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.

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.

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.

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?

larking again

Nobody heard him, the dead man,

But still he lay moaning:

I was much further out than you thought

And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he so loved larking

And now he’s dead

it must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,

they said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always

(Still the dead one lay moaning)

I was much too far out all my life

And not waving, but drowning.                                    (Stevie Smith)

Somewhere I read that Philip Larkin enjoyed this famous poem because he could imagine the first line of the second verse was “Poor man; he so loved Larkin.”

I love Larkin for his poetry and his wit, but mainly for his honesty when writing jazz reviews, such a contrast to today’s obsequious and fawning pundits. In 1969, for example, he wrote:

“If I were to frame Larkin’s Law of Reissues it would say that anything you haven’t got already probably isn’t worth bothering about. In other words, if someone tries to persuade you to buy a limited-edition of the 1924-5 sessions by Paraffin Joe and his Nitelites, keep your pockets buttoned up; if they were any good, you’d probably have heard them at school, as you did King Oliver, and have laid out your earliest pocket money on them.

                Everything worthwhile gets reissued about every five years.”

We have to bear in mind that Larkin was at school in the middle-to-late 1930s, one of the true golden ages of jazz, so he’d have been buying contemporary stuff released before the shock of the be-bop era and the inception of baffling forms of jazz such as free, acid, funk and smooth (smooth! makes sign of a crucifix). He wrote his Law of Reissues over thirty years later, by the lamp glow of the residual radiance of jazz’s silver age, light-years away from where we are now. Jazz was yet to arrive at the Darwinian multiple-bifurcation which would eventually lead to universal chaos.

What would he make of today’s scene? He was certainly a waver, but I have the feeling that he’d now be more of a drowner. And I suspect he’d have trouble finding anything to buy other than reissues. An emerging previously never-released King Oliver, originally rejected because it wasn’t good enough, would seem a jazz detectorist’s dream.

“Nobody heard him, the dead man; but still he lay moaning” just about sums it up for me.

Happy Christmas

Philip Larkin's Jazz

The poet Philip Larkin was also jazz critic for the Daily Telegraph from 1961 to 1971. His often acerbic comments were reproduced in book form, title “All What Jazz,” a handy dip-into sort of historical guide to contemporary music, or jazz at least.

Almost 50 years ago, he wrote:

“My favourite New Year’s resolution is Cyril Connolly’s for 1929: ‘Resolve: to be altogether more advanced and intelligent.’ And clearly, according to Leonard Feather in the Melody Maker, I’m going to need to be. Of course jazz is not dying, he says, unless by jazz you mean swinging jazz, Dixieland jazz, or anything in straight two or four. Of course, that’s on the way out, and still more American jazz clubs will collapse. But anything in Latin, or Cuban, or 5/4 rhythm, any freedom music ‘in which the beat is often suspended. Distended or ignored at certain points’ anything with electric or electronic sounds, anything ethnic or with sitars – why, man, the scene is made. By a subtle stroke of page make-up, this cheer-leader is printed shoulder-to-shoulder with an article recalling the deaths in 1967 of Edmond Hall, Muggsy Spanier, Willie Smith, Buster Bailey, Herman Chittison, Pete Johnson, Red Allen, Billy Strayhorn, Rex Stewart, Sidney de Paris, Stuff Smith, Jimmy Archer and one or two more.”

What an annus horribilis 1967 must have been  (my words). Larkin continues:

“Readers of this column may rest assured that as long as there is any swinging or Dixieland jazz in straight two or four on recent records they will hear about it. The rest will be judged by the degree to which it approximates to the excitement produced by the aforesaid swinging or Dixieland jazz.”

A quote from the frontispiece of “All What Jazz” is from Miles Davis, and was originally published in Down Beat on 13^th June 1968:

“But if something (i.e. Ornette Coleman) sounds terrible, man, a person should have enough respect for his own mind to say it doesn’t sound good. It doesn’t to me, and I’m not going to listen to it. No matter how long you listen to it, it doesn’t sound any good.”

Larkin was renowned for his love of ‘traditional’ jazz, Dixieland and New Orleans and was often critical of the avante garde. In the introduction to my 1984 edition of his book, he writes:

“In any case, my views haven’t changed. If Charlie Parker seems a less filthy racket today than he did in 1950 it is only because, as I point out, much filthier rackets succeeded him…”

These words sound iconoclastic in 2017. Yet I find myself sympathising. Jazz these days appears to be anything a musician wants it to be. Take any rhythm, beat or melody and add the word “jazz” and – voila! – it is jazz. No it isn’t. It’s not jazz. Maybe it’s smooth-jazz, for example, but that’s not jazz. We need a champion of jazz; we need somebody to ride to the rescue to take it away from the floss and dross being passed off today as jazz and thereby restore its authentic gloss and substance.

These comments could appear contradictory. After all, as you’ve probably noticed I’m a huge fan of Charles Mingus, undeniably one of the most innovative and exciting musicians of all time, sometimes testing the tolerance of audiences to the very limits with his avante-garde ideas and compositions, but even he said that his music should not be shoved into one of the pigeon-holes of categorisation. Just call it Mingus music, he said. That’s sweet subtle irony… one of the greatest jazz-men of all time calling for his own music to be stripped of the title “jazz.” But he understood. I think many don’t understand these days. If Philip Larkin were alive today, I’d be writing him letters of support.

mexican jumping bean

Charity shops are not too rich in jazz records, but occasionally a real pearl comes to hand - like this one, my favourite baritone sax player joining one of my favourite piano players.

Recorded in front of a sedate Mexican audience in 1968, "Compadres" I think has not been released so far in CD format, so I'm especially pleased to find this original album.

It features: Dave Brubeck (on piano); Gerry Mulligan (baritone sax); Alan Dawson (drums) and Jack Six (bass). Produced by Teo Macero on CBS label (S 63395 CS 9704) the liner notes are written by Leonard Feather. I can't track down actual recording dates.

Tracks are: Side 1 - Jumping Bean; Adios, Marquita Linda; Indian Song; Tender Woman
                  Side 2 - Amapola; Lullabye de Mexico; Sapito; Recuerdo.

Good value at twenty times what I paid for it - £1.25.

the awakening

In a way, I'm a hideous incarnation of Sleeping Beauty, except I'm far from beautiful. There I was in peaceful hibernation, slumbering away my final few years (9 years 6 months 4 weeks 2 days to go) when I was kissed by a prince and I woke up.
The prince is a poet. He wrote a poem titled "Where the Hell is Shafi Hadi?" a question I've been asking myself for years, and I was interested to discover that I'm not alone in raising pointless queries.
The saxophonist I seek doesn't owe me money (nobody does - James, I exonerate you) and I have nothing to gain by knowing the answer other than the satisfaction of finding an answer to a bugging-me-riddle: how can a genius disappear without trace?
Bloody Prince Sean Murphy. But for stumbling across his poetry I'd still be resting uninspired but content in my unconscious-ignorance. Now I've shifted into consciousness I'm aware of lacunae in my bank of knowledge and I need to address past errors of omission and commission to try to rectify them.
Now, therefore, I'm wide awake; I can't get back to sleep again because my mind is full of pleasurable nothingness being crowded out by trivial things. So I might as well use my remaining time to pick up where I left off a few years ago and start posting again. I know I shan't offend or bore anyone because nobody reads my fucking stuff anyway. But it keeps me occupied as the grey cells deteriorate... and I can't quite remember what I wanted to say next.

shafi hadi revisited - update

A few years ago I blogged about my favourite saxophonist: Shafi Hadi. The first five paragraphs of this post are lifted directly from that original piece with one or two minor amendments and edits. The rest is an update, what I’ve since discovered about this shadowy genius:

One of the great unsung heroes of the alto and tenor saxophones was a man named Curtis Porter. He’s probably better known as Shafi Hadi, perhaps having changed his name on religious grounds during the late 1950s.But even as Shafi Hadi, few will have encountered him because he appears to have enjoyed no more than the metaphorical 15 minutes of fame. By the middle 60s, he seems to have dropped into semi-obscurity.

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

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

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

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

Update:

A rumour went around that he’d died of a heroin overdose in the early 70s, but a Wiki entry suggests he was still around on the music scene in 1975, and in 1977 he was reported to have collaborated with Mary Lou Williamson on her composition “Shafi” although typically the source is vague about the extent of his contribution. A couple of years later he was said to have worked in some way with Sue Mingus (Charles’ widow) to provide original scores of her late husband’s music.

In coda, I can’t help be struck by the similarity in tone and phrasing between Shafi and another brilliant alto sax player, Jackie McClean, especially on Mingus’ “Blues n Roots” album. Mingus was never a composer to look backwards; he always edged forward, so I’m surprised he employed a sideman sounding so much like an earlier one. Perhaps I’m wrong on this; I’m not technically minded with music. I’d be interested to hear expert views, and to know whether anyone has more information on what happened to such a skilled and gifted jazz musician.

Shafi Hadi

What happened to Shafi Hadi?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.