London Jazz Festival - Highlights

Naturally7 & Marcus Miller, hip-hop jazz fusion & intricate polyphonic free-jazz...and that's just some of the highlights from the fraction of the London Jazz Festival I managed to make it to in November last year. So that you don't shoot yourselves (or me) I won't review the lot, but here's some of the most fantastic stuff I simply have to share.

Look these people up. Find out when they (or similar artists) are playing live next. Listen to new, innovative music and realise jazz is alive; it didn't die with Davis & Coltrane.

Naturally7
If you haven't heard Naturally7 yet then, firstly - welcome to this blog, and secondly - you'll want to check out this infamous video. Every show starts with the thrilling "every sound you are about to hear is produced by the human voice alone"...but it would be fantastic even if that weren't true.

They're a vocal-play group from New York City, that started off singing in Church together and still show their evangelical roots in their shows; whilst also being complete rock-star showmen. Everything was perfectly choreographed, fantastically tight and still left room for improvisation and humour.

After a medley of Rapper's Delight; Saturday Night; Billy Jean and; Startin' Something there was quite literally a full five minutes' applause which the band couldn't stop (I'm sure we missed a song thanks to that). It wasn't all covers, but the overriding memory I'll take from that gig is hearing The Sound Of Silence in 7 part vocal harmony...amazing.

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Sorry, I went on a bit there, I'll try and trim it for the rest...

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_{Louise Golbey - the nicest person on the UK jazz scene}

Jay Phelps - find this man playing live, go and listen to him. A gorgeous sound from an old and battered trumpet, simply and elegantly composed.

Rebirth of the cool - an East London youth project. 2 DJ's, 2 rappers, 3 singers/choral backers and a jazz quartet from Trinity College playing together. I can't even begin to describe how fantastic this was; but this is a distinct, new sound I've heard fragments of elsewhere that I'm looking forward to hearing more of.

Louise Golbey - a soul/jazz singer with just the right mixture of poppy joyfulness, musical intellect and technical skills to make it in both the jazz and pop worlds, I see great things for this girl. A fantastic voice and superb backing band - all that's wanting is a bit more confidence and maturity before we hear her on Radio 1. Go listen.

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There's more, much more, that I'd love to talk about. Buy me a drink sometime and I will - for now though, I'll leave you with a show where I thought I'd see one of my favourite musicians, and ended up finding a new favourite instead.

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Marcus Miller (feat. Christian Scott)
The gig itself was actually just billed as 'Marcus Miller' (one of my favourite bassists), playing from the Tutu - the last album he wrote for Miles Davis.

"Miles never looked back, never played the old stuff", Marcus told us, "so the only way I thought I could do this tribute is if we got a whole bunch of new young musicians together to play it".

The support act (Gary Husband's Drive - also worth looking up) finished. Marcus walked on stage, and played an impossibly technical - but also beautiful - bass solo. A world-class drummer joined him, and a tenor sax player ran on to play a fantastically passionate and elaborate solo for at least a minute.

Christian Scott swaggered onto the stage.

There really is no other word for it, this was the most laid back entrance I've ever seen a musician make - of any standard and on any stage. The rest of the band looked at him, he waited. And waited. And played two notes. And paused.

The standing ovation was so loud I have no idea what happened on stage for the next minute or so. This is the best trumpet player I have ever heard, including any old recording. He's 24 years old and he's going to be massive - keep your eyes out.

Holiday Planning

Some people book holidays well over a year in advance, and have every little detail of the holiday and every minute of their itinerary accounted for long before they set off. Those guys are no fun. Here's how I do it:

1. Find a destination
Contrary to what bad American movies tell you, turning up to an airport and trying to board the next available flight is not a good idea. Quite apart from the cost and the fact that most of the flights going anywhere nice are full, there's the sheer danger of turning up at an airport full of edgy, armed police with no plausible explanation as to what you're doing.

My particular preference at this point is to find a hotel/hostel/b&b booking site - I like Lateroom - and abuse its search engine. Lateroom, for example, insists you search for a destination, but happily throws back nearly all of its database if you plug 'hotel' into its search engine. Other sites even allow wildcards, so a simple search for '*' gets the lot.

From here, set a comfort/adventure threshold. I find randomly taking 10 places, and forcing myself to pick the best of these 10 and go there, works best for me. You may wish for the thrill of taking whatever's at the top of page 6 regardless, or the cowardly safety of giving yourself an entire three pages to pick from. One important rule here, no more than a few minutes' research on any given place is allowed.

2. Buy a phrasebook. Study it.
You'll thank me for this as we progress down the list..

3. Turn up and make friends
Seriously, you may be tempted to get guidebooks, or to search around the Internet trying to find out where the biggest museums and most tourist-friendly sights are before you leave. This is boring. If you want to know what's exciting in a new place, go and find some local people and ask them. If they don't speak English, good, you can try out your new vocab. If they do speak English, try their language first anyway; if they start responding in English then speak Welsh at them until they believe you don't know any English.

4. Explore
Walk down alleyways. Stop and see what's happening whenever large groups of people are heading in one direction; or standing around waiting; or gathered around some attraction. When on public transport, don't be afraid to get off before your stop, or continue past it, if things look like being interesting. When driving, allow yourself to get lost and see what happens.

5. Act blindly
In a restaurant? Pick something you can't pronounce or translate. See a door with no sign on it? Go through it and find out what's on the other side. A lack of understanding regarding the local culture or language is something to be treasured, there are so many things this will allow you to do that you might otherwise have avoided or been too scared to try.

Enjoy. Let me know about your adventures.
Xx

Go See Some Jazz

As anyone within range of my various streams of communication will know by now, this week is London Jazz Festival - and it's fantastic. Unlike a traditional jazz festival, this is spread out all over the city and instead of catering to any kind of elitist crowd is happy to move between hip-hop, classic vocal tracks, poppy piano and experimentalism; in addition of course to the more standard contemporary jazz which is played at a superb standard by a range of up-and-coming stars and established legends.

Personally, it's the former I've been a lot more excited about seeing - I know Sonny Rollins is great but I've heard so many of his albums, collaborations and live tracks already that I'm not going to get much new out of it. A 12-piece jazz/hip-hop youth collective last night, on the other hand, presented me with an entirely new sound; one that I've never come across before (presuming it even exists) and am really looking forward to hearing develop over the coming decade.

I'll post up some reviews of the more special shows I've seen shortly, but if you're near London (or prepared to travel) then there's fantastic gigs on right up until the evening of Sunday 22^nd November (when I'm hearing Marcus Miller play from Tutu - the album he wrote for/with Miles Davis). Get in touch if you want some recommendations/company.

You don't need to know a lot about jazz to come, it's not that kind of crowd - and I've rarely brought a newbie friend along that hasn't enjoyed some part of the show. Give it a try :)

Free Money

Someone recently turned me on to QuidCo.com - which offers varying levels of cashback on a superb range of online stores. I've seen similar offers before, but most involve selling your soul and/or buying lots of things you don't want. QuidCo is different, gives me lots of money, and isn't paying me in any way to say all of this.

The way it works is quite fantastic. Traditionally, retailers would offer a commission to any advertising agency or publication that sent business their way. The agency would then spend money trying to persuade people to click-through, and pocket the takings.

QuidCo on the other hand simply waits for users to come to it - and then hands over the majority of the commission. For very little work, they get their 10/20% cut, and their members keep coming back time and again for an 80/90% cut. It's really quite simple:

1. Find something you want to buy online.
2. Search QuidCo for somewhere to buy it (often the original site you found).
3. Clear all your cookies. Most stores put a tracking cookie on your computer to see where you came from, if that doesn't say QuidCo you won't get your money.
4. Click through to the store.
5. Buy.
6. Profit.

Here's my latest earnings:


Yep, that really is £100 from o2. All I had to do was re-order the very same 12 month, £20/month SIM only contract that I was just about to renew.

Enjoy.
Xx

Music in the street

I headed out to Spitalfields Markets for Spitalfields Stew recently, a free, al-fresco jazz festival and generally fantastic idea. The sun was shining, the market was packed with people and there was a great crowd sprawled all around the stage. Also I had a picnic, I love picnics.


_{I never got a turnout this good for my jazz gigs...}

The Billy Jenkins Blues Collective were up first and I highly recommend the show if you can see them anywhere - suburban blues with a load of energy, and featuring (slightly unusually) a violinist, fantastic.

Ordesa played second - I've seen these chaps before but they were fantastic. Kenny Wheeler (nearly 80 years old, but you can't tell) on trumpet, playing with just a guitarist and saxophonist. Beautiful, simple music played perfectly.

Finally there was a 5 piece improvisation (two bass, two drums and Jan Kopinski leading on saxophone), which whilst slightly too wild and abstract for half the folks who came out for a day in the sun with some pretty music, was still a bit disappointing for me. I guess I listen to too much Ornette Coleman...


_{I'm behind his left ass-cheek}

After all this, we wandered over to Brick Lane (where all the oh-so-so-so-so trendy kids hang out) and saw Ben Walker singing his fantastic Twitter Song (and a beautiful ditty composed for Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall). Check him out sometime when you can.


_{Seriously, two hats. I'll never be that trendy.}

Good times in London abound! :)
Xx

Thompson Turkey

This is the best recipe in the world:

Thompson's Black Turkey

Not because it produces the nicest food (it may) but simply for how hilarious the ingredient list is, and how detailed the process; which includes full instructions on when and where to drink, during the preparation of this turkey.

"About this time I generally have my first drink of the day"
"About now it seems advisable to switch drinks. Martinis or stingers are recommended.."

..and so on.

This isn't just an excuse to get drunk though. The whole thing tries to put any prospective chef off with its immense list of ingredients - but when I have 15 friends around for dinner and a lot of spare cash, I'll be trying this.

Final note: Like the author of that webpage, I found this recipe originally in The Time Traveler's Wife. Great book, but I think the film could really be awful.

Making XKCD Slightly Worse

For some time, one of my favourite collections of comic strips has been Garfield minus Garfield - a brutally harsh and beautifully depressing cacophony of loneliness and angst.



In a similar vein, from the XKCD fora, comes the joyous Making XKCD Slightly Worse. I can't do any better than their introduction:

"It's time to find that little piece of magic that makes xkcd so special, and kill it."

Here's two I've lazily plucked from the first page of that thread (there's 99 pages, and many, many gems - click around for an hour or so then put it on your bookmarks for later):





And, here's my first effort, amalgamated from comics 208, 419 and 620:


_{Clicky to enlarge}

Robot Dinosaurs..

..that shoot lasers when they roar.

Seriously, it doesn't get much better than this.

Play to the end, there's only one level and the outro is more than worth it.

Graze

Some vegetarians over on Twitter have been chatting away about a trendy new business called Graze (wonder how much that URL cost them) - that delivers a selection of healthy treats to your home/office at a lunchtime of your choosing. One of them was generous enough to post a free-trial promo code.

I've no idea if that code's still valid it's not, but WFF141C is, but it worked for me and today my very own delivery arrived:


<sub>More exciting than my usual post.


Beautifully presented, and some of the stuff keeps for ages..


The seaweed peanut crackers. I'm still unsure as to what these are...gorgeous though.</sub>

All the literature and packaging is charming and eco-friendly, as with every health-food service since Innocent came along (and, many will claim, before those Cool Guys too).

To get started, you simply tell Graze what kind of things you like, and then go on to rate a range of their foods with 'Love', 'Like', 'I'll try it' or 'Never send this' - schedule a delivery and enjoy!

The website's an absolute pleasure to use, there's a lot of fun to be had from the surprise of opening your box and finding what's inside and the food is absolutely gorgeous. I'm still debating whether or not it's quite worth the usual price tag of £2.99 (even with delivery included), and I'm also unsure it's quite enough for a full lunch, especially for a carnivore like me.

Still though, give it a go - I have some other promo codes if the one above doesn't work (and I like you), and let me know what you think.

:)

Baking

I've been unbelievably busy recently - between procrastination and actually doing work I don't appear to have any free time for other things (except shouting at the TV during rugby matches). One thing there's always time for though, is food.

If I'm working away hard and things are going well, then a plaintive shout is enough to get the more female of my housemates to bring me up some oven-warmed goodness. When everything's falling apart though, I turn to baking and fancy cooking to cheer things up.

Here's some fun pics from yesterday's baking (as ever, click for better quality):

Step 1.
Bake cake (we made normal sponge with nutmeg and cinnamon, and chocolate with chocolate and chocolate), cut to heart shapes.




Step 2.
Fill with white&milk chocolate spread, layer.




Step 3.
Fight, or charm your way past the deadly guardian of the garden.




Step 4.
Pick some pretty flowers.




Step 5.
Nom.


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Tonight I think I'll try lamb sitting atop some mashed sweet potato (with tiny pieces of roasted parsnip and roasted leek in it), with a cherry and wine sauce. On the one hand I'm letting down students everywhere (and harming McCain's sales), but on the other...it's going to be so nice.

Xx

Manu Delago - Looking For The Core; Lyrics

It's always nice when other people who like Manu Delago get in touch via my blog (for the record, it's less nice when East European boys wanting to marry me get in touch; sorry guys). A recent visitor's just informed me she plans on covering Looking For The Core from Handmade - that song's going to be really quite difficult for pretty much everyone in the band, so I thought I'd help out by transcribing the lyrics.

Here they are, for anyone who wants them - her voice and accent are really hard to understand (seriously, listen to her pronunciation of 'encyclopedia'. Seriously), but the whole thing makes a lot more sense now when you listen to the track. I personally always thought it was 'small taste of fear' in the refrain..

There's a world,
That'll take our tragedies.
Go downstairs in the dark room(s),
Enter the world of the moon.
He's called Earl, he's pretty old,
His eyes are empty.
Although your eye is red, you can't see more than Earl, 'cause it's too dark.

Now you're looking for the core [close your eyes].

Smell
Smell Taste
Smell Taste and Feel
You have to Smell Taste and Feel Listen
Smell Taste and Feel and
Listen Smell Taste and Feel and
Listen Smell Taste and Feel and
Listen You have to Smell Taste and Feel Listen
Smell Taste and Feel and
Listen Smell Taste and Feel
Smell Taste
Smell

Earl knows lots, he is an en-cy-clo-pe-dia,
But there is something, there is something, he won't ever know;
Green red blue, are only names,
He's never seen them fire on a sky.
How do you like black?
Is anything different?
Try to differ with your heart.

So are you looking for the core?
You're looking for the core.

Smell Taste and Feel, and
Listen Smell Taste and Feel, and
Listen Smell Taste and Feel, and
Listen You have to Smell Taste and Feel Listen
Smell Taste and Feel oooh
Smell Taste and Feel, [ah] Smell Taste and Feel
You have to smell you have to smell
You have to smell and taste and feel and listen
[yes] and feel and listen
[ah] you have to, [ah] you have to smell
[ah] you have to smell and taste and feel and taste and feel and listen
[ah] you have to, [ah] you have to smell, and taste, and smell and taste and feel, and listen
[and] you have to listen
you have to, [ah] you have to, to feel and taste, to feel and taste and smell and listen
feel and taste and, you feel and taste and smell and listen
you have to listen,
you have to listen,
[to listen]

I love this website

Whilst procrastinating, I came across the following:

Osgrow Online

This is an online shop which sells meat. Lots, and lots of meat. Exotic meat. Here's a couple examples from their selection of hampers:

Safari Grill
Contains: 2x 125g Wildebeest Steaks, 2x 125g Kudu Steaks, 2x 125g Eland Steaks, 2x 125g Springbok Steaks and Crocodile Medium Tournedos
£47.75 (Including Delivery)

Summer Safari
Contains: 2x 170g Ostrich Fillet Steaks, 4x Small Crocodile Tournedos, 2x 160g Zebra Steaks (large), 2x 170g Venison Steaks, 2x 125g Kangaroo Fillet Steaks, 2x 160g Camel Steaks.
£55.00 (Including Delivery)

Now I just really need to convince myself it's worth buying some of this stuff. Anyone got any recommendations for fun meats I should definitely get, or avoid?

Xx

Four Hands Boogie-Woogie*

One of my favourite albums in my increasingly oversized collection has always been a little compilation innovatively entitled 'Boogie Woogie Piano'. I would give you a link, but I simply can't find it to buy online at the moment.

Edit: Thanks to 'anonymous' who got in touch via the chat widget on my blog. However, it's not this identically titled compilation which is available second-hand on Amazon. That one looks good though.

This album is a collection of pieces from Jimmy Yancey, Meade 'Lux' Lewis, Albert Ammons and Pete Johnson. If those names don't mean much to you yet, then the next couple of hours of your life should be very enjoyable ones.

Most special though, are the tracks featuring Pete Johnson and Albert Ammons playing simultaneously. I can't think of much which is more demanding than perfectly synced boogie-woogie pianos playing themes and trading improvised solos. So, you can imagine my excitement when I found the following video of two modern pianists, each famed for their sickeningly good technique, doing much the same thing:


_{Jools Holland and Dr. John playing four hands boogie-woogie}

This one's really special, I can't recommend it enough. Also, have you ever seen either of those guys concentrating so hard? None of Jools' usual hand-lifting, flicks of the fingers or looking up at the sky here.

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* or should that be Four Hands' Boogie-Woogie? Go argue about apostrophes here.

Burning CDs

I've recently had to re-enter the dark ages of technology and actually physically burn some media to CD, in various formats (audio CD, mp3 CD, data CD etc). If that's not bad enough - in a couple of weeks' time* I'll have to use a pen and paper to answer questions on a Computer Science exam. Ridiculous I'm sure you'll agree.

Anyhow, in doing so I found that Windows Vista can't actually burn mp3 CDs that any device can actually use. In searching for a free program that could overcome this, I came across Ashampoo Burning Studio.

It's amazingly simple to use, does everything you could possibly want (even burning Blu-Ray) and is also entirely free! If you ever find yourself burning discs for any reason, go get your copy here.

Xx

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* This has always bugged me. Should it be:
"A couple of weeks time",
"A couple of week's time" or
"A couple of weeks' time"?

As you can see, I'm inclined towards the latter (the middle one just looks horrible), but I constantly come across the first choice in fairly respectable media. Answers on a postcard please. With justification.

WinDirStat

Don't you hate it when your hard drives are starting to look full, but you don't really know what's taking up the space and what you should delete? On Unix simply running 'boabab' will lend a hand, but it's not so easy on Windows.

A decent approximation however, is WinDirStat. It'll scan any folder or hard drive - or all the drives on your computer. It'll then give you various graphical and list views of exactly where your space is being taken up, as with the below analysis of my C: drive (where I store Windows, and a few other bits and bobs):


You'll note that most of my space is being taken up by .dll and .sys files - the sys files I need for Windows, but I could feasibly remove some of the .dll clutter by uninstalling some programs. The pictures at the bottom help too - I'm just about to delete that large turquoise square towards the top-right, it's an old video I don't need any more.

The big red blob though, the one taking up 3GB of space? Unfortunately that's something called 'hiberfil.sys' - Windows needs it to hibernate and I can't do anything about that. 'pagefile.sys' would be equally nasty if I hadn't moved that elsewhere. Still though, it's a useful tool, and makes pretty pictures too.

Enjoy.

Campaign/BrandRepublic

Most people think that marketing students are good for nothing - but this isn't quite true. You see, a couple of them keep linking me to fun pages on BrandRepublic (or its magazine, Campaign). These are generally focused on advertising and marketing - and with those being such wide-reaching and trendy industries, there's always something good to see.

There's loads of fun content to choose from, from farces such as Pizza Hut rebranding to Pasta Hut to disturbing news about direct marketing and the usual collection of 'top ten...' (I'm quite a fan of the top ten failed adverts of 2008).

It's in my bookmarks now so - marketing people, I don't need any more links - it's back to trying to discover the alchemy of viral marketing for you.

More Jazz Recommendations

People often come up to me and say "I think I'd like jazz, but I don't really know where to get started or what to listen to - it's not like other music where you can just put on the radio. Can you recommend some stuff?". I'm not fooled, I know they're just desperate to be seen talking to me, to find out if my hair colour really is natural, to stare into my eyes...

..I digress.

1. Ramsey Lewis - Sassy Stew
Ramsey Lewis is a pianist probably most famous for his hit, The In Crowd - a perfect example of what a traditional jazz trio should sound like.

Sassy Stew, on the other hand, is more of a jazz funk track - a bit more Herbie Hancock than Bill Evans. The drums are great, the bassline and changes gorgeous and the alto sax hits notes that are barely even audible to anyone other than children and dogs. What I love best about this though, is that it's a pure jazz funk track, but the pianist's playing a real piano all the way through - rather than the keyboards that dominate the genre.

Well worth a listen.

2. Cal Tjader - Mambo Mindoro
Latin jazz is always popular. We've had club hits from Azymuth, Mas Que Nada has been on a million adverts and covered by some awful pop band. Recently, Bebel Gilberto has been letting down her father and her namesake (both Latin jazz greats) with some chart music.

Mambo Mindoro featuring percussionist Cal Tjader on the vibraphone is a great, and much less well known example of the genre. It's also highly worth a listen if, like me, you cringe at the mere word 'vibraphone' - mostly thanks to how awful it sounds within the music of the Modern Jazz Quartet. Trust me, he does it well.

3. Victor Wooten & Carter Beauford - Zenergy
This is not only a fascinating video - watching top-class musicians at work, but it's also a great track, easy to listen to whilst being extremely technically impressive. If the names Wooten & Beauford aren't enough to get you to listen, then note that Béla Fleck is playing banjo in this track too. Yes banjo. Yes, it works, yes he's that good. Just go listen already:



4. Lianne Carroll - Fever/This City Never Sleeps
It would be remiss of me to only mention past greats, and to just link you to freely available tracks that the artists possibly get pennies a year from. There's a decent jazz scene in any town, and if you're willing to make the effort to travel (central London's the only real UK hotspot) you can hear some unbelievably good performers.

Lianne Carroll is a pianist and vocalist playing around London and the UK, and is amazingly passionate and talented. For a preview of the recommended track, and a chance to buy your own copy, head over to her Amazon album page.

Better yet, go see a gig.

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That's all for now. Enjoy.

I was planning to also recommend you go and see the Tie-Dye Quartet at The Yardbird tonight, 8.30pm, free entry, but that would be a bit tacky, so I won't.
Xx

Dead Set

Dead Set is the best thing ever.

Ever.

Big Brother, but with zombies. Davina McCall as a zombie. ZOMBIES.

Best ever.



Go watch the first episode on demand.

CDs have arrived!

Totally awesome, I have a large box full of CDs with my face and my music all over them.



It's entirely possible I've forgotten who amongst you actually ordered copies (except those that have actually paid), so get in touch. £3 if you want one in person, £4.50 if you want one posted to you. If you want one posted, either grab me online to get my bank details or pay via Paypal.

They look pretty awesome ^^

5 Songs from the Recording are up

Well, I've put 5 tracks from my recording jaunt up online.

You can find them on:

Tie-Dye Quartet's Website
Tie-Dye Quartet's Facebook (add us as a fan)
Tie-Dye Quartet's MySpace (add us as a friend)
Tie-Dye Quartet's Last.FM

Hope you enjoy. You can buy the whole album from me for a whole £3, or buy it online with a bit of an extra fee for postage and PayPal.

Enjoy, tell your friends!

Xx