opened with a fair margin above the starting price and kept a close watch on proceedings. Then, at the critical moment, I had a lapse of memory and discovered too late that another auctionee had leapt in at the last minute and trounced me by 50p. I lost my treasure to somebody named “Bidder 2.”

This means I still have a few shellac 78rpm disks waiting to be played for the first time. Two actually: a George Webb rendition of “South” and a Mugsy Spanier version of “Dipper Mouth Blues” the latter of which is disconcertingly described as a fox trot. Both are protected from 21st century dust by their original sleeves of thin card, printed with the retailers’ names. George Webb was first sold by C.H. Irwin of 78 Bedford Street, North Shields – slogan: ‘Try Irwin’s First!’ Mugsy Spanier’s sleeve advertises Sydney Scarborough of Under the City Hall, Hull – slogan: ‘Let us play them over for you!’ They knew how to use a good exclamation mark in those days, even if the advertising messages were a little less than zippy.

I wonder if anyone remembers C. H. Irwin of North Shields. Is it possible Sid Scarborough is still buried under the City Hall at Hull? Did he get to know Philip Larkin? So many questions; so few answers!

A German radiogram has come up for auction. It has 1957 art-deco renaissance blue period shiny avant garde blackness about it. I rather like it. I’ve come to the conclusion that to heighten the pleasure of our listening experience we should listen to recordings on equipment manufactured at the same time as the recording was made. Such congruence is the only way to achieve true and faithful euphony. Mrs Dodman said a rude word and tucked herself into her MP3 player for the night.

We’re refurbishing the old workshop. Progress could move with a little more alacrity if only the plasterer and electrician would actually do as they say they will. In Norfolk we discovered that the locals taught Spaniards the meaning of manana. But they are mere whippersnappers compared with Lincolnshire trades’ people. Here the words “I’ll give you a call with a starting date” should be interpreted with a timescale measured in years rather than days. If I press for something a little more specific, he’ll stroke his chin and say “I’ll have to get back to you on that.” But he won’t! See – I know how to use an exclamation mark as well. I didn’t before we moved to Lincolnshire. The old workshop, by the way, is where the record player will go, in case you wondered about the relevance.

strollin'

2010-04-05T16:13:00.001+01:00

Blankney Wood marks one of the western boundaries of the Fens. A couple of hundred yards away, at the foot of the hill, flows an ancient waterway known as Car Dyke. It could be a Roman canal stretching from Lincoln to Cambridge; it could be a boundary. Some believe it to be nothing more than an early catchwater for rivers drizzling from higher ground. A few are convinced it could be one of the first sea walls, or perhaps have some military significance. Probably they’re all correct.

The area was once dominated by RAF Metheringham. The runways are now roads; the paths to pilots’ quarters now hidden tracks in the grass. Most of the base is beneath a plough of beans, winter wheat and sundry other cash crops. Here at the top of the hill is not quite factory farming, but from the nearby low ridge we look over mile after mile of vast plain-like fields. They vanish towards the horizon and the next outcrop of high ground. The Wolds are about 10 bee-line miles away. For all the world knows, I could be standing on the site where Troy once stood.

Signs warned us to keep out of the woods, although landowners have given permission for ramblers to follow footpaths providing the usual litany of rules is observed. We met only one human in the 3 ½ miles’ circular walk on a fine early-spring morning. He was friendly, like his old black lab. In fact, all cottage dogs along the way were vociferous but not bellicose. As we walked, ‘Perdido’ kept whistling softly in my mind. I was told to stop hissing.

Lunch was taken at the Royal Oak in nearby Scopwick. It’s the cleanest pub for miles around. If the food is not haute cuisine, it is at least good value for money and the young staff smiled and treated us as if we’re not senile old farts.

The camera had mysteriously switched itself to monochrome, so all photographs were a somewhat well-washed black and white. And I thought I’d learnt all the right buttons to press. Mrs Dodman sees irony in that final phrase. I don’t know why.

spanish knights

2010-04-02T12:25:00.002+01:00

It’s funny how we tend to think of jazz in the USA and UK as unsurpassable paradigms of excellence. Or maybe that’s just me, but my collection of jazz albums is almost exclusively from one or the other. As a youth about the only non-U band I regularly enjoyed was the Dutch Swing College Band. I quite liked Mboto Mahari Ktumo and His Cotton Club Hot Six but they were from Uganda so can’t count as non-U.

Spain has never seemed a source of great music that isn’t flamenco, classical or Eurovision. Yet I’ve just discovered a rousing-tub-thumping-swinging-foot-tapping group which has been around for over 40 years – La Portenta Jazz Band, I think based in Barcelona. Fletcher Henderson lives on in the guise of a chubby senor.

They have several clips posted on YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWxO3VQIWpo for example from 2008. Another clip portrays them about 40 years ago, when dark predominated rather than the team members’ current silver. The band was brilliant then; they’ve lost nothing with passage of time.

Once again I have to acknowledge my dismal ignorance. I’ve lived through over 50 years of jazz absorption, and still I’ve only scratched the shellac surface with so many bands yet to be discovered.

By the way, I’m still on the look out for an old-fashioned record player capable of 78rpm. If it has a vast bell-shaped horn a la Nipper and a crank handle - so much the better.

i'll sit right down and write myself a letter

2010-03-26T08:41:00.003Z

Here is my Grande Opus V which I’ve entitled “The Rape of Suffolk.” I’m quite pleased with the name. It’s an alliterative acrylic abstract allegory.

A close examination reveals a slightly milky blue East Anglian sky suspended over a field of efflorescent rape seed. Thus literally it’s the rape of Suffolk. But allegories need a moralistic edge, so the subject is more complex than that. (N.B. I ignore the fact that my dearest friend Alf thought the painting was a seascape, thus effectively indicting my artistic abilities).

For Sleepy in China I’ll explain that Suffolk is a division of England and rapeseed is rapidly becoming the area’s main cash crop. Apparently we’ll save the planet by planting rape, although scientific opinion is split on the issue. I don’t care because I won’t live so long and I happen to feel that extinguishment of the sun is a far more pressing issue. But people are getting excited about a by-product of rapeseed (bio-fuel) and everywhere sickly swathes of yellow are replacing the mellow beige of barley. Good for the car industry; not so for brewers. I think this could be a cynical ploy by a coalition of dark forces i.e. government and farmers. Rapeseed is in high demand so prices and duties rise. Barley is in short supply so prices and duties rise.

Another thing Suff-folk are getting excited about is electricity, or more precisely, the transfer of the stuff from one side of the county to the other. Electricity companies want to build a network of pylons and the locals want to stop them. Residents claim these pylons will ruin the landscape. “This is nothing short of rape of the countryside,” one probably protested allegorically, allowing me to set a theme for the painting and this blog entry.

Notice the picture depicts a pylon sort of lurking watchfully in the corner, as if it harbours sinister intentions of starting the march imminently. If I’d have thought about the subject a little longer I’d have brought the pylon in from the left – hence reinforcing the allusion to the sinister. But it didn’t occur to me until too late and I can’t be bothered to change the painting now, although it’s not yet finished.

That’s a weakness I have. I’m not bad at starting things but finishing….? I’m a sprinter rather than a marathon runner. Stamina fades. I’m too busy wanting to start something new to expend energy completing what I’ve already commenced. So I’m quite pleased with the symbolism within the title but the painting itself is rubbish and undoubtedly will remain so.

However – and here’s the point of this posting – I’ve just acquired a Johnny Dodds LP. There’s no digital re-mastering here. It crackles, coughs, chokes and clicks just the way jazz used to when I was a youth. When I put the album on the turntable, drop the stylus, close my eyes and press against my temples, I can spirit my mind back to West Hill Drive and perpetual re-tuning of the Grundig in an attempt to locate and hold a signal from Luxembourg. “Salty Dog”, “Bohunkus Blues” and “There’ll Come A Day” seep reedily out of the speakers. Mrs Dodman calls it Mickey Mouse music because it reminds her of Steamboat Willie, but she lacks a sympathetic syncopated ear.

What has Johnny Dodds to do with Suffolk? I once knew a man who lived in Suffolk and was a great Johnny Dodds fan. He was an electrical engineer but I bet he’s writing angry letters at this very moment.

at the jazz band ball

2010-03-19T08:05:00.004Z

After all my negativity about the way jazz is going, I have finally discovered my Utopia. The discovery was made during an idle trawl of YouTube, looking for anything to alleviate the ennui I appear to be sliding inexorably towards. I searched on Chris Barber, who for some reason is my band of the moment.

I found a few videos, in particular a superb live rendition of “Ice Cream” in true New Orleans parade style, lead by Barber himself but more than matched by Sunshine and Halcox. But more importantly, I stumbled over a man named Clive who posts prolifically to YouTube under the soubriquet of MoleDfigg.

His YouTube ID is apt, a play on the term “mouldy fig” which used to mean anyone objecting to a saxophone in the Dixieland line-up. Mouldy figs were (probably still are) traditionalists. For them, jazz ceased to be jazz when

• The LP was invented, allowing recordings to exceed the hallowed 3 minutes
• Jazz moved into the concert hall
• Charlie Parker stopped dancing in its tracks
• Arty-farty bohemians grasped the music and claimed it for their own in the name of art

Mouldy figs are fundamentalists. They are radical reactionaries. The women carry parasols in case they feel the need to dance around the fringes of village halls; the men wear beards, usually goatees. They speak lovingly of Lil Hardin, Ken Colyer and George Webb (who crossed the floor last week to join a new type of band). If they are under 80 they are also revivalists. They either have silver hair or use Grecian 2000. They are, in short, the type of people I’d like to meet in Heaven, or would do if I believed in an afterlife.

I’m not strictly a mouldy fig. My record collection contains too many Mingus, Mulligan and Blakey et al for me to lay claim to the epithet. The three mentioned are modern jazz and I’m an avid listener, but I make no apology for asserting yet again that New Orleans style is the only TRUE jazz, the only genre genuinely entitled to be jazz without a prefix.

What I would give for the opportunity to leaf through Clive’s prodigious record collection! He’s posted over 100 tracks, all lifted from those delightfully scratchy 10 inch records I’ve started drooling over, all taken from his vast library of original recordings on labels such as Parlophone and Decca. And he knows his stuff. He lists performers and recording dates, essential data for any self respecting fan. His notes and comments are informed and interesting, unlike my waffle and rant. He has followers.

Keep posting Clive. I’ve already been on e-bay and bought a few ancient 78s as a result of your inspiration - George Webb’s “South” for example, but I can’t play it because my record player operates only at 33 or 45 rpm. (Mrs Dodman thinks I’ve finally lost my marbles) but I’ll take immense pleasure in looking at the record, holding it in my hands, while listening to Clive’s YouTube posting of the track.

And, Clive, thank you for being so positive about your music.

i shall never forget

2010-03-08T18:42:00.002Z

Acker Bilk told a joke. It went thus: an elderly couple were on a beach and the wife turned to the husband and said “I’d love an ice cream. Can you buy me one? With a chocolate flake, nuts and maple syrup, please.” The husband mumbled away and was gone for two hours, then returned with two meat pies. He handed them to his wife, who snorted “I knew you’d forget the chips.”

A subtle joke, I think, but none the less poignantly topical. On Friday morning Grantham Theatre telephoned to offer me two tickets for the concert that evening. I was so busy congratulating myself on such good fortune that I forgot to take my precious LP with me (see previous posting). I was past the critical point of no return before I realised.

We had good seats in the balcony. I looked down on the pate of Chris Barber standing by the entrance dolling out autographs as if purposely to taunt me for my failing memory. Without a programme, or even my vital note book, I had nothing for him to sign. The ice cream tub was plasticated so that wouldn’t have worked. I’ll just have to wait for another ten years to elapse and catch him next time round.

Mrs Dodman and I watched the three Bs: Barber, Bilk and Ball, in that order, on the same stage but not all at the same time. Any comment I make must be placed in a temporal context - these legends of British traditional jazz are all within a few months of their 80th birthday. And I’d be disingenuous if I didn’t admit that at times their ages showed. Hero worship is a healthy quality only if it also recognises blemishes.

Chris Barber’s band was crammed with reeds. He played mainly Cotton Club Ellingtonians with a sprinkling of his favourite spirituals and a couple of essential standards. With him was a second trombone. Barber always experimented with jazz styles and instrumentation and that’s why I’ve spent most of HIS career listening to him. I could have listened to this band all night – exquisite.

Acker Bilk was next on. He both plays the clarinet and walks across the stage as if he has to think carefully about what he’s going to do next. His jokes were brilliant; his music almost purist New Orleans except for a solitary diversion into schmaltz with his inseparable “Stranger on the Shore.” For me, his trombonist was the star of the night. Mrs Dodman and I applauded the entire set loudly and sincerely.

Kenny Ball’s band was more commercial and a little more slickly professional. He brought along a second trumpet, openly confessing that he was struggling to reach the top notes because of ill-health. But he held centre stage and deserved the limelight as the band munched through the truffles: “Midnight in Moscow” and “Sukiyaki.” No doubt Ball had a good reason for finishing on “All You Need Is Love.” Much of the audience seemed to enjoy the number but it was past our bedtime and I turn grumpy when tired.

I know I can sometimes be overly critical. It’s a privilege of age as far as I’m concerned – or maybe it’s nature’s compensation for dwindling faculties. But this was honest jazz (mainly) with all the wrinkles and warts undisguised. And that’s what real jazz is about. When it turns polished and lubricated it loses some of its verve; the friction and the frisson evaporate. This bunch kept the excitement alive. We wouldn’t have missed the concert in exchange for a whole cart load of ice cream and chips.

Thank you to the young lady at Meres in Grantham who kept in mind that we wanted tickets and bothered to telephone. When the chips are down, she has a memory to envy and admire. I wish I could remember her name.

can't think of a name for it

2010-03-03T19:55:00.002Z

We’ve just returned from a visit to Devon and Dorset. On the way down, we stopped off in Bristol for a day’s retail respite. A little dispirited with the homogenised city centre, we found our way to Clifton, a sort of Blackheath Village of the West Country.

There, in a charity shop, I found a Chris Barber double-LP. The album consists of concert recordings, with Barber’s band accompanied by Ray Nance (the Ellington trumpeter) and Alex Bradford, the professor of gospel music. Quote: recorded live at the Funkhaus Hannover 28th September 1974 unquote.

Barber is famous for extending his music beyond the boundaries of British Trad. That’s why he has endured and is adored by such a wide appreciative audience. The album was irresistible. I paid the requisite 99p (generously I donated the 1p change from a pound) and bore the album home.

I would have bought the album anyway, but my appetite was filliped when I saw three signatures on the inside cover, all obviously scribed in the same blue biro. The first was of Russell Procope and was underscored 1976. The second was Chris Barber himself. And the third was virtually illegible, but looks as if it could have been somebody named Ned Bill Dove.

That last one puzzled me. Jazz aficionados with greater knowledge will be ahead of me here, but I couldn’t imagine any self-respecting jazz musician retaining the name Ned Dove. I turned to the internet.

Now – Google seems to be taking a lot of flack lately. I’m not sure why because I think that what they’ve achieved is nothing short of genius. But humans are foresters by nature. We plant, grow and nurture – then chop down as soon as it suits us. I Googled “Chris Barber Russell Procope 1976” and in less than a second up popped the answer – Wild Bill Davis (organ and piano). If I turn the page sideways, squint and use the benefit of hindsight, the signature is obvious. Google triumphs again!

Both Davis and Procope were on tour with Barber in 1976. Over thirty-three years ago, an anonymous jazz lover had taken this album to a concert and managed to persuade the three great jazzmen to autograph the inside cover. I’m trying to buy tickets for Barber’s band in Grantham for Friday night, but needless to say the concert is sold out. That’s a shame, because I’d like to take the album with me to see if I can have some signatures added.

Perhaps I’m a sad elderly sot, but the thought of the provenance of this old LP excites me. By adding signatures, the yellowed cover has acquired a unique, if hidden, history which I wish I could unravel. How did it end up in an Oxfam shop in Clifton? What happened to it after that wonderful jazz evening all those years ago?

Google couldn’t help on that. Perhaps I over-rate them.

there i've said it again

2010-02-21T19:46:00.004Z

Philip Larkin hit the news last week when an eponymous society made an appeal for funds to raise a statue of him in Hull. For my international following (Sleepy in China), I’ll explain that Philip Larkin is a famous English poet of the middle 20th century.

He wrote such classic lines as “They Fuck You Up, Your Mum and Dad” and “Why should I let the toad work squat on my life?” Needless to say, members of the Philip Larkin Society claim their man to be the best poet ever. In my view he was good, but for me his laureateship was earned as a jazz critic – an honest one for whom flummery and pontification were anathemas.

Honest jazz critics have almost died out. Now all jazz musicians, every jazz genre, everything with ‘jazz’ in the title, are regarded as great by those lucky enough to be paid to write about the music. I don’t know whether this is because modern critics fear being sued, or whether they simply want an easy ride, but harsh truths as in “this band is crap” are very hard to find. Just read Clive Davis in the Times if you doubt me.

I know I harp on about good and bad jazz. Sometimes I feel I’m a lone voice in a wilderness of heretics and vested interest. Misuse of the word ‘jazz’ is rife and endemic in today’s warped society. Yet Philip Larkin’s views on jazz accord with mine. If I could have one wish, apart from winning the lottery, having my time over again and maybe a few other secret desires involving Felicity Kendall, it would be to invite Philip Larkin to supper and have the opportunity to discuss jazz with him.

But he’s long dead. For me, his lasting legacy is a fine compilation of reprints of his erstwhile regular column in the Daily Telegraph, 1961 to 1971. They are bound together in a dog-eared old book entitled “All What Jazz.” A copy sits proudly on my bookshelf.

This is not the first time my blog has mentioned Larkin. I might mention him again. The man certainly features in the top half of my personal list of 3000 people to toast over supper. What I especially liked about him was his genuine criticism of many performers, yet later he wrote that he’d wished he’d been a little more forthright. How I wish today’s reviewers and critics would display such sincerity and humility.

I sometimes doubt my own opinions because the views of so many published commentators appear to be at variance with mine. But then I pick up “All What Jazz” to dip into the pages and find instant reaffirmation. I’m right; the rest (bar Larkin and maybe his pal Amis) are wrong.

This, then, is a bit of an appeal, silent though it may be. The statue’s design has been selected. It will depict Larkin hurrying for the train. I don’t know why. For perpetuity he will be portrayed as trying to avoid being late. Or is he striding to escape Hull? Whatever the conceptual aspirations of the sculptor, I hope that when Larkin’s statue is eventually ready to be erected in the city centre, the words “and genuine jazz lover” can be read after the inevitable inscription “poet.” I like to think he would have appreciated the ambiguity.

Thank you.

one word - in 684 of them

2010-02-12T16:11:00.002Z

Recently the Maestros paid an overnight visit to Victoria Street. At supper, the conversation inevitably turned to the subject of music. Mr Maestro is a classical conductor (a sort of formal Günther Schuller); Mrs Maestro plays one of those funny instruments tucked under the chin and played with cat’s intestines (Joe Venuti played something similar).

With us were the Teachers. Mr Teacher plays a brass horn where the hand is stuck down the bowl (per Julius Watkins) and Mrs Teacher sings in choirs (she’s a sort of diminutive pastoral Bessie Smith). All four guests are deeply immersed in classical music, not necessarily to the exclusion of all other genres but they’ll physically wince if Arlo Guthrie comes on the radio singing “City of New Orleans” and they share the opinion that Chris Barber should be an example of nominative determinism.

During the rhubarb crumble, Mr Maestro used the words “a piece of music.” In my usual simplistic way, I asked if he knew of a single word to replace the phrase “a piece of music.” Now - the Maestros are erudite. They have a vocabulary which would be respected by Samuel Johnson. Yet The Maestro’s response surprised. “There is no word for it,” he asseverated.

In this vast lexicon of linguistic delight known as the English language surely we must afford ourselves the brevity of a single word, I pondered. The answer seems to be no. I ventured several possibilities, but each was politely declined for one reason or another – too specific; too general; also covering other branches of the liberal arts. My favourite was “composition” but that could equally apply to verbal essays, art and digital photography. Next came “opus” but apparently any artisan can lay claim to the word. “Melody” was greeted with derision; “Tune” with disdain.

Later, I flicked through Roget’s with no success and vainly perused lists in the Reader’s Digest Reverse Dictionary (1st Edition – 1989 - £6.50 Oxfam – inscribed with pencil “in print @ £24.95”). Even after surfing the net (is that an obsolete term now – surfing the net?) I remain ignorant of any singular verbal counter-point to “piece of music.”

The search is on. I need a single word meaning “a piece of music.”

While mulling over the problem, I found a Fats Waller album in my favourite charity shop in Boston (Lincolnshire). I’ve never been a fan of Waller. Everything I heard of him as a youth seemed to be novelty music and I could never quite take him seriously. My aversion was compounded by the fact that the piece of music entitled “Sheik of Araby” became my bête noir of jazz. I hated it then and I hate it now.

I noticed with an instinctive chill down my spine that the first track on the album was the black beast. However, I decided extempore that now is the time to give old Fats a second chance. My tastes are changing. I’m older now and perhaps even a little more mature, so… who knows? I bought the album: The Real Fats Waller – RCA Camden – Mono CDN-131, with unusually readable and pragmatic liner notes by Peter Clayton, 1959. Tracks were recorded between 1929 and 1943.

These recording details are given in full because somebody out there has the actual LP. Inside the Waller sleeve I found a pristine copy of Django – HMV – CLP 1249. I mean of course Reinhardt, not the mystifying Bates. I’m not bereft, because the pieces of music are electrifying, but I have them already on CD. They are not what I wanted, but I’m happy enough. At least it’s not Klaus Wunderlich or The Sound of Music.

Presumably someone has my Waller album enclosed in a Django Reinhardt sleeve. I’d like to repatriate the LP with the correct sleeve. Perhaps we can do a swap, either the album or the sleeve; which one matters not. But I think how nice it would be to reunite mother with daughter, especially if at the same time I can solve the problem of finding a single word for “piece of music.” All comments welcome, even in Chinese.

paradox

2010-02-08T16:02:00.001Z

Surprising myself, I found a new hobby. In recent weeks I’ve taken up painting with acrylics. I can’t draw, so all my efforts are geometrical abstractions. For example, one I’ve just finished is my Grande Opus IV.

The term “Grande Opus” by the way is a portmanteau phrase. I think I’ve invented it because I can’t imagine anyone else combining French and Latin in such a blatantly disrespectful manner. But the alternative term “magnum opus” suggests that greatness is in some way involved and that would be risible when applied to me or any of my exasperated liberal arts.

Yesterday I painted. The Maestros stayed the night before, inevitably encouraging the imbibing of excessive quantities of wine and I was feeling jeune-eyed as we waved them off along Victoria Street in the morning. To recover, I decided to spend a relaxing day waving desultory bristles at a canvas.

My Grande Opus IV is entitled “Infinity.” Throughout the day I worked assiduously on the schematic. The principle of “Infinity” is that I divided the canvas into two halves, painting one half in a single colour and then dividing the other half into two equal portions again. One half of that is painted in a single but different colour and the remainder is then again divided into half… and so on. Thus the picture can never be finished. Repeatedly halving the remainder takes us into infinity. It’s a funny feeling, infinity. In a way it’s like being crapulent.

The problem with my “Infinity” is that I entered a microscopic world. At the last, I was using extra strong reading spectacles augmented by a magnifying glass to allow me to see where the paint was bound. This was now micro-painting, the nanophase of my Grande Opus IV, quantum art. Finally, the image disappeared up its own rectum in the middle of the canvas; I could physically divide the squares no more. They are too small for my fading eyesight and quaking hands. So I declared the painting to be finished apart from where I’ve daubed blue acrylic on yellow during a moment of tremor. I’ll repair that later. Come to think of it, that’s an end to infinity. A paradox - I’ll have to consider the philosophical implications over a glass of Montana.

Then I had another surprise. If my painting is a fair depiction of reality, with each sector representing one year, I’ve discovered that infinity is four years, perhaps five if I am generous to myself and assume the splodgy anal pinprick at the centre is somehow symbolic of one more. I’m not quite sure how that correlates with the Biblical conceit of eternity, or the scientific concept of infinite space. Even Aesop would be surprised to discover that infinity is only 5 years. And I thought I’d manage at least ten.

While I was struggling through my moments of artistic epiphany, I listened to Charles Mingus, or more precisely Danny Richmond, his long-suffering drummer. When I listen to jazz, I’m forced by nature to tap my feet. It’s something in my DNA I think. Dad was the same with Bill Hailey. With most drummers, I keep time reasonably well. Danny Richmond tips me all over the place; I constantly have to adjust the pattern of my taps, sometimes needing to stop, listen and pick up the beat at a later point.

In my Polyhymnian naivety, I’ve always considered Danny Richmond to be a bit of a rubbish drummer. But I knew that I had to be wrong, because Mingus never suffered fools at all. He wanted perfection and he demanded it from his colleagues or he sacked them. And Richmond lasted as the Mingus drummer for over twenty years. I’ve often puzzled this apparent contradiction.

The second epiphany of the day came – Mingus (the leader of the band) was constantly changing tempo. Someone a little less adoring and more cynical might suggest he was erratic. But in most of the tracks he repeatedly and deliberately changed rhythms and beats and tempi, challenging his sidemen to keep up. And good old Danny did, matching his maestro to the nano-second of shifting beat. He worked his percussion with unerring precision, riding the tumult in total synchronisation with the bass man. Mingus & Richmond; Richmond & Mingus – they should be linked by ampersands so well are they musically matched.

So Danny Richmond was not a crap drummer. He was a bloody genius. Why hadn’t I realised this before? I’ve been listening to Mingus for over 50 years. Where has my brain been all that time? I want to make amends so I’m going to dedicate Grande Opus VII to the pair. But that’s in the future. I’m now making a start on Grande Opus V. I’m feeling in a Sonny Rollins mood. “Paradox” I think, a 1955 recording with Max Roach on drums. He keeps good time with my toes.

i just can't get started

2010-01-17T08:18:00.002Z

My blog posting rate is diminishing. It’s not that I have nothing to say. On the contrary, words and phrases tumble around inside me like lottery balls in a drum. My problem is getting the words to form sensible phrases and then converting them into something intelligible.

My typing skills are failing. A short paragraph now takes me three times longer than it used to because I’m committing so many errors needing to be corrected as I proceed. Too many times I find myself forced to retrace my metaphorical steps and retype a word, or check a spelling, or even amend grammar. I try to type slower but inexorably my speed increases and with it the incidence of error. Fingers will not hit the right key, or more likely I hit two keys at once and interpose an unwanted character into an otherwise perfect construction

The order of letters sometimes defeats me. I type the word “disestablishmentarianism” and it comes out “disestaboishmenttarianism.” Another problem is I forget what I’ve typed, so I’ll preview what I’ve written and see that I’ve used the word “nice” repeatedly in one paragraph. I could rewrite it all but finding synonyms is much quicker.

“We had a nice time the other evening. Dinner was nice and the company was nice. How nice to be among nice people enjoying nice conversation in nice surroundings with your nice dog nipping my ankles.” So I consult my copy of Bradford’s and effect changes as expeditiously as possible, resulting in: “We had an accurate time the other evening. Dinner was nine-pence and the company was precise. How fastidious to be among French city people enjoying pat conversation in dainty surroundings with your finical dog nipping at my ankles.”

My faculties are on the wane. The tides of my creative and functional abilities are ebbing. My literary last bus has left the stance. The stumps are being drawn and I never even got to bat.

Time is short so this jazz blog is brief: nobody plays the soprano saxophone like Sidney Bechet. Discuss.

one sweet letter from you

2010-01-08T09:08:00.002Z

Christmas and New Year are immediately followed by my birthday. That’s good, because it means all pointless celebrations are out of the way in one single prolonged orgy (metaphorical – at my age how could it be otherwise?). But I have to admit this year the occasions were fruitful and warming.

For one thing, I discovered that at least three people read this blog (one of whom is the blogger of whom I am he). Very good friends stayed over New Year and they admitted to looking in from time-to-time. They even left a polite comment. That makes it all worthwhile. Thanks to J&A.

Birthdays have always been a bit of a mystery to me. I’ve never been able to decide whether each anniversary marks the placing of another domino in the timeline of experience or the removal of one from my allotted pool. I suppose it’s the same as pondering whether my glass is half empty or half full. All I know is that the scales of my life are definitely weighted in favour of what has been, rather than what will be. I’m 63 by the way and am due to die when I’m 80. That’s 63 down and 17 to go.

However, let me not be melancholy. Over Christmas I discovered a wonderful charity shop in Boston (Lincolnshire). The British Heart Foundation store has an upstairs devoted to books and music, all laid out in Dewey order and categorised according to genre. There, in a corner of the room, I found a magical heading: jazz LPs. Leafing through the albums, I was able to avoid the inevitable Klaus Wunderlich and Best of Motown offerings. My fingers touched solely jazz. True jazz, that is. The real stuff – no Kenny G.

Bob Crosby, for example (Bing’s brother for the unitiated). And Benny Goodman. Both were recordings of US radio broadcasts in 1939, when smoking was apparently good for us and famous people effectively endorsed Camel cigarettes. True, most of the tracks are mediocre, except for an exhilarating version of “Little Rock Getaway” with Joe Sullivan in front of Bing’s brother’s outfit and a driving rendition of “I’ve Found a New Baby” with one of Goodman’s small sets including Lionel Hampton and Teddy Wilson. And tucked in the middle of several Chris Barber albums, I found the real treasure.

“A Rare Batch of Benny Goodman & His Orchestra” was the title. In the mid 1940s, the USA produced a series of V-discs, recordings made by the stars of the day specifically for the armed forces. Performers gave their services free to support the war effort. This album is a putative collection of just such benefic recordings by Goodman and his sidemen. I’m a little dubious about it, because the sleeve claims all selections were recorded in 1943/1944, whereas I’d wager half my remaining dominoes that Charlie Christian is playing on at least three of the tracks. He died early 1942. Unfortunately, recording details are missing from the liner notes, so I’ll probably never know for certain.

But I just enjoy the music. Seven Come Eleven, AC-DC Current, Gone With What Wind – this is stomping good jazz that swings like a kitchen door in a gourmet restaurant. Production is not the best, but a war was on. And my old record player crackles and hops cheerfully. I’m convinced the gramophone was invented for jazz. Or maybe jazz was invented for the record player – now that’s a thought!

Anyway, I don’t know who manages the British Heart Foundation charity shop in Boston, but I hope they keep up the good work. Unlike many of its malodorous and scruffy competitors, the place is a pleasure to visit. Happy New Year. And by the way, I think I have a 4th reader, a fifth if I include Mrs Dodman. 2010 could be great year.

it don't mean a thing

2009-12-29T08:46:00.002Z

University Challenge has stopped asking questions about jazz. I’m not suggesting that’s deliberate policy but I have a feeling that the maxim “out of sight, out of mind” applies. You don’t miss what you got until it’s gone.

A few weeks ago, though, Mr Paxman did mention an issue I’ve never been aware of. Apparently, in the world of classical music it’s a well known fact (albeit hearsay and anecdotal) that composers write 8 ½ symphonies and then die. This could be no more than an intellectual myth, but it could explain why the sonata, fugue, concerto and folk tune are so popular; the inference is that composers can write as many as they like of those without detriment to their health. Medical advice and common sense is, therefore, to stop at the eighth symphony otherwise the ninth could be unfinished.

Another well-known fact about death is that we all have about 3 billion heartbeats and then we die. I think I mentioned this in an earlier blog. By extrapolation (or some other statistical device) I calculate that one symphony is equivalent to 333,333,333.33 heart beats if the nine are finished, or 375,000,000 if the composer is wise enough to quit while he or she is ahead.

We all know the phrase “See Venice and die.” If the aphorism is true, then Venice must be the equivalent of 3 billion heartbeats or 8 finished symphonies. This means that 1 symphony is worth 1/8th of Venice, or more appositely, 20 square miles. By interpretation, 1 square mile is worth 18, 750,000 heartbeats, or 1/20th of a symphony.

Take it one step further. The City of London is one square mile, making it worth no more than 1/20th of a finished symphony. So we can state an equation: City of London = 1/20th of a symphony.

As a rough estimate, the City of London financial industry must employ some 30,000 bankers. This means that 1 banker is worth a single note of music (and that’s being generous by rounding up). Arithmetic has never been my strength, so I could have the odd decimal point in the wrong place but I think my theory is proven – it would take 600,000 bankers to be worth Eroica. As a final thought, one banker is, therefore, worth no more than a few flakes of skin excoriated from Napoleon’s backside.

Still feel good about your job, Mr King?

Jazz returns on my next posting. Happy New Year to all my readers (me).

darn that dream

2009-12-12T08:33:00.002Z

After much deliberation, I have decided to accept the recently offered position of CEO of the newly formed Lincolnshire & Norfolk Recorded Jazz Appreciation Society. In the past I have sought to avoid such commitments, reasoning that time generally is too short, and my remaining time specifically is even shorter; I have had many other things to achieve before my allotted span reaches its natural conclusion.

Just lately I’ve had the inclination to reassess values and priorities. A review of my life so far revealed that my total of achievements stands at nil. Here is not the place to dilate on reasons why, or what, I have not achieved. Suffice to report that my sole achievement throughout my 60-odd years is to be the only likely candidate for the dubious accolade of “lifetime non-achievement award.”

When it was mooted that I should be the leader of LANRJAS, my first response was to refuse politely. However, I realised that the role would not be so much a burden to be endured during my declining years, but more an opportunity to redress the balance of failure and success. I looked deeply at the litany of unrealised ambitions, the metaphorical library of unwritten novels and orchestra of musical instruments unlearnt, and I experienced an epiphanical moment. I re-organised my list of things to achieve before I die. Right at the top, I wrote: become the CEO of a jazz appreciation society. Ergo! I have finally achieved.

Membership currently stands at one. I am that one. The decision to appoint me as CEO was unanimous. The work now ahead of me is alarming. First, the membership must meet to define objectives and codify a mission statement. Working as a team, I must formulate a modus operandi and produce some form of Memorandum of Agreement defining how the society is to be managed. The society’s newsletter needs a punchy banner heading and I’m not good at anything demanding pith and brevity. Then I should commence garnering articles and reviews to go into the newsletter, interesting snippets and comments from among the membership. Policy decisions must be made. Do we, for example, accept advertising in the newsletter? Will the newsletter benefit from having a crossword? If so, how often? And what about a Christmas competition? And these are just a few of the important decisions to be made. And I haven’t started the Christmas shopping yet.

For a while I was quite proud of myself because I’d actually succeeded in producing a membership list, but somehow I contrived to close the computer without saving it, so now I must start all over again. Organisation is not my forte – and yet suddenly I find myself catapulted into a key organisation role. I have obviously taken on more than my fragile constitution is able to stand. I see only one choice ahead of me – I must resign as CEO of LANRJAS.

I’ve written myself a letter and have accepted my resignation, with regret of course. The Lincolnshire and Norfolk Recorded Jazz Appreciation Society has reverted to being purely a figment of my imagination. As a child, my dreams were so vivid and consistent that I began to wonder which life was real. I worried: what if my dreams are the reality and the reality is actually a dream? Do I have my own Hornby 00 train set or is there merely space in the cupboard where one should be? LANRJAS was a dream and for a scintilla in time could have been a reality. Now there’s just another space in my toy cupboard.

too close for comfort

2009-12-01T08:21:00.002Z

Back-to-Mono is an imprecisely named little shop in a tiny arcade off the High Street in Lincoln. It sells pre-owned 12” LPs, a few in stereo, hence my opening line. Here I fell upon a hoard of inexpensively priced jazz albums. I bought two, thereby trebling my collection.

One was a Gerry Mulligan compilation, a series of duets with what were at the time (1957 – 1960) more famous saxophonists, specifically Paul Desmond, Johnny Hodges, Stan Getz and Ben Webster. True, I already had most of the tracks on CDs, but one in particular caught my interest. Mulligan and Getz swapped instruments on a slightly muddy version of “Too Close for Comfort.” Both obviously took the title literally; they sounded uncomfortable in their new environment. Mulligan lost his immediately recognisable phraseology and Getz sounded as if he was being asked to play while climbing Steep Hill. Rather than delivering superb examples of the art, these doyens of their trade produced a curio. But I like the tune. I treasure the version by Art Pepper.

The second album was “T for Trombone” by the Jack Teagarden Band. The cover lauds the name of Ruby Braff (t), but I bought the album because it includes Lucky Thompson on tenor. To Associated Recordings’ eternal shame, no recording date is listed, and I can’t find the information on line. If you know, please leave a comment. Needless to say, the album includes “A Hundred Years from Today” and “St James Infirmary Blues.” These two are not listed in my top 100 jazz numbers, but they are entwined with Teagarden’s name – and the man does play wonderfully soulful trombone to match Thompson’s bluesy horn blowing.

Of essence is that I’ve discovered Back-to-Mono. The two albums cost me £8.50 and I could have bought lots more but the mobile rang to say our table was ready at Pizza Express, a few yards away. The proprietor told me he’d only just started trading but expected to be able to change his stock of jazz albums frequently. I shall visit whenever I’m in Lincoln. I recommend you to do the same.

And if you’re lucky, you’ll encounter the busker. Is he a Lincoln regular? He played the tenor sax in front of a recorded backing track. He’s no Lester Young, but he was well worth the couple of pounds I tossed into his pot. I like buskers. On Saturday we had the jazz man in black leather gloves, a bagpiper with frost-bitten knees, the Salvation Army brass band and a guitar man named Joshua Meek.

These buskers were vastly more entertaining than that execrable Christmas music now mandatory in every shop we entered. We need a campaign – abolish piped music in shops, especially at Christmas, ESPECIALLY Wizard and Cliff Richard.

Looking back on my blog postings, I can see how grumpy and intolerant I appear, but I’m consistent.

do you know what it means to miss new orleans?

2009-11-27T22:28:00.002Z

Suppertime is never really good for philosophical debate. This could be because antacids and digestive juices react chemically with abstractions. Or maybe it’s the fact that our suppers tend to be excuses for quaffing copious volumes of red wine, port and single malt. Either way, as evenings process into late nights, supper conversation tends to become a little more intense, pensive and irrational in nature.

Here is the question from a recent bibulous encounter over plates of stilton, brie “Rustica” and Jacob’s cream crackers: if jazz were a language, which would it be?

One diner thought Spanish, reasoning that Spain’s fiery national traits were a strong parallel for the evolution of our favourite music. It’s a large country of diverse landscapes and enough land to allow very different forms of culture to co-exist happily, without unduly restricting parochial and regional aspirations. It can be at once introspective, romantic and exciting – this is all reflected in the language. My Spanish vocabulary is limited to calling “Hola!” across a road so I nodded sagely without attempting to contradict. Somebody did start to relate the Basque separatist cause to the history of Jazz, but by then the stopper was out of the whisky. “Mingus is to jazz what the Basques are to Spain,” explained my friend, as if I had a chance of understanding what he meant. Was Mingus a Basque separatist? “It’s an analogy,” he despaired as I poured myself a large tumbler of malt.

The Maestro thought that he could detect a clear Teutonic influence. “We like to pretend jazz is one original phrase after another, but in reality proponents tend to adhere to quite strictly established formats. Pass the whisky.” I obeyed. “The Germans are like that,” he continued. “Hitler tried to ban jazz, but that’s only because he didn’t understand the music.”

“It’s Italian,” proclaimed a visiting marine biologist. “Totally mad, chaotic and undisciplined,” he argued, but then the man is a self-confessed devotee of Ornette Coleman.

“Probably Latin,” I ventured.” Laughter rippled around the table. “A dead language,” said the cello player. But Latin is not a dead language; it’s an immutable language. That’s the great strength of Latin. No interfering scholar attempts to tinker with it and send it careering towards that oblivion where pedants while away idle hours writing letters to ‘The Times’ about the inexorable dilution of the English language, totally ignoring 2000 years of linguistic history. “You know where you stand with Latin,” I explained. “It’s cast iron.” The port came round again, closely followed by whisky “You see, there’s only one true jazz – New Orleans. All the others are scions, off-shoots, hybrids, but they are never true original jazz. New Orleans is THE jazz – it can’t move or change. Time and idioms marched on, leaving New Orleans unchanged. Like Latin.”

“It’s all double-Dutch to me,” chipped-in Mrs Pooter Dodman. “The X-Factor is just about to start. Shall we go through to the lounge?”

The Maestro and I stayed at the table, gently swirling whisky. “Bad year for mushrooms,” he slurred.
“Is that an analogy?” I asked.
He peered at me through the bottom of his glass.
“No. It’s a Bunnahabhain,” he said.

yesterdays

2009-11-21T15:36:00.002Z

A couple of days ago I made a prize acquisition. A charity shop in Sleaford had for sale an old Panasonic record player. A label on the dusty black casing read simply “PATS tested. Pooter. £5.00.” The machine even had my name on it. How could I resist? I bought it and carried it home.

The record player dates from the days when the original Dansette and Bush portables were in decline and manufacture was switching to places like Japan to produce a new breed of sleek, smoky-dark, Perspex-rendered modernistic products. It predates Euronics (whatever they are) and I suspect the anatomy of my new acquisition has more mechanical parts than a 1950s Meccano kit. It was produced when the word “digital” meant you used fingers to press buttons.

Mrs Pooter was not too impressed. I’m from the era of 78rpm and she’s more of your 45rpm age. “What do you want with that old thing?” she queried. The answer was obvious to me. So I can play my old albums on it, of course. “You’ve only got one,” she grumbled and left the study to stir the contents of the Remoska. She’s right of course. I do have only one album – but what an album! It’s Charlie Christian live at Minton’s in May 1941. I bought it on E-bay some years ago and have been waiting for this opportunity to play it on a genuine old-style record player. I also have a single – Hard Work by John Handy, but I question whether this latter disc can be regarded as jazz. It’s more R&B-cum-funk.

Despite uxorial reservations, the search is on. I want to buy old jazz LPs and EPs. Modern CDs are too clinically pristine for me, even the re-mastered ones. Reproduction is perfect to the extent that even Kid Ory sounds as if he recorded the track yesterday. All those atmospheric clicks and crackles have been digitised out. My tasty pig’s ear has been turned into synthetic yet expensive silk

Those for whom youth is still an anchor to their perceptions will probably not understand what I mean. But I was brought up on the then radically different and glorious Radio Luxembourg (hissing and fading) and warped shellac 78rpm disks that wobbled on the turn table and scratched irremediably the first time they were played. My original Bud Freemans never sounded as if he was standing next me in a synthesised and antiseptic recording studio; they sounded as if the band had performed on toy instruments in a noisy tin-lined club on the floor below. I’m conditioned to expect jazz to be enjoyed with socks in the ears and rusty nails being used as a stylus. Wonderful stuff.

Now, my new-old Panasonic turntable allows me to relive my youth. Charlie crackles and clicks, and clatters and claws, as only true and genuine jazz can and should. This is jazz with a capital C. I’m in my element again. I have jazz with the C-Factor. And I love it.

Dinah

2009-11-14T15:34:00.001Z

Driving home the other day, I listened to an old cassette. It’s a little stretched now so takes time to reel in the slack enough to operate at the correct speed, and the crackles are becoming more noticeable, but I tolerate its shortcomings because the tape contains a prime example of what I believe to be perfect jazz.

The track is by the Lionel Hampton Orchestra and is titled “Dinah.” I actually have two versions of the number, both recorded on the same day, 21 December 1939 in New York. The line up is Hampton (vib), Benny Carter (tp), Edmond Hall (cl), Coleman Hawkins (ts), Joe Sullivan (p), Freddie Green (g), Artie Bernstein (b) and Zutty Singleton (d). The lesser version is superb and was originally issued on the Victor Label 26557/Master BS 046024-1. Take 2, however, is perfection personified.

This, of course, does provoke the debate “What is perfect jazz?” That I can’t answer. The subject is too subjective and probably anyway demands the expertise of a musicologist to expound meaningfully. But I can explain why Take 2 of “Dinah” is perfect to my inexpert ear.

After an initial couple of bars from Hampton’s vibraphone, it explodes with three simple notes from the trumpet. The tone and exhilaration of that triplet bursts into the senses like rifle fire and brings goose pimples to the flesh of my arm. Benny Carter is better know for his saxophone work, but his opening solo on “Dinah” proves he was of equal measure on both instruments. This is the most awakening and scintillating opening chord of any jazz track I know, including Armstrong’s “West End Blues.”

The improvisation is a perfect example of how to take a well-known theme and weave something wonderfully creative and new without completely losing all traces of the original melody. Carter starts the track spinning, Coleman Hawkins on tenor picks up the thread beautifully and Hampton himself maintains the flow. The entire 2 minutes 36 seconds is tightly-packed and perfectly co-ordinated with each and every instrumentalist fully understanding (and demonstrating) what jazz generally, and this number in particular, is all about.

The number swings. I use that term a lot. I don’t mean to imply that good jazz MUST necessarily swing, but this one has the added bonus of not just swing, but drive as well. It scoots along rhythmically at a pace to outrun a cheetah yet never flags, never tires. Muscle is provided by the steady pound of drum, guitar and bass, in their background way exhorting the melody instruments to excel. And their efforts are rewarded by success. Foot-tapping is not mandatory; it’s ineluctable.

The ebullience is heightened when the band begins to riff behind the vibraphone solo. The repeated refrain never dominates but simply underscores the efforts of the band’s leader, lending perfect support to the outflow of originality as his solo progresses. A good riff is a thing of great artistic beauty. This is the Mona Lisa of all riffs. The excitement mounts as all musicians bend into the recording with every kinetic ounce of their gargantuan skill

These are masters of their instruments. Each and every one can probably hear the sounds in their heads a fraction of a second before they replicate the note with absolute perfection. All instinctively know what the others have in their minds, some innate sense allowing them to anticipate where the rest of the band members are headed. The result is perfect harmony and co-ordination. I freely admit I am in a layman’s awe of the art of the jazz instrumentalist.

Because the track is less than 3 minutes long, it doesn’t have time to start to jade like so many post-LP jazz numbers. It says what it has to say, no more or less, in a forthright and succinct way and, having said it, comes to a striding and confident end, leaving the listener slightly breathless, exhilarated and wishing for more of the same.

Listen to “Dinah.” It’s one of my nominations for the honorific of “perfect jazz.”

oh play that thing

2009-10-30T08:03:00.004Z

Somehow I’d managed to convince myself that the capacity to learn to play a musical instrument was directly proportional to the amount of time spent listening to it in the hands of experts. Forty plus years of absorption should surely at least give me a good head start. I was about to become a musical opsimath.

By steady attrition, I eventually selected the alto saxophone as my intended instrument. The tenor is a lot heavier to lug around and I’d read somewhere that the soprano’s fingering is more difficult to conquer, so the alto seemed a promising compromise.

For the first few weeks I appeared to be progressing well. I wanted to play “Ornithology” but my music teacher insisted I practise scales. Within a couple of months, I’d more or less mastered the key of C and could play the first few bars of “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat.” Then a musician friend lent me a microphone and suggested I record myself as an aid to improving technique.

That was a mistake. The lowing and mooing from the tape deck was nothing like the mellifluous sounds I heard in my head. So I started to work on improving my tone. I changed reeds, bought metal mouthpieces, cleaned the horn from time to time, puckered my lips a little more than was natural and thought Paul Desmond. Still I sounded like a lovelorn stag arriving too late for the rut.

But I persevered. I acquired a couple more scales, played along with Dexter Gordon on my favourite version of “Lullaby of Birdland” and generally drove my neighbours to the verge of suicide. At the time we lived on a farm and the neighbours were a barn full of cows – that’s a measure of how bad I was.

After about 18 months, a new music teacher expressed concern that I couldn’t play “God Save the Queen” by ear, I was incapable of improvising on “Three Blind Mice” and his neighbours were now beginning to complain about the noise on Saturday mornings. To add to my distress, a fellow pupil, a young girl who had been learning for about six months, was actually playing in an amateur swing band and was already romping through “Seventy-six Trombones” at a fair lick.

The final nail in my musical coffin was when I flicked open a biography of Ronnie Scott and read that Pete King was playing professionally in clubs within two years of picking up a saxophone for the first time. After two years, I managed a faltering “Auld Lang Syne” at a friend’s Old Year’s Night trosh and still sounded worse than the ships in the Wash at midnight. What should have been inspiration proved to be a deterrent. I admitted defeat. I sold the saxophone on e-bay.

I’ve now bought a penny whistle; I’m rubbish on that too. I’m going to try the kazoo next. It worked for Red McKenzie. What I don’t understand is this: how can anyone love jazz the way I do and be such a total failure at trying to play the stuff?

if silence is golden, you ain't worth a dime, 'cos your mind is on vacation but your mouth is working overtime

2009-09-28T19:30:00.001+01:00

A few years ago I went with a couple of musicians to a big-band jazz concert in a public hall near King’s Lynn. During proceedings, one of my companions asked a particularly vocal lady to keep her voice down. She objected and a brawl almost ensued. We were asked to leave to forestall trouble, a little unfairly I thought. I missed more than half the programme of a superb swing band, but all my teeth were intact.

Live jazz in pubs and clubs can be a tricky issue. The good manager will be aware of the need to maintain a fine balance between the wishes of those there to listen to music and have a drink at the same time and those there to drink with a background of music. Sometimes the two groups can’t be reconciled easily, especially in pubs; they are there for different reasons and often mingle uncomfortably.

A pub near Norwich ran Friday lunchtime jazz sessions, presenting such local luminaries as Stella Goodey, James Goodwin and Derek Cubbitt. The music was played against an unremitting soundscape of chinking plates, scraping chairs on a tiled floor, repeated creaking of a servery door and buzz of conversation.

Yet neither musicians nor audience complained about background noise. They knew they were in an environment where about half the audience were there to hear them, the other half out for a pleasurable time. Nobody competed for ears. Somehow everyone found what they were looking for. And the same applied in most pubs dishing up successful live jazz.

I was reminded of this when I listened recently to a CD – Charles Mingus on Charles Mingus. In the introduction to the singular “Folk Forms No. 1” he appeals for quiet. “Restrain your applause… in fact don’t even take any drinks… or no cash registers ringing etc.” This was Mingus pretending to be recording in the electrifying atmosphere of a club, when in reality he was in the studios. He wanted the musicians to play as if they had the stimulus of an audience.

Some of the best jazz recordings are live in front of a vociferous audience – tracks by Wynton Marsalis, Chris Barber and Roland Kirk to name just five (Marsalis and Kirk should be there twice). I actually relish LP tracks reverberating with the rattle of ice in a glass, the murmur of voices at the bar and the thunder of rapturous applause. (That’s a Jungian slip – who talks about LPs these days?) Let’s never forget that our music was conceived and nurtured in drinking houses and dance halls and came of age in clubs and bars. Some will argue with justification that jazz started to decline the day it moved into the concert hall. In my view, jazz, and perhaps music generally, should be heard only with somebody shouting “Nigel” in the background. (Mercy, Mercy, Mercy – Cannonball Adderley – at least it sounds like Nigel to me).

In my modest opinion, if Mingus had really wanted his musicians to relax as if they were in a club atmosphere, he should have invited an audience to dance, holler and start fights. Or maybe supply his men with viper, but that’s another story. We need a campaign – more live music in front of audiences prepared to demonstrate their enjoyment of what they’re hearing.

why don't you do right?

2009-09-16T16:10:00.002+01:00

A few weeks ago, The Times ran the obituary of Lawrence Lucie, the jazz guitarist. As would be expected from such an august publication, it was a considered, well-formulated piece of prose, setting out the history of this Methuselah of the rhythm section. Obituary authors are never identified; they prefer anonymity, presumably to avoid the risk of taking away the final limelight from the recently departed.

Yet I can’t help wondering who wrote it. A very interesting phrase was used in the body of the text. It reads: “The records by Morton’s New Orleans Jazzmen, with the saxophonist Sidney Bechet, became classics of traditional jazz.”

The word ‘traditional’ in that sentence puzzles me. What does it mean set into the context of the period when the recordings were made, the early 1940s. I thought traditional jazz was a uniquely British 50s invention, intended to separate modernists (We love Charlie Parker) from mouldy figs (Go home dirty bopper). I’ve never before heard the word ‘traditional’ used with quite the meaning conveyed in this article. Surely the New Orleans Jazzmen played jazz? We have no need to qualify it with the word ‘traditional.’ The style of jazz played by Morton was the original jazz and, many would say, the only true form of jazz.

Modern jazz (as in be-bop and its multiplicity of spawn, good and bad) took the genre of music in a new direction. It remained jazz primarily because the main exponents of the new craft started life playing the old jazz. They carried the word through to the new music. That’s a little like David Beckham inventing an entirely new team game using a shuttlecock and insisting on calling it ‘smooth football.’

I have no real gripe against most forms of jazz being called jazz. But my concern is that some of the stuff being rammed into our ears today is presented with the title ‘jazz’ when in reality the sounds are as closely related to the original thing as fine French brie is to cat food.

Play what music you like; I will applaud you. Create any sound taking your fancy; I will give it a fair audience. Record it and perform it; I will pay to listen. Publish the sheet music and take the royalties; I will make my contribution unflinchingly. Promote your music any way you think appropriate; I will support you.

But please – PLEASE – do not call it jazz purely because you believe you can benefit from the reflected glory of true jazz. The word jazz needs protecting from the unscrupulous and the opportunist. What we need is a conservation order slapped on the word ‘jazz’ so only the real thing can be so described. It worked for sherry and cheddar cheese.

We need a campaign.

if I Hadi talking picture

2009-09-01T06:51:00.002+01:00

One of the great unsung heroes of the alto and tenor saxophones was a man named Curtis Porter. He’s probably better known as Shafi Hadi, no doubt having changed his name on religious grounds during the late 1950s.But even as Shafi Hadi, few will have encountered him because he appears to have enjoyed no more than the metaphorical 15 minutes of fame. By then, he’d dropped into semi-obscurity.

I first heard him in about 1962 or 1963 when Mingus and his Tijuana Moods album erupted into my hitherto cloistered British-trad-jazz-revival consciousness. Suddenly I was listening to a sax player capable, in my opinion, of trouncing the great Bird himself.

His tone was cut of the best diamond, sharp yet plaintiff, stuffed full of 100 carat emotion and bluesy fire. Solos were considered and intelligent, delivered with exacting precision. Phrasing and intonation were often laconic; he eschewed the fusillades of notes. For him, his jazz was not about increasing the numbers of notes per second by running frenetically up and down the chords, but was more to do with turning short sentences and phrases into pithy sayings of expressive substance. Pauses were as significant as the notes themselves; somehow he stitched silence with sound to produce solos of the utmost beauty.

Little is know about him. He started playing in various R&B bands (before R&B become a corrupted concept) and I know for a while he was associated with Hank Mobley. His first recording venture with Mingus was “The Clown” in early 1957 (about 6 months after becoming a jazz player at the age of 26) and he was involved with the great bassist on at least seven albums until middle 1959.

During 1958 he collaborated with John Cassavetes on the sound track for the producer’s film “Shadows” in which Mingus was also involved. Cassavetes acted out the roles as Hadi improvised accompanying music. Cassavetes wrote: “It was terrific. He played the story of his life to music.” The actor also records that Hadi was married, was large in stature as well as creativity, and stood physically tall. Nat Hentoff in the liner notes for “The Clown” writes that Hadi had said after the recording: “I think more jazz groups should tell stories like Mingus does, instead of just playing notes and techniques.”

And then Shafi Hadi apparently disappeared from the centre of the jazz scene. Nobody seems to know where he went, or what he did, although rumours abounded. He’d become a painter; he’d been in prison; he’d died from a drugs overdose in Philadelphia in the early 1970s. None of this is substantiated. He comes across as a shadowy figure. Writers of liner notes give sketchy details of the man, but rarely show any sign of knowing him well or even considering him important. And yet he’d demonstrated the capacity to be a monumental instrumentalist.

My favourite Hadi solos are on “Los Mariachis” from Mingus’ Tia Juana Moods Album. Listen to it, and if anyone knows more about this enigmatic and quiet genius, I’d love to hear.

clap hands, here comes charlie

2009-08-17T06:50:00.001+01:00

Surely everybody knows that another musician has becoming legend: Les Paul. His death last week has prompted an entire litany of reviews, memorials and obituaries. He had a long and proud innings, being 94 when he died, so his fans (both professional and lay) have a lot of great stuff to remember him by. I never knew him, so I’d be disingenuous to say I’m sad. But I recognise the lacuna his passing leaves.

If I understand what I read correctly, Les Paul was instrumental in moving the guitar from the back row to the front of the band. One obituary suggested he’d invented the electric guitar, but in fact he’d created the solid electric guitar. Pre-Paul, the electric guitar was acoustic with an amplifier attached beneath the bridge. What he did was convert a plank of wood into musical notes and inspired countless youths to participate in turning the guitar into what is now probably the world’s most popular instrument. Yep – it’s all his fault.

A few years before Les, a great jazz musician took an electric guitar and sat in the front row with it, playing as if it was a melody instrument alongside the saxophone or trumpet. Others had experimented before him, but I think I’m right in saying that in the middle 1930s Charlie Christian was the first jazz guitarist to use his instrument other than for strumming or performing quick breaks in rare solos. He took the jazz world by the throat and moved even hardened professional cynics and virtuosi like Benny Goodman to suddenly sit up and take the jazz guitar seriously as a lead instrument.

Some of Christian’s best work was with the Goodman and Lionel Hampton bands. He drove many of the numbers as part of the rhythm section and then stepped forward to solo with as much creativity and flair as Goodman’s clarinet or Hampton’s vibraphone. Listen to “Seven Come Eleven” and “Honeysuckle Rose” (both 22 November 1939) and “Haven’t Named It Yet” or “”One Sweet Letter From You” from a month or two earlier.

My personal favourite, though, is his “Swing to Bop” (also known as Charlie’s Choice), an improvisation on Basie’s “Topsy,” recorded at Minton’s in May 1941. With the house trumpeter, Joe Guy, who for years I believed was Roy Eldridge performing under a pseudonym, Kenny Clarke (d) and not Thelonious Monk on piano as the album claimed but probably Kenny Kersey, this impromptu quintet jammed to provide a carriage for what is in my opinion the best guitar solo ever recorded. It swings with breath-taking confidence and Christian’s phrasing and flow of ideas stoked the energy until the number pulses and builds to a febrile crescendo of foot-tapping and be-bopping proportions. This is unalloyed swinging jazz with exposed-nerves excitement.

Why do I bring this up now? Both men were born in the same nascent era of jazz – Paul in 1915 and Christian a year later. Les Paul had a long and distinguished musical innings. Charlie Christian had a very short life – he died in 1942 of TB aged about 25 after a recording career of little more than about three years. Yet in their spheres, both had enormous influence. Les Paul’s legacy will be cause for celebration for many years to come; Charlie Christian’s is still recognised throughout the jazz fraternity.

I can’t resist asking myself what would have been if Charlie Christian hadn’t died so young. Kenny Clarke, the infamous be-bop drummer, said Christian would have been a real modern if he’d lived. He said those words long before the word ‘modern’ began to lose some its clarity. I suspect part of his meaning is lost in the passage of time.

But I wonder how many of today’s guitarists understand the debt they owe to Charlie Christian. Everyone seems to forget that Rock & Roll (the progenitor of today’s popular music) was a scion of jazz.

mercy, mercy, mercy

2009-08-14T18:16:00.002+01:00

This posting is not strictly about jazz. It’s a cry of despair. Music is becoming far too intrusive into my life and I don’t know what to do about it.

Everywhere I go, I’m bombarded by music. I love my jazz (and often listen to other genres of music) but I would like to be able to listen to it when I want, not when some faceless cynical misanthrope in a seriously misguided marketing department feels I should.

For example, we lunched with friends at the Unthank Arms in Norwich. It’s an excellent pub serving good food. I was slightly disappointed with the range of real ales (meaning they didn’t have Abbot) but the Wherry was in good shape. In spite of the average age of the clientele being somewhere between middle-age and the catafalque, we were assaulted by pumping heavy metal rock, inappropriate for a pub at 10pm on a Friday night, never-mind 1.45 on a Thursday afternoon. Of course, the girls behind the bar were very pretty, but were only recently through puberty; obviously they chose the only music they know. Where’s the landlord’s guiding hand? My impression of the pub was severely tarnished. I’ll not return.

After lunch, we moved on to Dunelm, a vast household and fabrics warehouse on the inner ring road. Mrs Dodman wanted fabric for the cushions she’s making for our new house (subject to contract). As we waited to be served, we found ourselves standing beneath a loudspeaker set into the ceiling. It blasted a scattergun of Radio Dunelm at us so we could scarcely hear what the very helpful shop assistant was telling us. Background music I can just about tolerate, but this was virtually inside me. Why so damnably loud? Hasn’t somebody told management that the military use such techniques as a form of torture to weaken the resolve of the Taliban? And it works.

The problem is becoming endemic; it’s a plague. Few shops and pubs are without blaring perambulatory accompaniment, especially larger chain stores. It’s a greater threat to my health than swine flue, blue-tongue disease and e-coli all rolled into one. If I find a blissfully quiet shop, a car will pull up outside with its 5000 amp multi-woofer pounding until my eardrums are aching in sympathy with the welding holding the car together. What is wrong with a little silence occasionally? Will we all suddenly die of boredom if the music stops for just one minute?

Let’s start a campaign to abolish piped music once and for all. As part of the lobby, everybody over the age of sixty could drive around with car windows open playing Coltrane’s “Love Supreme” at full volume. That’ll get the bastards running for cover. And let’s see if we can force a change in attitude before the shops all start playing those excruciating Christmas tracks.

portrait

2009-08-12T13:56:00.001+01:00

On the wall of my study (which, incidentally, the estate agent insists on dubbing bedroom 3) is a poster-sized reproduction of Art Kane’s famous 1958 photograph of 57 jazz musicians assembled in Harlem for an Esquire Magazine photo-shoot.

Many of the greats of the day turned up. The perimeters of the image are defined by Benny Golson (top left – ts), Johnny Griffin (top right – ts), Dizzy Gillespie (bottom right – t) and Gigi Gryce (bottom left – as). The odd shaped trapezium thus formed circumscribes such illustrious names as Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins, Max Kaminsky, Jimmy Rushing, Art Farmer and Lester Young. Count Basie is also in the photograph, but he chose to sit on the kerb at the edge of the group, alongside twelve local youngsters who were determined to get in on the act.

Imagine - fifty-seven of the top jazz musicians in the world standing together on a set of grubby steps outside a bland Harlem tenement building straight out of the Godfather. I know if we could give them all instruments and ask them to play Perdido the sound would probably be excruciating, but how many permutations of small groups could we have jamming together in sublime symphony? The mind boggles.

Now take it one step further. How many didn’t make the photo-shoot for one reason or another? Henry ‘Red’ Allen, for example; Eddie Condon; Edmond Hall; Lionel Hampton; Dexter Gordon; Barney Kessel; Bud Powell…. the list is not endless but it’s significantly longer than my blog capabilities. I can’t attempt to calculate how many jazz greats could have been involved, given the time or the opportunity. So what’s the number of permutations of potential small groups now?

New York in 1958 must have been the Mount Olympus of jazz. From here, these musicians wrought their instruments for domination of the universe of music. It all seems so long ago – so historical. And yet about half the youngsters sitting proudly in front of their living idols were probably born in the same year as I was.

Art Kane was in exactly the right place at the right time to take a precise snapshot of the state of jazz in the USA at a critical juncture. Thereafter, change accelerated and the idiom moved in new directions – for better or for worse. In some ways, the photograph must have been a valedictory, an end of term group photograph. What’s the chance of a 2009 version? If one was produced today, how many of us would be able to put names to more than a few faces, let alone know their oeuvres?

The best thing is the poster covers a mark on the wall. Such versatility; Art Kane was obviously a genius.

the music goes round and round

2009-08-06T08:27:00.001+01:00

These are names we don’t hear much of these days: Red McKenzie (kazoo); Yank Lawson (t); Eddie Miller (cl-ts); Nappy Lamare (g); Bob Haggart (b); Ray Bauduc (d). Bunny Berigan (t) and Eddie Condon (g) drifted in and out of the band known for years as the Mound City Blue Blowers.

I’ve never fully understood how anyone can make a living playing a comb and paper anywhere other than in an underpass adjacent to Charing Cross tube station. And yet Red McKenzie was a successful band leader from about 1924 until at least 1937, and in fact continued playing at his own New York club until his death in February 1948.

The recordings I listened to while cooking a pair of lamb chops were from 1935 and 1936. They are mostly well-known standards such as High Society and Muskrat Ramble. Vocal numbers include She’s a Latin from Manhattan, On Treasure Island and Mama Don’t Allow It. Red was first and foremost a vocalist, although his singers on this album also include Spooky Dickenson and Billy Wilson. They all have that natural resonance in their voices as if they’re singing through a megaphone. The Temperance Seven took them off perfectly.

In the days when radio was called wireless, the Mound City Blue Blowers could be heard quite often in Britain. Today, I can’t remember the last time I heard one of their tracks on the airwaves. But then I play my albums rather than listen to the radio (except R3 JRR when I can) so I’m not a reliable source. The rasping notes of the kazoo swept through my kitchen as a great waft of fresh air on a sultry day.

What these tracks do is swing. That’s swing with a lower-case s, not to be confused with Swing which is an entire genre of jazz. And it reminded me of the essence of jazz, something which many musicologists and commentators apparently ignore – jazz was first and foremost dance music. It was for roughly the first 50 years of its existence a means of getting people dancing. A cynic might say the next 50 years was all downhill as arty jazz musicians started prodding around introspectively in their navels rather than trying to arouse the audience. But that would be to make an unjust sweeping statement, true though it is in part.

Yep. The Mound City Blue Blowers had me stomping my feet and banging saucepan lids in Krupa exuberance. The noise from the kitchen was cacophonous but the music was sublime, just sublime, as Para Handy would have said. And please don’t confuse Para with John, Captain or otherwise.

Let’s start a campaign – bring the kazoo back to jazz.

kirk's works

2009-08-01T08:26:00.000+01:00

I try to avoid using the term ‘greatest’ of any individual jazz performer. Occasionally I’ll forget in my enthusiasm for one particular player, but as a rule I prefer to think in terms of many greats rather than the single greatest. Lists appear everywhere claiming to identify the “100 Greatest” this or that, but in reality the heading is merely a felony against the conventions of English grammar.

In jazz, nobody is the greatest.

To illustrate my point, consider what goes into making someone great, and let’s use an alto sax player as an example. Many varied factors combine to allow the player to produce the sound he or she does: the quality of build of the specific instrument and the artificer’s skill; the player’s embouchure and cavity of the mouth; type of reed and mouthpiece; choice of style; originality and creativeness of improvisation; robustness of performance; fingering technique; determination, practice and inspiration. No doubt I’ve omitted a few, but the sound that comes out of the horn is a meld of all these different influences. Rarely do two players sound exactly the same, despite my frequent failure to name a soloist correctly.

Now consider three saxophonists: Paul Desmond, Ornette Coleman and Cannonball Adderley. Each is (or was) a distinctive player, immediately identifiable. All were massively successful jazzmen. Each produced a vast personal catalogue of brilliant music enthralling the world for years. All three were technical masters of their instruments. Each played his own idiom of jazz. So how can we select out of this diversity which one could truly be awarded the title of “The Greatest”? We’re comparing brie with claret with whisky.

I have my favourites, of course. But that doesn’t mean they are greats, yet alone be nominees for the accolade of greatest. My preferences are purely subjective, as are yours. The most technically proficient player of all time might well bore me rigid because I don’t enjoy the creativity coming out of the instrument. Often I can’t define what it is that draws me to a particular player. So to attempt to pin the red rosette for best of breed on one specific person is fatuous.

And yet, if I was locked in a dungeon and denied freedom until I nominated a definitive candidate for investiture of the title ‘The Greatest’ I’d probably have to nominate Rahsaan Roland Kirk. His contribution to the history of our music arguably left a tad fainter mark than many others but, when considering the material characteristics of this Hector of jazz, his greatness is possibly just a little more effulgent than that of all others.

For a start he was self-taught but as a teenager he was performing with a band and at the tender age of 25 he stood artistically proud alongside Mingus. He originated his own musical instruments and adapted the keys so he could play three at once. Whistles and sirens became part of his palette. He perfected a system of circular breathing (in the nose and out the mouth) so he had the dubious ability to sustain a note almost indefinitely. I read somewhere that he could even play two melodies at once, but I’ve never heard that in practice. Even after he suffered a stroke and became virtually paralysed in one side, he still continued to perform. He wrote wonderful compositions. His range of styles started at be-bop and never finished, yet incorporated New Orleans, blues, mainstream, modern and funk. When he played the flute, he would sometimes sing along simultaneously, guttering and humming growlingly. He had superb mastery over all his chosen instruments. The creativity and originality of the man seemed to be unbounded.

And he was blind, almost from birth.

Kirk had his critics. Purists would look down their noses at his strange assortment of instruments and dismiss his work as gimmick. As jazz went through anxious and melodramatic metamorphosis in the 60s, leaving many of us perplexed and confused by what we heard, Kirk drove his chariot furiously in the vanguard of the hedonistic charge towards exploration and chaos. Sometimes excruciating, sometimes sublime, Kirk was salient in pushing boundaries of contemporary creation. Genius? I’m not qualified to say, but the man undoubtedly had greatness beyond just great.

Then my bubble burst. Somehow I missed his Blacknuss album of 1972 (six years before he died at the age of 41). I bought it on e-bay recently. I have to admit if I’d heard his version of My Girl before Hog Callin’ Blues I’d probably have turned my back on Kirk and rejected his music as stuff to play in a lift at a seedy hotel. What was his thinking in producing something so lacklustre and mediocre? Even the arrangements make little more than a barely discernible nod towards jazz.

But the great are human too. No doubt Blacknuss was a bid for commercial success. I hope it worked for him at the time. If Einstein or Masefield were to be judged by their weakest efforts, they wouldn’t today carry the respect they do. Kirk deserves the same consideration. Dare I reiterate he was the greatest ever jazzman? Of course not, but Kirk is certainly up there among the best.

i know that you know

2009-07-26T07:44:00.002+01:00

Although you’re probably no more interested than I was, I thought I should report that the painfully young candidate won the North Norwich by-election on Thursday. She was the one who kept saying “you know” during the hustings.

She pronounces the words “you know” without any hint of a question mark at the end - you know, when the final word is given an upward lilt, as in “You know?” Rather she uses the phrase as an imperial command, as if to hint that I’m being perverse in affecting not to know, but she knows that I do know. I feel as if I’m being reprimanded, as in “You damned well do know!”

She’s one of Cameron’s bitches. I suspect she’s full of good ideas. Someone ought to tell her that throughout history new ideas have been responsible for all the world’s ills. We humans should take our lead from nature. Animals don’t have new ideas. They simply get on with life, evolving slowly without ambition or schemes other than to live beyond the next crepuscular curtain fall. But I have a feeling that a whole charnel-house of new ideas is about to drop into our lives. Sometimes I’m relieved to be old.

I wanted to ask a question of this newest and youngest MP. Why do programmers at the BBC treat their listeners with such contempt? Yesterday I tuned in at the regular time for Jazz Record Requests, only to hear some distant and tuneless organ grinding away like background tracks to a Gothic Hammer House of Horror film. Apparently, the BBC decided to delay my jazz (yes – MY jazz) in favour of a live (another parenthesis – I’m not sure live is the correct word) recital from the Albert Hall. What is this curious obsession the BBC has with live broadcasts? Why must my music be delayed to make way for something which sounds a damned sight better on record anyway? I had to miss the first ¾ of Geoffrey Smith’s programme because I had other things to do.

Already I can sense somebody saying you can listen to the programme on the internet. But that’s fine if you have a high-powered 48 gigabit fibre-optic super-fast Virgin internet connection less than 100 yards from a telephone exchange. I don’t. I have an old-fashioned dial-up system giving me about 0.25kb a minute. It would take me about 2 weeks to listen to an hour’s worth of jazz albums through my computer.

I wanted to ask the new MP whether she would take my plaint to parliament and raise the issue in the House. But I think she’s probably too busy being clear about things and assuring us she’s entirely transparent. She’s undoubtedly fully occupied formulating youthful new ideas that are brimming to be released into the atmosphere as soon as the holidays are over. God help us all. You know?

monk, bunk and vice versa

2009-07-21T06:46:00.003+01:00

For yesterday’s supper I cooked a chicken marinade of garlic, whole-grain mustard and soy sauce, dished up with potatoes and runner beans. As an aperitif, I quaffed lightly of Art Pepper and to accompany the meal I served a classic fine 1947 Monk. I avoid writing the latter’s forename because I don’t know how to spell it. Some experts cite Thelonious and others Thelonius and they’re pretty well evenly split. But then I’m grateful for the fact that the pianist is one of the small band of famous who manage with purely a surname, like Beiderbecke, Roach and Ellington.

Digestion was not aided by a later night cap – a TV programme about the Norwich North by-election taking place this week. What a depressingly young and inexperienced bunch of candidates, most of whom look to my ageing eyes as if they should still be practising their seven times table. They talk in clichés, as if they’re reciting from an issued reader. They were all “clear and transparent” which in reality means they are obfuscating the truth. Each and every one followed the party line while claming to be an independent spirit. We watched them with a creeping feeling of doom, Mrs Dodman and I. One says “you know” all the time as if the short phrase automatically implies axiom. They are all ardent and sincere; each and everyone will put aside ambition to work tirelessly on behalf of the local community. Yet we all know the elected candidate will eventually be just another expendable grinning yapping avaricious head on the Hydra of politics.

Not one mentioned jazz, at least before I dozed off. For twenty-five years I’ve voted independent, putting my cross against any candidate professing to enjoy a good foot-tapping clarinet solo. I figure that anyone appreciating jazz should be given a chance. The rest are too worn out from the exhausting requirement of keeping up party appearances. I know that’s a non-sequitur, but I had a late night.

eat that chicken

2009-07-18T07:50:00.002+01:00

I like to listen to jazz while I’m cooking. Mrs Dodman keeps out of the kitchen while I’m being creative with food, so I have free rein to play whatever appeals to me at the moment. The CD player is in the dining room which is open to the kitchen. Thus I can close the door to the rest of the house, turn up the volume a little, open a bottle of dry white wine and bounce around the place while chopping onion, squeezing garlic and calculating the calories.

Recently I had a moment of amazing self-discovery - my selection of music varies according to the type of dish I’m preparing. How have I never realised this assonance of tastes before?

Yesterday, for example, I cooked a sort of Remoska of fillet steak, sweet potato, asparagus, fine green beans and paprika stock. To accompany the preparation I listened to a compilation CD of jazz from the Chicago era. I bought it from the Sunday Times about 12 years ago and I resurrect it whenever the culinary mood takes me. Tucked in the middle of the tracks is The Eel by Bud Freeman. Actually, billing is given to Eddie Condon, but he rarely took centre stage, preferring to give the limelight to his sidemen. When I listen to numbers such as this, I find myself being forced to place the music in its chronological context. The track was recorded in 1933 and still sounds as fresh as last year’s wine. So how original and exhilarating did it sound when it was first released 75 years ago and jazz was yet to be seen as a somewhat pretentious and too often introspective art form? But I digress – that’s another debate.

A few days ago I cooked a prawn risotto. Then I listened to Art Blakey live at Birdland, when he had Lou Donaldson on alto (before he turned R&B) and Clifford Brown on trumpet (a couple of years before his premature death). Recorded in 1954, it features one of my all-time favourite dance tracks: Parker’s composition Now’s the Time. When I say ‘dance track’ I use the term in its broadest meaning. All sorts of jazz makes me want to dance, but it’s not the conventional granddad-at-the-disco style; mine usually involves no more than fingers, feet, shoulders, chins - and knives used as drum sticks on saucepan lids, a practice meeting with severe disapproval from Mrs Dodman.

When I cooked a chicken korma, I listened to Tijuana Moods. I think I first heard Los Mariachis in about 1963 soon after the album was released. For some reason it took 6 years to hit the shops but when it did, it jolted me out of my trad groove and sent my jazz preferences spinning in an entirely different direction. Charles Mingus gave me one of my first truly seminal musical moments in life.

For some reason ham, egg and chips goes perfectly with Wynton Marsalis and his Majesty of the Blues album. Chicken, couscous and salsa salad sits very agreeably with Gerry Mulligan’s West Coast sound, although I find that when I substitute pork for chicken his Concert Jazz Band actually aids digestion.

The Modern Jazz Quartet seems to suit cheese on toast, Georgie Fame and the Harry South Big Band sprinkles deliciously on potato and leek soup, and Dexter Gordon is a magnificent vegetarian pesto pasta, unless I’m listening to The Chase with Wardell Gray, in which case the dish turns into a bolognaise variant.

My top food is lamb chops, served with beetroot, tomato and fresh mint salad, caramelised balsamic carrots and pureed broad bean and potato mash with an optional side-dish of celeriac. That’s when I listen to recordings by Chris Barber before he was Big. Funnily enough, if for some reason I can’t find any fresh mint, I prefer to listen to Chico Hamilton. That’s weird isn’t it?

fine and mellow

2009-07-12T07:24:00.001+01:00

One of my favourite books about jazz is “All What Jazz” by Philip Larkin. It’s a compilation of articles he wrote as recordings critic for the Daily Telegraph over a ten year period in the 60s and 70s. Most books about jazz are written retrospectively, with commentators using hindsight to try to analyse events and find meanings in what happened. Larkin was writing contemporaneously as huge changes were taking place in the jazz world. And I appreciate the fact that in places, he sounds perplexed and almost distraught at some of the albums he was sent for review.

When his words were hot off the press, I didn’t necessarily agree with him. I’m an entire generation behind Larkin. He could associate with Pee Wee Russell while my formative years were spent in the aural company of Parker, Coltrane and Mingus. But today, I am in simpatico with Larkin’s sentiments. This is no epiphany on the road to Damascus, if you’ll permit the mixed metaphor. Rather I walk a parallel path of gradual enlightenment.

What prompted this blog is that yesterday I listened to Geoffrey Smith’s Jazz Record Requests on BBC Radio 3. He played a track by a band named Led Bib. It left me totally bemused and puzzled. The music bears a jazz tag, yet as far as I can see the link is tenuous at best. Even the instruments sounded as if they belonged more on a rock stage at the 02 than in the one-time smoky atmosphere of Minton’s. My view is that these musicians have a perfect right to perform whatever type of music they like, but I question whether they should be allowed to call it jazz. I like to think that Smith is merely doing his duty by broadcasting the stuff.

Later in the programme, he played a Billie Holiday number. In the line-up were names Larkin applauded – Lester Young, Ben Webster, Vic Dickinson, Gerry Mulligan, Roy Eldridge and more. Some say Holiday declined towards the end. If Fine and Mellow recorded in 1957 is any indication, commentators who believe that talk rubbish. The hair at the back of my neck curled and bristled. This was Holiday at her best; this was jazz at its best. Changing the subject slightly, I think I can remember a Norfolk girl (Stella Goodey) doing this number superbly. I think she’s still around on the circuit. Catch her if you can. She’s a wonderful performer of Holiday and Bessie Smith numbers.

Like Larkin, I can understand that the essence of jazz is evolution. Led Bib shares genes with Billie Holiday in the same way that cabbages and humans have something like 38% common DNA. I can understand why the music carries the appellation jazz, but I can’t agree with it. When I scratch my head in bemusement, I feel as if I’m at one with Philip Larkin. I forget my gripes by losing myself in his writings of July 1966 and if I’m seen as a bit of a dinosaur, at least I’m a happy one.

i got no strings

2009-07-08T08:02:00.001+01:00

Whatever happens, I strive to think positively. One of my beliefs is that a positive approach in any situation will encourage a satisfactory outcome eventually. Negativity is a self-fulfilling prophecy, which means: start from a negative stance and you’ll encourage a negative outcome. But in this post, I can’t find any way to state my case other than with a huge dose of the negative.

I hate “jazz” involving the sounds of 101 sentimental silky strings.

The word Jazz is in inverted commas because such music is not jazz at all, but I want to avoid the eternal debate. The fact is that this genre of music is wrongly presented as jazz. It’s a form of Easy Listening and jazz has never been that. Jazz was dance music first and foremost, then it became club-land followed by concert music before it was elevated to the status of art and started to become wayward, but it has never – ever – been Easy Listening.

I use the term Easy Listening as a recognisable term for a genre of music; it’s not intended to be a qualitative description, as in easy listening (without the upper case initials). Jazz can be easy listening but cannot be Easy Listening.

I’m not sure I’ve made myself clear on the point but I’ll press on anyway. The violin has a valid and worthy place in the evolution of jazz. To name just three, Joe Venuti, Stephane Grappelli and Stuff Smith each demonstrated individually how ably the instrument can replicate the sort of rhythms required to justify the tag of jazz. In fact, “Rio Pakistan” holds a prominent position in the favourites list on my MP3 player. But as soon as a few violins start to play in symphony during a jazz recital, I reach for the fast forward button, or seize the opportunity for a comfort break.

Perhaps this is me showing my true colours – a philistine and low-brow - but I physically shudder when suddenly those silky strings start to play. One of my ecstatic musical moments in life was when I saw Sarah Vaughan at the Hammersmith Odeon, I think in 1964. She was accompanied by Count Basie and his orchestra. As much as I adored her voice, if she’d been in front of the London Philharmonic Orchestra I wouldn’t have gone within 100 miles of the place. Forty-five years has not even dinted my resolve.

Many jazz greats have fronted the metaphorical 101 silky strings. I like to think they did that out of commercial pressure rather than with the intention of somehow pretending they were advancing the interests of jazz. The contribution Charlie Parker made to jazz allows us to forgive him anything – his drink and drugs, his sometimes shaky playing, his untimely and premature death – but never ask me to listen to the tracks he laid down in front of a choir of seraphic violins.

If David Beckham started to play cricket, you wouldn’t call the game soccer. When Ella Fitzgerald sang in front of a symphony orchestra, she was singing something entirely different to jazz.

I’ve almost exorcised my music collection. Multitudinous strings still appear occasionally on an otherwise excellent compilation tape, but I can generally anticipate the miscreant’s arrival and regard it as an interval during which to attend to those cardinal functions of life, such as opening another bottle of wine.

We need a campaign – keep the sound of 101 silky strings out of the world of jazz.

Discuss.

farewell farewell

2009-06-27T07:11:00.002+01:00

So Charlie Mariano died on the 16th June. His obituary in the Times accompanied Farah Fawcett and managed to squeeze onto the pages ahead of what will no doubt be the next day’s tome of an obituary for Michael Jackson, who died a couple of days ago. At least Mariano had a long life (he was 85) unlike Fawcett, who was my age, and Jackson, who was a mere fifty.

I don’t know much about Mariano except he played at Mingus’ famous Town Hall Concert and later recorded with the man on the eccentric “Black Saint and Sinner Lady” album. He was married to pianist Toshiko Akiyoshi, who also made the occasional appearance with Mingus, notably in 1962. He was also a member of the United Jazz and Rock Ensemble (based mainly in Germany) and ventured enthusiastically into hybrid jazz, never being afraid to experiment with eastern styles and other ‘world’ jazz forms.

What I do know is that Mariano was a brilliant and creative alto sax player. Mingus never suffered the inept gladly; he tended to surround himself with only the most original and proficient players. Mariano was one of them. I didn’t necessarily like everything he did; I’m too much of a traditionalist for that. But there’s no denying his skill and ingenuity in his chosen instrument.

So why is the entire world suddenly in mourning for Michael Jackson, yet has hardly noticed the passing of Mariano? BBC News 24 had apparently identified Jackson as the only worthy news item last evening. The woman presenter floundered pitifully while she tried desperately to maintain momentum as ‘breaking news’ whimpered out like a tyre with a slow puncture. She pumped as hard as she could, taking a breather only when the weather man could be found. A sort of media whipped hysteria is slowly seeping into Jackson’s death. I couldn’t watch any longer and retreated to the study and contemplation. The next few days are to be dreaded.

Charlie Mariano’s demise took 10 days before his death-knell reached the obituary register. That’s inequitable. I don’t begrudge Jackson his final bow; he influenced many millions and undoubtedly deserves all the posthumous encomia and plaudits to be piled on him over the coming weeks. But I know many musicians and fans will be mourning the loss of Mariano - he hasn’t slipped away unnoticed. Yet surely his passing warrants a little more attention than the odd obituary in the more intelligent newspapers and a few postings on the internet.

I wonder which programme will hit the TV screens first – a tribute to Michael Jackson or a requiem to Charlie Mariano. That’s purely for rhetoric – I know the answer, sadly. Another great jazzman is lost. When I look at the recordings I play frequently, very few musicians are still alive. But perhaps that says more about my tastes in jazz rather than the state of the music.

My next post will not mention death at all.

i wish i knew

2009-06-25T06:54:00.002+01:00

Am I unusual? For decades I’ve seen myself as perfectly normal in my approach to listening to jazz. Now, having talked to other jazz buffs, I wonder whether perhaps I suffer from a little known psychological condition akin to a mild form of OCD.

Here’s the problem. When I listen to jazz on the radio or on an album, I feel deprived unless I know full recording particulars. Not just the name of the band; it goes far deeper than that. I need (and when I say need, I use the word accepting that it implies dependency) to know at least the name of each and every performer, the date of the recording, location and order of solos. In certain cases, such as a Charles Mingus recording, for example, I also need to know the original LP on which the track was issued, the issuing label and the name of the producer. Does that sound sad?

As I listen, I’m compelled to hold the album cover in my hand and read in time to the music, synchronising data and sound, defining each and every performer and identifying every soloist (assuming they’re not all playing different instruments, of course – even I can tell the difference between a banjo and a trombone). Some say this must distract from the music; to me it enhances the experience. After all, the cognoscenti always seem far more content than the ignorant.

I tried to hide my condition for years, usually ineffectively. But then I came out of the closet. Now Mrs Dodman simply laughs at my distress when I slit open a new CD only to discover the manufacturers can’t be bothered to include discographical data. To my mind, this is akin to visiting an art gallery and viewing paintings with one eye closed while suffering dichromatism in the other. Come to think of it, that’s exactly what I do. Could there be a link?

Mrs Dodman and I have friends who are professional classical musicians. They never seemed bothered by the fact they can’t name the third violinist from the right in the second row. Dates of recordings aren’t relevant in their world. The identity of the arranger can be kept a secret as far as they’re concerned. The condition would appear to be jazz specific – assuming it’s not me specific.

Perhaps I’m not alone. Humphrey Lyttleton must have at least known the problem exists; he alleviated the symptoms by providing the palliative. Geoffrey Smith on Radio Three still does. Alyn Shipton similarly announces the line up and year of recording as a minimum. Three jazz DJs with understanding of their listeners. But I gave up tuning-in to The Jazz on FM because too often they played segues of numbers without a hint of disc data. Perhaps their presenters understood jazz but they certainly didn’t understand their audience. (Or did they – is it just me?). But then to my taste their jazz was usually homogenised and boring anyway, so it was no loss.

I’d like to feel I’m not different to the rest of the world. A psychologist would tell me to relax and listen to the wonderful themes and counter-melodies drifting over my consciousness. I tried, but then – is that Joe Guy or Roy Eldridge on trumpet? Is that tenor solo by Dexter or Wardell? Could it be Art Pepper on alto or is it a gifted newcomer with Kenton influences? I need to fill the gaps in my knowledge. Angst suffuses me. So please – tell me – am I alone in this?

The future is a worry. More and more CDs are being produced without discographical information; these days, manufacturers tend to go for advertising instead. Then, apparently, we’re all downloading more and more tracks from the internet, a medium so far not geared towards providing the particulars I need so badly. Too often I listen to my MP3 player when I’m away and discover I’ve forgotten who played that superb piano solo with Lester Young on “Somebody Loves Me.” (Nat King Cole, actually) and I can’t look it up because the CD cover is at home. As I age, my memory is diminishing; my brain tends to erase information rather than store new. I can see things getting only worse for me.

What to do?

bury my body

2009-06-20T07:26:00.002+01:00

My last posting set me thinking. By one of those uncanny coincidences which could almost be interpreted as omens, I found a website for a funeral parlour specialising in Dixieland burials anywhere in the UK. To me that seems a double whammy when it comes to jokes about jobs without a future. Turn the lights out and close the business when the last fan is interred or conflagrated - see my previous posting for more information. Anyway, the chance encounter prompted me to think about death.

Mrs Dodman is younger than I am. She was brought up on a musical diet of Tamla Motown and Island Records. As a result, she never developed a fine palate for jazz. She accompanies me on jazz expeditions out of loyalty rather than musical anticipation. Now MP3 players have been invented, she quietly encourages me to listen to my music on earphones. Hence, her exposure to the idiom is limited.

Understandably, therefore, she will have difficulty picking music for my funeral. Now 62, I can’t see my tastes in jazz changing too much, so I began to look through my collection with the objective of choosing three appropriate tracks Mrs Dodman can arrange to have played as I burn.

To slice a long drawn out process to the bone, I’ve now selected three tunes to celebrate my demise.

The first is “Black and Crazy Blues” by Roland Kirk; this will lead the cortege into the parlour, being a slow deathly march, suitably sombre and funereal. Although I can’t claim to have achieved a lot in my life, I like to think that one or two people will be a little sad when I go. This track will help to drag them down into the deepest abyss of despair.

Next I’ll lift proceedings a little with Dave Brubeck’s thoughtful “Sermon on the Mount.” That makes me a little uncomfortable because I’m positively anti-religious and am insisting on a secular funeral. But funerals are for those left behind; they must be otherwise we’d all be dumped unceremoniously in the wheelie bin. Mrs Dodman believes in God so this should comfort her a little – or subdue her joy, according to her feelings at the time. It’ll be the live version with Gerry Mulligan’s aptly lugubrious baritone sax weaving in and out of the main theme.

Finally, the effects of the obsequies will be leavened by the brilliantly named “Oh, But on the Third Day (Happy Feet Blues)” by Wynton Marsalis, which to me is the epitome of what jazz should be all about. It will make me want to break through the cardboard coffin lid and dance deadly naked around the parlour. I’d like to think a coterie of lovely young ladies will cavort joyfully with umbrellas and diaphanous flowing skirts, but I think Mrs Dodman will draw the line at that.

The above hymn list is not carved in monumental stone, by the way. What excites me about jazz is that just as you think you’ve heard it all, something new springs up like a rare orchid in a hostile environment – and it was probably recorded eighty years ago as an “alternative take.” In such an event, I reserve the right to change the menu without further notice.

The funeral should take place within two weeks of my death, which is scheduled for the 27th June 2027 at 5.30am. Tickets will be available on E-bay from next year, and I’ll be offering discounts for non-returnable advance payments and block bookings

how long blues

2009-06-15T11:35:00.002+01:00

A few weeks ago, we attended a concert at a little theatre in provincial England. The band was the Ken Colyer Legacy Jazz Band. The pop world uses the words ‘tribute band’ but jazz being almost a centenarian is able to lay claim to having a heritage, or a legacy. Jazz as a music is old.

Unfortunately, so are most devotees. Mrs Dodman and I sat at the lofty back and looked down on a brae of grey heads, nodding and waving gently like a field of poppies in a light breeze. We were just about the youngest in the auditorium, except for a couple of student anthropologists earnestly taking notes by the light of a tiny torch. When the music started, heads stopped bobbing. The entire audience sat stock still, listening intently, politely. Surely, this is the wrong way round. Shouldn’t we all begin to jig about and jive a little when the music starts? This is jazz – not chamber music.

At half-time, when the queue for toilets stretched twice around the block, I reflected on the mean age of these concert goers. A quick calculation put it at about seventy-four, omitting theatre staff and the aforementioned youthful scholarly fieldworkers, but including the band. That gives another roughly10 to 12 years before the typical jazz aficionado of this ilk is conveyed away to the strains of “Just a Closer Walk with Thee.” It’s not long, is it?

The last time I went to Keswick Jazz Festival (two years ago) the youngest people were the bar staff, each and every one bemused and praying that the end of the shift comes soon. Most of the audience were there to scout suitable bands to play at funerals. Musicians arrived clutching not song books but lists of comfort stops en-route to Cumbria. Without a doubt, the population absorbing this brand of specialised music is ageing and, more significantly, dwindling.

What happens to the music when few are left to pay to enjoy it, yet alone with the aspiration to play it? You see, this is a highly specialised genre of jazz, known as British Trad. It’s an endangered sub-species embraced by those now well beyond the age of reproduction; their children are lamenting the passing of the Mersey sound, not New Orleans or even Charlie Parker. As far as I can see, too few practitioners and fans are following along to grasp the reins dropped from our frail and mortal fingers.

Although I confess British Trad is not my favourite genre of jazz, the loss of it would be a tragedy. Listening to Ken Colyer’s successors romping through “Hindustan” as an exuberant finale made me realise what a gaping black hole will remain if the sound vanishes. What will the exemplar “Kings’ Arms” do on a Sunday lunch-time? Glam rock is a poor accompaniment to roast beef and Woodforde’s ales.

Perhaps youngsters are practising their Dixieland behind closed doors and will yet surprise us in years to come. We need them to keep up the tradition. I don’t want to sit alone in a draughty hall listening to the last Brit Trad trio pluck their way through “How Long Blues.” And without these youthful legatees, who will play at my funeral?

gimme a pig foot (and a bottle of beer)

2009-06-13T06:24:00.002+01:00

A couple of evenings ago I struggled with my blog, trying to find a way to trace it without using the full URL address. No search engine recognises Pooter Dodman, despite the addition of tags and sundry other investigative devices. Then I was distracted when I heard feline strangled mews drifting through dividing walls - Amy Winehouse on television.

BBC4 screened a 2007 concert, undoubtedly a “second opportunity to catch…” I know this blog is about jazz, and Amy is not, but the woman fascinates me. She was on typically insouciant form. Her words were slurred and all but unintelligible. Her superbly synchronised dancers compensated for her inability to move rhythmically. The band was competent, professional and harmonic. And Amy herself spent most of the concert slurping from a beaker of something presumably highly alcoholic – appearing to become progressively more intoxicated as the concert drew to a close. Interestingly, she actually improved as the alcohol seemed to take effect.

I was reminded of Louis Armstrong, who was reputed to supply his sidemen with viper in the belief that the drug allowed them to play more cohesively relaxed. Despite this, he became an international ambassador for jazz and a global household name as a showman. Allegedly, Amy was supplying herself with liberal doses of alcohol; it augurs well for her future.

Possibly my eyes and ears deceive me though. I have a sneaking suspicion that Amy is actually a teetotaller, drinking nothing but Pepsi Cola. Knowing that we all love fallen angels, spin doctors have spun a bibulous myth. In reality, Amy was just pretending to be drunk all the time; it’s good for publicity, you see. I fancy she’s really a sober, determined and resourceful singer with an ambitious plan to conquer the music world in her own way.

If I’m right, then Amy is on to a winner. I truly believe the woman has the capacity to be the greatest ever British songstress. Her voice is pure golden-weave original Amy, although I think I detect faint needle-pointing from Nina Simone, Dinah Washington and Billie Holiday. She is one of those illustrious and mellifluous rare talents bordering on genius.

If I’m wrong, I hope she’ll soon realise what she’s doing to her anatomy and voice. To lose what she has would be a tragedy, all the more felt by the likes of Pooter Dodman (yours truly - mediocre, untalented and grey), an elderly man who abhors unrealised potential and the squandering of natural gifts.

Would it help if she changed her name to Amy House? A poor pun to finish on.

Dream Band

2009-06-08T11:08:00.001+01:00

I spent a night in an old-fashioned jazz club in London, the alcohol-free but sweet-substance and heavy-haze variety I used to frequent as a youth. It might have been Ken Colyer’s Jazz Club in Great Newport Street. It certainly wouldn’t have been Ronnie Scott’s; that was too upmarket for the likes of me, for whom a good night out and home on the first Sunday morning train needed to be had for the pre-decimal equivalent of 75p, including breakfast.

The music was almost beyond credible. It was rhythmic and driven. I was leaning against a slightly damp wall being assailed by wave after wave of jazz I could not only hear but actually feel, taste and see. Notes and phrases came like hailstones, bouncing off a crowd of jigging and bobbing devotees, cheering and hollering fans, all gathered on a tiny patch of shiny linoleum serving as an occasional dance floor.

On trumpet was Wynton Marsalis. Next to him stood Lester Young on tenor sax and Gerry Mulligan on baritone. Shafi Hadi played alto, Bechet soprano/clarinet and J. J. Johnson trombone. Around the edges were Dave Brubeck on piano, Charles Mingus (bass), Charlie Christian (guitar), and Art Blakey (drums).

Never before or since have I heard live music with such raw-polished verve. Ten individual musicians coalesced into one harmonic organism, each nerve end playing perfectly with the other. I shall never forget the precious experience. Unfortunately, I missed the last two numbers because I woke up.