I’m afraid I have had to change the default for posting comments to the blog. The site has been subject to a sustained spam attack for a few days now. As a result, I have had to stop open comments for each blog post. For at least the next couple of weeks, comments can only be made if you register. Sorry about this. I’ll try to change it back again once things quieten down. Any useful comments for dealing with this can be sent to me using the contacts tab at the top of the page. Thanks for your patience.
Archive for November, 2009
Comments and Registering
Nov 23
November Suite
Nov 12
I’m in the middle of an exercise to write a poem a day for November – the resulting collection, once edited, will be called ‘November Suite’. I am using various exercises to generate material. For example, I take the last line of the previous poem and google that phrase. Then I follow the links and harvest phrases and words from the pages that I find, using the material which this produces to steer the sense of the poem.
The following poem was created using a phrase which I stumbled across – this became the title of the poem and was then put through google. This is an early draft, but I like the direction it follows:
The Voice of Wittgenstein
“After several attempts to weld my results together
The best I could write would never be more
Than philosophical remarks
My thoughts would soon be crippled
If I tried to force them on
Against their inclination”
An anti-systematic attitude
Like John Cage’s music or Stockhausen
A permanent condition
Numbered aphorisms, as though
The world of existence could be reduced
To a set of interwoven statements
Everything succumbing to the power of language
Different voices in dialogue
The first of the post-modernists
Voice 1, then Voice of Tradition
Voice of Perplexity
And the Voice of Clarity
These voices are inside my head
All at once, they seize language
Mess with it, precise but dissective
Taking objects and making of them
A contradiction, a complexity
Confusion that removes sense of self
Uttering a word, a phrase – I love you
Lost in translation, in perplexity
A permanent condition.
[20:30]
A lifetime of ECM
Nov 2
Back in the mid-70s when I was at school, a friend of mine (hi, Peter) gave me a tape which had on it an album by Jan Garbarek and one by Keith Jarrett. This was the beginning of an obsession with the music to be found on the ECM label. I have continued to be a collector of music by both Garbarek and Jarrett, as well as many other artists on the label including Terje Rypdal, Ketil Bjornstad, John Surman, Misha Alperin and Dino Saluzzi.
ECM is unusual in the world of record labels because it has such a strongly defined aesthetic. The label produces an incredibly diverse range of artists, but there is always that ECM sound which is difficult to define, but very easy to identify.
So, after so much music, I am writing about ECM again now because they have just produced two wonderful albums:
- Jan Garbarek Group -Dresden
- Keith Jarrett – Testament: Paris / London
Both are live albums. I was surprised to realise that this is the first live album for Garbarek. It’s a double album, and captures the excitement of seeing him live. The group has gone through some changes over recent years, partly because of bass player Eberhard Weber’s stroke. He is replaced by Yuri Daniel. This is a tough place to fill – Weber’s playing is so distinctive. Daniel’s playing is beautiful, lyrical and underscores Garbarek’s saxophone perfectly. The other change is Manu Katche on drums – he has worked with Garbarek a lot recently. He replaces Marilyn Mazur. She was always more of a percussionist than a straightforward drummer. Katche brings more of a rock drummer feeling to the music. Between them, Katche and Daniel make for a very different rhythm section which brings some different interpretations of some of the older material. Rainer Bruninghaus remains as the keyboard player, his playing ranging from the frenetic to the achingly lyrical.
The Keith Jarrett album is a triple album covering two live concerts from last year. I’m always amazed by Jarrett’s live work. The idea that he appears on stage to improvise new compositions then and there is remarkable. He says that he always begins with an empty mind – no preconceived ideas. Then, through a series of pieces (short for Jarrett) he builds a collection of 20 remarkable performances. They are incredibly diverse. The two concerts are very different. As ever, Jarrett is at his best when he searches out a rhythmic melody and then works it to a beautiful conclusion. This is an extremely emotionally laden collection – his best work for years.
So, from two artists who I first heard nearly 35 years ago, come two beautiful albums. A real treat.
If you like the work of Garbarek, and would like to read a book about his music, I think the best book available is probably Michael Tucker’s “Jan Garbarek: Deep Song” – the book focuses on the music of Garbarek but it is also a marvellous exposition of the broader work of ECM.