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.