Five Peace Band Live

by John McLaughlin & Chick Corea

Two of the jazz fusion pioneers, Chick Corea and John McLaughlin, in one band, captured live, and a psychedelic cover. Need I say more?

Perhaps I do. The musicians are of the highest calibre: Kenny Garrett on sax, Christian McBride on bass, and Vinnie Colaiuta on drums, plus a guest appearence of Herbie Hancock (In A Silent Way / It’s About That Time). It’s all highly enjoyable stuff, but I liked McLaughlin’s compositions, Raju, New Blues, Old Bruise and Señor C.S., the most. At times, they sound like The Mahavishnu Orchestra of thirtysomething years ago, but more wise and relaxed. Closing the double-CD set is a gentle surprise, Someday My Prince Will Come, the duo of electric guitar and acoustic piano.

I decline to attempt to describe this music or give it a name. But I will say that it’s a music that is made by five musicians who don’t care about what it’s called or where it comes from or what its “influences” are. Chick Corea

Beryl Cook: The Bumper Edition

by Beryl Cook

Have a look inside: this is an undispensable book. Beryl Cook was a genius and this Bumper Edition has 300+ of her best paintings. Better still, each painting is accompanied by a humorous text of just right length. A lesson of style for all ye fellow bloggers.

A friend told us to hurry along to this pub one night as the barmaids would shortly be dancing on the bar. What a treat. I’d never seen this before (and never have since), so I did some little drawings. Clearing the tables were handsome boys dressed only in skimpiest of shorts. Sadly, the next time we went there both the dancing barmaids and the boys had disappeared.

La Semilla Escondida

by Sergent Garcia

The first album of Sergent Garcia I ever got, and (imprinting and stuff) it remains my favourite. Not a single weak song here.

si hemos de morir yo quiero que sea esta noche en tus brazos yo no me asustaré si hemos de morir yo quiero que sea esta noche abrazamé contigo yo me quemaré, contigo yo no moriré porque contigo yo renaceré

Il y a longtemps que je t’aime

a film by Philippe Claudel

Yes, another French movie. It is very minimalistic. It develops slowly; there are no special effects, no flashbacks, no dramatic music. No sentimentality. ‘Only’ brilliant acting — of course, by Kristin Scott Thomas, but brilliant acting throughout. Lise Ségur is wonderful as P’tit Lys. A lot of sadness, but also quite a few humourous scenes. I would drop the end-credits song though.

The Big Weekend

Yesterday, we (now that I played three gigs with Arco Iris, I can start saying “we”) were playing at the St. Ives Carnival. It was a success, in spite of drizzle and rather chaotic organisation of the event. The Carnival Procession started about midday. The 15-strong band (yes, only 15, but strong all the same) paraded in between two carnival floats. In the beginning, we were told by one of the marshalls to “close that gap” which I thought was not very considerate: we could walk and play only that fast. Oh well, it was only 1.7 miles anyway. The procession ended in Warner’s Park, where the prizes to the best floats were announced — to our surprise, we got the second place! Later in the afternoon, we had a 30-minute arena slot (in the draft timetable, we were described as “High Brow Brazilian Band”.) By that time, the band has shrunk to 11 hardcore players, but I think we did well, for such a small line-up.


Today was different. It was about 35 of us at the Main Stage on Parker’s Piece The Big Weekend thing. Sitting in front of the stage, Yuri and Timur looked thoroughly bored. So would be I, if I had to watch more or less the same show three times in a row. But this afternoon, while going to the playground, they had a discussion between themselves. Apparently, they appreciated our show(wo)manship after all, especially the bit when “they were waving the sticks above their heads”. (It was quieter a bit, for sure.) In any case, they had no choice but listen to us, so they could as well enjoy it.

Night Lights

by Gerry Mulligan

In mid-’80s, a friend of mine brought me a vinyl record of Gerry Mulligan from (then) East Germany. It remains my favourite album of Mulligan, and probably my favourite cool jazz record of all time. It has a beautiful interpretation of Chopin’s Prelude in E Minor; one of the best versions of Manhã de Carnaval ever; and Mulligan’s own masterpiece, Festive Minor.

I do not know what happened to that vinyl — most likely, it is still in Moscow. I had it on tape for a number of years until, couple of years ago, I bought the Japanese “vinyl replica” paper sleeve CD.

Bahamut

by Hazmat Modine

I first learned about the band called Hazmat Modine about three years ago from this review (complete with two songs!) in Rock Paper Scissors. So I got the album and introduced a few of my friends to it. It starts with blues and proceeds through variety of sounds and genres, and forms an unlikely harmonious whole. This live version of Bahamut was shown on Russian television. (Funnily, until I saw it, I pictured myself the singer as a big African-American guy, a bit like Howlin’ Wolf.)