can't think of a name for it

We’ve just returned from a visit to Devon and Dorset. On the way down, we stopped off in Bristol for a day’s retail respite. A little dispirited with the homogenised city centre, we found our way to Clifton, a sort of Blackheath Village of the West Country.

There, in a charity shop, I found a Chris Barber double-LP. The album consists of concert recordings, with Barber’s band accompanied by Ray Nance (the Ellington trumpeter) and Alex Bradford, the professor of gospel music. Quote: recorded live at the Funkhaus Hannover 28th September 1974 unquote.

Barber is famous for extending his music beyond the boundaries of British Trad. That’s why he has endured and is adored by such a wide appreciative audience. The album was irresistible. I paid the requisite 99p (generously I donated the 1p change from a pound) and bore the album home.

I would have bought the album anyway, but my appetite was filliped when I saw three signatures on the inside cover, all obviously scribed in the same blue biro. The first was of Russell Procope and was underscored 1976. The second was Chris Barber himself. And the third was virtually illegible, but looks as if it could have been somebody named Ned Bill Dove.

That last one puzzled me. Jazz aficionados with greater knowledge will be ahead of me here, but I couldn’t imagine any self-respecting jazz musician retaining the name Ned Dove. I turned to the internet.

Now – Google seems to be taking a lot of flack lately. I’m not sure why because I think that what they’ve achieved is nothing short of genius. But humans are foresters by nature. We plant, grow and nurture – then chop down as soon as it suits us. I Googled “Chris Barber Russell Procope 1976” and in less than a second up popped the answer – Wild Bill Davis (organ and piano). If I turn the page sideways, squint and use the benefit of hindsight, the signature is obvious. Google triumphs again!

Both Davis and Procope were on tour with Barber in 1976. Over thirty-three years ago, an anonymous jazz lover had taken this album to a concert and managed to persuade the three great jazzmen to autograph the inside cover. I’m trying to buy tickets for Barber’s band in Grantham for Friday night, but needless to say the concert is sold out. That’s a shame, because I’d like to take the album with me to see if I can have some signatures added.

Perhaps I’m a sad elderly sot, but the thought of the provenance of this old LP excites me. By adding signatures, the yellowed cover has acquired a unique, if hidden, history which I wish I could unravel. How did it end up in an Oxfam shop in Clifton? What happened to it after that wonderful jazz evening all those years ago?

Google couldn’t help on that. Perhaps I over-rate them.

there i've said it again

Philip Larkin hit the news last week when an eponymous society made an appeal for funds to raise a statue of him in Hull. For my international following (Sleepy in China), I’ll explain that Philip Larkin is a famous English poet of the middle 20th century.

He wrote such classic lines as “They Fuck You Up, Your Mum and Dad” and “Why should I let the toad work squat on my life?” Needless to say, members of the Philip Larkin Society claim their man to be the best poet ever. In my view he was good, but for me his laureateship was earned as a jazz critic – an honest one for whom flummery and pontification were anathemas.

Honest jazz critics have almost died out. Now all jazz musicians, every jazz genre, everything with ‘jazz’ in the title, are regarded as great by those lucky enough to be paid to write about the music. I don’t know whether this is because modern critics fear being sued, or whether they simply want an easy ride, but harsh truths as in “this band is crap” are very hard to find. Just read Clive Davis in the Times if you doubt me.

I know I harp on about good and bad jazz. Sometimes I feel I’m a lone voice in a wilderness of heretics and vested interest. Misuse of the word ‘jazz’ is rife and endemic in today’s warped society. Yet Philip Larkin’s views on jazz accord with mine. If I could have one wish, apart from winning the lottery, having my time over again and maybe a few other secret desires involving Felicity Kendall, it would be to invite Philip Larkin to supper and have the opportunity to discuss jazz with him.

But he’s long dead. For me, his lasting legacy is a fine compilation of reprints of his erstwhile regular column in the Daily Telegraph, 1961 to 1971. They are bound together in a dog-eared old book entitled “All What Jazz.” A copy sits proudly on my bookshelf.

This is not the first time my blog has mentioned Larkin. I might mention him again. The man certainly features in the top half of my personal list of 3000 people to toast over supper. What I especially liked about him was his genuine criticism of many performers, yet later he wrote that he’d wished he’d been a little more forthright. How I wish today’s reviewers and critics would display such sincerity and humility.

I sometimes doubt my own opinions because the views of so many published commentators appear to be at variance with mine. But then I pick up “All What Jazz” to dip into the pages and find instant reaffirmation. I’m right; the rest (bar Larkin and maybe his pal Amis) are wrong.

This, then, is a bit of an appeal, silent though it may be. The statue’s design has been selected. It will depict Larkin hurrying for the train. I don’t know why. For perpetuity he will be portrayed as trying to avoid being late. Or is he striding to escape Hull? Whatever the conceptual aspirations of the sculptor, I hope that when Larkin’s statue is eventually ready to be erected in the city centre, the words “and genuine jazz lover” can be read after the inevitable inscription “poet.” I like to think he would have appreciated the ambiguity.

Thank you.

one word - in 684 of them

Recently the Maestros paid an overnight visit to Victoria Street. At supper, the conversation inevitably turned to the subject of music. Mr Maestro is a classical conductor (a sort of formal Günther Schuller); Mrs Maestro plays one of those funny instruments tucked under the chin and played with cat’s intestines (Joe Venuti played something similar).

With us were the Teachers. Mr Teacher plays a brass horn where the hand is stuck down the bowl (per Julius Watkins) and Mrs Teacher sings in choirs (she’s a sort of diminutive pastoral Bessie Smith). All four guests are deeply immersed in classical music, not necessarily to the exclusion of all other genres but they’ll physically wince if Arlo Guthrie comes on the radio singing “City of New Orleans” and they share the opinion that Chris Barber should be an example of nominative determinism.

During the rhubarb crumble, Mr Maestro used the words “a piece of music.” In my usual simplistic way, I asked if he knew of a single word to replace the phrase “a piece of music.” Now - the Maestros are erudite. They have a vocabulary which would be respected by Samuel Johnson. Yet The Maestro’s response surprised. “There is no word for it,” he asseverated.

In this vast lexicon of linguistic delight known as the English language surely we must afford ourselves the brevity of a single word, I pondered. The answer seems to be no. I ventured several possibilities, but each was politely declined for one reason or another – too specific; too general; also covering other branches of the liberal arts. My favourite was “composition” but that could equally apply to verbal essays, art and digital photography. Next came “opus” but apparently any artisan can lay claim to the word. “Melody” was greeted with derision; “Tune” with disdain.

Later, I flicked through Roget’s with no success and vainly perused lists in the Reader’s Digest Reverse Dictionary (1st Edition – 1989 - £6.50 Oxfam – inscribed with pencil “in print @ £24.95”). Even after surfing the net (is that an obsolete term now – surfing the net?) I remain ignorant of any singular verbal counter-point to “piece of music.”

The search is on. I need a single word meaning “a piece of music.”

While mulling over the problem, I found a Fats Waller album in my favourite charity shop in Boston (Lincolnshire). I’ve never been a fan of Waller. Everything I heard of him as a youth seemed to be novelty music and I could never quite take him seriously. My aversion was compounded by the fact that the piece of music entitled “Sheik of Araby” became my bête noir of jazz. I hated it then and I hate it now.

I noticed with an instinctive chill down my spine that the first track on the album was the black beast. However, I decided extempore that now is the time to give old Fats a second chance. My tastes are changing. I’m older now and perhaps even a little more mature, so… who knows? I bought the album: The Real Fats Waller – RCA Camden – Mono CDN-131, with unusually readable and pragmatic liner notes by Peter Clayton, 1959. Tracks were recorded between 1929 and 1943.

These recording details are given in full because somebody out there has the actual LP. Inside the Waller sleeve I found a pristine copy of Django – HMV – CLP 1249. I mean of course Reinhardt, not the mystifying Bates. I’m not bereft, because the pieces of music are electrifying, but I have them already on CD. They are not what I wanted, but I’m happy enough. At least it’s not Klaus Wunderlich or The Sound of Music.

Presumably someone has my Waller album enclosed in a Django Reinhardt sleeve. I’d like to repatriate the LP with the correct sleeve. Perhaps we can do a swap, either the album or the sleeve; which one matters not. But I think how nice it would be to reunite mother with daughter, especially if at the same time I can solve the problem of finding a single word for “piece of music.” All comments welcome, even in Chinese.

paradox

Surprising myself, I found a new hobby. In recent weeks I’ve taken up painting with acrylics. I can’t draw, so all my efforts are geometrical abstractions. For example, one I’ve just finished is my Grande Opus IV.

The term “Grande Opus” by the way is a portmanteau phrase. I think I’ve invented it because I can’t imagine anyone else combining French and Latin in such a blatantly disrespectful manner. But the alternative term “magnum opus” suggests that greatness is in some way involved and that would be risible when applied to me or any of my exasperated liberal arts.

Yesterday I painted. The Maestros stayed the night before, inevitably encouraging the imbibing of excessive quantities of wine and I was feeling jeune-eyed as we waved them off along Victoria Street in the morning. To recover, I decided to spend a relaxing day waving desultory bristles at a canvas.

My Grande Opus IV is entitled “Infinity.” Throughout the day I worked assiduously on the schematic. The principle of “Infinity” is that I divided the canvas into two halves, painting one half in a single colour and then dividing the other half into two equal portions again. One half of that is painted in a single but different colour and the remainder is then again divided into half… and so on. Thus the picture can never be finished. Repeatedly halving the remainder takes us into infinity. It’s a funny feeling, infinity. In a way it’s like being crapulent.

The problem with my “Infinity” is that I entered a microscopic world. At the last, I was using extra strong reading spectacles augmented by a magnifying glass to allow me to see where the paint was bound. This was now micro-painting, the nanophase of my Grande Opus IV, quantum art. Finally, the image disappeared up its own rectum in the middle of the canvas; I could physically divide the squares no more. They are too small for my fading eyesight and quaking hands. So I declared the painting to be finished apart from where I’ve daubed blue acrylic on yellow during a moment of tremor. I’ll repair that later. Come to think of it, that’s an end to infinity. A paradox - I’ll have to consider the philosophical implications over a glass of Montana.

Then I had another surprise. If my painting is a fair depiction of reality, with each sector representing one year, I’ve discovered that infinity is four years, perhaps five if I am generous to myself and assume the splodgy anal pinprick at the centre is somehow symbolic of one more. I’m not quite sure how that correlates with the Biblical conceit of eternity, or the scientific concept of infinite space. Even Aesop would be surprised to discover that infinity is only 5 years. And I thought I’d manage at least ten.

While I was struggling through my moments of artistic epiphany, I listened to Charles Mingus, or more precisely Danny Richmond, his long-suffering drummer. When I listen to jazz, I’m forced by nature to tap my feet. It’s something in my DNA I think. Dad was the same with Bill Hailey. With most drummers, I keep time reasonably well. Danny Richmond tips me all over the place; I constantly have to adjust the pattern of my taps, sometimes needing to stop, listen and pick up the beat at a later point.

In my Polyhymnian naivety, I’ve always considered Danny Richmond to be a bit of a rubbish drummer. But I knew that I had to be wrong, because Mingus never suffered fools at all. He wanted perfection and he demanded it from his colleagues or he sacked them. And Richmond lasted as the Mingus drummer for over twenty years. I’ve often puzzled this apparent contradiction.

The second epiphany of the day came – Mingus (the leader of the band) was constantly changing tempo. Someone a little less adoring and more cynical might suggest he was erratic. But in most of the tracks he repeatedly and deliberately changed rhythms and beats and tempi, challenging his sidemen to keep up. And good old Danny did, matching his maestro to the nano-second of shifting beat. He worked his percussion with unerring precision, riding the tumult in total synchronisation with the bass man. Mingus & Richmond; Richmond & Mingus – they should be linked by ampersands so well are they musically matched.

So Danny Richmond was not a crap drummer. He was a bloody genius. Why hadn’t I realised this before? I’ve been listening to Mingus for over 50 years. Where has my brain been all that time? I want to make amends so I’m going to dedicate Grande Opus VII to the pair. But that’s in the future. I’m now making a start on Grande Opus V. I’m feeling in a Sonny Rollins mood. “Paradox” I think, a 1955 recording with Max Roach on drums. He keeps good time with my toes.

i just can't get started

My blog posting rate is diminishing. It’s not that I have nothing to say. On the contrary, words and phrases tumble around inside me like lottery balls in a drum. My problem is getting the words to form sensible phrases and then converting them into something intelligible.

My typing skills are failing. A short paragraph now takes me three times longer than it used to because I’m committing so many errors needing to be corrected as I proceed. Too many times I find myself forced to retrace my metaphorical steps and retype a word, or check a spelling, or even amend grammar. I try to type slower but inexorably my speed increases and with it the incidence of error. Fingers will not hit the right key, or more likely I hit two keys at once and interpose an unwanted character into an otherwise perfect construction

The order of letters sometimes defeats me. I type the word “disestablishmentarianism” and it comes out “disestaboishmenttarianism.” Another problem is I forget what I’ve typed, so I’ll preview what I’ve written and see that I’ve used the word “nice” repeatedly in one paragraph. I could rewrite it all but finding synonyms is much quicker.

“We had a nice time the other evening. Dinner was nice and the company was nice. How nice to be among nice people enjoying nice conversation in nice surroundings with your nice dog nipping my ankles.” So I consult my copy of Bradford’s and effect changes as expeditiously as possible, resulting in: “We had an accurate time the other evening. Dinner was nine-pence and the company was precise. How fastidious to be among French city people enjoying pat conversation in dainty surroundings with your finical dog nipping at my ankles.”

My faculties are on the wane. The tides of my creative and functional abilities are ebbing. My literary last bus has left the stance. The stumps are being drawn and I never even got to bat.

Time is short so this jazz blog is brief: nobody plays the soprano saxophone like Sidney Bechet. Discuss.

one sweet letter from you

Christmas and New Year are immediately followed by my birthday. That’s good, because it means all pointless celebrations are out of the way in one single prolonged orgy (metaphorical – at my age how could it be otherwise?). But I have to admit this year the occasions were fruitful and warming.

For one thing, I discovered that at least three people read this blog (one of whom is the blogger of whom I am he). Very good friends stayed over New Year and they admitted to looking in from time-to-time. They even left a polite comment. That makes it all worthwhile. Thanks to J&A.

Birthdays have always been a bit of a mystery to me. I’ve never been able to decide whether each anniversary marks the placing of another domino in the timeline of experience or the removal of one from my allotted pool. I suppose it’s the same as pondering whether my glass is half empty or half full. All I know is that the scales of my life are definitely weighted in favour of what has been, rather than what will be. I’m 63 by the way and am due to die when I’m 80. That’s 63 down and 17 to go.

However, let me not be melancholy. Over Christmas I discovered a wonderful charity shop in Boston (Lincolnshire). The British Heart Foundation store has an upstairs devoted to books and music, all laid out in Dewey order and categorised according to genre. There, in a corner of the room, I found a magical heading: jazz LPs. Leafing through the albums, I was able to avoid the inevitable Klaus Wunderlich and Best of Motown offerings. My fingers touched solely jazz. True jazz, that is. The real stuff – no Kenny G.

Bob Crosby, for example (Bing’s brother for the unitiated). And Benny Goodman. Both were recordings of US radio broadcasts in 1939, when smoking was apparently good for us and famous people effectively endorsed Camel cigarettes. True, most of the tracks are mediocre, except for an exhilarating version of “Little Rock Getaway” with Joe Sullivan in front of Bing’s brother’s outfit and a driving rendition of “I’ve Found a New Baby” with one of Goodman’s small sets including Lionel Hampton and Teddy Wilson. And tucked in the middle of several Chris Barber albums, I found the real treasure.

“A Rare Batch of Benny Goodman & His Orchestra” was the title. In the mid 1940s, the USA produced a series of V-discs, recordings made by the stars of the day specifically for the armed forces. Performers gave their services free to support the war effort. This album is a putative collection of just such benefic recordings by Goodman and his sidemen. I’m a little dubious about it, because the sleeve claims all selections were recorded in 1943/1944, whereas I’d wager half my remaining dominoes that Charlie Christian is playing on at least three of the tracks. He died early 1942. Unfortunately, recording details are missing from the liner notes, so I’ll probably never know for certain.

But I just enjoy the music. Seven Come Eleven, AC-DC Current, Gone With What Wind – this is stomping good jazz that swings like a kitchen door in a gourmet restaurant. Production is not the best, but a war was on. And my old record player crackles and hops cheerfully. I’m convinced the gramophone was invented for jazz. Or maybe jazz was invented for the record player – now that’s a thought!

Anyway, I don’t know who manages the British Heart Foundation charity shop in Boston, but I hope they keep up the good work. Unlike many of its malodorous and scruffy competitors, the place is a pleasure to visit. Happy New Year. And by the way, I think I have a 4th reader, a fifth if I include Mrs Dodman. 2010 could be great year.

it don't mean a thing

University Challenge has stopped asking questions about jazz. I’m not suggesting that’s deliberate policy but I have a feeling that the maxim “out of sight, out of mind” applies. You don’t miss what you got until it’s gone.

A few weeks ago, though, Mr Paxman did mention an issue I’ve never been aware of. Apparently, in the world of classical music it’s a well known fact (albeit hearsay and anecdotal) that composers write 8 ½ symphonies and then die. This could be no more than an intellectual myth, but it could explain why the sonata, fugue, concerto and folk tune are so popular; the inference is that composers can write as many as they like of those without detriment to their health. Medical advice and common sense is, therefore, to stop at the eighth symphony otherwise the ninth could be unfinished.

Another well-known fact about death is that we all have about 3 billion heartbeats and then we die. I think I mentioned this in an earlier blog. By extrapolation (or some other statistical device) I calculate that one symphony is equivalent to 333,333,333.33 heart beats if the nine are finished, or 375,000,000 if the composer is wise enough to quit while he or she is ahead.

We all know the phrase “See Venice and die.” If the aphorism is true, then Venice must be the equivalent of 3 billion heartbeats or 8 finished symphonies. This means that 1 symphony is worth 1/8th of Venice, or more appositely, 20 square miles. By interpretation, 1 square mile is worth 18, 750,000 heartbeats, or 1/20th of a symphony.

Take it one step further. The City of London is one square mile, making it worth no more than 1/20th of a finished symphony. So we can state an equation: City of London = 1/20th of a symphony.

As a rough estimate, the City of London financial industry must employ some 30,000 bankers. This means that 1 banker is worth a single note of music (and that’s being generous by rounding up). Arithmetic has never been my strength, so I could have the odd decimal point in the wrong place but I think my theory is proven – it would take 600,000 bankers to be worth Eroica. As a final thought, one banker is, therefore, worth no more than a few flakes of skin excoriated from Napoleon’s backside.

Still feel good about your job, Mr King?

Jazz returns on my next posting. Happy New Year to all my readers (me).