Boult to Busking... eclecticism gone mad...

I have never really analysed why I have such promiscuous listening habits... from a very early age I was fascinated by music and have an almost encyclopedic memory for the cluster of early sounds that soundtracked my childhood – theme tunes and songs from old radio shows, my cousin Sandra's rock and roll records, songs sung to me by my mother(in Afrikaans) and my grandfather (old songs from his army days and the only folk song I remember from that time: 'Jim the Carter's Lad.'). Yet my family were not particularly musical. Why I rapidly progressed in my teens to an engagement with the expanded sound-worlds of avant-garde jazz and later western art music I have no idea - maybe it's more fun to retain the mystery. But ongoing musical eclecticism gave me a healthy dislike of purists – in any idiom.
This week I have been busy preparing for a brief solo performance at the occasional club I run – the aptly-named Club Sporadic - and decided to attempt a dj set mixing up a weird collection of tracks – at the same time as stumbling across Pliable's majestic music web blog which led me off into a wild journey in the worlds of classical music – as mentioned in an earlier post. So I spent last night assembling an experimental mix taking in Lee Renaldo's solo work away from Sonic Youth, a load of hip-hop and odd rockish tunes, Groucho Marx singing 'Doctor Hackenbush,' an old recording of the great American piano player James P Johnson and some of my own arcane electronic ramblings – you get the eclectic (should that that read 'messy?') idea... This morning, after I played it all back, I had a quick look at Pliable's blog and noticed his listing for the Proms and some Arvo Part/choral music from last night – which of course can be accessed on here. Which I am listening to now and is absolutely beautiful... (It struck me that even though I don't find this abrupt shift from the profane to the sacred odd, unfortunately others do. Many of the musicians I know are only at home in fairly sharply delineated areas). Another reason to be grateful for the Internet which has rejuvenated radio. The BBC, an organisation that I find to be more and more irritating in other areas, has to be congratulated with its Internet radio presence. And the playback facility is what makes it so flexible. Certain programs that I used to listen to every week I can now catch at times which are convenient for me. Early morning especially I find is a good listening zone. And generally Radio Three – the new music and jazz shows usually and over the last few weeks, the Proms, sporadically.

To ramble on further...

This particular replay from last night's Prom provoked a strange memory – when I was fifteen I sang briefly in the school choir – one of the few experiences from the establishment I reluctantly attended which I recollect with pleasure! This culminated in becoming one of a motley crew taken from local schools to sing in the aggregated choir at the De Montfort Hall in Leicester with the County Youth Orchestra at a memorial concert to a local educational benefactor. Under the baton of Sir Adrian Boult, no less! (We sang 'Let us now praise famous men' if I remember correctly). This then stimulated another memory from a few years later of participating in the Don Partridge Buskers' Concert/Happening whatever at the Royal Albert Hall in 1969. A bizarre experience which merits a longer piece at some future stage – I performed with a banjo player in a duo called African Jack and the Matabele Uprising and also accompanying a male tap-dancer called Jumping Jack who decided to do the show in drag.

I figure that these two events and my obscure involvement with them gives a neat paradigm for musical eclecticism (or whoredom!).

From Boult to Busking.

And some there be who have no memorial... well, maybe not, in the days of the Internet and blogging...

(The photo is of Don Partridge performing in Loughborough Market Place a couple of years back).

Riding the electric highway... up to an overgrown path...

When I was a kid and just starting to expand my sound world I used to listen to our old radio and spend hours flipping the dial across the bands to find the european stations(forget the BBC in those days!) that might have something worthwhile to listen to - Luxemburg for pop, of course but also the Voice of America Jazz Hour - with Willis Conover, the other American Forces Network stations in Stuttgart - was it Frankfurt as well, can't remember - and many German and Dutch stations it seems that played jazz. Being a junior fanatic, I also used to write down the details of the tracks that I could figure out. This wasn't always easy, due to crackling signals fading in and out and not being able to understand the various languages - apart from French to a certain extent. The book it was all written in is long gone -which is a shame. It would be interesting to look back at what I was listening to then. Now I sit surfing the net and suddenly realised when I stumbled across a new music blog/site that has loads of links to mainly classical music that this is very similar - except that when I was young it was more difficult and you had to hunt the music down relentlessly and then not always get anything remotely resembling clean reception. The hiss and the crackle were part of the game...

How it all has changed. Within twenty minutes or so of clicking on this particular blog, I had surfed off to several other sites, bookmarked a few pages (to add to the absurdly expanding list which I keep promising to organise but never do) and started to listen to some disparate stuff - everything from Conlon Noncarrow to Schoenberg to Henry Billings! I love the internet! I have long periods where I just take it for granted - then on a random cruise bump into new treasure.

The blog in question is here and called 'On an Overgrown Path.' Thanks to Pliable for some great links and an interesting blog...

Strangely enough - the last time I can remember using one of those old radios (on the cusp of FM coming in) was down in Hastings at a friend's house in 1967 - the day John Coltrane died. I was moving the dial across Europe and station after station was playing his music in tribute. An eery experience, track after track of Coltrane as the night went on.

Nothing on the BBC though...

Another Tuesday... aftermath of cricket!

Another Tuesday - spent far too much time watching the cricket over the weekend and yesterday so only getting back to working schedule this morning! Above is a photo of Murray and myself that I discovered in some old posts by David, the third participant in the Plexus collective. Taken a while back...
A photo of Murray and David can be found here

I am doing a solo set on Saturday at the Sporadic this coming Saturday 10th Sept - and I suddenly realised that I hadn't prepared anything and would like to try something new. So feverish activity will be the order of the day and night for the next whatever. Murray wants to try something out on our festival in September where we will be collaborating with some multi-media artists. He wants me to supply voice samples over his instrumental laptop stuff. Usually we don't delineate improvisational areas much in advance but this looks promising as I enjoy playing with cut-up voices, choirs, poets etc and it will give us both a chance to sharpen our focus in performance. Often things get very dense as sound piles up on sound. Which has its place but sometimes it is interesting to lay back a bit. Also, the visual aspect should add a new dimension to our set and one that will require a different level of concentration.
So maybe this week's solo performance might contain a few seeds for September...

Strange wednesday... NY Memories...

I have been at home all day, doing various things and just messing about in general. A combination of chillout and busy... One of the tasks was to send an overdue mail to an old friend of mine and I enclosed the above photo of my trying not to look too terrified on top of the Empire State Building during our visit in May to New York. My daughter was hell-bent on going up to the top so I felt obligated to go with her. Trouble is - for some reason, possibly related to the operations I've had in the last year, I've developed vertigo and a mild balance problem. A nightmare... But I did it, even though I break out in a cold sweat at the thought! Strange - not so long ago, it wouldn't have bothered me...

I was hoping to get back to New York on my own in September but that is looking unlikely now for various reasons. Just have to wait till next spring. With my daughter in May we did mainly tourist things and shopping but I managed to get to John Zorn's Stone Club to see Misha Mengeldorf. Looking forward to spending a week there next time, getting out to see more music and exploring the art galleries. Although I managed to achieve an old ambition and see the Pollocks in the Museum of Modern Art. I also found my notes today for the trip, which I may get round to publishing - when I finish all my other current projects. But I did manage to write a review of the Stone Club and Jackson Pollock at Moma - strictly fan stuff but here on the Plexus web site - Stone Club
and
Pollock...

Staying in all day on my own takes me into a strange zone - but I managed to do some overdue things like finish my track on the cassette that David, one of our Plexus collaborators sent me. David and I are doing some old school tape swaps - one lays down some tracks, sends it to the other and so on... an interesting exercise. Also did a lot of editing on my book which is almost finished. And listened to the mixes that Murray sent me - the two latest cds that Plexus is planning to get out in time for our festival in September. ANd reading. And listening to music. And working on a review of the Odd Nosdam album, 'Burner.' Which I think is brilliant.
Going back to the straight job in October - which I may have to do for a while - is going to be a drag! Convalescing has weirdly enough given me the space that I craved to do all the things I want to re music and writing. And travel. On the down side - fatigue... and drinking a wee bit too much!

Plexus... and the beat goes on...

I've been working on a piece about free improvisation - a bit of an overview followed by a description of my own journey into the wild and wacky world of improvising free from the constraints of conventional music (whatever that is any more...) which leads into an examination of the technical issues involved - theoretically and in the practice of my own work - solo and with the group of musicians I am currently playing with. But it's going to take a while longer to complete as it seems to keep looping back on itself even more than my written work does usually... patience... plus I've been busy with various other problems and situations. A busy week...

So to keep the ball rolling onwards - and because I haven't posted for a few days (but who's counting?) -a quick piece about the recent night we played at the Club Sporadic - my bastard creation which I love and hate in equal measure!

The format was simple enough - we are three at the moment - and have been for a while since David joined the lineup of Murray and myself and took us in new directions. I would start, solo, then David and finally Murray would do their own solo sets. A break - then we would come together as a trio. I did not feel very focused and was glad to play first - to get it over with, on one level, but also because I was looking forward to listening to the solo works of my collaborators as we haven't been meeting up regularly due to a variety of reasons. When we play together I am trying to concentrate on what I can contribute and also listening hard to the other two - and we play long sets that ebb and flow all over the place. So it was a rare treat to just sit back and be in the audience for a change.

I played two pieces just on laptop - did not feel like using a guitar-one using Audio Mulch and some loops that finally evolved into a crackly recording I'd made mixing some of the soundtrack from Derek Jarman's film 'The Last of England' with a tape of part of the recent commemorations of VJ Day. Audio Mulch is an amazing software program for electronic music... The second was played in FL Studio which I have been messing around with quite extensively, using it in both a structured and an improvised way, using a ready made rough drum track intercut with improvisation. I wasn't really happy with either piece - found my concentration wandering due to being tired - and having other things on my mind. Which is deadly - a musician should be ruthless and cut off from the usual pressures of daily life when playing. But I did what I did - and got out the other side ok...

David performed then - and had a few problems synchronising his instruments which led to a bit of stopping and starting. When he got into his stride, however, it came together. Odd bits of guitar, harmonica, drum machine and other sound sources... Good stuff...

Murray went up next and was a revelation. Using prepared electric guitar he cut out a large chunk of evening for himself. I was impressed with the combination of freedom and control - he had obviously been working out some new directions on his battered old electric, played through various treatments on his laptop.

Then we all came together and played a couple of long pieces. I get lost(pleasantly) in these performances and lose track of time - we used a couple of the Brian Eno cards each that David gave us - Zen koans almost for oblique directional strategies. I was working with a fairly stripped sound set of patches - synthesizer, some drum sounds and keyboard stuff, all played off the laptop keyboard which can be limiting sometimes but I felt it worked this evening. Yet at the end, I had the impression that although everyone had enjoyed playing, no one was quite sure where it had all gone. Which leads on to the point - how do you measure the success and failure of these performances without conventional markers? This music is not new. But each performance will throw up its own set of problems and solutions. I felt that I had played less than usual - but that fatigue had caused this - and it wasn't a bad thing as - because I was a solo player for so long, I suppose - I have a tendency to play too much. For once I was letting it breath a little more than usual.

So. Another legendary gig at the Club Sporadic...

Yet... despite all the above comments - when I received a recording from David of the performances, I was pleasantly surprised. My own pieces seemed to have more coherence than I realised. All the solo pieces came across well - and Murray's sounded completely different to the way I remembered it - but just a s good. Which only goes to show... Positioning is all, maybe. Sitting at a lap top and playing at high volumes, you're not aware of what you sound like from, say, ten metres away. Or more or less. And in the group pieces, we seemed yet again to have created something new from some of our familar gambits, materials and timbres. When I listen to recordings we have made over the last two years it always surprises me how far we have travelled. This particular cd was a pleasant reminder that we may be creating some original work in an crowded field where there seems to be an amazing explosion going on across the world, fuelled by cheap technology and spreading awareness of the history, the present contexts and future potentials of the music.
Long may this state of affairs remain...

Red wine, dead writers...

Red wine again and 5.40 am. Been up since three o clock. I'm tired but my mind is in high gear -surfing the net I found some stuff on William Burroughs that I hadn't read before in a memorial/tribute by Levi Asher – transcript of Lee Renaldo phone conversation with Old Bill not long before he died. Interesting – Burroughs talking about Old Morocco and the Jajouka musicians among others. Burroughs comes across as someone with a great courtesy in his manner – not the wild drug addled old queer crazy naked luncher one might imagine. But for aficionados of the Great Man that was part of his enigma and charm. Patrician manner and all that old St Louis jive which reveals a wild and dangerous – and darkly funny - world underneath. Burroughs a massive influence on contemporary culture – especially in music. And I don't mean the Soft Machine, boys and girls. A lumpy band in my opinion, Brit jazz rock never having the street flash and bounce of the Fountainhead – the Prince of Darkness, Monsieur Miles Davis. Not that I have ever been much of a fan of Brit rock stuff in any form. That's another story/rant...

Soundtrack Last.fm again – looping some nice Steve Lacy playing Monk – and shit, Lacy is dead as well...

And of course Allen Ginsberg had died not long before this particular Burroughs interview. And the next section of the tribute/valediction is by Robert Creeley. Who also died a while back. And maybe there is some synchronicity here as my mother is probably dying slowly as I sit here, a few miles away in her Nursing Home. Far gone with vascular dementia and a failing heart – which sums it up, I think. While she still had the will to go on... one could still see something of the old Afrikaaner fire. But now, I guess that she has no heart any more for the struggle. But what do we really know of those who have slipped out of our world into some twilight zone which may be some biological mercy for the lack of memory and increasing physical malfunctions, the brain stuttering to grasp what is going down – and failing. Or realising only too well and compensating with surrealism... We just have to assume that they have some degree of happiness as they seemingly freewheel through the episodes of their life- like a Burroughs cut-up, slicing through the linear space/time of the so-called real world into some creation of their own beyond our immediate comprehension.

I suppose I should figure it out that at my age – knocking on sixty – most of the influences from my early life, people I dug mightily, like Burroughs and Creeley and co (and let's not forget an obscurer name, the late great Ed Dorn who really should be better known – a fine rebel American gunslinger of a poet whom I had the great privilege to meet a few years ago at a reading and afterwards. Next day we were sat in a bar in Aberystwyth – I kid you not – drinking Bass just after opening time to cure the previous evening's excesses – I was trying to finish my dissertation at the time – on Jack Kerouac's 'Mexico City Blues' – I'm nothing if not perverse! - but could not bring myself to be a fan or a groupie – I was too old perhaps – and although I knew Dorn had known Kerouac contented myself with a bizarre hangover conversation about football – a game I loath – and Paris – a place I love. Then the car arrived and Ed was gone to another reading in Cardiff or Swansea or somewhere down south of where we sat).

And I just had a strange but pleasing image come into my mind – thinking about Creeley and his poem – Drive he said – and suddenly I saw my father driving along some back road in Devon where we used to go as kids, no doubt on the way to some country pub. He was a drinking man. And maybe he is on his way to take my mother home with him to a place where they were both happy. Away from her present turmoil...

As the Art Ensemble of Chicago play it out with 'Song for Charles.' This Last.fm stuff is good...

Monk...

Thelonious Monk. Backstage, Monterey Jazz Festival, 1963.
Photo copyright 1989 by Jerry Stoll

Just turned midnight and I'm sitting here drinking some cheap wine and thinking about music and how I started out on this journey. My family were not particularly musical but I started buying records at an early age – first one was Jerry Lee Lewis – 'Great Balls of Fire' – you shake my nerves and you rattle my brain... I was a Jerry Lee fan from the start as opposed to Elvis and it must have been one of the last 78's put out because I remember buying the follow up – 'Down the Line' I think - which was a forty five – went in my old man's car out on a sunday somewhere and had it with me and it warped in the sun. One of the minor tragedies of childhood in the days when you saved for weeks to buy a disc. And somehow I got into traditional jazz which I loved – maybe some influence from my father who used to go out with his friends to see Mick Mulligan's band in Nottingham when George Melly was singing with them. (Strange – for years now I've found Melly irritating – some kind of camp burlesque of Bessie Smith). The program about British Jazz last Friday night on BBC2 brought back all the innocent duffle-coated splendour of the Trad Revival...
But the real epiphany was seeing 'Jazz on a Summer's Day' at one of the local cinemas – I haven't watched it in years but can still feel the impact it had. The hazy summer vibes of Newport, the esoteric sound of the cello in Chico Hamilton's group – Jimmy Guiffre playing 'Train and the River' – but most of all – MONK. The impact of whom still goes on down the years. My man. The fountainhead of all ensuing weirdness. Because Monk was – different. A big, imposing figure behind impenetrable shades always sporting a different hat. And the piece he played in the film was 'Blue Monk' which is an archetypal Monk blues – seemingly simple but having little twists that make it quintessentially -Monk. I saw the movie through several times which was a feat of endurance as it was second bill to a not very good flick called 'Paris Holiday' – Bob Hope and Fernandel. Crap... But the sonorities of 'Blue Monk' still ring through...

Round about that time I had inherited an old upright piano and also was living in my own part of the large house we had then, my own space where I could clang away on the piano and teach myself to play jazz as we had no money available for lessons – via Boogie Woogie sheet music and some Monk lead sheets that I somehow managed to get hold of. 'Blue Monk' of course and 'Trinkle Tinkle' which is a bastard to play – show that to anyone who says that Monk had no technique... And in the obsessive way I had – I started to read up on Modern Jazz in the books available at the time, not forsaking the old stuff, rather expanding my ears and my horizons. Discovering Kerouac at about the same time was the literary equivalent of wild bop. I started hitchhiking round the country under the second hand influence of Kerouac and the Beats. Jazz and the Beat Generation -the two big forces of liberation at that time. Sex and drugs and rock and roll came later... But through the music of Monk especially I travelled into bop and beyond – Coltrane, Ornette Coleman and then Cecil Taylor whom I first heard playing 'Unit Structure' on a scratchy radio medium wave broadcast from somewhere in Europe. (Oddly enough, I never encountered Albert Ayler who became one of my all time favourites until I heard some of his records in Paris at a friend's apartment in the early Seventies). In the age of instant Internet access, downloads and streaming and massive CD rerelease programs when you can pick up all your old albums so cheaply - it all seems so long ago...

When I was writing about Allan Ginsberg in a university essay a few years ago, I came across the following anecdote which I used to finish the piece. It ties up the mix of Beat and Jazz neatly...

Allen Ginsberg gave a copy of Howl to Thelonius Monk and a week later ran into him standing outside the Five Spot. He asked him if he had read it.

"Yeah, I'm almost through," said Monk.

"Well?" asked Allen.

"It makes sense," replied Monk.

Monk freed me up - I took up playing guitar which was more portable but the harmonic lessons I learned on the piano from Monk are still with me... It makes sense...

Grey Monday...

About a year or so back I became very ill with breathing difficulties and was diagnosed as having laryngeal cancer. Only way to deal with it by then was a laryngectomy - so I ended up without a voice - but alive! Most people who have had this operation can now regain a level of speech via a valve inserted into the throat - I was one of those who couldn't speak - had to utilise a voice prosthesis - which always provoked a laugh or two at least as it resembled an elaborate vibrator that I shoved into the side of my face and used to speak like a robot/dalek. Also made interesting noises when passed over the strings of my electric guitar... A good improvisor will always find new ways of making sound!
Recently, at long last, I started to speak via the valve and after almost nine months of relative silence was able to communicate more or less - still getting to grips with it but it gets easier.
I write all of this to get it out the way. I was working in a straight job and have been on indefinite leave since last September. Life has strange compensations... I had been planning on getting my music back on track and now had plenty of time to create. I still have a lot of fatigue and have to pace myself accordingly but the opportunity to play music and participate in the various projects I have planned with my collaborator Murray Ward (see us over at www.plexusmusic.co.uk ) has been a great solace. Also had the time to finish one book (sent of to publisher a while back - still waiting for reply!) and write the guts of another. The end of which has been weird - an aborted double suicide bombing on a concert hall in Paris with one of the perps shot by the French cops - which I wrote the week before the bomb attacks in London and the recent tragic shooting of the Brazilian guy. I had planned the ending months ago - but a week after the actual writing - even though it is set in Paris rather than London - was a bit of eery synchronicity to say the least. In one sense the bombing attempt in my story was at a tangent to the main story - but I realised over the last couple of weeks that we are overshadowed now and probably for a long time by the ongoing war with Islamofascism. I also thought back to William Gibson's last novel 'Pattern Recognition' which is so far the best post 9/11 book I have read. The falling of the towers is in the background of the book but slowly permeates all the way through. The zeitgeist with a vengeance to use an old term. Difficult to escape - and difficult to write about.
These random thoughts - since my illness I keep strange hours woke at 4 A.M. and had a hot drink then as ever started surfing and listening to music - just joined up with an interesting site - Last.fm - which builds a profile of your music choices and when enough tracks have been played creates your own radio station for streaming. Worth a look...
Went back to sleep about 11 A.M. and woke again at 2 P.M. The day will now be fucked maybe - a grey wet day outside - your archetypal Monday for psychotics everywhere. I'm sitting writing this and listening to a stream of Doom Metal from Last.fm - about right for today...
I may go back to the book I was reading - 'The Divine Invasion' by Philip K Dick. Read a lot of his stuff years ago, just coming back to it. Wacky ontological tricks with your head - just what I need today...

STARTING UP...

There will be no attempt at ordering this blog at the moment. I want to see where it goes organically - without falling into too much self-indulgence. A place where I can post random thoughts and ideas about the things that concern me most - the things I like such as music and books and paintings and movies. With the occasional rant thrown in, maybe... Politics? Maybe... I feel that my core values are the same pretty much as they were many years ago - but I've moved on in the more outward manifestations of those values - radically in many ways. As one should... standing still leads to death of the spirit...