I seem to recall playing the first two tunes back to back on The Cosmic Jam way, way back in the first year or two of my days there, when Kiss FM was still a pirate; Larry Willis with a very nice take on a Bacharach/ David tune, and Eddie Harris' later recording of the tune his good friend Charles Stepney wrote for him. As this was recorded after Stepney passed away I feel it has something of the lament about it. "Peaceful" is the title track from an album by Dick McGarvin I discovered in an Osaka record store last year, the Gabor Szabo track is from "Dreams" abeguilingly beautiful record that is very dear to me. "Wine Dark Lullaby" comes from "Greek Variations" one of those stupidly rare British jazz albums with compositions from Neil Ardley, Don Rendell and in this case Ian Carr. Following this Steve Grossman's "Libra Rising" borrows much of it's form and bass-line from Pharoah's "The Creator Has A Masterplan", a classic Trane disciple, Grossman's blowing is emotive throughout. Cullen Knight's A'keem has a lovely theme and a classic loose," independent" feel to the playing, big thanks to Nick The Record for turning me on to this some time ago. Steve Kuhn's "Trance' does exactly what it should, again a fantastic album with a couple of killer jazz-dance cuts as well as this ethereal masterpiece. "The Peacemaker" is the title track from Harold Land's awesome album for Cadet with Bobby Hutcherson shining through with some lovely vibes, Chico Freeman's "Peaceful Heart, Gentle Spirit" is testament to the fact there was some good jazz made in the eighties! Ahmad Jamal is just a pure genius of the piano, with an amazing string arrangement, "Death And Resurrection" never fails to live up to it's title. Finally Jack McDuff, with a subtly funky version of Trane's "Naima" proves that it's impossible to make a duff (scuse the pun) version of this legendary tune.
Saturday, 6 March 2010
Spontaneous Mellow
So about time too, the first podcast from this website, with a very mellow excursion into the vinyl vault, horizontal,chilled, and just the tonic for the over-stressed. Just prior to my imminent trip back to London, I'm enjoying the Okinawan "young summer' as they call it, 27c today! So maybe that accounts for the mellow selection.
Friday, 12 February 2010
Free Music!!!
Free music? For many this is the reality they've grown up with, it's only the older generations who still remember the concept of paying for what they listen to, and even some who did previously have embraced file sharing wholeheartedly. Today's reality is one where virtually anything and everything is available to download for nix if you know where to look. From sneakily uploaded tracks of yet to be released material from major artists to the most obscure of rare and collectable old gems, it's all out there.
I recently had a conversation with someone who proudly announced he had 40,000 tracks on his hard drives, a not uncommon amount in this day and age, the kind of quantity it might have taken an old school vinyl collector a lifetime to accrue. However the vinyl buyer would have spent considerable time and money, if not blood, sweat and tears to gather that music into one place, whereas for the digital age music lover this can be achieved easily, painlessly and often with little regard for what he's collecting. The first question I usually ask someone like that is what format they have that music in, and the answer is invariably as mp3s, and often of the lowest quality. It seems that quantity not quality is the order of the day for many. So we all have a ton of music, which we listen to on our modern systems, be they computers with external speakers or surround sound systems for our multi-media, whatever, as long as it sounds loud and big we tend not to notice the difference and the fact that our listening experience has been enormously degraded by the source and means of reproduction of those sounds is something that is rarely questioned by the majority. In an age when even cd releases are deliberately mastered in a way that eliminates the natural dynamics of the music, it begs the question why anyone would bother to make and record music of real hi-fidelity.
Let's face it though, who is bothering to make music in that way? Even major record companies are quite happy for their artists to record in a digital home studio, not surprising when you consider how they'll master the cd and how the vast majority will listen to that music. And in a world where music is free and we all have lots of it, which we'll probably listening to with the wonderful dj shuffle at the controls, where does that leave the place of music in our lives? Unloved and taken for granted are two expressions that immediately come to mind. Another experience I had recently, and again doubtless very common, was at someone's house where indeed their laptop (through some meaty speakers with a hefty sub) was spilling out a reckless selection of tunes in the background. During a lull in the conversation I heard something unfamiliar which really caught my ear, when I asked my host what it was he of course had to go and consult his i-tunes for the artist and title. We live in an age of excess, and music is now definitely another commodity that's suffering from over-consumption, podcasts galore, file sharing, whole digital collections passed from one to another, and even in the death throes of the music industry there's no shortage of new releases.
The fall-out? Well already the enormous changes in the music industry have taken their toll. Rewind back a decade or more and there were still healthy sales possible for a welter of less mainstream artists, which in turn supported a gamut of independent labels and distributors, and lots of djs were still playing vinyl so the twelve inch market was thriving. Remixers were paid healthy fees, major labels craved the kudos of having hip dance producers remixing their artists and even for independents it made economic sense to pay the right remixer a healthy fee to give their release more legs. People still owned cd players and turntables and listened to their music in an entirely different way from today's i-pod, i-tunes, mp3 modus operandi. With the economic state of play today the fact of the matter is that a whole strata of the music industry has been obliterated. Musicians hustle to pay the rent, studios close down or lie idle, and worst of all there's all the music which just isn't even getting made. Of course for those who are happy to make tracks entirely digitally, or have the facility to play and record everything themselves there's still some leeway, but in age where independent labels continue to struggle, and sales of cds continue to decline whilst downloads both legit and illegal represent the bulk of the market, it's tough to make any money from releasing music, and that's an understatement.
The album, the long playing record, the wonder product of the late twentieth century for music is dying alongside the changes in patterns of consumption. It never ceased to amaze me when I bought my Sunday Observer and once a month the music supplement would tail it's album reviews with the pithy recommendation to "download this", with the implied notion that you might even not have to pay for it. An artist strives to amass a body of work that binds together in some kind of cohesive way, running orders are stressed about, some tracks never make the grade, artwork is considered, credits compiled, sleeve notes may be written. Historically the album format has been the yardstick whereby an artist's progress, their intentions, their direction, their soul and their value has been measured, only for someone to download the essential cuts to sit anonymously in a list of thousands of others. Of course the history of music making is riddled with examples where this might be considered a healthy response, an album might be a bunch of fillers and just one killer. Where does that leave the true classics? Maybe those records just aren't getting made, but I never read a review that said download the whole album, in the age of shuffle who's going to listen from to bottom even if it is Kind Of Blue or Astral Weeks? Our short attention spans, our overloaded ears just aren't up to that kind of absorption in the music, and anyway the chances are we're not really hearing it properly anyway.
I grew up in Ipswich and my teenage years were often spent listening to vinyl albums sitting on someone's floor whilst the music came tumbling out of big old speakers, invariably these were Celestion Ditton 22s or 44s, as the factory was in town and everybody seemed to have a route to a cheap or knocked-off pair. That was how I remember music sounding, big old Japanese amplifiers, turntables that were either Dual if you were on a budget, or Thorens or something even more esoteric if you weren't. The music sounded warm and was full of depth and colour. A few years ago I realised that my life as dj had taken my listening experience down to a level where that magic I remembered was no longer what I was hearing, the speakers were big and rugged, there was a budget power amplifier doing the driving and my Technics were routed through a Pioneer mixer that had all the toys, but where was the sound? So off I went on a quest to rediscover the joys of my youth, and the best speakers I'd ever heard were made by Rogers. I'd passed an amazing looking hi-fi shop ( http://www.audiogold.co.uk/ ) in North London many times and noticed it seemed to sell alot of vintage gear, so when I went in with a bundle of cash (cos inevitably these things don't come cheap) , and I was introduced to the joys of the Rogers LS3/5A, a pint sized speaker originally designed for the BBC's outside broadcast vans but now the stuff of hi-fi legend. http://www.ls35a.com/ On that day I took as my sample cd a Japanese issue of one of my favourite recordings Donald Byrd's Places And Spaces, coming out of the Rogers I heard a whole new dimension to that familiar Mizell Brothers sound that had never blessed my ears before! A long winded way of getting back to my point about the way we listen to (and the way we consume) our music. You may think that the sound emanating from your modern system is big and fat, there may well be a sub that makes even the weediest mp3 sound like it's got balls, but depth and detail it won't have. Musicality? Funny word I know, but when you hear a great analogue recording through the right equipment there's no other word that is more appropriate.
I really don't mind setting myself up as grumpy old man/boring old fart if this is how you want to read it, but something is dying and if you're really a music lover, think about it. How you acquire and how you listen to the music you love is crucial to the future survival of great sound and great music being made. Don't get me wrong I'm a big fan of alot of new school sounds that are mashed together in home studios, creativity is ultimately the true key, but even that kind of music sounds a whole lot better on a good system and whoever made it stands a much better chance of carrying on doing so if you've paid for it.
Wednesday, 27 January 2010
Tokyo times.
It's been a while! I'm currently staying in Tokyo as the guest of my good friend and collaborator Shuya Okino, and whilst here I have the pleasure of spinning at my favourite (micro) club, pint-sized but thoroughly enjoyable: it's The Room!! http://www.theroom.jp/ Anyway should you happen to be a fellow gaijin living in Tokyo or happen to be passing through, drop us an e-mail and we may be able to sort you out on the guest list! I'll be @ The Room on February 20th for Shuya's birthday bash alongside my old buddy Alex from Tokyo, and then again the following Friday (26th) for the 8th anniversary of Champ, the funk and rare groove party with a young and vibrant crowd. Should be an "anniversaire extraordinaire" and has got be digging for some tunes I haven't played for a long time!! Finally I'll be back again the following night (27th) for my last session at The Room for a while.
However the main purpose for my stay in Tokyo is to work on the debut solo album from Masa Nakamura (project name as yet undecided) which I'm producing, and we're currently rehearsing material and will have our first studio session whilst I'm here. The concept for this project is all cover versions chosen by various djs and luminaries of the scene including myself, KJM, Jurgen from Jazzanova, Demus and Gilles P. There are some interesting choices, and hopefully we can do justice to them and still add some original twists!
I'll be returning to London on March 10th just in time for the first Inspiration Information (memories http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVvHTD5szeY )session of 2010 on the 12th which has now moved to a Friday night but will continue on a bi-monthly basis. Looking forward to hooking up with Phil Asher once again for our boogie inspired but thoroughly eclectic session of righteous grooves.
Just to catch up with past events here are some photos from the TCJF session which was a real highlight for me last year and probably the biggest crowd I've played to in a while, it was a pleasure and privilege to play in the main arena as the only foreign dj in the line-up.
Sacho from Soil and Pimp, Kiccio, Hiromi, and Sato from The Room
Ken from Root Soul, Toshio Matsura, Rob Gallagher, Ryota Nozaki (Jazztronik), andShige
DJ Kawasaki and Shuya Okino
It's been well over a year since the last Cosmic Jam http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx1q385-jyw and even I'm beginning to get nostalgic. I'm well aware that I haven't actually been that forthcoming with podcasts and mixes for those wanting to wrap their ears around some Cosmic Jam type of selections, and i know I've said this before, but soon come!! So if you're interested, sign up to the mailing list and you'll soon be receiving exclusive links to music selected and mixed by myself.
For those of you with a fascination for the Brazilian groove you may remember the Brazilian Funk Experience compilation I put together for Nascente, well if all goes to plan, volume 2 should be dropping later this year!
It's been a difficult time for the music business, just to state the obvious, and I was saddened to hear that Domu, an artist whose music I've loved and supported since his earliest drum and bass excursions for Reinforced, has hung up his headphones and stopped producing music. As it says when you try to log on to his Treble O website "this really is the end". Well I can only wish him luck and happiness for the future whatever course he chooses to pursue. For the rest of us there is no choice but to carry on! Music is a healthy addiction we can't give up. There's plenty of reasons to be cheerful and much to be excited about for the future, great projects in the pipeline, wonderful music being made. For the moment here's a little chart of things to check! (Mostly either available or soon come plus a couple of sneakies)
1.Silhouette Brown - Silhouette Brown 2 (2000 black)
2. Zara Mcfarlane - Captured (jazz version) (?)
3.Kuniyuki Takahashi - Walking In The Naked City (Mule Musiq)
4. The Souljazz Orchestra - Rising Sun (Strut)
5.Fanfair Odyssey/Playtime - V.A. (Capricorn Rising)
6.Tribe - Rebirth ( Planet e)
7.Blak n Spanish - No Compromise (restless soul)
8.Makoto and Kez YM - Chameleon (Mukatsuku)
9. Mark de Clive Lowe ft. Lady Alma - Believe (?)
10.José James - Black Magic (Brownswood)
Peace love and Music - Patrick.
Tuesday, 25 August 2009
TCJF!!!TCJF!!!!=Tokyo Crossover Jazz Festival
Wow! It's almost here already, this unique event, that this year celebrates the 20th anniversary of it's founder and guiding light, my good friend, Shuya Okino, who has managed two decades behind the decks, producing the likes of KJM, Cosmic Village, United Legends, as well as his own stable of artists from Sleepwalker to DJ KAwasaki, has his own club (The Room), writes, informs educates, entertains, the list is endless! Like so many Japanese, the man seldom stops, and this festival is a testament to his work ethic and infectious spirit and enthusiasm. In fact it's mind boggling the dedication both he and his staff have shown in producing this festival for the last few years, and let's just hope it's shown the love and support it deserves, so it may continue for years to come.
This year highlights include live sets from the impressively groovy Root Soul the iconoclastic Soil and Pimp Sessions (whose forthcoming album is undoubtedly their best yet), and a finale from Shuya with a cast that includes Monday Michuru and Masa Nakamura all of whom have their roots in Mondo Grosso, and will finish with sixteen people on stage and no doubt a few surprises!
The DJ Line up is a who's who of all the talent Japan has to offer from legends such as Kei Koya bashi and Raphael Sebbag to new schoolers like DJ Mitsu and Jazztronik!! Check it all out at
Really looking forward to being a part of it!!!
Monday, 8 June 2009
House Dance Competition!!!
Here's all the info for the Groove Sanctuary party at Jo Jo's !!!!!!!
GROOVE SANCTUARY
HOUSE DANCE COMPETITION!
Groove Sanctuary’s weekly Sunday session at Madame JoJo’s is firing on all cylinders, and we’ve decided to celebrate and highlight the growing House Dance culture, so we’ve teamed up with D-LO Entertainment to put on a House Dance competition of our very own. With £100 cash prize plus a bag stuffed full of goodies, t-shirts & CD’s up for grabs this is gonna be one serious battle for the title of UK House Dancer Supreme!
Groove Sanctuary has always had a reputation for it’s dancers and that reputation just keeps growing as more and more dancers from around the globe grace Jojo’s floor with their finest moves. It’s developed into the one stop club for dancers visiting London, students and professionals alike (Madonna’s dance team are regular visitors, and will judging the competition)
Joining us for this special event is legendary DJ Patrick Forge, one of the pioneer DJ’s of the Jazz Dance scene. Patrick comes armed with years of experience of DJing to the highly energetic needs of the dancer, and for this set he’ll be selecting the hottest House tunes as well as digging in his vast collection for those long lost Disco Boogie gems. Now residing on the idyllic Japanese island of Okinawa this is a rare visit to London for Patrick and a unique opportunity to catch the maestro at work.
SUNDAY 28th JUNE 2009
THE GROOVE SANCTUARY
HOUSE DANCE COMPETITION
WITH SPECIAL GUEST DJ
PATRICK FORGE
Time: 09:00pm – 03:00am
DJ’s: Jimbo (raw deal), Joey Vieira & Patrick Forge
Music: Deep Soulful House & Boogie Beats All Night Long!
Price: £5 All night or FREE on the guest list.
E-mail info@groovesanctuary.com or TEXT D-LO on …..
07958 211 462 for the guest list.
Venue: Madame JoJo’s, 8-10 Brewer Street, Soho, London W1 OSE.
Tel: 020 7734 3040
Web: www.madamejojos..com
Wednesday, 20 May 2009
The Snowboy Tome
It's been a long time since I anticipated the arrival of something with such excitement, when I finally received an e-mail saying that Mark"Snowboy" Cotgrove's book on the history of the jazz-dance movement was finally available to order, my fingers flew, and then there was the wait as it winged it's way to me here in Okinawa. In the hours post delivery I was virtually unreachable, as I hungrily devoured the contents; my wife and daughter gave up trying to communicate and left me to it.
Of course I didn't know prior to actually reading the book how good it was going to be, I was just insanely curious. Mark had interviewed me some time ago for the project and I'd not thought about it much until a conversation with Swifty (the book's designer) last summer really whetted my appetite. It was then that I realised just how much dedication and work Mark had put in to it, literally ten years of research and graft, although pure sweat and thoroughness don't necessarily make for a captivating read! To be completely honest I had my reservations, I knew Mark could be opinionated and headstrong in his dedication to the cause and was a mite concerned as to whether he'd be able to keep the text from turning into a rant!! Apologies Mark! My fears were totally unfounded, and on reflection the conversations I'd had with him of late had revealed his sensitivity and plain and simple love of music, we'd even had a couple of deep discussions about broken-beat; a style I was surprised to discover he had a passion for. Anyway suffice to say that although he's by no means a fundamentalist when it comes to jazz-dance, a close read of the text does reveal his view, but by no means is it obvious. In fact that's the book's great strength, the lack of authorial intervention, he literally let's the story tell itself. There's a simple time-lined history of the scene and and the dance styles, then Mark let's the interviewees tell the story. Robert Farris Thonpson's remarks about Snowboy's writing style in the preface are bang on, when he does want to say something he says it in plain and direct language , and the book is all the better for it.
Anyone who has even the vaguest of interest in dance music history should read this book. It redresses the balance back to the U.K. and the incredibly innovative and pioneering djs and dancers who created a scene that is without parallel in the U.S. Recent histories of dance music and dj culture have tended to focus on the States and have underestimated the value and originality of the U.K. scene. Read the book, and raise your hat to the true pioneers, Bob Jones and Colin Curtis to name but two, and the chronicler of it all, Snowboy. Find out more here.
Sunday, 17 May 2009
Naha to London (news and gigs)
I'm not going to curse the dysfunctionality of my website but the contents of this blog should be in my news section, but as I can't include any links there it's pretty redundant for the time being! Anyway, no worries, it's good to be blogging again and I'm reminding myself of a few things. Firstly, I have an as yet unpublished post entitled "Across The Jazz Divide" which is basically a bit of a rant/tirade about how I feel about certain musical issues. I should finish it or bin it! Secondly it's about time I sorted out the podcast side of things, hold tight it's coming! Suffice to say that I'm in a much better position to focus on the music now that I'm more settled into my life here in Okinawa. I've only recently completely sorted out my vinyl and cds since the move but as you can see I'm ready to get busy now!
Although I've played a couple of parties here in Okinawa in the past, I haven't done anything since my re-location here. Well all that's set to change over the course of the summer. As a prelude to getting a regular session going I'm doing my first party on the island on June 6th Musicas Para Ti at Mafali Cafe, a nice intimate little space that should give me a good chance to assess the vibe here. Club-land here in Naha is a little low key at the moment despite the tireless efforts of Viva Gilberto a dj and promoter who's pretty ubiquitous here! He's a great character alot of fun to hang-out with and has recently adopted the "don't mind if i do, don't mind if i don't" catch-phrase from Gavin and Stacey, which is particularly hilarious from his lips. By the way, although 100% Okinawan, he was born in Sao Paulo and speaks fluent Portuguese, hence the name. Joining us on the decks will be Takuji who used to be a resident at The Room in Tokyo, it should be a fun session.
I'll be back in London at the end of June, however almost en route I'll be dropping some tunes alongside my good friend Yoshihro Okino (KJM) at Club Metro in Kyoto on June 20th. the following Saturday it's my enormous pleasure to be back at East Village for another Inspiration Information session, this time we pay our respects and welcome a dj who is rightly described as a legend, a man whose prowess on the decks, his feeling for the music, and not forgetting his formidable dancing skills have made him a significant influence on myself, Phil Asher and countless others. TROUBLE!!!!!!!! Yes it's Paul Anderson playing the original music that put him on the map long before the for on the floor took over, nobody can play and feel the boogie like Trouble, back in the day nobody could touch him for the energy and spirit of his sets. Yes indeed i'm looking forward to this one! Check here.
The following evening it's my pleasure to be reunited with Jimbo at Groove Sanctuary. I've always had enormous respect for this guy, as a dj and producer, and the way he's just kept his thing running. At Madame Jo Jo's he's built a groovy little scene and won the respect of some serious dancers;now on a Sunday night this will be a fine way to round off my first weekend back in town! What's more he's chosen this date to run the first ever Groove Sanctuary House Dance Competition, so for all hoofers, shakers and shifters this one is a must. Check here
On Sunday 5th of July I'll be joining Nikki Lucas at her future fusion session at the The Green Carnation in Greek St, Soho: a chance to get global, bruk and any which way, should be fun! Check here
Finally, for one night only, (though we have to stop saying that if I keep popping back to do it) Brazilian Love Affair returns to NHAC on Sat July 18th. Lucia Possass was threatening to hang up her headphones when we had our final session last November, it was an emotional affair, and it seemed strange to be cutting my ties with a venue that I'd been working with for 11 years! However Lucia was thrilled when I e-mailed her and said we could revive the party for a one-off in March, and she came down fresh from the Rio carnival, and as ever, we had a ball that night! It always leaves me with huge grin on my face, it must be the power of the music ,the swing of the samba, the sheer love of it! Strictly old school Brasilia and modern interpretations, no baile funk etc. Check here
When I was last in London I did a little impromptu set for the Space Bass crew at their night at Home bar. Following that Liam asked if I'd drop a funk/boogie mix for them, I called it Naha City Block Party
There's plenty more to come!!
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