Layer 346 . . . Elgar, Pomp, Circumstance, Estates, Proms, Englishness, High Art, Ignorance, Culture, Duke Ellington and the Swing Thing

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I love it when someone comes out and says that the reason why the majority of us don't enjoy  opera and classical music is because we don't 'understand' it. If there's one thing that cheers me up no end it's being patronised and spoken about pityingly. I do love a good ruck, and being treated as an ignoramus and a prat is a guaranteed way of getting me going on the subject of so-called high art versus low art, culture versus non-culture, proper music versus popular music.

Lynsey Handley, the Guardian's self-styled 'expert' on what it's like to live on a council estate (author of Estates: An Intimate History) is the latest to wade into the culture wars, and in so doing shows what a shallow and ridiculous young woman she really is.

Lynsey, naturally, no longer lives on a council estate, and it's unlikely she even lives in an inner-city area. I assume she now thinks she's joined the middle classes. So this is what she says:

Us and them is the cultural problem, not Pomp and Circumstance

The kind of elitism that leaves so many ignorant of Elgar reinforces social divisions

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/27/social-divisions-elitism-elgar-culture

Lynsey, sweetie - you patronising young puppy: I'm not ignorant of Elgar - I just fucking hate Elgar. Having read this crappy article I tried again to listen to the Enigma Variations, Pomp and Circumstance, Jerusalem and even a bit of the Cello Concerto in E minor, and all it did was reinforce my ignorance that this is a load of dull, dreary, dry, deathly, life-diminishing, clapped-out, corny crap. But that's only my plebian working class sensibility speaking, obviously. If only I had enough intellect and cultural awareness to understand Elgar and all his works . . .

Hitler would probably have loved Elgar, but then again Hitler had Beethoven and Bach. And Wagner. Intelligent and cultured people seem to love Wagner. People like Stephen Fry - the current pin-up boy & icon of middlebrow Britain. Elgar might not have made it with Hitler.

I quite like bits of Beethoven and Bach. The Brandenburgs are OK by me, though I doubt I fully understand them. I can dig the odd fugue. Bach gives good organ. But I have to be in the right mood for such things, which, in the case of Elgar, seems to be a mood either patriotically pompous, depressed, or in the throes of actual mourning.

Middle class Brits seem to somehow convince themselves that they're listening to something that's quite 'spiritual', perhaps - probably because they've been taught that Elgar's music is 'spiritual' during their musical appreciation lessons at grammar school. Or maybe mummy and daddy were influential with their taste in music, and possibly they came from a long line of educated people who really do understand Elgar and co - who've made the annual pilgrimage to the Albert Hall and the Proms, etc. Fair enough.

In case anyone's interested, here's what Lynsey had to say:

A large proportion of Britain is culturally impoverished, with one-third of those surveyed never having listened to classical music and three-quarters unable to identify Edward Elgar as the composer of Pomp and Circumstance.

[Reader's Digest] magazine [another cultural icon that's about to disappear] was right to suggest that "uninspired teaching" and "alienation", brought about by elitist notions of who can enjoy classical music and who can't, have served to make people ignorant of large parts of their cultural heritage.

At present it feels like there's little useful communication between consumers of high culture and that third of Britain that has never listened to classical music – for reasons to do with mutual contempt, ignorance, and the accretion of privilege and disadvantage at opposite ends of the divide.

Fuck off, Lynsey. So I'm really, really disadvantaged, am I? It's a lot more complicated, and a lot more simple too, than you can possibly imagine. Elgar v Peter Green and electric blues? No contest. Life's too short to be wasted on Elgar.

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Moving on to something more positive, there was a superb programme on BBC4 last night about the era of jazz and swing music - pre-rock and pre-pop. This is definitely worth catching up with on iPlayer. Also repeated tonight on BBC4 at 23.10.

The Swing Thing

Documentary telling the story of swing, an obscure form of jazz that became the first worldwide pop phenomenon, inspired the first ever youth culture revolution and became a byword for sexual liberation and teenage excess well before the Swinging Sixties.

In the process, swing threw up some of the greatest names in 20th century music, from Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington to Billie Holiday and Frank Sinatra. The film uses archive and contemporary accounts to shed light on why it endures today.

It was Duke Ellington who said, "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing." The programme also had some great footage of Jimmy Dorsey, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Woody Herman, Cab Calloway, etc. Strange there were no references to Louis Jordan, though.

http://www.johnnyferreira.com/Louis-Jordan.php.

Layer 337 . . . Music, Spiritual and Emotional Intelligence, Synchronicity, Wynton Marsalis, John Besh, Culinary Arts, BP, Big Oil, and Grand Prix

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"Music teaches us that we all have two lives: our internal lives and our external lives." - Wynton Marsalis (Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, October 18, 1961)
http://www.wyntonmarsalis.org/

Synchronicity

This is how synchronicity works.

First thing in the morning the London Review of Books arrives on the doormat, and for breakfast I voraciously read its lead article, a review of "The Rise and Fall of French Cuisine", by Michael Steinberger. The book is an account of the influence of the French approach to food and eating, and whether it's been overtaken by innovative approaches to the culinary arts by masterchefs in Japan, Britain and the USA. Apparently there are now more Michelin three-star restaurants in Tokyo than there are in Paris - 11 of them to be precise.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n15/steven-shapin/down-to-the-last-cream-puff

"France taught Americans how to eat. The lessons were about more than just eating well; they were about living well. It was never merely about the food, and the idea that there was nothing mere about food, that food was never merely fuel, was lesson number one."

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For lunch I devour a superb 'diary' piece in the LRB, written by Rebecca Solnit, on the reality of the BP Gulf of Mexico blowout, and what it means for people living along the coast of Louisiana, and in particular New Orleans.

"The blowout is about global capital, and about policy, and about the Bush-era corruption that turned the Minerals Management Service into a crony-ridden camp that didn’t do its job, and about Big Oil, and about a host of other things. But it is also about the destruction we’ve all seen in the images, which are horrible in a deep and primordial way. I went out on boats twice and saw an oiled pelican through binoculars and some faint oily traces on wetlands grass and couldn’t quite make out the oiled terns in the distance. And I saw what everyone else could see too, the photographs and footage from those who went to Ground Zero of this catastrophe.

Mary Douglas said that dirt is matter out of place, and petroleum is out of place everywhere above ground. We design our lives around not seeing it even when we pump it into our cars and burn it, and when we do encounter it, it’s repulsive stuff with a noxious smell, a capacity to cause conflagrations, and a deadly impact. Nature kindly put a huge amount of the earth’s carbon underground, and we have for the past 200 years been putting it back into the atmosphere faster and faster, even though we now know that this is a project for which words like ‘destructive’ are utterly inadequate."

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n15/rebecca-solnit/diary

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At supper time there's a wonderful programme on Sky Arts 1, part of the Iconoclasts series produced by Robert Redford, featuring jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and masterchef/businessman/philanthropist John Besh, both of whom were born and brought up in New Orleans, and reflect upon the importance New Orleans has had on their lives and work.

Change the way you see celebrity. Iconoclasts is the innovative series in which some of today's top creative talent meets those people who have inspired them. In this episode from Series 3, legendary jazz musician Wynton Marsalis meets chef John Besh

This is the third season of the critically-acclaimed series, Iconoclasts. A series of intimate, unpredictable portraits of creative visionaries whose passion for what they do has transformed our culture.

Both of these guys are passionate about what they do, but modest about their outstanding achievements. Both are inspirational speakers and team leaders, as they see themselves. Both give full credit to their entire teams and point out that without their colleagues they couldn't function. Both are non-religious, but full of spiritual intelligence.

Wynton Marsalis has written a book , "“Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life”.

http://thewatchery.blogspot.com/2008/09/movados-ambassador-wynton-marsalis.html

http://www.skyarts.co.uk/film-docs/print/iconoclasts-wynton-marsalis-meets-john-besh/iconoclasts-wynton-marsalis-meets-john-besh

To be fair, that's not really how synchronicity works. That's about what synchronicity can look like in practice. It's also about the zeitgeist. Nobody knows how synchronicity works. Not even Carl Jung.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronicity

http://www.carl-jung.net/synchronicity.html

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Emotional Intelligence.

We know plenty about how emotional intelligence works, or fails to work.

Michael Schumacher is not so much lacking in emotional intelligence as practically psychopathic in his complete ruthlessness and contempt for those he considers his inferiors. Even to the point of putting their lives in danger.

The good thing about his return to F1 is the opportunity he has given himself to reveal his true nature (again) and expose himself for what he truly is. He's made so many enemies down the years it's not surprising they're now willing to lay into him whenever an opportunity presents itself.

At today's Hungarian GP, for example. Racing for 10th place and a single world championship point, he first of all blocked Rubens Barrichelo for several laps, and then tried to put him into the pit wall when Barrichelo finally got close enough to slipstream him and overtake on his inside. For a split second Barrichelo had to decide whether to stand on his brakes at 180mph whilst running on the 'hard shoulder", and risk spinning his car into the wall, or continue his overtake and risk smashing into Schumacher. Being the skilled driver he is, Rubens squeezed past and then swerved back onto the track, whilst keeping his car under control.

After the race, various F1 drivers were asked about Schumacher's behaviour, and all condemned him outright. The majority also seemed to say, "But what else can you expect of Schumacher?".

Schumacher himself brushed the accusations aside by saying, "You know me - I always fight hard against my opponents". To which one can only say, "Michael old bean, it's not about fighting as such - it's about how you fight, you dirty bastard".

Thankfully, two other German drivers utterly condemned his behaviour - Alexander Wurtz and Nico Hulkenberg, whose manager also manages Schumacher. Wurtz said,  "This is not what the sport needs! There are some lines you shouldn't cross. If Michael didn't see what was happening behind him then his mirrors must be illegal, or he has something wrong with his eyesight and should be declared unfit to drive".

The German driver who's opinion on the incident wasn't solicited is Sebastian Vettel. As Eddie Jordan pointed out, Vettel has several times this season tried to block other drivers or push them towards the edge of the track. Plus there was the notorious incident when he deliberately steered into his team mate to try to intimidate him, a la Schumacher - causing both of them to crash whilst leading the race. It's not hard to see who his role model is.

Typical of comments on today's incident (on the web) was,

"As Rubens said, he [Schumacher] was closing the door - edit slamming it - too late, having deliberately left it ajar. He knows he can only change line once, so he was inviting him to come through in a position on the track that he could try intimidation to block the move, Dirty Dick Dastardly, ask Damon Hill/Jacque V.

"If you try and pass I'll have you off" always was and always will be his modus operandi. Nothing has changed except the position he is fighting for. Bit pathetic really, Rubens is a fine example of how an "elder statesman" of F1 should conduct himself, the Big Chinned one is just becoming an embarrasment. I was looking forward to viewing his "second life, beginning to wonder why now."

http://www.pistonheads.com/GASSING/topic.asp?h=0&f=42&t=800273&i=140&mid=0&nmt=How%20many%20races%20until%20Schumacher%20has/does%20one%20of%20his%20%22stunts%22

Last season, when he was new and fresh and just a rising star, Vettel impressed people with his ability and his enthusiasm, just as Schumacher had impressed in his first season in the sport. This season, however, now that he thinks he ought to be winning races and leading the F1 championship, Vettel is showing his lack of experience and lack of emotional intelligence. Especially when you compare him with guys like Button and Hamilton, whom I've praised in previous blogs for their high levels of maturity and emotional & spiritual intelligence. Which some people call simply "attitude".

Vettel screwed up badly today - in his own words he "fell asleep" - by not following the right distance behind the safety car when it was deployed. He was somewhat calmer whilst talking about the incident after the race, that's to say, after his team had let him know he was definitely at fault.

During the race, however, it was a different story. There were angry, petulant, immature and irresponsible words and actions whilst behind the wheel at racing speed. During his drive-through penalty he was even seen taking his hands off the wheel and shaking them as though demented, whilst shouting and ranting - "What did I do? What did I do?"

When interviewed about his driver's behaviour after the race his team boss, Christian Horner, said - "He's a young guy. He's still very emotional." As if that tells us anything.

We've seen lots of young guys in their first couple of years of F1 racing who nevertheless show that they have plenty of emotional intelligence, and plenty of humility. Hulkenberg seems to be one, as were Hamilton and Button. Being emotionally intelligent is being able to keep a lid on your anger, and behave professionally whilst at work. Preferably also when not at work. But if you can't conduct yourself responsibly, calmly, considerately and thoughtfully, and keep destructive and egocentric, not to say childish, emotions like anger under control whilst doing your job in a dangerous profession where lives are at risk, then you ought to be suspended until you learn how to.

Will Vettel ever learn? The almighty sulk on his face in the post-race TV interviews, after he'd come third instead of winning the race as he should have done (had he not "fallen asleep"), doesn't bode well. Mark Webber, who was the winner, thoroughly deserved to do so, especially as a reward for the way he showed real emotional intelligence and amazing self-control prior to last week's race when his team decided to take from his car an experimental prototype front wing and put it on the car of Vettel, his so-called team mate. They did this on the grounds that Vettel was ahead on points in the championship, and therefore more likely to win the championship for himself and the team. How stupid that decision by his team manager now looks.

Webber won that race regardless (thanks to Vettel spending energy at the start trying to block Webber instead of concentrating on staying in front from pole position). He's now won 4 races this season to Vettel's two, and now leads the championship.

Another guy who showed incredible restraint and emotional intelligence last week was Felipe Massa, who showed hardly a blip of anger after his team had virtually ordered him to let his team mate Alonso go past him, also on the grounds that Massa had more championship points and was therefore better placed to win the championship.

Schumacher has been given a penalty by the race stewards for his behaviour today - being demoted 10 places on the starting grid in the next race. Let's hope by some miracle he qualifies 1st and not 20th. Someone else has commented that they hope he qualifies 20th and has to start behind the safety car. Let's hope he pisses off again at the end of this season, if not before.
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Layer 247 . . . Deeper Shades of Blue, Musical Genius, the Hammond and Barbara Dennerlein

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It's interesting how one thing leads to another.

Having accidentally found myself sitting in a bar recently next to a keyboard player doing great things with a Hammond XK3, I decided to find out more about the XK3 - and pretty soon ended up on YouTube listening to various people playing blues and jazz on both the XK3 and the Hammond B3 - the Big Daddy of keyboards.

It was a short jump from there to finding a female player of The Beast called Barbara Dennerlein -

http://www.barbaradennerlein.com/en/reviews/index.php

As these reviews make clear she's a phenomemon - able to play a bassline on pedals with her left foot (and sometimes both feet) better than most people can play bass with two hands and full concentration, whilst simultaneously playing rhythm and melody on the Hammond's main keyboards.

See examples of this here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqyDSoWSKF4&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqSBKZzCrM0&NR=1


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvIv8oTy47o&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPqYZNqg15g&NR=1

If you look her up on Spotify I recommend starting with Farewell To Old Friends (from her album Spiritual Movement No. 2), Top Secret (from Hot Stuff), and Jimmy's Walk and A Summer Day (both from Love Letters).

Those blue notes on a Leslie-amplified Hammond just do the most amazing things.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Dennerlein

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Layer 239 . . . Political Porn, Souls Laid Bare, and All That Jazz

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This weekend has been a high water mark for desperate over-stressed middle-aged male politicians flashing their naked emotions in front of TV cameras.

It was hard to tear one's eyes away from a gasping Alastair Campbell welling up with barely suppressed emotions to the point of choked silence for what seems like almost a minute in the company of Andrew Marr and viewers on live TV this morning.*

To make it more like a proper porn show we should have had viewers phoning in their own questions in an attempt to get Ally C to expose even more of his private "bits". If he has problems with the mild questions and comments of a pretty non-threatening Marrtian then imagine how much more we would get from him coming into contact (even virtual contact) with proper panting punters who long to see what's really concealed beneath the sharp suit and the professional scowl.

Marr's questioning, of course, was not about Ally's new 'novel', the promotion of which was the reason for allowing Marr this opportunity to undress him a little. No - it was about Iraq, Ally's appearance in front of Chilcott and Co, and Blair's continuing denial that he deliberately lied to and misled Parliament.

We should nail this question right now. Ally sees, quite rightly, that Blair is not a LIAR. To be a liar you have to know that what you're saying is untrue.

What psychopathic liars do is convince themselves that the stuff that comes out of their mouths is true, or at least not factually incorrect, as far as they care to see. Not that they care to delve too deeply into what they actually want to believe, and what they want their listeners or victims to believe.

An example of this would be Hitler actually believing that the Jews were responsible for all of Germany's ills. And also believing that the Final Solution was the correct one. ("I did what I thought was right.")

(Incidentally, I wonder what level of collateral damage Blair would have considered acceptable in Iraq. 100,000 killed, injured and made homeless? One million? 2 million? 6 million?)

Did Ally also believe in WMD and the 45 minutes? Does he still? This is hardly the point. He simply believes that his pal Tony believed it. And Tony was not, therefore, a liar.

Does Ally then see, especially with hindsight, that Tone is/was a psychopath?**

Again, it's beside the point. Nobody's asking him that question, and no-one's likely to. And there's no way he'd answer it honestly if they did.

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I once had the ill-fortune to sit and listen to Blair whilst he made a speech. It's the dead eyes that give it away. Dead in the sense of not being able to connect in any proper empathetic sense with other people. Dead as in unable to really look and observe properly. His eyes function only in the service of his own ego and his own ambitions.

It's a bit like the Terminator - a robot who knows he's a robot, whose relentless existence is only for the purpose of carrying out its mission, which is twofold: to survive and prosper, and to defeat its enemies.

There's nothing wrong with its logic circuits - they're probably better, faster and stronger than any actual human - by far. What it lacks, of course, is a beating, emotional heart, a genuine concern for others, and a spirit capable of feeling either transcendental joy and bliss, or genuine sadness and melancholy.

Joy is presumably what Ally feels when Burnley FC occasionally win a match. (Why else carry on going to their matches?) And as of today, let no-one say that he has no feelings or emotions; or call him Mr Angry or Mr Terminator. The more subtle and sincere feelings may be unusually well hidden, on the whole, but they're in there somewhere.

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As indeed they are in Gordon Brown, who appears to have broken down and cried on camera whilst recording a programme this week.

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*
See the relevant part of the interview on video, and read more about it, and about Gordo, here -

Alastair Campbell in emotional defence of Blair on Iraq

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8502730.stm

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**
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopath

Psychopathy is a personality disorder whose hallmark is a lack of empathy. Researcher Robert Hare, whose Hare Psychopathy Checklist is widely used, describes psychopaths as "intraspecies predators who use charisma, manipulation, intimidation, sexual intercourse and violence to control others and to satisfy their own needs. Lacking in conscience and empathy, they take what they want and do as they please, violating social norms and expectations without guilt or remorse".

Psychopaths are glib and superficially charming, and many psychopaths are excellent mimics of normal human emotion; some psychopaths can blend in, undetected, in a variety of surroundings, including corporate environments. There is neither a cure nor any effective treatment for psychopathy; there are no medications or other techniques which can instill empathy, and psychopaths who undergo traditional talk therapy only become more adept at manipulating others. The consensus among researchers is that psychopathy stems from a specific neurological disorder which is biological in origin and present from birth. It is estimated that one percent of the general population are psychopaths.

The prototypical psychopath has deficits or deviances in several areas: interpersonal relationships, emotion, and self-control. Psychopaths gain satisfaction through antisocial behavior, and do not experience shame, guilt, or remorse for their actions.

[Remember Tone was given the opportunity by Chilcott to express some regrets - and totally flunked it. Whoops!]

Psychopaths lack a sense of guilt or remorse for any harm they may have caused others, instead rationalizing the behavior, blaming someone else, or denying it outright.

Psychopaths also lack empathy towards others in general, resulting in tactlessness, insensitivity, and contemptuousness. All of this belies their tendency to make a good, likable first impression. Psychopaths have a superficial charm about them, enabled by a willingness to say anything without concern for accuracy or truth. Shallow affect also describes the psychopath's tendency for genuine emotion to be short lived and egocentric with an overall cold demeanor. They do not . . .  deeply recognize the risk of being caught, disbelieved or injured as a result of their behaviour.

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Also important to have on record Clare Short's efforts to put the record straight last week

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8501087.stm

Clare was on Question Time last week, alongside George Galloway, Charlie ('Lord') Falconer, Melanie Phillips, and the makeweight, Teresa May.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/question_time/8500549.stm

This Question Time, from Coventry, was one of the best ever. Short and Galloway, especially now they're unconstrained by party allegiances, are genuine loose cannons, not afraid to speak truth to power. See it here -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00qn443#segments

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The Virtual Revolution

Another episode of this excellent series on TV last night.

How 20 Years of the Web has Reshaped our Lives

Good talking heads - Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Al Gore, Stephen Fry, etc.

Discover more about The Virtual Revolution with our exclusive 3D Documentary Explorer. Mixing video from the series, with the web pages that tell the story of The Virtual Revolution, this is a radical new way to experience a documentary.

See all 4 programmes coming up in the next 7 days (including repeats).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/virtualrevolution/

http://alekskrotoski.com/

Al Gore said, "The web is capable of supporting a rising political consciousness. It will have a more profound effect on civilisation than the invention of the printing press."

Others said,

* The web tends to lead naturally to openness
* It's impossible for any one government to either police or control the web
* The web allows China's masses to give shape and direction to their spontaneous energy
* The web is "Against the Machine"
* Paypal is one of the means by which barriers between people can be broken down
*The web enables you to contact the kind of people you have something in common with, and people you can learn from.

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Biddles @ Biddles

One of the essentials for a really good live music venue is that it's situated within easy walking distance of home so that you can stroll there after consuming a couple of whiskies, a pint, and a glass of wine with dinner, and still roll home afterwards after drinking more wine, preferably after paying no more than a reasonable £3.20 for a decent glass of house red.

On top of that, if you can get a seat right next to the band, with a clear view of how the keyboard player is playing his Hammond XK3 - which drawbars he's using, etc - then you might find yourself in jazz heaven.

Of course it depends on the quality of the band. The Biddle Brothers Band playing at the bar of the same name were excellent last night. Not perfect, but very good indeed. Well done Biddles for bringing them back, and for continuing to run such a funky venue, late license and all . . .

http://www.hackneycitizen.co.uk/2008/11/29/claptons-community-pubs/

Biddle Brothers
88 Lower Clapton Road E5 0QR

Nestled in a crevice of Lower Clapton Road, the Biddle Brothers pub belies its almost Zen-like external anonymity by its gloriously rich interior, seducing the weary traveller with a warm promise of cold drinks and deep, comfy couches.

Surrounded by paintings from local artists, Biddle Bothers isn’t cheap but it is a beautifully kept and friendly local bar with a thriving community of loyal regulars.

Owned and run by Paco the Dog, the one-time builders’ merchant features a full programme of regular live acoustic and open mic nights, making good use of the obligatory piano-in-the-corner and its pretty good aural acoustics in the tiny hub of a back room.

Think nothing of sitting down, putting your feet up, play with Paco and passing an enjoyable evening forgetting about your worries.

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In a way it reminds me of nights at the Mercer's Arms back in the day, sipping pints whilst listening to great bands like the original Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac, up close and personal. That was also the beginning of my love for blues and jazz played on the Hammond B3 with a Lesley cabinet amp - standing just feet away from guys like Wynder K Frog as they worked the keyboard, creating amazing soul-gripping sounds from keys and drawbars. Keith Emerson - when he was still with The Nice. 'America'!

Oh yes! - and Brian Auger (with Julia Driscoll) - Season of the Witch. Unforgettable.

Here's an interesting little musical history -

http://deanocity3.piczo.com/coventrysgigconcertguide1960-85?cr=5&linkvar=000044


There's only one mention of the Mercer's Arms though. Strange.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillfields

Rod Stewart used to sing with Brian Auger's 'Steampacket', along with Julie Driscoll and Long John Baldry: they once played the Hotel Leofric jazz club in Broadgate.

"The Jeff Beck Group snapped him up as lead singer for three years until 1969. Some Coventrians still debate whether Stewart performed with the band when they played the Mercer's Arms, near the old Highfield Road stadium, during this period."

I can clear this up. The confusion stems from the fact that the Beck group didn't actually play there. Auger & Driscoll did, and Rod the Mod definitely wasn't with them.

http://findarticles.com/p/news-articles/coventry-evening-telegraph-england/mi_7969/is_2006_Nov_7/cov-rod-40-years-entertainment/ai_n34409181/
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Jazz

Johnny Dankworth RIP

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/feb/07/sir-john-dankworth-obituary

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dankworth

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/tv-radio-obituaries/7180882/Sir-John-Dankworth.html

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Desert Island Discs

Gok Wan this week. The wonderful Gok. I hadn't realised what an amazing life story he has, and that he's a lad from the Midlands.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00qg0r2/Desert_Island_Discs_Gok_Wan/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gok_Wan

He has good taste in music too - Tracey Chapman, Lou Reed, Brian Ferry . . . In fact two songs by the wonderful Ms Chapman.

"It definitely wasn't because I was talented", said Gok, very amusingly, when pondering why he'd been given a place at a school of speech and drama.

And he was another male who this weekend cracked up with emotion - whilst remembering and reflecting on what it felt like to look fat, and to feel ugly.
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Layer 201 Part 2 . . . Down Home Blues and Ofsted

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Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 2

My Record of the Week – on Spotify – Down Home Blues by Gene Harris (piano) and Jack McDuff (Hammond B3). Fabulous vocals by various guests. “Hip-shakin', corn bread breaking, down home blues . . .”

Five star reviews on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Down-Blues-Harris-Brother-McDuff/dp/B0000006RH

“This album helps you understand the difference between mere 'playing blues' and 'playing the blues'. Gene Harris and Jack Mc Duff (and the other the musicians on the album) play the blues with a great jazzy feel and with a clear love for this great music. Also, the album gives you one of the finest examples of Hammond B-3 playing that I know. In McDuff's playing you really hear the machine working and blowing, especially in the slow and delicate 'You don't know what love is'.
This album is an abslolute 'must have' if you love the blues. I have bought it for myself and I am now buying it for my father!”

“I love this album. It features the raunchy jazz organ sounds of Jack McDuff, along with the boogie woogie piano sound of Gene Harris. There also are a few guest singers who are great. There is a super jazzy swingin' vocal arrangement of "Stormy Monday" that just blew me away. I started tapping my feet & clapping my hands & singin' along. Harris & McDuff battle back and forth on their instruments creating a really unique & unusual sound. I have several other organ/piano combo CD's but I'd say, this is the best & my most favorite!”

“Captain Jack and Gene compliment each other in a momentous tribute to keyboard blues. This album will remain a pinnacle in the careers of each preeminent blues player.”

And it's thanks to the randomness of Spotify that I came across this good stuff. It's a very rare collaboration of virtuosos of the piano and the Hammond playing jazz/blues on the same album. Excellent guitar too.

Spotify search - "down home blues gene harris + jack mcduff"

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 Ofsted

An interesting letter in yesterday's Guardian, which seems to indicate the Graun may be carrying out a scrutiny of Ofsted and how it operates -

As an ex-headteacher who deserted the profession when it became evident that Ofsted was the untouchable body by which the government ensured its will would prevail in schools, I hope that your paper pursues its investigation into the manner in which Ofsted operates.

During my first Ofsted review, I chanced to be reading a novel by Alan Furst, from which I took a quote to show the inspection team. It concerned the Gestapo:

"They will believe only what can be proved, but themselves are able to prove whatever they choose to believe."

Yes, I know it was stupidly provocative, but it was fun.

Kevan France

Maryport, Cumbria

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/oct/12/gove-speech-schools-reform
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Layer 25 Cool

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Humphrey Richard Adeane Lyttelton, jazz musician, writer and broadcaster, born May 23 1921; died April 25 2008

Humphrey Lyttelton died last week. He was 86 years old and one of the coolest men on the planet. He was self-actualisation and Zen personified.

He loved art, music and laughter. He lived a life of continuous creativity on his own terms, and brought joy and laughter into the lives of anyone who knew him and anyone who watched him or listened to him perform.

“Politically, he was firmly, if surprisingly, on the left. Before joining the Grenadier Guards in 1941, he was sent to work in a south Wales steel mill to find out if he had the makings of a "captain of industry", but the experience turned him into a lifelong socialist.” (George Melly)

He taught himself to play a trumpet that he’d bought in the Charing Cross Road in 1936. After serving in WW2, with both rifle and trumpet, he went to art college. He became a musician and also a writer, broadcaster, cartoonist, composer, after-dinner speaker and critic.

“While music-making can be about bravura and bold proclamation, it is also about sharing, listening and waiting - and sympathetically responding. There is no conductor, often no score, so the latter qualities have to be even more finely tuned. These are not just pre-requisites for the making of good music, they are qualities for the making of a good life. An abundance of them is what made Humphrey Lyttelton special - and so widely loved, too.” (John Fordham, The Guardian)

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This last paragraph pretty much sums up what self-actualisation and Zen are all about. This paragraph describes a man who had fully developed spiritual, social and emotional intelligence. As well as having talent and intellect, and as well as being highly creative in several fields, Humph knew how to share, how to listen to others, and when and how to sympathetically respond. He was indeed widely loved.

He was a band leader, but he was a ‘servant-leader’. He was the epitome of Taoist ideals. The great books of Taoism, the Tao Te Ching and the I Ching, describe how leaders should fulfill their responsibilities, and Humph, being an enlightened leader, intuitively and instinctually seemed to ‘lead without leading’, as the books say. Although he never shirked ‘bravura and bold proclamation’ when those qualities were called for. He set out to work with the best people and to encourage them to give the best of themselves, and to become even better.

Jazz has always been about jamming. It’s about communication, interaction, improvisation, self-expression, group collaboration, getting the best out of yourself and out of other people who share your passion and your enthusiasm. It’s about putting yourself at the service of a group that’s trying to create something of quality, something meaningful and joyful, something worth sharing with a wider audience. It’s about playing and having fun. It’s about experimenting and trusting those around you to be original and experimental and creative, and getting further inspired by their creativity. It's about honest and direct musical expression of feelings ranging from joy to sadness, which is the blues, and jazz.

Having read a couple of obituaries I’ve picked up a list of words that describe Humph. They add up to a man who was totally cool. Everyone aspires to be cool, but most people know they will never be cool. Humph really was totally cool. He was cool when he was young, and he was still cool at the age of 86.

He was downbeat, understated, straightfaced, ironic, courteous, modest and moderate. But he had natural authority and could be intransigent and determined. He was broad-minded, charismatic, vibrant, funny, entertaining, enthusiastic and influential. “Fun was something he took very seriously”, wrote Jeremy Hardy, who also said Humph could show an austere demeanor, and that he had “disdainful and impassive lips that soon wrinkled into a lovely smile”. Hardy concludes that Humph was naturally and instinctively erudite and elegant, and that all in all “he was a beautiful man”. Blow that out your trumpet. That’s cool, man.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/apr/28/radio.bbc
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/apr/30/bbc.radio1?gusrc=rss&feed=media
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphrey_Lyttelton (also contains other Humph links)
http://www.lastingtribute.co.uk/tribute/lyttelton/2805210
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article3827144.ece

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Apparently Humph wrote 8 books, one of which I picked up a while ago in the £2 bookshop in Greenwich - “It Just Occurred To Me . . . The Reminiscences and Thoughts of Chairman Humph.(2006)” It’s been sitting near the top of my pile of books waiting to be read.

The front cover quotes Pete Townshend, who, whatever you may think about him, isn’t exactly given to mindless enthusiasm or over-generous praise: “Humph is cool. Humph is now!”

To give you a flavour of the book here’s a quote from Humph’s introduction.

“It just occurred to me that writing this book has been very similar to blowing an extended solo on the trumpet - following thoughts wherever they’ve led, through a jungle of ideas and memories, quotations and clichés, high notes, blue notes and, no doubt, a few wrong notes, for which I apologise in advance. On second thoughts, no, I don’t. You’ll get precious few right notes if you worry about hitting wrong notes.”
A bit like a blog really. Improvise, and be damned. Get blogging! Express yourself!

Gonna miss you Humph.

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Talking About Death, Talking About Life.

Friends are always shocked when I talk about death. “Well I am nearly 60, and I’ve had a very stressful life in some ways . . . ” I think it’s a big mistake not to consider the possibility of heart attacks, cancer, road accidents, whatever, and a mistake to deliberately avoid talking about funerals and wills. You need to sort these things out. It’s only fair.

I want my children to inherit my money, my house, and most of my worldly goods, such as they are. But they won’t want my precious vinyl collection, my CDs even, or most of my books. Or my diaries, notebooks and journals, though my grandchildren eventually might. A lot of my thousands of photos and videos won’t be of any great interest to them, especially the ones concerned with education. (Fortunately it’s easy to run off copies of the digital stuff for those who want them.) They won’t want my guitars, or even my cars. They won’t want my much loved and often played audio tapes. They definitely won’t want my cat, who is determined to outlive me.

Maybe I should just organise an auction for those friends and family who are interested in having any of my stuff, with the proceeds going to my children and grandchildren, or to charity. Anything not attracting bids could be just given away or thrown away. Which could well be most of it. Especially the cat. Then again, maybe auctions just favour the wealthiest, which wouldn’t be very fair.

I need to say loudly and clearly that I don’t want a funeral that’s in any way whatsoever concerned with God or Christianity. Got nothing against either of them. Just don’t want to have anything to do with them. No church, no chapel, no Bible, no priest.

Over the past couple of years I’ve needed to go to a number of funerals, all of them in churches and chapels, and all of them conducted by priests, or women who were very priestly. Every one a preacher. Every one droning out platitudes about life, death and God. Besides finding these things boring and frustrating I found them all quite disrespectful to the deceased and to the gathering.

I don’t blame the individuals - I’m sure they were sincere and were doing their best, as they saw it. But I don’t go to a funeral expecting to hear about and sing about the glory of God. I want to celebrate the life of the person I care about. I want to stay focused on the main business.

Most of the time these priests have never even met or known the surviving members of the family prior to the death, let alone the deceased. No wonder they pad it all out with waffle about God and Jesus and Heaven. They must surely get sick of doing it, the same stuff over and over, just different backdrops and different audiences of mourners for their performances.

I don't envy them. It can’t be easy going round meeting people who have just lost a loved one, asking them to give some information that can be used at the funeral. Meeting people who aren’t necessarily very able to communicate insightful thoughts at the best of times, let alone when they’re full of grief. Though there presumably are some priests somewhere who are gifted at this kind of thing, and gifted at conducting inspirational and meaningful funeral services.

I definitely DO want someone to read out something from Zen and Taoist texts. Something wise and wonderful that might bring some spiritual insights to bear on the situation, something that might be helpful or useful to at least some of those who come to see me off. Something that’s maybe transcendental and joyful and uplifting. Something that’s philosophical and wise, and nothing to do with religion.

Maybe someone should read something that’s funny and likely to make people at least smile. The funnier the better. Much better than crying. I’ve got at least a couple of friends who could MC, tell jokes and stories.

And music. Sweet soul music. Blues and boogie. Rhythm’n’rock. Especially at the party afterwards. Finally I get to play the music I like at a party. Pity I won’t be there to enjoy it. Maybe I’ll organise a pre-funeral party. Have a kind of dress rehearsal to make sure it’s going to go well. Ever the perfectionist.

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The Today programme on Radio 4 today had a feature on death and on American academic Randy Pausch: “Is the taboo about death starting to lift? Listen to Jeff Zaslow who co-authored the book of "The Last Lecture", and to Mike Jarvis, director of the Natural Death Centre.”
Read more about Randy Pausch, and why he decided to do a lecture on life and death when he knew he had only a few weeks to live, on the links below. You can also view his lecture on YouTube. Life, how to live it, and what lessons to take from it (see examples below).
This is another very cool guy. Only 46. Tragic.

"Never lose your childlike wonder. It’s what drives us.
Tell the truth and be earnest
Believe in karma.
Pursue childhood dreams and try to achieve them, but more than anything, live your life well."

http://download.srv.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Pausch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Meb_-wVop8I
http://it.wordpress.com/tag/randy-paush/