Mar 1, 2015 |
Years ago, I was the host of a weekly Sunday jazz show on radio. For six years in New Zealand, then for another couple in the UK, I picked jazz tunes (or thereabouts) and played them to people over the wireless. Always loved doing that. Later on, I had a regular DJ slot at my local pub – again on Sundays – playing the same kind of music. I recorded those mixes and shared them on Mixcloud. And when Spotify came along, I started making and sharing compilations that way too.
Of course, making personal mixtapes for people is one of life’s great pleasures. Receiving them even more so. Choosing music, putting it in a sequence and sharing it with someone is far and away one of my favourite things to do.
But for one reason or another, for the past couple of years, I’ve had real trouble making playlists. It’s like I fell off the mixtape horse and was too shaken to get back on. I haven’t trusted my choices. I’ve made partial playlists and then deleted them. I just kept choosing the wrong songs – or songs that weren’t really what I meant – and as a result, I sort of lost the urge to compile – even for my own listening. So I took a long sabbatical from making playlists.
On the upside, what this means is that I’ve spent the last couple of years listening to a lot of whole albums, and more recently, to other people’s public playlists on Spotify. I figure it’s like that thing where writers need to stop every now and then and just read an awful lot.
Just lately though, I’ve started wanting to put songs in an order and send them out into the world again. Not sure why the urge returned or where it had been – but it’s back. There are lots of different types of mixtapes I could make (and lots of different things to express that way) – but I’m going to play it a bit safe and just start out doing things I know I can do.
So… Sunday Jazz it is. Two hour Spotify playlists for your laid-back Sunday listening enjoyment, if that’s your sort of thing. Back again – starting here next weekend.
Nov 25, 2013 |
I spoke at the London Jazz Festival today. There was a series of panel discussions that took place under the banner ‘Thinking With Jazz’ and I was on the ‘Jazz Industry – Looking Forward’ panel.
We talked about a great many things – but there was a moment at which one of my fellow panelists happened to say “well of course, jazz is all about the live experience” – or words to that effect – and everybody nodded sagely as if this was something that everybody just knows. That it was entirely uncontroversial. A self-evident fact.
I entirely disagree. I like records more than I like concerts, and I said so.
It’s one of those things that takes people by surprise when you say it. In fact, sometimes they’re shocked. This was one of those occasions. I’ve been called a “bad music fan” (and worse) because of this preference. But I just don’t think that live music is more ‘real’ or ‘authentic’ than recorded music. It’s a presupposition – a prejudice even – and it goes unchallenged for the most part. So I challenge it.
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Sep 23, 2013 |
I spent my birthday in Trondheim this year. I managed a little record shopping in Copenhagen on the way there too, which was a lovely bonus. In exchange for a little work preparing a keynote presentation for the Europe Jazz Network’s General Assembly at a rather nice hotel, I managed to have a lovely birthday in one of my favourite places on the planet.
As someone who travels a lot, it’s nice to be able to say that there are some places that feel like home to me. Scandinavia is certainly one of those places. I love Norway. I spend a great deal of time in Denmark whenever I can. In fact, I’ve been called an ‘honorary Dane’ on occasion.
Scandinavia just strikes me as incredibly civilised. The food. The cycling. The attitudes. The service. The fact that everything just works. And sure, prices are incredibly expensive there – but I suspect that’s only because I get a salary in a completely different economy.
Mostly I love the music. In many ways, for me, Norway and Denmark in particular have some of the most wonderful music in the world.
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Jun 2, 2013 |
I’ve been in London the past few days, attending a conference to mark the end of the first round of HERA-funded research projects. HERA stands for Humanities in the European Research Area, and it’s a collaborative partnership between a large group of national funding agencies.
Rhythm Changes is a one of the HERA-funded projects. It’s about European jazz and national identity. I’ve been involved with it for the past three years, and it’s coming to a conclusion. It’s a shame, really, because it’s been really interesting, I’ve had the chance to work with some brilliant people that I’ve become good friends with and it’s involved travel, interesting experiments with the internet, and of course, jazz.
The conference started with a series of presentations at the British Library, followed by a drinks reception. There were meetings and seminars, I gave a talk at Kings College London about Knowledge Exchange and Digital Humanities and there were also performances, concerts, demonstrations and earnest (and often fascinating) conversations of all kinds.
Of course, the time wasn’t all spent inside listening to people talk about ancient manuscripts, avant garde music, bronze age creativity, digital literature and research funding policy (though that did happen rather a lot).
Petter and I snuck off to go record shopping and we struck gold in a couple of places. I bought four LPs (‘Dusty in Memphis’, a Bar-Kays album, Nina Simone’s ‘Wild is the Wind’ and the ‘Gerry Mulligan meets Stan Getz’ record) – and Petter ended up with substantially more. He even took a few of my recommendations. We also had what we decided was the best falafel of our lives (Falafel King on Portobello Rd).
This being London, there was a fair bit of walking around to be done. I was reluctant to go everywhere on the tube this time around, and the weather mostly behaved itself. I have an app on my phone that tells me how far I’ve gone, how many steps I’ve taken and so on. I walked 40 miles over the past four days. Yesterday, I did 15.
As a result, I’m kind of worn out – but it was definitely worth it.
I had a decent camera with me, and took some photos while I was there.
Mostly portraits for practice, actually (I’ve started doing a photography course recently, and I had some homework to do) – but also some snaps from a walk around parts of London I hadn’t been to before with Kati from Estonia, and Jelena from Croatia, both of whom work as part of the HERA funding body.
I also got to see some incredible concerts (Soweto Kinch and Mari Boine), had a really great time with a couple of my London friends, and also made one or two new friends from distant lands while I was there. That was a highlight, actually.
The sun even came out.
All in all, a really nice way to spend a few days. Way more ‘stuff I really like’ than ‘stuff that makes me want to poke my eyeballs out’. A very good ratio, actually, as conferences go.
Beats the hell out of working for a living…
May 4, 2013 |
I’m in Cheltenham this weekend for the Jazz Festival.
It’s not just music going on here… I’ve been moderating a couple of discussions that have been pretty well attended too, even with a £5 entry fee on the door. Some great speakers and some really helpful advice for people wanting to get started in the music industries (where have I heard that before?).
The first one was about careers in event production, featuring a woman from Glastonbury Festival, a seasoned tour manager and a roadie and tech for Steve Winwood.
The second was about running your own record label, featuring Dave Stapleton from Edition Records and Dave Douglas, who runs Greenleaf Music.
Both were really good talks – and it was great to spend time with the two Daves (both of whom I knew before) – and then a concert this evening by the Edition Quartet – featuring Dave Stapleton on piano, Neil Yates on trumpet, Marius Neset on sax and Daniel Herskedal on tuba.
All individually Edition Records artists, working together in a quartet. Just captivatingly beautiful music.
I was hanging out with Dave after the gig, and one of the audience members approached to tell him it was one of his three best gigs of all time. It really was that special.
I hadn’t really encountered Neil Yates’s playing, but I absolutely loved what he did – and what Daniel Herskedal did with a tuba was amazing. Overtones and chords, looping and – I guess you’d call it beatboxing… through a TUBA.
Goes without saying that Marius was amazing – and that Dave brought it all together beautifully. That’s what they do. Melodic and meditative, unhurried (the first piece was half an hour long) and breathtakingly lovely. You should really check out what Edition does – even if it’s not usually your sort of thing. Here’s a sampler.
It was lovely to finally meet Fiona Talkington from BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction too. She was instrumental in putting these musicians together as part of her Norwegian/UK ‘Conexions’ project – and she’s chairing the panel on Music Marketing that I’m speaking on tomorrow.
I could have popped back and forth from Birmingham – Cheltenham’s only an hour down the road. But it was worth staying over for this. Really glad I did.
