vertigo

My reading matter at the moment is W. G. Sebald’s “Vertigo,” a strange and intricately woven book typical of the author’s compulsive interest in memory and his own origins. One short sentence struck me particularly forcefully, written of the year 1913:

It is curious to observe, added Salvatore, how in that year everything was moving towards a single point, at which something would have to happen, whatever the cost.

Of course, those words were laid down with the benefit of hindsight, but whereas ordinary peoples of the world learn by experience, politicians and the very powerful are too self-absorbed to heed such lessons because they seek only self-gratification. As a common person of the world, I recognise that the essence of Sebald’s few words can equally be applied to 2018, for I have a sense that today events are moving towards each other, like parallel lines converging at an impending vanishing point. Britain, Europe, Russia, Korea, the Middle-East, USA, China… meeting at a single point in time and space when and where something must happen. Something cataclysmic, because the energy of power must find an outlet.

For now, there is plucked tension in the air, a gravid deliberate suspense as though the plot of a film is ravelling and building towards an explosive conclusion. Those caring to look are witnessing the denouement of an incomprehensible political and demographic storyline – all we lack is the dramatic accompanying music to guide us. Although I can’t foresee the conclusion, I have the feeling that when the climax is finally resolved, as it eventually must, everyone involved will emerge into a stained landscape as if waking from a dream, and they will look around and say “what have we done?” and “what were we thinking to allow it to get to this?”

Before that, people of the world will likely be drawn into performing the most horrendous acts, some in enthusiastic driving seats, others as passengers allowing themselves to be herded towards internal abattoirs – but mostly (perhaps the worst of all) looking away and pretending nothing is happening because of apathy, complaisance and a fearful self-preservation. When it’s over, we will blame somebody else, of course, for how otherwise can we cope with the guilt? And we’ll all feel the guilt for a generation or two – then it will all start again.

Man's inhumanity to man is exceeded not only by the capacity to mourn (hands behind our backs, fingers crossed) but by our inclination to forget. I hope I'm not being prophetic, but I'm scared for my grandchildren's future. In the meantime, party on.

bbc jjr and shafi hadi

Did anyone listen to Saturday’s (14 April 2018) Jazz Record Requests on BBC Radio 3?

A listener asked for a track by Hank Mobley and Shafi Hadi, apparently partly out of an interest in discovering what happened to the latter. Could this be a trending enquiry… whatever happened to Shafi Hadi (Curtis Porter)? I’d be interested to hear whether the great British jazz-listening public is able to provide a few nuggets of enlightenment. Hopefully there’ll be a follow up in due course.

The track played was a lovely and archetypical example of Hadi’s alto playing, written by him and titled “Mighty Moe and Joe.” Recorded on 23 June 1957, the track featured Bill Hardman (t) Shafi Hadi (as) Hank Mobley (ts) Sonny Clark (p) Paul Chambers (b) Art Taylor (d). From the Mosaic label album “Complete Blue Note Hank Mobley Fifties Sessions” the track was 6 minutes 57 seconds of pure honeyed-single-malt-and-asparagus delight.

That edition of Jazz Record Requests is available on BBC iPlayer and will be for the next few weeks. Thanks to Alyn Shipton for choosing that listener’s request. And if you know more about Shafi Hadi, please do email to let me know.

at the forthcoming local elections

What baffles me about modern-day democratic politics is how anyone with lesser wealth than that possessed by a billionaire could possibly vote a billionaire into a position as premier of a nation, be it a president, prime minister or ‘statesperson.’

Have you ever heard of a rich politician becoming poorer as a result of serving the nation? In modern days, almost invariably anyone entering politics ends up much wealthier than when they started. With few exceptions, repeatedly our leaders have proven they are very proficient at one aspect of public life – making money for themselves, even when they already own obscene amounts.

Bear in mind that wealth cannot be created or destroyed – it can only be converted or transferred, so when one person makes a mint, another loses a mint. And guess who loses? Not the rich politician. So the richer our leaders become, the deeper into poverty the rest of us must sink. Yet we vote for them, time and time again! Isn’t that astounding?

On the other hand, look at the majority of jazz musicians. How many of them are able to boast of vast wealth? I bet lots of them are hardly making a living other than by taking a job during the day and playing during their ‘leisure’ time. Maybe a few can command hefty appearance fees, or plump royalties, but I reckon they’re few and far between. Unarguably, jazz musicians bring far more pleasure to our lives than any of our self-serving, self-aggrandizing politicians, many of whom I’m sad to say are liars, cheats and fakes.

So – in future elections, vote for the impecunious, and to make sure your interests are served, vote for a jazz musician. They are more creative, honest and civic minded than any of the corrupt and smug self-satisfied rich we have in charge at the moment.

radio three jazz podcasts

Lagging behind as usual, I’ve finally stumbled over ‘Jazz Library,” a luscious series of over 100 podcasts produced by BBC Radio 3, most episodes featuring the output of individual musicians or a specific genre or area of jazz.

Each episode runs for about 30 minutes and the format is a narrative by the modestly-spoken Alyn Shipton interspersed with representative extracts of relevant music usually augmented by recorded interviews with the featured musician or by the sometimes lively comments of well-known jazz commentators (my favourite of whom is a sporadic contributor, Brian Priestly).

Apparently as these are podcasts they’re unable to play full tracks, although I’m not sure whether that’s because of intellectual rights or time restrictions, but that doesn’t matter because bear in mind the object (achieved brilliantly) is to whet the appetite with delicacies – and all vital recording details, including album titles, line-ups and dates, are cited during the podcast, and can also be found on the BBC Jazz’s website, so nobody need complain about not being able to track- down treasured pieces if wanting to hear more.

No infuriating adverts, pop-up or otherwise; no lengthy messages from sponsors – and it’s all free. Just download the BBC Radio iPlayer onto your computer or tablet, search for jazz, scroll down to ‘Jazz Library’ and browse through the listings to select your morsel of choice. Oysters and pearls, spring to mind.

epiphany on the road to oblivion

Since my last post, I've had a revelation. It came to me in the middle of the night probably because I'm currently reading a semi-biographical novel titled "Austerlitz" written by W.G. Sebald. It perhaps kindled a dream, although I can't remember what about, yet I know I read a phrase which must have triggered something in me.

Background to this post: I once tried to learn to play the alto saxophone. After two years I still produced what sounded like distant mournful echoes of how Charlie Parker might have sounded on the very day he first put the reed to his lips as a child. That discouraged me because I twigged that after over 104 weeks of learning I'd never play like Shafi Hadi or Art Pepper, so I abandoned my dream of becoming a jazz musician and sold the saxophone.

The same with writing. All my life I've written. No day goes by without me putting pen to paper, or latterly tapping on a key-board. I've had a dozen or so articles published in magazines and a few short stories printed as a result of competitions going back to 1990 and much later, but I've never felt myself to be a writer. I was no more than a publican who writes, primarily because what I write is crap, or at best is mediocrity personified. My reasoning has always been that whereas I enjoy writing (just as I enjoyed playing the saxophone) the world is too crowded with sunlight to permit the shade of mediocrity. We desire genius; we need brilliance and if I was unable to achieve it, my writings should not see daylight except perhaps in ramblings under a pseudonym. So in comparing my stuff with the likes of Sebald, Woolf, Morton and other luminaries, I found it painfully wanting and tucked it away in disbelief that I could ever have considered myself capable of good, never mind genius. What use does this world have for more of the mediocre?

Now for the epiphany sparked (I think) by Austerlitz. We can view all the art we can reach, we can read edifying and inspirational writing, we can listen to the best of music be it Dexter Gordon or Mozart - but when we dare to balance our own personal aspirations and needs against pleasures of the external, nothing is quite like producing our own. Even though I can't match the dazzling beauty of maestros of the craft, or the thought-provoking elite at their art, what I have created is mine, my original work, and nobody else can claim it. Anyone can take their art vicariously, in galleries, libraries and concert halls, and rightly be awed by the senses evoked, but what beats that thrill of finishing your own painting, writing your own story or blowing sounds which link together to make music? Nothing! Slap your hand on your thigh and repeat aloud - NOTHING.

Maybe what I do is not very good. But I do it, all on my own, and it's mine, including intellectual rights, copyright, ownership and pride. That's a cause for celebration and for making renewed efforts to improve. Because once I've learned that my writing and craft has incontrovertible value if only for me then I can start to accept that I can effect improvements, even at my late stage in life, and that I'm able to match and surpass what I've done in the past and can better it, thereby hiking me up a rung or two on the ladder of personal satisfaction and pride in achievement.

I suppose the coda is this: I take immense pleasure from what I do, and if it's not good enough for the proverbial you, I don't give a fuck. I've done something; I've produced. And that's an achievement. Slap hand on thigh and repeat aloud: ACHIEVEMENT!

Of course, nobody writes like Sebald.

fad of the day

The English language is a flux. It flows from one place to another and back again, according to the fad of the day. This phenomenon is especially noticeable with those irritating linguistic devices which allow conversationalists to avoid the need for an extensive vocabulary.

For example, a popular phrase was until fairly recently: "you know." In fact, many people still use the term frequently because it's so useful for avoiding the bother of expressing themselves properly. Instead of reaching for the right word, they'll simply break off mid-sentence and say "you know" heedless of whether or not the listener does actually know.

Another example is current and ubiquitous - a pet hate of mine: "like." All manner of people use it and it's so popular the young seem to employ it several times in  one short sentence, such as "Like, I went to the pictures, like, and it was, like, awesome, like funny, like."

"Basically" was used for a long time (perhaps still is) by those called upon to explain the working of something. They can't get their brain in gear without first prefixing every sentence with the word "basically" as in the phrase "basically what we're doing is..."

The latest I've noticed is even more annoying - beginning every explanation with the word "so."
"How many cows do you graze on this farm?" asks the presenter on TV and almost invariably the farmer stops, thinks for a fraction of a second and then launches into the answer. "So - we keep 200 head of Holsteins..." What does "so" mean in this context? How has it become so endemic?

Finally, one of the most infuriating devices is perhaps the cliche of our time: "It's not rocket science." It applies to anything from writing blogs through resolving political issues to sending satellites into space, except the last one could be deemed rocket science.

Let's have a little more imagination please.

shafi hadi - update

Regretfully I have no more news on the fate of Shafi Hadi.
This post is purely to bounce him to the top of the metaphorical page so my quiet quest is not overlooked by jazz fans across the world.
While writing though, I'd mention that I've started to write poetry. Actually, I've been writing poetry since I was 15 (with an intermission of nearly 60 years) but I've never considered myself any good at it so it's never seen the light of day. My aim with this renaissance was to see whether this semi-century or so of additional experience and acquired learning has improved my lyrical ability.
It hasn't. I'm still crap. Scansion is erratic; rhyme slack; meter fractured; and I can never find the right word or the right language or the right "voice" - not that I even know what "voice" means. And what the heck is an iambic foot?
Thus my poetry will remain unsung, unspoken and will accompany me to my eventual funeral pyre.

a jazz centenary

100 years ago today (today being 12 February 2018) what is believed to be the first ever jazz concert in Europe was staged by a US military orchestra in Nantes, France, the country taking the music to the nation's heart and never looking back.

For details read:  https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/100-years-ago-today-jazz-broke-loose-in-europe-1811763

nunc est bibendum

I’ve discovered a new house-of-welcome-refreshment to add to my list of places to visit when in town – Nip & Growler in the High Street, King’s Lynn, Norfolk. It’s probably a micro-pub (micro-pubs being the latest craze to sweep dust away from the nation’s traditional image of what a tavern should be). I can’t be sure, though, because nobody seems to be able to tell me what makes a pub ‘micro.’ Perhaps it’s like love – impossible to define but you know when you’re in it.

It’s small, being about the size of a Jessop’s shop (which is exactly what it was before the camera retailer went out of business), yet it sells a frequently changing minimum of 12 real ales and cider brands on tap, a fair percentage of which describe themselves as ‘vegan” which presumably means they’re not clarified using fish bladders. Four glass sizes are on offer: the usual pint and half pint, and 1/3^rd pint and 2/3rds pint. Most of the brewers are either local or localish. Beers are dispensed using the key-keg system, a sort of bag-in-flagon system which pumps compressed air between the flagon and the inner bag to deflate the bag and thereby send the beer through to a waiting glass.

I like the place. It’s quirky and shabby and unpretentious. The proprietor was friendly and only too pleased to explain the way it all works. Background music was as it says in the title – in the background. King’s Lynn pubs are a bit grim generally – this is a pleasing addition to the available options for those wanting to drink decent beers in the town centre. Lots more information is on their website: http://www.nipandgrowler.uk/ including translation of the Latin epigram and what I’ve forgotten to mention.

While on the subject, another of my favourite pubs has had a makeover, The Bull at Market Deeping. It feels cleaner than it used to be now it’s decorated in chic-trendy shades. Before the work was carried out it felt like a pub; now it feels like a pub pretending to be able to combine pub and restaurant. I know which pub I’d rather be in – live long and prosper, Nip & Growler.

Is it just me?

My hobby horse - loud music in public places. I hate it. Not at concerts in halls or outdoors, but so-called background music in restaurants, pubs and these days almost every shop in the country, places where it should be unexpected and inappropriate.

A few examples: The Sue Ryder Bookshop in Spalding: an excellent second-hand bookshop managed by people knowing what they're doing, yet when I want to browse in peace, I'm constantly distracted by loud classical music pumping out of speakers perched on a shelf.

In a cafe in King's Lynn: almost empty of customers, yet rock and roll pumped out of a replica Wurlitzer in a corner so we could hardly hold a conversation.

In the Co-op in Long Sutton: blaring contemporary music very much in the foreground.

In Charity shops throughout the land: head-thumpingly loud music.

When I've tried to discover what marketing advantage shop proprietors perceive by playing music so intrusively the only response I receive is along the lines of: nobody else has complained. And what I find particularly worrying is that nobody else seems to notice the clamour, much less recognise it as a problem. My wife tries to argue that if it were jazz I'd be quite content, but in reality the opposite applies - jazz is music to listen to, not to hold a conversation over so I especially do not want to have unsolicited fusillades of jazz bombarding me, but then I want NO music thrust down my throat uninvited.

Volumes are inevitably increasing. Either the British population is becoming more and more deaf, or most of us are compensating by switching off that part of the brain which is receptive to muzak and, therefore, marketeers are twiddling the knobs to amplify the sound even more. Life is becoming noisier and noisier; life in public is becoming difficult and uncomfortable. On the other hand, are people afraid of silence these days? Is there something sinister about peace and tranquility? We need a scientific study to discover the whys and wherefores and to pinpoint the true effects physically and socially of this perpetual din.

I have a theory: behind the music are insidious subliminal messages designed to influence our thinking, with commercial and political motivations. We are being manipulated by coded messages implanted into our brains, a form of Brave New World indoctrination. How else, for example, can we explain the outrageous behaviour of British Politicians unless their minds are being taken over by a force the provenance of which we've yet to identify?

The fight back starts here: so let me introduce an acronym: CALM - the Campaign Against Loud Music. Our slogan: Silence is love supreme. John Cage knew a thing or two. More about the campaign in a later post, because this blog is already too long.

jazz ambassadors - cold war hot war

Recently I downloaded an i-Player app for BBC radio and immediately searched for “jazz.” The first programme catching my ear was a 30 minutes’ slot about jazz musicians acting in ambassadorial roles for the USA government in the 1950s and 60s.

The USA at the time had a poor image internationally and the government hit upon the bright idea to polish off the tarnish by exploiting its most popular export – jazz. The US organised a series of goodwill concerts around the world, sending orchestras led by such luminaries as Ellington, Gillespie and Armstrong. Primarily they went to those places which could be regarded as trouble hot-spots, usually where the US government was frightened the USSR could gain a foot-hold. This was the era of cold war. Musicians travelling were troopers holding back a perceived rising red tide. Unlike Joshua, they were gifted with the task of maintaining walls, such as they existed.

For many musicians, the tours were life-changing experiences. They were appalled by the poverty, brutalism, hypocrisy and corruption of some of the places they visited. And mostly these were musicians having to fight their own battles for equality at home, but in the meantime they visited places such as Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Congo, Pakistan – and many others in their roles as jazz ambassadors extraordinary.

What hit home for me was that I recognised all the places where they performed not from the Times Atlas of the World, or from history lectures, but from yesterday's news. In other words, in over 60 years nothing has altered, unless conditions have worsened. Perhaps ideologies have changed; different mantras and slogans are chanted, but these places are still being torn apart by nothing but senseless self-interest. Shame! Shame on the international community. Shame on leaders and politicians world-wide. Shame on religions. Shame on you and me. Shame on the human race.

joe harriott - charles mingus

I'm a little vague about law of copy and intellectual rights, so I hope I'm not trespassing where the more knowledgeable fear to tread.

A fairly recent purchase is "Chan," a book of poetry by Hannah Lowe.

Among the poems is one titled "Mingus"

                            Charles Mingus on the ward at midnight, come
                            through rain and hail in dripping gabardine
                            to matron, standing firm and handing him
                            a pen. A note? Say what ma'm? Please. Goddam.

This short verse puzzled me. I know Mingus was in and out of hospital himself but I couldn't quite put this forlorn picture of him into any context until I found notes in the back of the book.

Quote - Charles Mingus broke off his UK tour to travel to Southampton to visit Harriott in hospital. They had never met but Mingus arrived late in the night and was refused entry. Harriot died shortly afterwards. Unquote.

The great die young. Joe Harriott was 44. A thrusting southpaw pioneer, he probably upset quite a few jazz purists in his day. Chris Barber recorded his composition "Revival" in (I think) 1962, quite a surprise for me steeped as I was in British Trad and swing at the time and only recently discovering that I quite enjoyed 'modern' jazz. After playing bebop, he teamed with Shake Keane (flugelhorn) and started to develop free form jazz (which then I didn't understand and still struggle with) and also produced a fusion of jazz and traditional Indian music. Harriott refused to be constrained by ropes; he fought outside the ring.

Even Hannah Lowe, obviously an admirer of Harriott's work, wrote in her poem "What Is and Isn't Jazz?" (a question I ask repeatedly) the following closing stanzas:

                             Mr Harriott's laboratory tests
                             are in the early stages
                                                 and though
                                  he should be admired
                                                                  (perhaps)
                             does jazz need constant broadening?
                                              Are fresh kicks desired daily?

                              Mr Harriott, stop crying
                                             through your horn
                                                     and start playing again,
                                                                   please!

I've been listening to jazz in most incarnations for over 60 years - and in my opinion Ms Lowe's question is one of the most pertinent I've ever encountered in the genre - does jazz need constant broadening?  What is the answer?

strollin' by charles mingus

The title is a deliberate misrepresentation. This entry has nothing to do with Charles Mingus, but everything to do with strolling, being a sequel to my last post about coddiwompling.

To coddiwomple means to travel in a determined fashion towards an indeterminate destination, and in conversation with a friend of equal abstraction, a few more words for walking began to seep into my frontal lobes. "Flaneur," for example, a word with provenance attributed to Baudelaire, meaning a person who saunters urbanely, a stroller at leisure. "Boulevardier" another French word, this time implying a socialite, strolling around town not for the purpose of seeing but in order to be seen presumably dressed in expensive finery.

This led to a more detailed examination of words in popular use to describe walking or walkers. The list below can't pretend to be exhaustive, but what came out of this casual anecdotal study is that no word is a precise synonym of another; they all hint at something slightly different, a bit like the claim, perhaps apocryphal, that Eskimos have a vast lexicon of terms to describe snow.

Here's a few, verbs and nouns mixed randomly:

Wanderer; pedestrian; wayfarer; tramp; nomad; promenade; peregrinate; roamer; rambler; ambler; hike; rover; trekker; cruiser; noctivagent; trudge; traipse; divagate; perambulate; potter; march; stride; travel; journey.

If anyone can add to this list, especially obscure and foreign words, I'd be delighted to hear.

coddiwompling through music, books and life

This week reintroduced me to a new word, or rather a forgotten word, a verb: to coddiwomple, old English slang for travelling purposefully towards an as-yet-unknown destination.

Everyone coddiwomples through the race of life, because no matter how meticulously plans are made at the outset, few actually cross the finishing line where expected. But then life would undoubtedly be too dull if we knew exactly where we’d be tomorrow, or next week, yet alone 50 years hence.

Coddiwompling through reading materials is enlightening too. Pick up a book by one author and, if the text inside proves as alluring as the cover, rather than reading the entire oeuvre of that one author, take a look at what that author reads, which writers she or he has read and perhaps is recommending. The chances are that if we enjoy one author, we’ll also enjoy the writings that author chooses to read. Thus our reading interests bifurcate repeatedly, until we have a reading list which isn’t a linear litany at all, but a gloriously huge literary-family tree, a vast oak spreading higher and wider through constantly changing branches. Acorns and oak trees.

It’s standing me in good stead. In such a way I’ve discovered Robert McFarlane, W. G. Sebald, Nan Shepherd, Edward Thomas and the next couple I’m on the look-out for, Lascelles Abercrombie and Dubose Hayward. These and many more luminescent writers came to me late, but then the best journeys are the long ones which never quite arrive at destinations and instead divert us onto previously untrod fascinating paths.

An added advantage is that as long as we never actually arrive, we’re bound to keep moving and, therefore, we’re more difficult targets for those snipers in our lives to hit. So coddiwomple all you want, and if anyone tries to tell you that you lack focus, or have difficulty setting goals, tell them to fuck off. Being single-minded about meeting an objective will mean not spotting opportunities. Whatever you’re doing, coddiwomple away. All roads lead somewhere and if you’re lucky, you’ll turn off before you get there.

if charlie parker were a gunslinger...

Charles Mingus wrote a number titled “Gunslinging Bird” with the subtitle “If Charlie Parker were a gunslinger there’d be a whole lot of dead copycats.”

No doubting the truth of that.

I’ve just cycled 20 miles from “In Search of England” to “In Search of Scotland,” the exercise bike being set up in my study in front of book shelves. All the way I listened to “Fontessa,” a 1960 album by The Modern Jazz Quartet. To be truthful, it didn’t inspire me to ride faster but then I suppose John Lewis never anticipated that one day he’d be used to alleviate the boredom of 25 minutes going nowhere.

However, the thought struck me that, as far as I know, nobody ever copied The Modern Jazz Quartet. It was an acquired taste, a little like coriander and leek soup, and while their chamber-jazz music was immensely popular at the time, I’m not sure the market could have had the resilience to take more than one such band. I enjoyed the sound then and in small doses I enjoy it now. It was certainly unique, partly with the scoring and performance, and partly because of the pairing of Vibraphone and piano in a day when jazz fans would tend to scratch their heads if the front-line didn’t include a saxophone or a clarinet.

Laid back; relaxed and perhaps a little romantic – that was the band’s inimitable style… late night music for half-way between turning down the lights and having a cigarette. Well – the first track anyway. It never worked for me, but then I had other problems; it seemed to work for my friends. Today, laid back and relaxed isn’t the ideal motivator for trying to burn a few more calories than yesterday. Tomorrow, I’ll return to Mingus and something which gallops – perhaps “O.P.” or “Hog Callin’ Blues.”

The album is:  The Shoes of the Fisherman’s Wife – CBS Jazz Masterpieces 4608222

                        The line-up of Gunslinging Bird is:

                        Dick Williams (tpt) Jimmy Knepper (tb) Booker Ervin,
                        John Handy, Benny Golson, Jerome Richardson (reeds) 
                        Roland Hanna (p) Theodore Cohen (vibes) 
                        Charles Mingus (b) Dannie Richmond (d)

                        Recorded: New York 1^st November 1959.