Thelonious Monk Off Minor

Ive been swapping over to a new laptop. All mod cons and tons of disk space, so one of the jobs has been to move across all the music ive got elsewhere. As you can guess, theres always a challenge to get rid of duplicate files, so for the last couple of days ive been through the entire library. Found a load of Jazz!
ive switched to media monkey rather than itunes. seems ok at present, though it has one annoying habit of linking to a webpage for the song track if it gets a chance. And thats how i found out aboiut Off Minor by Thelonious Monk. on an album called the Black Box of Jazz..

Its not a show off track. but its a classic line-up. Left me speechless, so for more words...

Heres a page of appreciation from the Daily Guru.

The Daily Guru: February 17: Thelonious Monk & John Coltrane, "Off Minor"

so dredging among the gigabytes im going to find a lot more tracks ive never listened to. looking forward to it... Thanks Black box of Jazz for a splendid potted jazzography

The Age of Adz

The new Sufjan Stevens record - The Age of Adz is out and its consuming me. Its not something to put on in the background and ignore: yet another acquired CD to make up the set and graze on while wandering round the house. And its certainly not your standard americana,

Theres electronic drums, bass and vocoder filling up the space around the songs and far removed from Seven Swans. Theres a much more raw emotion in the songs, such as a i want to be well. SS's heavenly harmonies contrasting against the electronic maze and false reality of synthesized sound.

So listening through the first time, it swallows me up, more and more snatches of songs and refrains, repeating phrases, what am i thinking? what am i thinking? And we get to the last track "Impossible Soul" and glide through 25 minutes of introspection and beseeching, more, more immersed in SS's vision, to its diminuendo end.

I'll play it through again soon, but next came a day of web searches to find live recordings of the songs on You Tube from concerts SS gave last year. Not really disappointing to see the music played to an audience, more understanding of the way the songs are made up and improvised. You get to see what sort of musicians SS is working with, the instruments they are using and how they can cut up the songs afresh. But the record itself, very different. bleak, seems more .. final.

So its a record thats impossible to just upload to ipod and wait to appear on random playlists, its also a record that shouldnt just be treated as another mediafire grab to fill up the Gigabytes. The CD packaging was a bit shocking too, illustrations by Royal Robertson, an artist ive not heard of but compulsive and apparently schizophrenic. No lyric sheets, no cluees to who played on the record. Nothing to clasp to but the CD music itself

So my resolve is - leave it off my itunes, listen to it alone, all the way through, study it and enjoy the ownership of something unique. I recommend it, of course, but not as an introduction to Sufjan Stevens, but perhaps as an example to musicians who think too much about explaining their music and less about reaching inside

Stina Nordenstam

I bought a Stina Nordenstam EP Called Something Nice about 8 years ago on a whim in a second hand CD shop in Epsom. Apart from knowing it would probably be Scandinavian and a bit etherial, and I thought not very well known . Since then, I only played one track, but the CD was so scratched i never got it to hear the rest. Now miraculously, the CD has been i-tuned and i can hear every song without a stutter. Very whispery. and etherial and strange. And now i hear about her again in other places. So i will probably go searching for more of Stina.

Newcastle upon Tyne

More work this week in Newcastle - after visit one i know what to expect. I can plan better for the long train journey. This time i'm planning to stay in a B&B away from the city centre. Curious to think that that 6 weeks ago i had no idea where i would work, and that i cant predict where i'll be going in 6 months time. Impermanence of my way of life needn't be a stress. Someway i can trust to the next change, adapt again.

BBC News - Push for 'Great Green Wall of Africa' to halt Sahara

found this article – considering its about something that would completely tranform the planet its surprising it hasnt had enormous publicity.

Sign of the times, but currently the focus of the world seems to be on the short term economics of BP oil spill rather than long term initiatives 

BBC News - Push for 'Great Green Wall of Africa' to halt Sahara

April

Finished my contract in North London and now at home. seems every day has been clear sky and peace and quiet. plenty of time to reflect and look ahead. Spending some time each day in the garden, chopping and clipping, removing weeds. I'm reading more everymorning , usually till about 7.30am. Seems the pace of life can be much slower and less rushed. Less opinions, less food, less load. less driving, less travelling,
Went up to London yesterday, prospecting. Not really satisfying, although RB suggests i work on a book. I can feel the pressure to involve and start things. But for now, i'm declining the opportunity to be in the race. lets leave it behind for a few more days..

The American West - Dee Brown

Another 3 week book just nearing the end - The American West by Dee Brown
As well as filling my head with facts and stories of Texas, Kansas, Wyoming and Montana it
has a fantastic bibliography - titles referenced include
Triggernometry
Davy Crockett - American Comic Legend
Helldorado
Hot Irons - Heraldry of the Range
Marquis de Mores at War in the Bad Lands
The works of Sitting Bull
Lead and Likker
Let 'er Buck - a story of the passing of the old west
Last of the Bad men - Tom Horn
The Ghost-Dance religion
A Lone star bo peep and other tales of texan ranch life
And of course a number of biographiies including Billy the Kid by Pat Garrett and the book on Wyatt Earp by Stuart Lake. Then the autobiographies such as Them was the days by Owen P White and
Gun Smoke by Sarah Grace Bakarich - published in Tombstone in 1947

wouldnt it be great browse them all.

particularly poignant were the chapters on the Sioux and Cheyenne wars. The book is full of detailed maps of the battles leading up to little big horn, the river crossings and movement of the tribes as the buffalo were slaughtered. Two weeks ago it was the tribal leaders - Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Crazy in the Lodge, Red Cloud, Swift Bear, Spotted Tail. Dull Knife, Captain Jack of the Modocs and the great Joseph of the Nez Perces. LAst week it was the Goodnight-Loving ranchers in Texas, setting up the giant cattle empires and spreading northwards. culminating in the Billy the Kid Legend in 1881. Today i read about the Blizzard Winter in Montana at the end of 1886. Montana Ranchers had already evolved into Stuart's Stranglers, a vigilante group set up in 1884. Then after the devastation of the herds in the winter the feuding between Cattle ranchers and rustling homesteaders that culminated in the Johnson County War

So only about 40 pages to go including the life of Geronimo. - who died only in 1909. Wyatt Earp survived him until 1929. So much evocative history sprawling across the landscape of the States from 1850 to 1900.
Hope others can follow and try this ramble across the wild west with me