jumpin' at the woodroffe

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'...

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

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

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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?)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.