It must be the time of year when people just quit. I read that Freddie Hubbard has passed. He was an influential trumpeter, and an outstanding sideman on some of my absolute favourite records — John Coltrane’s Africa/Brass, Eric Dolphy’s Out To Lunch (“pfft, I’ll say he is!”), Ornette Coleman’s Free Jazz and (one of my recent discoveries) Oliver Nelson’s The Blues and the Abstract Truth. Not to mention his own post-bop classic Hub-Tones, to which I am now listening in order to pay my respects.
Archive for December, 2008
R.I.P. Ann Savage
Posted in Film with tags Ann Savage, cult film, Detour, docu-fantasia, Film Noir, Guy Maddin, My Winnipeg on 29 December, 2008 by AllyI just read the sad news that iconic femme fatale actress Ann Savage has passed away. She was the star of cult classics like the low-budget noir Detour (1945) and Guy Maddin’s “docu-fantasia” My Winnipeg (2007). She will be sorely missed.
Song of the Day: Stolen Moments
Posted in Music with tags Eric Dolphy, Impulse, jazz, Oliver Nelson, Stolen Moments, The Blues and the Abstract Truth on 17 December, 2008 by AllyThe Internet is a wonderful thing. It’s also a terrible thing, but that’s not why I’m making this post, so moving swiftly on… It was thanks to the Internet that I found Oliver Nelson and his wonderful 1961 album The Blues and the Abstract Truth. I discovered it thanks to the involvement of Eric Dolphy, a multi-instrumentalist who played on far more than his fair share of fucking great jazz albums — including classics by John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman and Max Roach.
So, song of the day… I’m sure you can’t wait. Stolen Moments is the first track on the album, and it’s (to quote some nonsense from Annie Hall) transplendent. There are only four horns playing, somehow it sounds like far more. Ahh, it’s just great. Words constantly fail me when it comes to music. Have a listen instead:
Oliver Nelson – Stolen Moments (on last.fm)
Form 696
Posted in Music with tags form 696, institutionalised racism, live music, London, racism on 9 December, 2008 by AllyFrom The Independent:
Teenage kicks will be harder to get if publicans and managers of other small venues are forced to comply with a new piece of bureaucracy called Form 696, a former punk rock star has warned.
The form demands that licensees give police a mass of detail, including the names, aliases, private addresses and phone numbers of all musicians and other performers appearing at their venue, and the ethnic background of the likely audience. Failure to comply could mean the loss of a licence or even a fine and imprisonment.
The police say they need the information demanded on Form 696, which runs to eight pages, so they can pinpoint which acts and venues attract troublemakers, and make sure venues are safe. But Feargal Sharkey, who rose to fame during the punk era as the vocalist on the single “Teenage Kicks” by the Undertones, is so angry about what he sees as a threat to live music that he is consulting lawyers about how to stop it.
I am truly stunned and sickened by this development. That the government feel entitled to such control over live music is worrying enough, but to specify ethnic background as a cause for concern is massively offensive. It is institutionalised racism, plain and simple.
You attend concerts at your own risk. It is the police’s responsibility to protect the public, but not at the cost of our civil liberty. Preventative measures should not be in the form of constrictive and racist laws, but in the upbringing of a nation of people wise enough not to perpetuate unnecessary violence. Pushing thugs out of music venues simply relocates violence, like leaving the roots of weeds in the soil. Not only that, but it will lead to the disenfranchisement of decent, innocent people who merely want to hear, play or promote live music.
One of the few outlets of uncompromised creative expression is in serious risk.