I take out my diary. Yes, I have an actual physical paper diary. What of it? I do not own a smart phone, see. Though I do now have a phone with a proper menu system, a reasonable vocabulary, and an actual diary function. No more texts about St Pancakes station.
So flicking through my diary....
August was a deserted wasteland of no gigs.
September.
Sunday 1st. Green Note Jazz Jam. Oh hell. I can't remember who played. I think it involved Liam Noble. I do remember that there was a female drummer who played in the Jam.
Tuesday 3 September. Sons of Kemet at the Vortex
I love Sons of Kemet. I love that the Vortext tried to do the music justice by taking all the tables out so people could, potentially, dance. Of course people, mostly, didn't dance. I did a bit. So did a big chap with some ace bad dad dance moves. Well I say that - but there's no right or wrong, good or bad, to people's dancing at gigs. Everybody else pretty much just stood, like at an Indie gig, and maybe shuffled a bit. Oh jazz audiences you are so bloody staid. You stand there nodding knowledgeably when the music is inviting you to jump into its open arms and dance with it. How I wanted to accept that invitation yet the staidness stifled me making me too self conscious. This stuff is the shit. Just let go.
Friday 13th September.
Oddarang. King's Place Festival.
These pieces, from their new album In Cinema were commissioned to accompany films. The films inside my head were pretty good too. I think my mind plagiarised one of them from a sequence in Emir Kusturica's film The Time of the Gypsies where there is a guy, in a car, and there is a red piece of fabric fluttering out the window of the car as it goes under sodium lit underpasses.
Slowly Rolling Camera. King's Place Festival.
One of those bands I want to like more than I actually do. I kept getting distracted because I could hear the click track the band hand on various kinds of feeds in their ears. I never really realised before that people did this...had a click track as a feed like that on stage.
Saturday 14th September.
Rob Newman. King's Place Festival.
Yes, I know, comedy not jazz. I still like Rob Newman. The teenager in me always will. Yes! It's all going to be alright! You see that, that's you that is.
Sunday 15th September
Jason Rebello. King's Place Festival.
I enjoyed it a lot. I remember something about Mr Rebello saying he had a dream that told him to play the insides of the piano. So he played the insides of the piano.
Thursday 26th September
Roland Perrin & Rachel Sutton. St Mary Magdalene, Munster Square
Unusual venue for a jazz gig being a barn of a victorian Catholic church in the middle of a council estate square. There was a lovely solo piano piece that was filigree and heartfelt.
October
Friday 4th October.
Tori Freestone Trio and somebody else. Con Cellar.
Tori Freestone Trio and somebody else. Con Cellar.
I love Tori Freestones compositions. Just wish she'd play them "out" to the audience a bit more - rather than turning away - or drifting off the mic as in previous gigs. The second band had a trombone player. I like the sound of the trombone. It's warm. I could probably actually live next door to a trombonist and not go insane.
Wednesday 16th October.
Empirical + Beyounes Quartet. Purcell Room.
The best gigs are the one's with pictures. The one's where I close my eyes and let my mind drift in response to the music. There was a red ribbon/ banner/ flag. Fluttering and snapping in a strong breeze. Against a background of blue sky and grass. Then we were bowling along dappled country lanes in a 1920s open topped car with the ladies holding onto their Cloche hats.
The best gigs are the one's with pictures. The one's where I close my eyes and let my mind drift in response to the music. There was a red ribbon/ banner/ flag. Fluttering and snapping in a strong breeze. Against a background of blue sky and grass. Then we were bowling along dappled country lanes in a 1920s open topped car with the ladies holding onto their Cloche hats.
Sometimes it seems to me that a female instrumentalists best chance of getting on stage in a jazz-labelled gig at a major London venue is to be a classical/ crossover string player rather than an actual composing, improvising, jazz musician. Not just this gig...but Alex Wilson at King's Place a couple of years back, Neil Cowley and the Mount Molehill strings, Dave Stapleton's Flight, Avishai Cohen with strings at the Barbican this year. Over and over again the only time you see anywhere near even ratio of male:female musicians seems to be when there's strings involved. It's not the musicians' faults. It's a systemic problem with deep roots in education and general gender stereotypes. But because of it Jazz is missing out on a wealth of talent and new ideas.
November
Friday 1st November.
Joe Wright's Nightjar & Freddie Gavita. Con Cellar.
Nightjar were fantastic. I loved the texture of Alice Zawadski's vocals and the subtle but unintrusive sax-electronics. One song had me mentally flying over London, from Parliament Hill - swooping down to land in the middle of a traffic free Tottenham court road bathed in syrupy autumn sunlight. Another, I believe a setting of a Ted Hughes poem, had me picturing a tiny white bungalow, trying to huddle out of the wind between the hills and the sea. A single lighted window with the silhouette of a cat looking out.
Thursday 7th November.
Acrobat. Lume @100 Crows Rising.
I enjoyed the music but may have been too tired/ distracted to form any lasting mental pictures from it that I could tell you about. I spent some time wracking my brain for the name of the pub before successive refurbishments. I know I came here after a clown army intervention in the police station round the corner. And for a Hangover lounge thing. And at least once to dance to Two Tone/ Northern Soul/ Ska. I remember once not knowing what I wanted to drink and the barman suggested Morgan's Spiced and lemonade. The toilets now look as I imagine such facilities looked in posh 19th centuary hotels. I can recommend the hot chocolate though. I think it probably used to be the Salmon & Compass.
I will be going to six gigs in London Jazz Festival. My new not-smart (what is the proper opposite there? scruffy? trad?) has a note function - so hopefully there is some chance I'll be able to jot down my impressions as I go along.
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