R.I.P. Humph

Humphrey Lyttelton: Jazz great, master of the double entendre, a man who worked almost til the day he died. If I can die half as active as him I'll die a happy man.

Prom 41: Gershwin (BBC4)

What a fascinating, if flawed, experiment this was. The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra joined forces with the Marcus Roberts Trio for Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, with the trio contributing extensive improvised passages.

As the talking heads before noted, Rhapsody in Blue is itself a clash between jazz and "classical" styles, so on the face of it it's entirely natural to bring a jazz trio into the mix. The problem is that the excellent Roberts and his cohorts play in a post-Coltrane, post-Monk idiom, so what we ended up with was a three-way clash between classicism, pre-war and post-war jazz, with none emerging unscathed. Roberts' solos were wonderful, and when his rhythm section of Roland Guerin and Jason Marsalis kicked in things really took flight, but when they played along with the orchestra in the "composed" bits the result was oddly stilted, the stiffer '20s rhythms jarring against the more fluid post-bop element. I'd love to hear the trio alone improvise on the Rhapsody, as what they gave us tonight was exquisite, but I'm not convinced the middle of a "conventional" reading really works as the place to do it. Having said that, all involved acquitted themselves well, and this was an imaginative piece of programming, so full marks to the Proms for bringing it to us.

Roberts, Guerin and Marsalis gave us an encore, a delicious take on "I Got Rhythm" that had me hungering to hear more of them.


(Sorry, I can't comment on the rest of this show as I was watching Jamie Oliver on the other side, who showed me some excellent ways with courgettes.)

Church of Trane

Good article in the Grauniad today marking the 40th anniversary of the death of the great John Coltrane. Coltrane's music has an obsessive edge to it, as I suppose all great art does to some extent - he frequently played "My Favourite things" from the Sound of Music, and would happily improvise on the tune for half an hour or more. I remember a story I was told of an occasion when he was playing with Miles Davis, and when his turn came, let rip with a blistering and very long solo. Davis sidled up to him after he finally finished and asked why he'd gone on so long. "I couldn't think of a way to finish", replied Trane. Miles responded, "Try taking the motherfucking horn out of your mouth."

if you haven't listened to Coltrane, it's time to put that right. this is music of such intensity that some people set up a church in his name.

Basquiat Strings with Seb Rochford

I've had a vague desire for a long time to be Miles Davis, or maybe John Coltrane, although apparently not a strong enough desire to get up off my arse and actually learn the trumpet or sax. The cello always seemed, well, just not a jazz instrument, really (I did contemplate trading up to the bass, but have you seen the size of those things?). I did see someone playing jazz cello once, but it didn't really convince me. So it's very gratifying to hear this splendid album by Basquiat Strings, an ensemble led by cellist Ben Davis and allied to the F-IRE collective, and hear just what I could have done if I'd had the imagination.

Davis studied with Miles Davis alumnus Dave Holland, and the album's very much in that sort of vein (there's even a version of "In a Silent Way". It's also rather slinky in its rhythms, in a way that brings Piazzolla to mind. If you've heard any of the other bands in F-IRE (Polar Bear, Acoustic Ladyland, etc) and enjoyed them, you should enjoy this, so stop dawdling and buy it.

Ups and downs

Some days are just awful. You force yourself out of bed, you drag yourself into work, you remember the stuff you forgot to bring just as you get there, you're surrounded by blithering idiot jabber, there's little of import to do and you spend the whole day thinking "WHY AM I HERE?!!".

Fortunately there are other days, which start with an evening out after the shit day, seeing funny stuff with cool people, then a night and a day and another night with someone special, with visits to arty places and seeing cool looking fire escapes and the cooking of roast dinner and Miyazaki films on the DVD player. the trips to hear a new piece you wrote, which sounds really cool and fill you with confidence that it'll be great at the performance, followed by too much beer for a Sunday afternoon, accompanied by jazz and talk of art and music, and plans involving such things.

And looking forward to the new Fall album tomorow!

Damo Suzuki

David Cronenberg's Wife want to be the Fall. They really want to be the Fall. Except for the bits where they want to be early REM. But the singer can't sing quite well enough to carry that bit off.

Kontakte take their name from a piece by Stockhausen, and have a heavy Eno influence. It's a bit like shoegazing performed by competent musicians, which is not meant as a sleight. They have moments that suggest brilliance. They need to have the courage to do less. The opening of their set was magical, then the drum machine kicked in and it became a bit more ordinary, albeit with flashes of magic.

I mention the support bands partly because they're worth mentioning, but mostly because members of them form Damo Suzuki's band. This is how he works: he turns up in whichever city he's performing in, picks up some local musicians, and then, in the fashion of a krautrock Mickey Rooney, does the show right here.

I'm being flippant. I shouldn't be, because this show was one of the best gigs I've been to in ages. I can't really describe it, because there's no set list, just a free-flowing stream of consciousness, the band flying while Damo sings, burbles and growls at whim on top of it all. It all ought to be a disaster and self-indulgent nonsense, but it isn't. It's magical. He's a shaman, and I find myself drawn into his sound-world, my mind in a trance, my body moving instinctively to the music. I feel as I think I might at some primitive ritual, where the sheer force of sound transports me from my physical existence to another plane. If you think this sounds pretentious, I don't care, really, because this is how it felt. It's primal, gutteral stuff, a relentless, hard rocking beat underpinning a welter of sound from guitars, one-string bass (a strange looking contraption that looks like a broomstick that's been strung and plugged in) and violin that's almost palpable in its intensity and volume (my ears rang all the way home). He played for an hour and a half, and I'd have been happy if he carried on all night. When he eventually draws the evening to a close (more at the behest of his band than any desire of his own, it seems) he is applauded rapturously by the audience. I'm at the front, and I get to take his hand, and bow to him in a gesture of gratitude. He bounds beyond me into the audience, and proceeds to hug pretty much everyone, as far as I can see. That doesn't make me feel less special. This is a man of huge generosity of spirit, and to him we're all special. This is the only show he's playing in this country this time, I have a feeling we'll all be back for the next one though.

Fuck it, this is how music should be.