Don't Get Around Much Anymore

After a silence of over a year, I feel the impulse to release the coiled spring within and catapult into verbal motion again. Perhaps this revitalised energy was prompted by a Twitter posting read to me by Mrs Dodman: I was going to look up the meaning of the word procrastination but I left it for another day. The iron cools too quickly; moss grows beneath my feet; my stone rolls once again. Here’s another stitch just in time.

The fact is I’ve recently become a card-bearing OAP, which means I now have a little over 15 years left to live. In a few days’ time a camera will be thrust into that intimate place where sunshine would originate were I able to do no wrong. The results could tell me whether or not I’ve miscalculated my mortal span on this azure globe. I hope whatever condition I have is kindly disposed towards my anatomy, for I’ve just discovered something exciting and new that I’d like to enjoy for many years. It’s called YouTube.

I know the website has been around for a long time but I’ve never really used it other than to watch a demonstration of how to assemble a bed in a Trigano Tribute campervan. Recently, however, I input search words such as “New Orleans Jazz Street” and – POW – what a rich seam of musical gold I’ve struck.

Here are four of my favourites:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2rMXP_q2hs – an anonymous NOLA street band singing “Blue Spirit Blues.” I don’t like the word out of context, but ‘sexy’ is the only one I can think of to describe this girl’s incredibly rich voice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhH3FyRflWM&feature=related – The irrepressible Smoking Time Jazz Club of NOLA performing “When I Get Low I Get High.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ib_NkfuctA – a British representative: Stella Goodey singing “Hard Hearted Hannah” at the heartland of international jazz, Bracklesham Bay. She poached my words (see an earlier blog) so I hope she doesn’t mind my reciprocal link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbH3HJvh2N0&feature=related – Back to NOLA with Doreen’s superb clarinet playing on “Just a Closer Walk with Thee.”

What’s interesting is that all these latter-day jazz/blues stars are youngish (not a grey hair between them) yet they perform with an exuberance and empathy we’d expect of people discovering something entirely new – and the music has been around for a century or more.

I’m not qualified to say whether these stars are technically proficient in what they’re doing. In my view Jazz is more about enthusiasm, creativity and ardour than absolute command of the proponent’s chosen medium, instrument or voice. But I can say that these are eminently gifted musicians because they have the power to move and enthral. Or me at any rate and that’s good enough for me.

Bearing in mind the current debate about regulation of the internet, I hope our idiot politicians and pious do-gooders who are making capital out of trying to stifle the originality of the web will take a look at these four clips and realise just how damaging any form of censorship would be. The internet as a power for good far outweighs occasional risks.