Adventures in the Din Trade (and other doings)

Excuse, Excuses...

2011-10-07T12:55:00.002+01:00

I'm afraid that I've fallen a bit behind with my postings in recent weeks. The main reason for this is the fact that I appear to have bitten off more than I can chew just at the moment! My involvement with the Silvia Nicolatto project has meant that I set up another blog and (something I swore that I would never do) a Facebook presence. What with servicing these - essential for tour publicity - rehearsing and performing with the group, and fitting in time to do my radio show, The Voltarol blog has inevitably suffered. No great loss, some might say, but I enjoy writing it and you don't have to read it so I do intend to carry on as soon as the tour is over and I can concentrate on it for a bit. Having said that, I find myself increasingly posting YouTube clips to my Facebook page which previously would have been posted here. I suppose that is because I want to share the music but don't have the time to write about it at the moment. Next week sees the final leg of the tour, preceded by two days in the recording studio. After that I shall be back to these pages and scribbling away as hard as ever again. Also, I have decided to stop posting playlists from the Radio Programme. If you are interested in anything that I play (assuming that you actually listen to it) then contact me via Facebook or the Source fm's website and I'll happily provide you with all the information about the shows.

Play list for Wednesday 14th 2011

2011-09-17T19:18:00.000+01:00

Adventures in the DinTrade (series 2) Wednesday 14^th September 2011

Andei (theme tune)

1. ZIZI POSSI – Bom Dia 3.21

BenjaminTaubkin Roland JV1000, Jether Garotti - piano, Guello – percussion

From‘Valsa Brasiliera’ 1993

2. DALLA – King Harry Ferry Furry/Tregajorran Furry 5.40

Neil Davey– bouzouki, mandolin, fiddle, accordion, percussion; Hilary Coleman – clarinet,vocal, percussion; Simon Lockley-Brown – guitar, percussion. From the album ‘ARicher Vein’, 2001

3. CAROL JARVIS – Sang Til Lotta 6.23

Composedby Jan Sangström. From the Album ‘Smile’ 2010 (proceeds to Macmillan Cancer Support)

4. JIM HALL/ BILL SMITH – A-Roving 4.12

Originallyfrom ‘Folk Jazz’ 1959. Hall – guitar, Bill Smith – clarinet, Monty Budwig –bass, Shelly Manne – drums. Reissued by AVID Jazz in their classic albumsseries. 3 albums plus 7additional tracks as a double CD reissue for under afiver!

5. JIMMY GIUFFRE – Four Brothers – 3.12

Giuffre –tenor & baritone saxes, clarinet; Bud Shank – alto sax; Jack Sheldon –trumpet; Shorty Rogers – flugel horn; Bob Enevoldson – valve trombone; RalphPeña – bass; Shelly Manne – drums. Originally from ‘Jimmy Giuffre’ 1954. Reissued by AVID on ‘Four ClassicAlbums plus… AMSC 948

6. JIMMY GIUFFRE – Crazy She Calls Me 4.15

Giuffre –clarinet, Jim Hall – guitar, Ralph Peña – bass. Originally from ‘The Train andthe River’ 1956. Also now on the AVID double.

7. JIM HALL & PAT METHENY – Cold Spring 6.29

Hall andMetheny – guitars. Live recording from the album ‘Jim Hall & Pat Metheny1999

8. RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS – Norfolk Rhapsody No 1 in E minor 11.48

LondonPhilharmonic Orchestra conducted by Bryden Thomas – Chandos label.

(Based ontwo folk songs)

9. JOSÉ ORLANDO – Morena da Palmeira (The Brunette of Palmeira) 2.39

From ‘

Brazil

Forró – Music for Maids and Taxi Drivers’ 1989.

10. CESAR CAMARGO MARIANO – Cantareira (Dish Rack) 3.37

From thealbum Cesar Camargo Mariano & Cia 1980

11. SILVIA NICOLATTO – Curva do Rio 3.10

From thealbum ‘Alem dos Gestos’ (Besides the Gestures)

12. FLAVIO VENTURINI – São Tomé 4.19

From theEMI ‘Hemisphere’ compilation ‘

Brazil

Blue’ issued in 1993

13. LULA GALVÃO – Change Partners and Dance with Me 6.27

By IrvingBerlin. Galvão – guitar, Fernando Moraes– piano, Sergio Barrozo – bass, Rafael Barata – percussion. From the album‘Bossa da Minha Terra’ ( Bossas of my Country’ 2008

14. GILBERTO GIL – Dança de Shiva 3.45

From‘Quanta’ 1997

15. PAUL SIMON – Late in the Evening 4.02

From ‘OneTrick Pony’ 1980. Simon – guitar and vocal, Richard Tee – keyboards, Eric Gale– guitar, Tony Levin – bass, Steve Gadd – drums.

Voltarol on the radio again...

2011-09-11T14:42:00.000+01:00

I'm finding the evening slot a much more relaxed one than the old Thursday afternoon show - there seems to be much less pressure because mine is the last live show of the day. Mind you, the next few weeks are going to be pretty busy for me as Silvia Nicolatto arrives in the country next weekend and there will be some serious rehearsals, followed by a series of gigs and two days in the recording studio. Nevertheless, I hope to bring you some interesting shows during that period. Here are the details of last Wednesday's show.

Adventures in the DinTrade (new season) Wednesday 7^th September 2011

Andei (theme tune)

1. BELA FLECK & THE FLECKTONES – Storm Warning 7.58

Bela Fleck– composer and banjos, Howard Levy – diatonic harmonica and piano, VictorLemonte Wooton – electric bass, Futureman (otherwise known as Roy Wooten)–‘Drumitar’ with simultaneous acoustic drums and percussion.

From‘Rocket Science’ 2011

2. PAUL SIMON – Getting Ready for Christmas Day 4.06

Paul Simon–vocals, electric guitar, percussion, Edie Brickell – background harmony, RevJ.M. Gates with congregation –sermon and calland response, Vincent Nguini–electric and acoustic rhythm guitars, Jim Oblon – drums.

From ‘SoBeautiful or So What’ 2011

3. CHICO HAMILTON QUINTET – Blue Sands 6.32

(Composedby Buddy Collette)

4. CHICO HAMILTON QUINTET – The Morning After 2.07

(Composedby Chico Hamilton)

ChicoHamilton – drums, Carson Smith –bass, Jim Hall – guitar, Fred Katz – cello,Buddy Collette – flute, clarinet, alto & tenor saxes.

From ‘TheChico Hamilton Quintet featuring Buddy Collette’ 1955

Re-releasedby AVID Jazz in their classic albums series. Double CD with three albums and 7additional tracks. AMSC949. Under a fiver!

5. PABLO CASALS – Prelude, J.S.Bach: cello suite no 3 in C major 3.30

Originallyrecorded in 1936. Reissued by Naxos as adouble CD: J.S.Bach: Cello Suites 1-6. Great Cellists series – Pablo Casals

6. DOM UM ROMÃO – Pra Que Chorar 4.40

From‘Hotmosphere’ originally released 1976. CD reissue 1998. Pablo Records

EitherMauricio Smith or Lou de Gallo – flute solo, Sivuca – accordion and voice solo,Dom Salvador – piano solo, Dom um Romão – drums, Ron Carter – bass, with thevoices of Julie Janeiro, Gloria Oliveira & Sivuca

7. ANOUAR BRAHEM – The Astounding Eyes of Rita 8.41

AnouarBrahem – oud, Klaus Gesing – bass clarinet, Bjorn Meyer – bass, Khaled Yassina– darbouka & bender.

From thealbum ‘The Astounding Eyes of Rita’ ECM 2008

8. GARY BURTON – Leroy the Magician 6.08

From ‘GoodVibes’ originally released 1969 on Atlanticand reissued on CD on the Collectable label in 2006. Burton – vibes, electric vibes, piano andorgan; Bernard Purdie – drums; Chuck Rainey or Steve Swallow – bass; Sam Brown,Jerry Hahn or Eric Gale – guitar; Richard Tee – piano & organ (?)

9. JIM HALL – 9.20 special 5.41

From ‘JazzGuitar: The Jim Hall Trio’. First issued 1957.

Jim Hall –guitar, Carl Perkins, piano (no, not thatCarl Perkins), Red Mitchell – bass

Another re-releaseby AVID Jazz in their classic albums series. Double CD with three albums and 6additional tracks. AMSC 1033. Under a fiver!

10. INTO THE RED/SILVIA NICOLETTA - Brigadeiro 3.37

Music byme lyrics by Silvia. Voice mixed and recorded in São Paulo by Rodrigo de Castro Lopes,September 2011. Original recording made at the Bunker, Coverack 2001.

ClaudiaColmer – bass, Pip Harben – drums, Max Turnbull – piano and me – guitar.

11. PETE TURNER/RICHARD AYERST – Ilha Grande Suite 16.50

Written byme with the exception of the batucada section, which was written by RichardAyerst and the following section ‘At the Forro With Eloi’ which was co-writtenby Richard and me. It was recorded in 1995 at Woodshed Studio, Illogan.Sequencing by me and Richard Ayerst. Guitar, guitar synth and triangle.

New season on the radio...another gig at Hayle

2011-09-03T16:34:00.000+01:00

Adventures in the Din Trade - the Radio Show - starts a new season this coming Wednesday evening at 9.30 pm on The Source 96.1 fm. at 9.30 pm. At last, "the late night show that - for your convenience - comes to you in the afternoon" is actually a late (ish) night show. I shall be reviewing some new releases, playing some of my own stuff and generally enjoying myself. If you want to catch the show on line then see 'Voltarol recommends' (right hand side of page) for a link.

On Friday, Que Belo Castelo are back at the Cornish Arms 86 Commercial Road, Hayle TR27 4DJ01736 753237 ‎. Kick-off is at 9 pm so if you can make it we'll be glad to see you!

In the meantime I continue to work on the Silvia Nicolatto project. I have also set up a My Space page which might be of interest to you.

Que Belo Castelo back in Hayle

2011-08-19T15:10:00.000+01:00

Yes - they seem to like us at the Cornish Arms in Hayle. Que Belo Castelo are back there again next Friday, August 26th, for another evening of Brazilian, Cuban, Creole and South African sounds. It's the four piece line up ( Kate is still away) and we'll be playing from 9 pm. If you can make it down we'll be very pleased to see you...

Here are some pictures from the gig we did there at the beginning of July. My grandson Josh - a fine guitarist - was staying with my wife and I for the week, so he came down and sat in with us for a couple of numbers.

The band in full cry

Josh and Pete trade phrases on 'Sunshower' whilst proud grandparent inserts paunch between them whilst playing small Indian drum...

Dan gives it some stick...

Sam is his usual solemn self...

Left to right: Dan, Josh, Pete T, Pete K, Sam.

Choro, Forró and Silvia...

2011-08-15T14:29:00.000+01:00

This was my last show until the new series starts on Wednesday 7th September at the new time of 9.30 p m. In the mean time I am busy promoting the Silvia Nicolatto tour that I shall be part of in September and October. For further details of this see the blog. You may also be entertained - or as likely repelled - by this impression of me that was drawn a few years ago by an acquaintance of mine. I came across it the other day whilst I was turning out some old papers...

ADVENTURES IN THE DIN TRADE – programme 14. Friday 12th August

1. MANEZINHO DE FLAUTA – Carinhoso 2.30

2. LAURIND ALMEIDA/BUD SHANK – Carinhoso 3.34

3. OS OITO BATUTAS – Urubu 2.59

4. PIXINGUINHA/ BENEDITO LACERDA – 1 x 0 2.11

5. NELSON ANGELO – 1 x 0 4.01

6. HENRIQUE CAZES & FAMÍLIA VIOLÃ – Saudosa 2.00

7. PAULO MOURA – Naquele Tempo 3.41

8. RAPHAEL RABELLO/ARMANDINHO – Tico Tico No Fuba 2.53

9. JOÃO BOSCO – Tico Tico No Fuba 3.38

10. HAMILTON DE HOLANDA/ZE DA VELHA etc - Noites Cariocas 5.05

11. PAULO MOURA/YAMANDU COSTA – Simplicidade 4.58

12. HERMETO PASCOAL – Chorinho pra Ele 2.20

13. HENRIQUE CAZES & FAMÍLIA VIOLÃ – Chorinho pra Ele 2.24

14. BENJAMIN TAUBKIN – Vibrações 7.50

15. ORQUESTRA POPULAR DE CÂMARA – Choreto 5.20

16. LUIZ GONZAGA – Asa Branca 2.48

17. LUIZ GONZAGA – Baião 2.47

18. SIVUCA – Arrasta Pé (Party time North East Brazil) 4.23

19. SIVUCA – Xanana 2.49

20. HERMETO PASCOAL E GRUPO – Forró Brasil 2.38

21. SILVIA NICOLATTO & NEIL DAVEY – Rio Logh 1.06

22. SILVIA NICOLATTO – Girassol Negro 3.15

23. (3) SILVIA NICOLATTO - Caminhos de Iemanjá 3.54

Apologies and announcements...

2011-08-10T10:03:00.001+01:00

Those of you who listened last Friday will be aware that the show was a repeat of the last week's programme (see previous posting for details. Unfortunately I was laid low by an attack of Lurgy, brought about by side effects of a course of antibiotics. There is an irony in there somewhere but I can't quite put my finger on it at the moment...Next Friday's show (12th August) will be the last in the current series. I'm taking a break until September when the show will return at the new time of 9.30 pm on Wednesday evenings.

You may have notices that the photograph on my profile has made a change for the better. The picture is in fact of the Brazilian singer, Silvia Nicolatto, who I met on my last visit to the country (see Voltarol in Brazil 2010). Silvia will be in Cornwall in September and October and will be performing several gigs in the South West and I shall be part of her band. For the background story and regular updates, please check out this new blog. I will be telling some of the story and playing some of her music on the radio show this week. The first part of the show will be devoted to Choro and Forró. I shall be playing the Silvia Nicolatto tracks in the last half hour or thereabouts.

Things to do and places to go...

2011-07-31T15:23:00.003+01:00

This week's show was slightly flawed at the start when a CD player failed to respond to a fader so - apologies for that. Otherwise, I hope you enjoyed my selection of, for the most part, longer tracks. I felt that you'd heard quite enough of my voice the previous week! However, the next show will take us back to Brazil again to look at all the other elements that we didn't cover in the 'Samba to MPB' programme, so I'll be rabbiting on again!

ADVENTURES IN THE DIN TRADE – programme 13. Friday 29th JULY

ANDEI – theme tune

1. BURTON/METHENY/SWALLOW/SANCHEZ – Fleurette Africaine 7.34

2. STEPS – Not

Ethiopia

10.59

3. DAVE GRUSIN – Dancing in the Township – 6.06

4. HORACE SILVER – In Pursuit of the 27^th Man 9.42

5. CLARE FISCHER/ HÉLIO DELMIRO – Amor em Paz 7.11

6. STAN GETZ – La Fiesta 8.24

7. WORD OF MOUTH – Liberty City 11.59.

8. MARIA SCHNEIDER ORCHESTRA – Hang Gliding 13.13

9. MARIA JOÃO/MÃRIO LAGINHA – Saris e Capulanas 7.28

10. DAVID FRIESEN – Islands 6.42

11. KEVIN EUBANKS – Landing 7.13

12. TOM JOBIM – Brasil 5.18.

13. AIRTO – Papo Furado 3.29

Que Belo Castelo in Hayle again

2011-07-24T15:38:00.000+01:00

Thanks to an enthusiastic response to our last gig there we are back at The Cornish Arms, Commercial Road, Hayle again this coming Saturday. If you live in this part of Cornwall why not come along and check us out? We'll be pleased to see you...

Samba, Bossa Nova and MPB

2011-07-24T15:33:00.000+01:00

ADVENTURES IN THE DIN TRADE – programme 12. Friday 22nd JULY

This week's show was a little more adventurous then usual, being as it was an attempt to give an overview of the evolution of Brazilian popular song, but I hope you found it interesting. If you spotted any glaring mistakes in the narrative please contact me with any corrections. I shall be exploring other areas of the music in the near future so watch this space, or more importantly, listen to it!

ANDEI – theme tune

1. ELIANE ELIAS – Garota de Ipanema 3.53.

2. SERGIO MENDES – Fanfarra (Cabua-Le Le) 4.01

3. BAIANO – Pelo Telefone 3.11

4. CARTOLA - Corra E Olhe O Céu 3.25

5. NOEL ROSA – Conversa de Botequim 2.49

6. IVAN LINS – Conversa de Botequim 3.35

7. SÍLVIO CALDAS - Lenço no Pesoço 2.58

8. MOREIRA DA SILVA – Acertai do Milhar 1.45

9. SILVIO CALDAS – Aquarela do Brasil 3.09

10. CARMEN MIRANDA/ DORIVAL CAYMMI - O Que é Que a Baiana Tem’ 3.12

11. JOÃO GILBERTO – Chega de Saudade 2.00

12. JOÃO GILBERTO – Bim Bom 1.12

13. CHET BAKER – Look for the Silver Lining 2.40

14. CAETANO VELOSO – Tropicália 3.38

15. GILBETO GIL – Domingo No Parque 3.44

16. TOM ZÉ – O Riso e a Faca 2.41

17. CHICO BUARQUE – Apesar de Vocé 3.53

18. NOVOS BAIANOS – Brasil Pandeiro 3.56

19. ELIS REGINA – Casa Forte 2.51

20. EDU LÔBO – Zanzibar 3.14

21 BADEN POWELL/VINICIUS DE MORAES – Canto de Ossanha 3.27

22. MILTON NASCIMENTO – Ponto de Areia 5.58

23. JORGE BEN – Ponta de Lanca Africano (Umbabarauma) 3.53

24. CHICO BUARQUE/MILTON NASCIMENTO – Calice 4.03

25. JOYCE – Pelo Telefone / Essa Mulher 7.14

Catch-ups and completion - guitarists part four

2011-07-17T16:06:00.000+01:00

Last Friday's programme concluded my series about guitarists. I should clarify that this was never intended to be a definitive list of great players - merely a definitive list of my favourites, as represented on my CD shelves. I know that for many people there are glaring omissions in my choices but the point is that they are my choices. As usual, for further information about any of these tracks, please get in touch and I will be only too happy to give you chapter and verse!

ADVENTURES IN THE DIN TRADE – programme 11. Friday 15^th JULY

THEME TUNE – Andei (fade at 1.30)

1. MANHATTAN TRANSFER – Twilight Zone 6.11

2. BLIND WILLIE DUNN (EDDIE LANG) - Church Street Sobbin’ Blues 3.00

3. EDDY PALERMO TRIO – This is Your Song 6.08

4. JOHN PARRICELLI – Scrim 5.42

5. JOE PASS- Grooveyard 5.37

6. WES MONTGOMERY – Fingerpickin’ 2.32

7. WES MONTGOMERY – Blue ‘n’ Boogie / West Coast Blues 13.30

8. MARCO PEREIRA – Um Pagode em Planaltina 3.47

9. GARY POTTER QUARTET – Yesterdays 4.27

10. DAVID GRISMAN – Dawg’s Bull 4.14

11. RICARDO SILVEIRA – Outro Rio 5.25

12. LEE RITENOUR – Blue in Green 8.00

13. ULISSES ROCHA & TECO CARDOSO – Infancia 6.29

14. JOHN SCOFIELD – Groove Elation 6.50

15. MARTIN TAYLOR – Garden of Dreams 6.07

16. YAMANDU COSTA & HAMILTON DE HOLANDA – Chamamé 8.58

Another random selection

2011-07-10T13:01:00.001+01:00

This week was unthemed - it was just a bunch of favourites pulled out more or less at random, but nevertheless, I hope you found it to be a fairly balanced show. We'll be returning to the guitars again next week. Having got as far as 'R', I now have discovered yet another bunch of players that I've managed to miss, so I've had to back track a lttle. Still, nobody's perfect eh? Incidentally, my spell checker insists that there is no such word as 'unthemed' an suggests that I might mean 'Gunther'

I just thought Id mention it...

Voltarol at work at The Source F.M. - pictured by Matthew, the Station Manager

ADVENTURES IN THE DIN TRADE – programme 10. Friday 8^th JULY

THEME TUNE – Andei

1. DAVE GRUSIN – Prelude II 5.39

2. NILSSON – Vine Street 2.50

3. DAVID GORDON TRIO – The Alchemist and the Catflap 6.33

4. BELA FLECK & THE FLECKTONES – The Flight of the Cosmic Hippo 4.29

5. IVAN LINS – Quadras de Roda 3.35

6. DONALD FAGAN – Ruby Baby 5.38

7. GIL EVANS – The Ballad of the Sad Young Men 4.00

8. JERRY DOUGLAS – Redhill 4.56

9. PAT METHENY GROUP – Last Train Home 5.38

10. DEODATO – Also Spracht Zarathustra 8.58

11. INGRID LAUBROCK – Underwater Garden 5.09

12. DJAVAN – Miss Susanna 4.06

13. DUKE ELLINGTON – Madness in Great Ones 3.27

14. IAN DURY – Razzle in my Pocket 2.57

15. LUIZ AVELLAR – Ninho de Vespa 4.01

16. ZIZI POSSI - Quem é Voce 4.13

17. MEREDITH D’AMBROSIO – There’s a Lull in my Life 3.56

18. LEO GANDELMAN – A Rã 4.43

19. KRIS GAYLE – All Blues 6.36

20.JOÃO BOSCO Holofotes 5.15

I apologise for the somewhat abrupt ending of this track. It wasn’t my doing, honest!

Que Belo Castelo in Hayle

2011-07-04T11:49:00.001+01:00

For those of you who wish to see Voltarol putting his money where his mouth is, why not come along to The Cornish Arms, Commercial Road, Hayle on Saturday night? Qe Belo Castelo are playing an informal session from 9 p. m. onwards . We will be a four piece line up for this evening as our flute player is away at the moment but Dan Hughes has now joined us full time and his clarinet will be well to the fore. There may well also be some guest sitters-in.... see you there then.

Guitarists part 4

2011-07-04T11:30:00.000+01:00

Well - here's the playlist for last Friday's show. I mentioned that I'd previously played a version of 'Vera Cruz' on an earlier show but then had a senior moment and couldn't remember which version it was. A quick check of my own postings reminded me that it was of course the Larry Coryell version.

ADVENTURES IN THE DIN TRADE – programme 9. Friday 1^st JULY

THEME TUNE – Andei

1. PAT MARTNO – Dreamsville 4.58

2. EUCLIDES MARQUES & LUIZINHO 7 CORDAS – Turuna 5.23

3. PAT METHENY GROUP – Phase Dance 8.17

4. PAT METHENY GROUP – Third Wind 8.23

5. PAT METHENY/CHRISTIAN McBRIDE/ANTONIO SANCHEZ – Snova 5.56

6. JIM HALL AND PAT METHENY – Summertime 5.35

7. MILTON NASCIMENTO – Vera Cruz 6.34

8. HERALDO DO MONTE - Pôr-do-Sol 8.09

9. JOSÉ NETO – Fish ‘n’ Chips 7.52

10. PAULINHO NOGUEIRA - Quem te Viu, Quem te Vê 3.21

11. NOSSO TRIO – Vento Bravo 5.55

12. NOTENSTOCK - Tropiques 9.26

13. EDNALDO QUEIROZ – Dança Cigana 4.28

14. RAPHAEL RABELLO – Brejeiro 3.00

15. QUINTET OF THE HOT CLUB OF FRANCE – H.Q.C. Strut 2.59

16. EMILY REMLER – Carenia 6.19

Wails of the unexpected

2011-06-26T15:52:00.001+01:00

Here are the details of last Friday's show. I slipped one in at the last minute - that's the Que Belo Castelo track - and I might have its position in the running order a bit wrong, so I apologise if that is the case. Things in the Voltarol household are finally beginning to slow down a bit so if all goes according to plan there will be a new posting here soon that isn't just a set list...

ADVENTURES IN THE DIN TRADE – programme 8. Friday 24^th June.

THEME TUNE – Andei

1. GARY BURTON – Ravel Prelude: Le Tombeau De Couperin 3.14

2. CAETANO E GIL – Wait Until Tomorrow 3.25

3. NORMA WATERSON – Ain’t No Sweet Man That’s Worth the Salt of my Tears 2.53

4. PAT METHENY & LYLE MAYS - Estupenda Graça 2.41

5. STEELY DAN – East St Louis Toodle-oo 2.45

6. BANDA MANTIQUEIRA – Airegin 5.56

7. DJAVAN – Sorri 3.19

8. WAYNE SHORTER (Weather Report) – Thanks for the memory 3.34

9. SERGIO MENDES – What is This? 4.44

10. MIKE MARSHALL – ‘Ravel’ 1.49

11. SIVUCA - Rhapsódia Gonzaguiana 9.21

12. COLIN HOGKINSON (Backdoor) – 32-20 Blues 2.26

13. BIX BEIDERBECKE – In a Mist 2.42

14. BOCA LIVRE – The First Circle 4.44

15. JIM MULLEN – Comin’ Through the Rye 5.26

16. NÁ OZZETTI – Carmen 3.30

17. BUDDY EMMONS & LENNY BREAU – On a Bach Bourée 6.29

18. GILBERTO GIL – Rebel Music 5.10

19. ROLAND PERRIN – California Here I Come 5.38

20. PAUO MOURA – Lady Be Good 6.50

21. QUE BEO CASTELO – Roi Diable 3.58

21. GARY BURTON & FRIENDS – Tossed Salads and Scrambled Eggs 5.16

Guitarists part 3

2011-06-18T17:25:00.001+01:00

Here's the playlist for this week's show - my thanks to The Tedster for his phone call: It's a pity I didn't know how to mix the call into the broadcast! Anyway, I do now, so if you feel like calling in during the show with comments, opinions or suggestions, please do so. The number to call is (01326) 219 020. Incidentally Tedster, the track you really liked was Number 10 - Toninho Horta with Pat Metheny. I'll make sure to include another track by them soon.

ADVENTURES IN THE DIN TRADE – programme 7. Friday 17^th June.

THEME TUNE – Andei

1. JEFF BECK – Nadia 3.41

2. BILL MAYS & ED BICKERT – On the Trail 5.51

3. CHARLIE CHRISTIAN – Air Mail Special 3.20

4. GARY BURTON/B.B.KING – Double

Guatemala

6.09

5. GARY BURTON/KEVIN EUBANKS – Lost Numbers 4.26

6. DAVEY GRAHAM – She moved thru’ the fair/Blue Raga 7.47

7. THE JIMMY GIUFFRE 3 – The Train and the River 3.31

8. THE JIM HALL QUARTET – Beija Flor 6.28

9. GUINGA – Di Menor 3.36

10. TONINHO HORTA – Prato Feito 6.34

11. JOYCE & TUTTY MORENO - Feijão Com Arroz 4.52

12. LEO KOTKE – Mona Ray 3.40

13. WEBER LOPES – Alma 6.14

14. WEBER LOPEZ & PAULO BELLINATI - Violão Virado 4.01

15. (1) ROMERO LUBAMBO & MAURO SENISE – O Barquinho 3.58

16. ROMERO LUBAMBO – Route 66 4.25

17. JOHN MCLAUGHLIN TRIO – Pasha’s Love 7.54

18. MAOGANI – Corrupião 4.58

19. MAOGANI – Baiambé 3.20.

THE BEATLES THROUGH OTHER EARS...

2011-06-11T16:02:00.000+01:00

Play list for ADVENTURES IN THE DIN TRADE – programme 6. Friday 10^th June.

As usual - for further information about the tracks that you can't be bothered tp Google, drop me an email or contact me via my page on The Source FM. If you enjoy the show please contact them and let them know.

THEME TUNE – Andei (fade at 1.30)

1. RITA LEE – A Hard Day’s Night. 3.42

2. DAVY GRAHAM – I’m Looking Through You 2.01

3. BELA FLECK AND THE FLECKTONES – Michelle 5.10

4. BOBBY McFERRIN – Blackbird 2.49

5. MILTON NASCIMENTO – Hello Goodbye 4.30

6. RICARDO SILVEIRA & LUIZ AVELLAR – Para Lennon and McCartney 5.46

7. RUBY BRAFF/GEORGE BARNES – Here, There and Everywhere 2.07

8. GILBERTO GIL – Something 3.28

9. RITA LEE – Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds 4.44

10. PAT METHENY GROUP – American Garage 4.10

11. KNIGHT AND GAYLE – Jericho

12. ECLECTICA – Get Back 3.53

13. ANDRÉ MEHMARI & NÁ OZZETTI – Because 3.16

14. WORD OF MOUTH – Blackbird 2.48

15. DUOFEL – The Fool on the Hill 4.50

16. PAUINHO NOGUEIRA – Beatles Medley 4.39

17. IVAN VILELA – Eleanor Rigby 4.31

18. IVAN VILELA – While my Guitar Gently Weeps – 2.45

19. ORQUESTRA POPULAR DE CAMERA – Blackbird 7.15

20. DUOFEL – Norwegian Wood 5.11

21. JEFF BECK – A day in the life 4.46

22. THE BEATLES – She Said She Said 2.37

23. THE BEATLES – Love You To 3.01

24. THE BEATLES – Tomorrow Never Knows 2.57

PLAYLIST UPDATE

2011-06-09T14:53:00.003+01:00

Here's the playlist from last Friday's programme - if a little later than promised. Usual rules apply: If you want anymore information about any of the tracks and can't be bothered to Google them then contact me via the blog. Incidentally, as from Friday 10th June you will, for the time being, also be able to hear the show on the fledgling Redruth Radio. The next show goes out tomorrow as usual at 1 pm on The Source FM. Redruth Radio will continue to stream it until their own roster of presenters is full, so if you live in the Redruth area and are interested in doing a show for them then do make contact with them and put your name in the frame.

ADVENTURES IN THE DIN TRADE – programme 5. Friday 3^rd June.

THEME TUNE – Andei ( performed by Airto Moreira , from the album 'Seeds on the Ground)

1. LENNY BREAU – Days of Wine and Roses 3.50

2. LARRY CARLTON – Strikes Twice 5.27

3. PHILIP CATHERINE – Django 6.23

4. RY COODER – We Shall be Happy 3.13

5. LARRY CORYELL – Vera Cruz 9.00

6. DAN CRARY - Memories of Mozart 4.41

7. OXLEY / D’AGOSTINO – All I want 7.18

8. D‘GARY – Gofo Libre 2.40

9. HÉLIO DELMIRO – Espada de Fogo 4.37

10. DUOFEL – Repente 6.19

11. TAL FARLOW – I Remember You 4.13

12. LULA GALVÃO – Change Partners 6.28

13. HANK GARLAND – All the Things You Are 4.26

14. André Geraissati – Banzo 3.18

15. (1) GILBERTO GIL - Um Abraço no João 1.53

16. (2) JOÃO GILBERTO - Desde que Samba e Samba 3.55

17. (3) EGBERTO GISMONTI - ‘Lundú 4.17

VOLTAROL'S RADIO PROGRAMME PLAYLISTS

2011-06-01T16:17:00.001+01:00

Here, as promised on the radio last week, are the playlists for the programmes so far. Unfortunately I haven't got time to annotate them with links but if you are interested then a quick 'google' will give you most information - but you know that already or you wouldn't be reading this! If you want to know more about anything that I play on the show then by all means contact me via the blog. Happy listening!

p.s.Normal service on the blog will be resumed as soon as possible. I'll be back with more of the John McCartney story in the near future

ADVENTURES IN THE DIN TRADE – Programme 1. Friday 29^th April 2011

This programme was repeated on Friday May 6^th.

Intro: AIRTO MOREIRA – Andei (I Walked)

1. NOTENSTOCK – Itapemirim 5.40

2. JORGE BEN – Taj Mahal 3.05

3. SERGIO MENDES AND BRAZIL 77 – Pomba Gira 2.30

4. CANNONALL ADDERLEY – Batida Diferente 3.24

5. DOM UM ROMÃO – Caravan 5.09

6. WEATHER REPORT – Rockin’ in Rhythm 3.02

STEPS AHEAD – Pools 11.15
ELIANE ELIAS – Manha de Carnaval 6.40
JACK DE JOHNETTE’S SPECIAL EDITION – Third World Anthem 10.46
PAT METHENY GROUP Goin’ Ahead. As Falls Wichita etc. 16.20
QUARTETO NOVO – Misturada 4.16
QUARTETO NOVO –Vim de Santana 5.09
EDU LÔBO – Casa Forte 3.06
AIRTO – Papa Furado 3.29
1HERALDO DO MONTE – Nosso Boi 3.06
THEO DE BARROS – Angola 4.09
HERMETO PASCOAL – Viva Jackson de Pandeiro 2.23

ADVENTURES IN THE DIN TRADE – Programme 2. Friday 13^th May 2011

RENATO MARTINS – Boca Suja 1.42
FRIENDSHIP – Bullet Train 5.23
JOÃO BOSCO – Expresso 2222 5.13
RICHARD BONA – Balemba Na Bwemba 4.58
SERGIO MENDES & BRASIL 77 – After Sunrise 3.27
KIRSTY MACCOLL– In These Shoes? 3.27
THE JIM ALL TRIO – Down From Antigua 6.38
LYNNE ARRIALE TRIO – Calypso 5.13
MARIA RITA – Pagu 3.52
DAVY GRAHAM – Cry Me a River 2.1
MICHEL COLUMBIER – Dreamland 4.17
RICHARD GALLIANO – Mr Clifton 3.48
CESAR CAMARGO MARIANO & ROMERO LUBAMBO – Joy Spring 4.32
SAM BUSH – Sailin Shoes 3.38
MUMADJI – Preto E Branco 9.13
GIL GOLDSTEIN & ROMERO LUBAMBO – The Phonecians 6.52
IAN DURY AND THE BLOCKHEADS – You’ll See Glimpses 3.40
CHARLIE HADEN & PAT METHENY – The Precious Jewel 3.45

ADVENTURES IN THE DIN TRADE – programme 3. Friday May 20^th.

1. JOHN ABERCROMBIE – Ethereggae 8.23

2. HOWARD ALDEN / GEORGE VAN EPS – Just You, Just Me 5.18

3. LAURINDO ALMEIDA / BUD SHANK – Atábaque 2.48

4. BADI ASSAD – Rua Harmonia 5.14

5. SERGIO & ODAIR ASSAD – Deciso 4.39

6. BADEN POWELL – O Astonauta 2.32

7. BADEN POWELL – O Pastorinhas 6.11

8. RUSS BARENBERG – Cowboy Calypso 3.52

9. RUSS BARENBERG – Halloween Rehearsal 4.16

10. GEORGE BARNES - Love is Just Around the Corner 2.30

11. GEORGE BARNES – Intricacies of a Threshing Machine 1.37

12. RUBY BRAFF / GEORGE BARNES QUARTET – Liza 4.22

13. PAULO BELLINATI Lamento do Morro 2.26

14. PAULO BELLINATI & MONICA SALMASO - Cordão de Ouro / Berimbau 4.26

15. PAU BRASIL – Pulo do Gato 8.00

16. VICTOR BIGLEONE BRAZILIAN QUARTET – Cai Dentro 5.11

17. VICTOR BIGLEONE – Tommy Medley 4.04

19. LUIZ BONFA – Manha de Carnaval 2.27

ADVENTURES IN THE DIN TRADE – programme 4. Friday May 27^th.

1. STAN GETZ QUINTET – Cool Mix 3.03

2. JAY & KAI TROMBONE OCTET – The Surrey with the Fringe on Top 2.05

3. JACK TEAGARDEN – Rose of Washington Square 2.54

4. PAULO MOURA - ‘Chorinho pra Você’ 7.32

5. ZÉ DA VELHA – Ainda Me Recorda 3.58

6. PAGODE JAZZ SARDINHA’S CLUB – Transmestiço 6.09

7. CARLA BLEY - The Lord is Listening to Ya, Hallelujah! 7.11

8. ANDY SHEPPARD – Sofa Safari 13.16

9. ROLAND PERRIN – The First Word 6.38

10. JAY AND KAI – Alone Together 3.33

11. JUNE CHRISTY – The Kissing Bug 2.41

12. RAUL DE SOUZA St Remy 5.41

13. BOCATO – Samba de Zamba 6.01

14. BOCATO – Nossos Momentos 5.59

15. MICHEL PETRUCCIANI – Brazilian Like 4.47

15. STAN GETZ QUINTET- Erudition 3.08

Friday afternoon and Saturday evening…

2011-05-11T11:46:00.001+01:00

No, I know it’s not as catchy as Alan Sillitoe’s book title but sometimes you just have to go with what you’ve got. So – what I’ve got is Voltarol on the radio again on Friday afternoon (see link under 'Voltarol Recommends...) with ‘Adventures in the Din Trade, the radio show’ - the printed word in Spoke (apologies to Spike Milligan for that theft) and Que Belo Castelo at the Four Winds Inn, Falmouth on Saturday evening. And who are Que Belo Castelo, I hear you cry? Well, regular readers of these postings will remember one from November last year called A man of constant Choro. Those rehearsals bear their first fruits on Saturday night with that group now bearing a name which is in fact the Portuguese translation of an impersonation of a goldfish…don’t ask – it’s a long story…

Anyway, we’ve added to the range of the material and gained another musician along the way. The musician is clarinettist Dan Hughes who is a regular member of the Cornwall based world music group

Dan Hughes

Braga Tanga, and the expanded range of material now includes sambas, bossa novas, Cuban tunes, jazz standards, South African tunes and original material. If you live in Cornwall in the Falmouth area and you fancy a meal and an evening of eclectic music with a strong Brazilian flavour then here are the details.

Saturday May 14th

The Four Winds Inn

Dracaena Avenue, Falmouth

Que Belo Castelo

Kate Blackmore: Flute, Sam Norman: Double Bass, Pete Turner: Percussion, Pete Kubryk Townsend: 7 String Guitar
with Dan Hughes: Clarinet

Tickets £12 - includes hot and cold buffet

Doors open 7 p.m. Food served from 8 p.m. Music commences 9 p.m.

Phone 01326 311369 for bookings

or email fourwindspub@yahoo.com

You may detect a faint resemblance between Pete Turner and Voltarol – pure coincidence, I assure you…

JOHN NIXON, Maestro of the English Concertina: 1927 - 2011

2011-05-02T15:18:00.000+01:00

Earlier last month I learned that my good friend John Nixon had died at the age of 84. He had not been in the best of health for the last couple of years and finally succumbed to chronic anaemia and heart failure on March 4^th. He was a master musician who played alto saxophone and bass to a high standard, although he was best known for his English Concertina playing. John was a man who didn’t differentiate between genres of music: it was either good music, in which case it interested him, or it was bad music and therefore didn’t. As a consequence he saw nothing unusual about playing modern jazz or classical music on the concertina, which is normally seen as a purely ‘folk’ instrument. He was therefore much in demand for sessions and studio work.

Just over ten years ago John wrote a short autobiographical article for use by Rob Howard ( who also posted an obituary of John on Concertina.net in his four Volume work - The A-Z of the Accordion (and related instruments) and I have been given permission by John's widow, Margery, to reproduce it here.

THE ENGLISH CONNECTION

Recollections from John Nixon

My father, the late Jack Nixon, was one of five children who lived with their parents in a village just outside Bolton in Lancashire. The village (Lever Bridge) was surrounded by, on one side the church where I was christened, the Leverhulme Park, a river, Ramsden’s Pub, a very lofty railway viaduct and just beyond that, a monster canal aqueduct which, like the railway viaduct, crossed the valley high in the sky. Further round was a steep grassy bank on top of which was a terrace of cottages. In the centre of this terrace lived a man who was to have a big influence on my father’s life (and subsequently mine).

The man was a musician who played a Wheatstone Treble Aeola (which had glass keys) and other instruments such as Musical Glasses and a Musical Saw. I think his name was Abraham. My father, as a boy, used to climb the grassy bank and sit outside Abraham’s house to listen to his music. Abraham soon encouraged my dad into his home to listen properly and this led to dad being taught by Abraham to play the concertina.

My dad’s family were not interested in hearing a youth practicing scales in the house so dad had to practice in the coal shed outside. Of course, when his ability was recognised locally the family became very interested. Dad saved his money for many years until, at age 19, he bought a new Wheatstone Aeola Treble (the one I still play).

My father married and they set up home around the corner in Radcliffe Road in two rooms above a Butcher’s Shop (which is where I was born in January 1927) just a couple of hundred yards along the road from where Fred Dibnah lives today. The shop is currently a Chip Shop.

We moved to Bridgeman Street, Farnworth, which is where at my age of four dad taught me to play a Wheatstone Treble of the learners type, which had rosewood ends and white bone keys except C naturals, which were coloured red. I have a similar model still which, with reeds removed, has been used by a number of actors in various TV productions that I have played in. When I was almost six years old dad bought me a second-hand Wheatstone Aeola Baritone and that is the one I use mostly nowadays.

Dad took me along to a Bolton English Concertina Band rehearsal when I was six. This was in the basement of Queen Street Mission in Bolton and dad, who was the lead concertina, introduced me to the band’s conductor, Albert Jennings (who also conducted the Black Dyke Mills Brass Band) and it was agreed that I be allowed to join the band. I was handed a Wheatstone Baritone which had been tuned by the local expert (Dick Lord, I think his name was) so as to be playable from Horns in F parts directly using standard English fingering. I played in many concerts with the band and the highlight came on January18th 1935, one week before my eighth birthday. It was a broadcast from the BBC Manchester Studios in Piccadilly. I remember such programme items as a Selection from The Maid of the Mountains, Lustpiel Overture and The Entry of the Gladiators March. I can, for some obscure reason, remember that each player was paid 5 shillings except the Drummer (not part of the normal line-up) who received 7 shillings and 6 pence.

About this time dad formed his Quintet which enjoyed success with many concerts and broadcasts from Manchester. In those days the BBC used to audition folk in their own homes as well as the studios and I can recall a visit to our home in Bridgeman Street by BBC men Mr D.G. Bryson and a Mr McNair, who auditioned dad’s Quintet. Initially, the quintet consisted of dad leading on Treble, Wilf Wallace on Baritone, Bert Dingsdale on Double Bass and Jim Howarth on Cornet. Jim Howarth was later replaced by an excellent pianist called Arthur Prescott. The popular programmes they played included The Grasshopper’s Dance, Cuckoo Waltz, Old Comrades March, Belphegor March and, most popular of all, the Intermezzo from Cavalleira Rusticana.

During the 30’s dad had also played many solo spots around Lancashire and Yorkshire, usually accompanied by a pianist. He eventually arranged the piano parts for me to play on my Baritone and as a duo we were quite busy during the late 30’s, playing in clubs, schools and pubs etc. Each year dad would book our one week holiday in Morecambe at Mr’s Law’s boarding house in Queen’s Square and he also arranged for he and I (sic) to play at the Phoenix Club in Lancaster for three evening spots. This engagement each year paid for our family holiday.

A very significant contribution to improving my sight reading came as a result of borrowing large volumes of complete pianoforte works of all the great composers from Farnworth Public Library. By now I had developed the ability to read the bass clef parts of piano music on my Baritone and each free evening after my father had bathed and eaten (his day job was of (sic) an Iron Moulder) we would play all the music available from the library, playing some of the more difficult parts over again until we were satisfied with our performance.

I was given an opportunity to go to the B.B.C. studios in Manchester to audition for the Children’s Hour Programmes and although I passed the audition I wasn’t allowed to broadcast until I was 12 years old and even then I had to have a licence from the local authority.Eventually in 1940 I did play the first of many solo spots on the Children’s Hour, accompanied by that fine musician, the late Violet Carson. I remember playing Tosselli’s Serenata, Heyke’s Standchen Serenade and The Stars and Stripes Forever March. I was also called upon to perform the musical parts of actors in a number of radio plays for the Children’s Hour. Just prior to this, in the late 30’s dad bought me a trumpet and I eventually played it with his Quintet and also with the local Salvation Army Band and the Farnworth Old Brass Band.

When the 2^nd World War came along members of the Bolton English Concertina Band and dad’s Quintet dispersed for the war effort and never reformed after the war ended. I sold my trumpet and borrowed money to buy an Alto Saxophone with the intention of getting the Concertina into a dance band. In fact the Saxophone (and Clarinet) took over as I was in demand to play Lead Saxophone at the (then) Bolton Palais. During the resident band’s holidays I took my own band into each ballroom for a fortnight.

Even though I had, you could say, made it with the Saxophone and Clarinet, I still wanted to push the Concertina forward to play with other different instruments and one evening, whilst playing for dancing with a quartet, used the concertina for a waltz and played through the stand microphone so as to be heard above the other instruments. A man came to me and said that he could provide me with a much better sound with a personal amplifier and a small microphone fitted to each end of the Baritone. After he tried various combinations I was kitted out and that really opened up a whole new opportunity to develop my playing in Dance Bands and with Jazz Groups. I shortly afterwards moved to the South West and the amplified Baritone was seen and heard in just about every establishment in the Bath, Bristol and Warminster district, including the Radio and T.V. Studios of T.W.W. and B.B.C. I was very busy playing for dancing in large and small bands and became a regular member of the Tony Mockford Quintet at the Grand Spa Hotel in Bristol for some years. Tony loved the sound of the Baritone and wrote many special arrangements for it within the quintet. The guitarist with this band, Bill Parnham, had previously been a member of the Mantovani Orchestra.

I later moved to the West London district of New Denham and developed a long B.B.C. and I.T.V television connection for session work and also many engagements to play in orchestras for the recording of film scores, notably with the London Symphony and Wren Orchestras. The noted French composer Philippe Sarde first wrote for the English Concertina in his score for the Roman Polanski film ‘Tess’, and he said that he liked the sound of the Concertina because it was different. He scored for the Concertina in a further four films which were recorded in London or Paris.

I had the pleasure of playing alongside the great Jack Emblow during a Jazz session in Marlow in 1972 and that was the first of many enjoyable sessions in and around West London.

I had become conscious of the fact that I had gradually used the English Concertina in an ever enlarging sphere of music and this was something that dad did during the 30’s. This has been done in the company of quite famous musicians such as Michel LeGrand, Paul McCartney and Barbra Streisand and I feel sure that my father and the man who taught him so many years ago would have been pleased and even proud to have witnessed such a wide acceptance of the English Concertina. I hope that others can further this and that the very many players whose main interest lies in the English Folk idiom will take advantage of any tuition available to spread their abilities to take in classical, Jazz and Dance Music, in addition to the folk music of other countries.

My father taught me to play the English Concertina, but even more he taught me to appreciate all forms of music and how to listen to them properly.

John Nixon

21^st September 2000

I shall be playing some of John's music on my radio show in a few week's time, so watch this space for further details.

That damned Radio Show...

2011-05-02T13:38:00.000+01:00

For those of you that missed the first broadcast (but HADN'T intended to), it will be repeated again this Friday as I had made a prior commitment for that date before I took on the show. However, The following Friday will see things back on course and a brand new and shiny 'Adventure in the Din Trade' can be heard between 1 p.m and 3 p.m on (ominously!) Friday 13th May on the internet here or on The Source FM 96.1 if you live near Penryn in Cornwall, UK.

MURPHY'S LAW STRIKES AGAIN

2011-04-22T12:27:00.000+01:00

Just when you think everything is going to plan, the phone rings and a voice tells you that there are problems with the transmitter and your radio show is now due to go out NEXT Friday and not this one. This posting should be up within minutes of the advertised time for my show (see previous posting) so I apologise for that and blame it on the aforementioned Murphy. So expect to hear my dulcet tones on the ether on Friday 29th April at 1pm UK time. Damn that Murphy...

VOLTAROL GOES LIVE!

2011-04-21T18:35:00.000+01:00

Many apologies for the long gap since the last posting. Things in Voltarol World have been a bit chaotic for the last few weeks for various reasons but I will be back on course, continuing the John McCartney story and explaining the gap in transmission in the next couple of weeks. But in the meantime - as of tomorrow you can hear 'Adventures in the Din Trade' as a live two hour radio programme every Friday for the next three months! It goes out between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m.on The Source FM, which you can listen to on line here.

John McCartney – the animated bassist Part Three

2011-03-14T17:54:00.005Z

Further doings in the Gig Shop

The story of the Gig Shop is a saga in its own right so I won’t go into that right now, but some details are relevant to these tales of John. Within about a year of the shop’s opening it was doing very well and the time had come to find bigger premises. I rented a shop on the High Street and soon had a young manager (Colin) working for me full time, as well as regular part time assistance from – amongst others – John McCartney.

By this time, John and I were beginning to spend a lot of time together out of shop hours. At the end of most working days we would repair to our pub of choice (generally The Metropolitan Tavern in Windsor Street) for a pint or two before going home. With our partners we would also meet at each other’s homes for dinner at the weekends (if neither of us had a gig). This routine was expanded for a while when my friend Tom came to work at the shop. His home was added to the Saturday night roster and his wife, Jean, was soon also providing regular meals for what became known briefly as The Ranting Society.

John’s cartooning skills were soon employed for Gig Shop advertising. Between us we created a character called ‘Doctor Phelger’, whom I had pitched to John as the sort of spurious medical man that one might find depicted on a Victorian Patent Medicine label. The good doctor sported a soup-strainer moustache and a monocle, and made pronouncements that contained such phrases as ‘…earnestly commends to your attention…’ and ‘…begs to inform you of the great virtues of…’ One of his slogans was “A superior device at a gentlemanly price”. Our advertising style was soon drawing the attention of other businesses and we were commissioned to design a tee-shirt for Aria guitars, and a Christmas card for Custom Sound Amplification, both of which tasks we leapt at.

One of our less bizarre advertisements...

This one however is at the other end of the scale...

The Christmas card was based on a joke that I had first heard told by the late Matt McGinn and depicted Santa with his sleigh and reindeer in severe disarray on top of a collapsed public convenience which they have obviously just flown into at high speed. The door of one of the WCs has fallen open to reveal an outraged figure seated upon the throne with his trousers round his ankles (this was a very fine caricature of Custom Sound’s MD). The vista of a high street stretches beyond Santa (whose sleigh bears many ‘presents’ with the Custom Sound logo on them), and you can just make out that one of the shops is called ‘Schmidt’s House of Music’. A manic Santa is berating a severely concussed Rudolph with the words “You fool! I said ‘Land on the SCHMIDT House!’” Well, it made us laugh…Alas I no longer have a copy but if anyone out there does then I would love to see it!

The tee-shirt was commissioned by Pete Tullet, the MD of Gigsville, which was then the UK distributor of Aria guitars. Pete was particularly enthusiastic about the (then) new Aria SB1000 series basses. It was his firm belief that they would topple the Fender Precision bass from its best-seller position, and referred to the aforementioned instruments as ‘the dinosaurs of the electric bass world’. We came up with an image and text that he liked and the shirts were duly printed and distributed. We are still waiting for the demise of the dinosaur although to be fair, the SB1000 was a good design and is still being made. Sadly, the tee-shirts are not.

I found this one in the loft. I had to wash it a few times but it's not in bad condition given that it's 28 years old.

Actually, now I come to think about it, our advertising style may not have been as good as we thought. All three businesses that used us are now defunct!

There was a Council-run music facility not far from the shop, called ‘Unit One’, which provided a recording studio, rehearsal rooms, somewhere to stage gigs, and a basic café. This was provided by Youth Services or some such wing of the Council but was actually a pretty vibrant place. This was of course in the time of Punk so the place was positively heaving with bands, many of which were surprisingly good, but a lot of older musicians took advantage of its cheap rates for rehearsals and recording, myself included.

One of the young bands that frequented the place was called The Belairs and two of them – Neil and Anthony - were also customers in the Gig Shop. They affected a clothing style that was reminiscent of a 1950’s home insurance salesman and a musical style that hinted at swing and featured two saxophonists but used one of the newly emergent rhythm boxes ( I think it was manufactured by Electro Harmonix) to provide the ‘swing drums’. They were writing their own songs which were for the most part witty and distinctive, and had just acquired a manager (an equally young out of work actor called Richard Painter), who had no money to put behind them but was prepared to work hard on their behalf.

Neil approached me one day and asked if I would be interested in helping them out a bit by putting some more ‘authentic’ swing guitar into their work, as well as some percussion and some harmonica. He also asked me if I knew of a bass player that might fulfil a similar function for them. The net result is that John and I became members of the band – now renamed The Figaro Club (a band called The Belairs already existed in the

and so the new name was borrowed from a short-lived TV series from 1981) – and set about refashioning ourselves in an approximately youthful image for stage appearances. I went with the 1950’s bit but – as the possessor of a goatee beard - opted for a sort of ‘beatnik’ look, complete with black beret, striped tee-shirt, neckerchief and corduroy trousers. Unfortunately the overall effect was more onion seller than existentialist but I decide that that would do. John dug out a tank top and a tweed suit and tried to do something with his unruly mop of curly hair, We weren’t quite sure what effect he was striving for but the result was rather reminiscent of a younger Colonel Gadaffi trying to pass himself off as an Englishman.

Left to right: Neil, Voltarol, John and Anthony during the Windsor Street Bed Race

L. to R.: Saxophonist Tim hiding behind saxophonist and vocalist Duncan, Neil, Voltarol and Anthony. Richard Painter can be seen in the shop doorway behind the bandstand, between John and Anthony

Richard the manager worked hard and got the band a lot of exposure. We were quite popular locally and on one occasion did a gig in the street entertaining the crowds that had come watch the annual ‘bed race’ (a bizarre fund-raising event that involved teams of men in drag pushing hospital beds around the town) but were also performing ‘showcase’ gigs at places like ‘The Fridge’ in Brixton. It was at one of these, at a disco in Southall, that I first saw John’s character suddenly transformed for the worse by alcohol. John did not drink during a gig, but immediately after a performance would chuck down two or three beers quite swiftly. On this occasion Anthony had done a rather unfortunate thing and had stopped the band 30 seconds into a song, because he was unhappy with the tempo. He reset the rhythm box and then started us off again. After we had finished our set John hastened to the bar and took a lot of beer on board quite quickly then went and sought out Anthony and positively monstered at him, stabbing his finger into Anthony’s chest, slurring a bitter tirade against the unprofessionalism of restarting a song, and repeatedly calling him a ‘barsa’, which was as close as he could get to pronouncing the word ‘bastard’. We were all somewhat stunned by this but the following day he was his usual amiable self and was quite apologetic.

Promo night at The Fridge - Neil, Voltarol and John. John's slightly distracted look was due to the presence in the audience of his wife Brenda, who was 9 months pregnant with their son James. Mrs Voltarol was also there on standby in case a sudden rush to hospital was required...

The band was soon offered a record deal and one weekend a few months later we all trooped into the famous Jacobs Recording Studio to record a single. Much to my surprise Neil and Anthony shared my taste for the stories of Damon Runyon and had crafted a song between them which was most Runyonesque. It was called ‘Say, That’s a Great Dress You’re Wearing’ and, we all thought, had hit potential. Obviously, whoever it was that had put the money up thought so too and we spent all of that Saturday recording it and another song – the name of which now escapes me – that had been written by one of the saxophonists. We were well pleased with our efforts and left the studio that night with the feeling that we might have something really commercial on our hands and were already speculating about our first major tour. We had completed everything but the lead vocal on ‘Great Dress’ and Neil was due to return to the studio the following day – Sunday – to replace his guide track with the definitive performance. Imagine my reaction when Richard Painter phoned me on Sunday evening to say that Neil had apparently been instructed by God not to continue with the recording and to leave the band. John and I rechristened the band there and then as ‘The Band That Ripped Its Own Head Off and Then Pissed in the Hole’.

To be continued...

John McCartney – the animated bassist. Part Two

2011-02-23T16:04:00.005Z

Gig Shop days...

About a year or so after I started working for Uxbridge Music the company that owned it announced that they were closing the shop down. I suddenly found myself about to be unemployed but by this time I was living with my girlfriend (who was later to become Mrs Voltarol) and we had bought a flat together so I needed to do something, and I needed to do it quickly. I was certain that Uxbridge Music had gone under because it wasn’t carrying the right stock and I was equally certain that I could get my own business off the ground - although not in Uxbridge Music’s premises because the overheads were too high. That shop was located at the end of an arcade and was quite large, but there were a number of smaller units in the arcade and one had just become vacant. I scraped together enough money for the first month’s rent, negotiated a couple of trade accounts with some musical instrument suppliers and opened my own shop.

Voltarol behind the counter of Pete's Gig Shop Mark I

Initially, the stock was pretty basic. I had a good range of guitar stings and accessories, a few amplifiers and a couple of guitars. Then I came to an arrangement with the then recently established (but now defunct) ‘Gigsville’ company who were distributing Aria guitars in the UK. I would buy their ‘seconds’ and damaged guitars at a discount and have them repaired and improved by my old friend from the Jugular Vein, Richard Bartram, who was then based in Hayes and rapidly establishing himself as a first-rate luthier and guitar repair man. Within a short time I found myself in need of an extra pair of hands in the shop. John McCartney was a frequent visitor as he was not currently working during the day, so it seemed logical that I should employ him on a casual labour basis. This was an arrangement that suited both of us because I did not yet need – and could not afford – a full time employee, and John did not want the commitment of a full time job, being in the same position that I had been in with the Jugular Vein some ten years previously.

It soon became apparent that John was not best suited to shop work – or at least, not Music shop work – because he was all too easily distracted from the customers by the opportunity to practice the bass. He would sit himself down on an amplifier and hunch over a bass guitar, running endless scales, bits of Bach, funky riffs, chorded runs, harmonic flurries and the bass lines to innumerable jazz standards. He never bothered to plug the instrument in but instead would rest his chin on the ‘horn’ of the instrument’s body – just below the strap button – and listen to himself via bone conduction. The result was that the rest of the world would just fade out for him as he became more and more absorbed in what he was doing, and despite the fact that the shop was little more than sixteen feet long by about ten feet wide, a customer could stand there for ten minutes at a time before being noticed.

Despite this I liked having John around. He wasn’t a skiver: he was just easily distracted, so with a modicum of tactful management I could get him to do the occasional useful things around the premises. Unfortunately, even when his body was involved in the job in hand, his brain often wasn’t. The length of one wall of the shop had been battened off and covered in pegboard to facilitate the display of guitars on hangers. One day whilst I was out getting some lunch, John enthusiastically took down all the instruments that were on display, cleaned and polished them, and re-hung them on the wall, giving the bass guitars priority on the top row and relegating the electric and acoustic guitars to the bottom one. Unfortunately he had failed to take into consideration such factors as the weight difference between said instruments, and the potentially disastrous consequences of the cantilever effect when applied to the top of the peg board. I returned to the shop just in time to see John watching, fascinated, as a complete sheet of pegboard peeled itself off the wall and deposited my entire guitar stock in a heap on the floor. There was a moment of silence as the dust settled and then John opened his mouth, worked his jaw mutely for maybe twenty seconds and said “Bugger”. He picked up couple of guitars and inspected them for damage. Finding nothing major, but several chips and ‘dings’ to the finishes he looked at me hopefully and said “Discount Sale?”

Regardless of occasional incidents like this I continued to employ John whenever I needed someone to help out. He could field phone calls in a civilised manner, deal with basic sales of things like strings and plectrums, and his playing impressed the hell out of most of the would-be ‘musos’ that found their way into Pete’s Gig Shop’, as my little business was called. But most of all he was just fun to have around. We could make each other laugh all too easily and frequently devised elaborate practical jokes which we perpetrated on the customers. One such was the ‘Je Ne Sais Quoi’ pedal.

There is a breed of electric guitarist that believes that the purchase of a new effects pedal was the equivalent of six months of guitar practice. One such - a bus driver who I shall call ‘Jon Lee’ – was a regular visitor to the shop and was for ever ‘evaluating’ the worth of the latest effects pedals, although rarely buying much beyond the occasional plectrum or spare string. He could bore for England but wasn’t a bad chap, so although we would shudder inwardly when he came into the shop, he was nevertheless treated politely at all times and would even qualify for the occasional cup of coffee. He was totally convinced of his own superior musical and technical worth despite the evidence of his own ears which should have told him all that he needed to know every time he picked up a guitar and played it. In that respect he was a bit like the character ‘Dave Lister’ in Red Dwarf.

John and I had mocked up a display box and had arranged for one of our more electronically gifted customers to create a fake foot pedal for us, which was in effect simply a connecting box. In the manner of all guitar foot-pedals it had an ‘on-off’ foot switch on the top and a jack-socket at either end labelled ‘in’ and ‘out’, but was otherwise blank. The use of this unit achieved absolutely nothing. The outer box was labelled ‘Prototype - JNSQ.’ We put it on the pedals shelf and waited for a victim. It was rare that a day went by without a visit from Jon Lee and we did not have to wait long for his arrival.

“Afternoon, Men.” he said. (He affected a ‘huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’’ type of persona – all hearty and with dropped ‘g’ endings – “Anythin’ new and excitin’?” (This was a standard opening gambit). We said that there was nothing much – well not really…and I saw that he was eying the pedal shelf carefully.

“What’s that then, that prototype thingy?” he enquired. We informed him that it was nothing much - well, it was and it wasn’t…more of a professional tool for the studio really that we were trying out for the manufacturers…The bait was taken.

“Sounds interestin’” he said. “What does it do exactly?” We said that it was hard to explain but that it just gave your sound that little extra…something…that je ne sais quoi ...it was just so subtle that you needed really good ears to detect the effect. “Look,” we said, “we’ll show you”.

Jon Lee chose the most expensive guitar in stock and lifted it down from the wall – this was his standard practice – and then took the proffered jack lead from me and connected it to the guitar. John took the other end of the lead and plugged it into the ‘in’ socket on the JNSQ and then connected another lead between the ‘out’ socket and a guitar amplifier, switched on the amp and said ‘There you go. Try that” to Jon Lee. Mr Lee adjusted the guitar sound and the amp sound to his liking (a procedure that involved much ‘umming’ and ‘aahing’ combined with theatrical tweaks to the various controls involved, but invariably resulted in everything being set at ‘10’ with the exception of the volume control on the amp) then strummed his first chord. There was so much overdrive from the amp that the guitar made a noise like a sheet of steel being thrown through a plate glass window onto a circular saw. Jon Lee nodded his approval and then depressed the footswitch on the pedal and strummed again. The same horrendous sound emanated from the amplifier. Another nod from Mr Lee and the footswitch was depressed again, and again the atmosphere was rent apart by the banshee wail.

“Very nice!” said Jon Lee, “It’s subtle but it’s excellent.”

“They don’t come much subtler than that” said John, with a perfectly straight face, “We’ll report your findings to the designers. Why don’t you put it through its paces?” He turned to me and gave me his most evil leer. “I’m sure Pete will take some notes for you. Unfortunately I have to leave early as I have a gig tonight.” He grabbed his windcheater from behind the counter and fled through the door, barely able to suppress his sniggers, and in his best Shakespearean voice declaimed “I give you Good Day!” before disappeared from view, laughing like a drain. It was at least a week before I forgave him for that

To be continued....

John McCartney – the animated bassist

2011-02-18T15:33:00.003Z

Several times over the past few years I have announced my intention of writing more about the late - and many would say - great John McCartney. I finally got round to starting this task but very soon realised that this story would take more than one posting to do it any kind of justice. Here, therefore, is part one of the story of my friendship with him.

Around 1977 I was working in a music shop in Uxbridge called – unsurprisingly – Uxbridge Music. It was owned at that time by John Gummer (no, not that John Gummer but the one who had previously been a director of City Organ and Record Centres) and Richard ‘Rick’ Watts (late of Simms Watts Amplification). One morning, a tall, curly haired and well spoken chap came into the shop for some bass strings. I served him with a set of Rotosound ‘Swing Bass’ Round wound strings and then he asked if he could try out one of the electric basses that we had in stock. I said “yes”, plugged in the second hand Burns Bison bass that had taken his fancy, excused myself and went over to answer the telephone. The next thing I heard was Charlie Parker’s ‘Donna Lee’ being executed superbly. This was only a year after Jaco Pastorius had burst on to the scene and turned every electric bassist’s world upside down. I had heard many an aspiring bassist try to emulate Jaco’s version of this tune, but I had never heard anyone get beyond the first four bars without stumbling before, and certainly not at the speed of the original performance. This guy had it completely under control and – much to my amazement – wasn’t actually ‘show-boating’ his performance. He had his face to the wall and had turned the volume down on the amp!

That was my first introduction to John McCartney. I tried to engage him in conversation to maybe find out a bit more about him but he politely resisted my gambits and left the shop. The next time he came in I tried again, and the next. It wasn’t until about his fourth visit to the shop that his social defences went down and he accepted the offer of a cup of coffee (a courtesy extended to all regular customers) and stayed for a chat. It soon became obvious that we had quite a lot in common. He was a jazz enthusiast who also enjoyed the funkier end of the music spectrum; he was literate and much given to obscure biblical and Shakespearean quotations and he had a positively evil sense of humour. Over the next few months we became fast friends.

I discovered that John had been a professional animator for the Richard Williams studio but was currently attempting to make a living purely by playing jazz. As any one who has ever tried this knows, no matter how good you are and how much you work it is almost impossible to make a decent living without resorting to day jobs as well. At this time John was pursuing another strand of his life – a love of alcohol – by working as wine salesman during the day. This involved visiting potential clients by pre-arranged appointment and armed with a case of samples, then persuading said potential client to purchase cases of the stuff. The basic salary for this was small but the possible commission was quite good. I offered to become a client and arranged for a couple of my friends to be present for John’s visit to my flat, thus theoretically expanding his putative earnings.

John arrived at the appointed hour and I introduced him to my friends. The wine glasses were enthusiastically produced and the first bottle was offered up for tasting. John requested a glass for himself as well, so that he could “talk us through them”. There were twelve different bottles and we tried them all over the next two hours, successfully making a very large dent in John’s samples. The fact was that we none of us had sufficient disposable income at that time to buy a whole case of wine each. Never the less, even as John assured us somewhat alcoholically that it was not a problem, our collective guilt kicked in and my friends and I scraped together enough money to buy one case (the cheapest on offer) between us. John never actually said that this was the norm for his sales ventures but soon after that his career as a peripatetic vintner faded quietly away.

To be continued...

Paulo Moura, master musician

2011-01-25T16:39:00.005Z

The great Brazilian clarinettist and saxophonist Paulo Moura died on July 12^th last year. I’m usually on top of the news from Brazil but this event passed me by and I did not find out about it until a few days ago, when I visited his web site to see if there were any new recordings available. This was the second piece of bad news that I had received from Brazil this month (see my previous posting) and although it concerned the death of only one man as opposed to over 800 people in the floods at the latest figure, I was equally saddened by it.

I first became aware of Paulo Moura on a compilation CD that I bought about 18 years ago called ‘The Sounds of Brazil’ This particular album seems to have disappeared now, although a quick internet search reveals that umpteen different compilations with the same name are currently available. There was nothing that special about this one, except that there was so little Brazilian material available in my part of the world at the time that I would buy anything that I could get my hands on, even if a CD only had one or two tracks of apparent interest to me. Such was the case here. I bought the album for two tracks by Gilberto Gil and one featuring Milton Nascimento.

Imagine my surprise and delight when one track grabbed my attention far more than the ones I had bought the album for. That track was ‘Chorinho pra Você’ (Chorinho for You – you can read about chorinho - or choro as it is better known in this country - here) and it was credited to one Paulo Moura. There was no further information but I was hooked by the sound, which was like no other Brazilian music that I had heard at that point. It seemed like some kind of weird hybrid of Latin-American rhythms and New Orleans jazz, but with amazing bass counterpoint runs which were played on what I now know to be a seven string guitar, a six string guitar, and another high, driving, stringed instrument sound that I thought was another kind of mandolin but which turned out to be a cavaquinho. This was magical stuff that combined great ensemble playing with improvisation of the highest order. Paulo Moura’s clarinet was great, and there was also a splendid trombonist with a unique sound and terrific technique. Oh, and the whole thing was powered by a three piece percussion section led by what I eventually discovered to be a pandeiro.

All in all, this one track laid the foundations for the major expansion of my interest in Brazilian music and acted as a stepping-off point to a whole new world of stuff. I made my first trip to Brazil the following year and set out around the São Paulo record shops (the CD format was slow to take off in Brazil and most shops had far more cassettes than CDs at that time) with a list of artists that I was interested in and with the guidance of Alberto, who I met on that first trip and who subsequently became one of my best friends. Paulo Moura was on that list but I didn’t get my hands on ‘Mistura e Manda’ ('Mixed and Sent'. Thanks to my friend Vagner for help with that translation!)* - the album from which ‘Chorinho pra Você’ was taken - until a few years later. By that time I was already pretty certain that the trombonist was the splendid Zé da Velha because I had subsequently recognised his sound on other albums that I had bought, but I now learned that the 7 string guitarist was the extraordinarily talented and now late lamented Rafael Rabello. Another notable musician on the album was the bandolim player Joel Nascimento - also a favourite of mine - and although he didn’t play on that first track that I heard, it does illustrate rather nicely how one discovery can lead on to another.

As I acquired more albums of Brazilian music I began to notice how often Paulo Moura would crop up in the credits, and not just as a choro musician. The 1962 Cannonball Adderley release – ‘Cannonball’s Bossa Nova’ – features the eponymous Mr Adderley with the Bossa Rio Sextet, a group which included Sergio Mendes on piano, Dom um Romão on drums (who would go on to play with Weather Report), and a certain Paulo Moura on alto saxophone. The fact is that Paulo Moura was another of those musicians who transcended genre and just played music. He was as at home in a classical setting as he was in a jazz environment and he brought elements of both to bear when he played choro. One of my favourite albums of his is called ‘Rhapsody in Bossa – Paulo Moura visita Gershwin and Jobim’ (Paulo Moura visits Gershwin and Jobim). It is a live recording from 1998 and features – unsurprisingly – compositions by George Gershwin and Tom Jobim. However, the whole programme is played with a mixture of jazz feeling, Latin rhythms and humour, not to mention a sprinkling of circus band and a touch of Klezmer!

I could continue to enthuse about his various albums at great length but if you’ve read this far then you are probably interested enough to go out and buy one of them. I know that I will be watching closely for any previously unobtainable material that may be issued in the wake of his death. For me at least, I feel sad to think that I will now never get to see him perform live…

This is a version of Chorinho pra Voce which is taken from a great film about Choro and Choro musicians, called 'Brasilerinho'. It's available on DVD and is an absolute joy of a movie. Incidentally, I'm pretty sure that the trombonist on this is Ze da Velha.

Paulo was equally at home with the younger musicians. Here he is with Yamandu Costa in a version of La Paloma which they recorded together when Yamandu was in his early twenties

Paulo Moura – 1932 - 2010

* updated translation - the phrase is roughly equivalent in meaning to: "chuck it in and see what happens". Thanks to Son of Voltarol for that.

A sad Anniversary

2011-01-13T12:40:00.001Z

It’s exactly a year since I was in Teresópolis ( see Back in Brazil again) and I was saddened to discover this morning that it had been badly hit by the floods in Brazil, with over 100 people dead. It’s hard to get one’s head around the fact that torrential rains can flood a place that is 2,800 feet above sea level, even though I’m well aware of the number of rivers in the vicinity and in fact have experienced heavy rainfall and rising rivers in that region first hand.

A few years ago we were travelling back to Rio de Janeiro after a week spent exploring in Minas Gerais. It started to rain and within a few minutes it was falling so heavily that we had to pull off the road and stop, as visibility was down to about ten feet. We sat in the car and watched as great chutes of churning, mud-coloured water began to burst from the banks at the sides of the road and gush down the highway, carrying all manner of detritus before them. Fortunately the rain eased back to a less terrifying level after about twenty minutes, and we were able to proceed – somewhat cautiously – on our way. Never-the-less, the rain continued to fall heavily and steadily for the next three hours and we drove past several rivers whose waters were lapping over their banks, and it became clear to us that we were not likely to make it to Rio that night.

We ended up in the vilest hotel it has ever been my misfortune to stay in, in the town of Petrópolis, which is quite near Teresópolis and has much to recommend it, although the Hotel Girassol definitely does not fall in to that category. But that’s a tale for another day.

For those of you who wish to know more about the floods you can check out the BBC report here.

That was the year that was

2010-12-31T14:36:00.001Z

Well, another year is done and dusted and it is time for me to reflect briefly on the musical highlights of my year, before I get so drunk celebrating the start of a new one that I can’t even remember typing this sentence…

The whole of my last Brazil trip in January and February was chock-a-block with good musical moments but the highlight of all of those was also my GIG OF THE YEAR. You can (if you so wish and haven’t done so already) read more about the trip generally here, but the gig in question was a concert by Yamandu Costa and Hamilton de Holanda at the marvellous Auditório Ibirapuera, in São Paulo. It was a evening of sublime music played by two virtuoso instrumentalists who obviously have the greatest of respect for one another, performed in a near-perfect acoustic environment. When we left the building after the concert I was still having difficulty in seeing properly because their encore had caused me to quite literally weep with joy!

Here is a clip of them playing ‘Samba do Rafa’ - a Yamandu Costa composition that is a tribute to the great Raphael Rebello - at a concert that they gave at the same venue in 1997.

And here is a clip from the actual 2010 concert. I have included the first clip because they played the tune that night and it is one of my favourites but unfortunately I couldn't find that version on YouTube.
This one is called 'Meiga' ('Sweet') and is another Yamandu composition.

And for good measure here is 'Suite Retratos Numero Quatro' (Portrait Suite Number Four) which was composed by one of Yamandu's big influences - Radamés Gnattali.

My CD of the year is, I suppose unsurprisingly, also Brazilian. It is ‘Noites de Gala Ao Vivo'
(Gala Nights Live) by Mônica Salmaso and Pau Brasil,

which actually came out in 2009 but which I bought earlier this year. Monica had this to say about it on her website (I took the liberty of copying it here because I could not create a link to the English version.) - "When we released the DVD of this project, Biscoito Fino had already asked us to release the live CD.

At first, I was against this idea because when the DVD was recorded (March 2008), there had been very few changes in our performance regarding the CD recorded in the studio. We were the same group, playing the same songs with the same arrangements.
I thought that launching a product that was so similar to the one we had launched the year before didn’t make sense.
Between April and November 2008, our dream came true. We went on a tour that covered 21 cities in all regions in Brazil.
I had fulfilled the dream of being able, for the first time, to take the same show with the same technical team and part of the equipment to so many cities for almost a year.
After a 10-year career, I had the opportunity to kind of “map” the audience that has been gradually formed, without a great commercial exposure. And what surprised me most was the fact that my work had an audience in many cities I had never been to before, formed in a spontaneous way and with great identification. Brazil, such a big country and with difficult communication (beyond the unilateral reach of television), became a little smaller with this tour and I felt, more than ever, like a “countrywide” artist, not only from the southeast region where I was born, live and work most of the time.
When we were on tour, we performed in the most beautiful theaters of each city, historical theaters where both the artist and the audience feel happy for being there.
We visited the cities, met people and got to know places and, the same way as the show, we ourselves had the opportunity to “unify” Brazil by means of those trips.
When we returned to Fecap Theater in São Paulo on October 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 2008, there had been considerable musical changes in the show. We had performed the show for more than 80 times in several theaters and other nuances, novelties and more musical property were incorporated into the arrangements, besides having included the song FLOR DA IDADE in the repertoire. Like food that is slowly cooked in a wood-burning stove, the show got the same “flavor” of being well done and that only practice and time can provide.
To our luck, the show on October 3 was recorded and, we were even luckier, well recorded without the need of major changes to be made. It was very musical and reflected exactly our feeling that it had gained musicality during the tour, the trips, after the repetitions, with the different audiences and in the various theaters. When I listened to this recorded show, I finally decided to launch it so that the cycle of the project could be completed and we could share this recording and the maturation of the show.
I thank the musicians of the Pau Brasil group for the partnership, all the team that worked seriously and with love for the success of our tour, the local producers, the press in all the cities where we had shows, the sponsors of the tour (Bradesco Prime), Fecap theater for the place we love and for having recorded the show and Biscoito Fino for all support and beautiful projects."

It has to be said that, great though the Yamandu and Hamilton de Holanda gig was, if I’d seen this gig this year then it would have been gig of the year as well. Oh, and there’s a DVD of it as well and I nominate that for DVD of the year! Here is a a promotional clip for the DVD. If you look on YouTube there are a number of clips that have been posted by people who have filmed from the audience but non of them do justice to the sound quality of the original and I therefore do not add them here. Rather, I would urge you to track it down and buy it!!!

Well, that's it for 2010. I trust that it has been a good year for you and that the next one will be an even better one.

Happy New Year!

Feliz Ano Novo!

Voltarol’s Christmas Cracker

2010-12-23T13:35:00.000Z

The festivities are upon us once more and who am I to cry “Bah! Humbug!”? Well - a fairly disgruntled senior citizen of the

, that’s who, but my gruntle is no more dissed than most peoples and I don’t feel inclined to vent my spleen here. There’s plenty of time for that next year.

No – since it is the time when chestnuts are nipping at your toes and Jack Frost is roasting on an open fire (thanks for that line, Denny. I stole it shamelessly), I thought I’d share a few things with you that make me laugh. I shan’t bother to annotate them as they will either entertain you or they won’t and they are all self explanatory. All you need to know is that they are a source of great amusement to me – and if they don’t amuse you well “Bah! Humbug!” anyway…

Cheers!

Danu Fox in Falmouth

2010-12-06T15:27:00.000Z

Landlord Nick Swan is promoting the first in what he anticipates will be a series of innovative musical evenings in the restaurant area of the Four Winds Inn in Falmouth when he presents Danu Fox and Sorisso on Saturday December 11^th. Danu and Sorisso have put together an evening of music that combines musical influences from both North and South America, combining Latin rhythms with jazz standards and throwing some bossa novas and other Brazilian music into the mix.

Singer Danu Fox is known for her musical eclecticism and is equally at home in the jazz, folk, Latin and World music fields. This original and accomplished singer has been likened to Sarah Vaughan. Her spellbinding voice has been described as ‘the smoothest in Cornwall’.

Sorisso is the latest of a series of musical units featuring Pete Kubryk Townsend and Pete Turner. Whenever these two get together you can be certain of a strong Brazilian slant to things. Pete Kubryk Townsend, whilst better known in Europe as a superb double bass player, is also a fine exponent of the nylon string guitar (or ‘violão’ as it is known in Brazil). It is on this instrument that he joins percussionist Pete Turner (who has honed his skills playing all over Brazil in recent years) for this venture. The trio is completed by double bassist Tim Greenhalgh, an excellent player with some twenty years of professional experience to his credit, who has previously played with both Petes in separate ventures.

p.s.

Any resemblance between Voltarol and Pete Turner is purely coincidental (it says here...)

A man of constant Choro

2010-11-25T17:47:00.000Z

The other week my good friend Pete Kubryk Townsend phoned me with the suggestion that we get together to run through some Choros together. He had acquired the music for some and was eager to give them a try. A few days later we sat down in my living room with two other curious recruits and began to work through some of the tunes. Four hours later we agreed that we had the makings of a Choro group on our hands and agreed to meet up on a regular basis to knock some of this material into shape.

“So what?” I hear you yawn. Well, the point is that this particular music form dates back to the late nineteenth century and has a lot in common with ragtime and yet the musicians involved in this particular project include two young students and one of the teachers on the Truro College jazz degree course. They, like me, are totally enthused by it and obviously find it relevant and satisfying music to play. So what is this music that we’re all getting so excited about?

Choro seems to have started in Rio de Janeiro around about 1870. According to Chris McGowan and Ricardo Pessanha in their book ‘The Brazilian Sound’ – “ In its early days, choro was less a genre than a style, with Afro-Brazilian syncopation and a Brazilian flair added to fashionable European dance music of the time, including waltzes, polkas, schottishes, quadrilles and mazurkas. The pioneering figure Joaquim Antônio da Silva Calado (1848 – 1880) founded the group Choro Carioca in 1870, the same year he was appointed a teacher at Rio’s Imperial Conservatory of Music” Calado, a virtuoso flautist, was joined by two guitars and a cavaquinho. The music that he composed for this group seems to have been based around his virtuosity and set the tone for the Choro groups that were to follow – as did the instrumental line up. By around 1900 Choro had settled down as a distinct and recognisable genre which continued to evolve and spawn new talent.

The evolution of this music seems to have a lot in common with the evolution of Ragtime in North America, being an admixture of African and European musical styles, although Choro is generally believed to slightly predate Ragtime, which seems to have emerged around 1890. Never-the-less there are distinct parallels to be found between the two forms Just as elements of ragtime helped shape the newly emergent Jazz, so elements of Jazz were incorporated into Choro – particularly by the great Pixinguinha, who added saxophone and trombone to the sound. By the late1930s Choro has even penetrated the market outside of South America. I’ll hazard a wager on the likelihood of most people over the age of forty having heard ‘Tico Tico’ (originally ‘Tico-Tico na Fubá’) which was written by Zequinha de Abreu in 1917 and sung by Carmen Miranda in the Hollywood movie ‘Copacabana’ in 1947.

This is not the original film version but dates from around the same time

The fortunes of the genre have waxed and waned in the intervening years – sometimes generating a new batch of great composers and performers and sometimes lying dormant for years at a time – but it has always remained there in the background of Brazilian popular musical taste, influencing many musicians and often being reworked and reinterpreted in new and interesting ways. In the last few years it has generated a new following in North America (which I have written about elsewhere in this blog (Strike up the Bandolim), and is currently undergoing another revival of interest in Brazil. I was fortunate enough to visit a private Choro club in São Paulo a couple of years ago and was delighted to see that the age of the audience ranged from about 12 to 75 or more. More to the point, the age range of the musicians wasn’t that different, starting as it did at around 24 or 25. Brazilian jazz musicians continue to draw on the Choro repertoire for inspiration and the great Benjamin Taubkin has recently released a whole CDs worth of Choros under the title ‘Modern Tradição’ (Modern Tradition’) which includes works by some of the genre’s finest composers – Pixinguinha, Jacob de Bandolim, Kchimbinho, Garoto and Ernesto Nazareth.

Yes, this music is alive and well 140 years after it first emerged, and is still finding new adherents every day. I can’t wait for the next gathering of our group.

If these few words on the subject have whetted you r appetite then here are a few examples for you to savour - first, a classic Pixinguinha tune performed by the master and his band.

And next the same tune reinterpreted in 1978 by the great Elis Regina

Next, a more classical interpretation of a Garoto tune by Paulo Bellinati -

and finally, two great young contemporary musicians from Brazil - both of whom I have written about elsewhere on this blog - perform an Ernesto Nazareth tune. Enjoy!

Taubkin's back in town

2010-10-31T14:33:00.000Z

I have good news and bad news. The good news is that that masterful Brazilian pianist Benjamin Taubkin will be appearing in London on Saturday November 6th. The bad news - well for me at any rate - is that I will not be there for the concert. I can't tell you how cheesed off I am to be missing the gig. As followers of this blog will know, Benjamin Taubkin is one of my favourite musicians and I was fortunate enough to be able to interview him the last time he was here. All I can say is - go and see him if you possibly can. You won't regret it!

How the Voltarol got his name

2010-10-28T15:43:00.005+01:00

(With apologies to Rudyard Kipling)

Left to right: Ganja the Dwarf, Voltarol, Alcohol

On the right hand side of this blog you will see my profile, which includes a reference to my two brothers – Alcohol and Ganja the Dwarf – and the fact that we have been known to go on the occasional mystic quest together. This apparent nom de blogish whimsy is in fact firmly rooted in reality and I have had several requests to explain more. So – as senior brother Alcohol has already written about this for publication elsewhere, I thought I would reproduce his piece here but with the addition of a few appropriate links and photographs. Only the names have remained the same to identify the far from innocent…

Three Old Farts in a Boat.

It was all the fault of my younger brother Pete. We bought him a first edition of one of his favourite books, “Three Men in a Boat”, for his sixtieth birthday last August and it reminded him of the enormous fun that he and I and his little brother Bob had on, in, and around the River nearly fifty years ago.

Within a week he ‘phoned me to suggest that the three of us get together and, using the book as a model, have a week on the Thames. He had already propositioned Bob, searched the Web, and found a small company that hired out Victorian camping skiffs.

I hesitated for about a millisecond before agreeing. It has always been my ambition to grow old disgracefully and this seemed like a significant step in the right direction. As the plan was elaborated we decided that we would follow as directly as possible in the footsteps of Jerome K Jerome’s heroes. We would start from as near Kingston as we could. We would take small tent for one of us and the other two would sleep under the canvas awning of the boat. If the weather was foul we might take refuge in a pub for the night. We would also exactly retrace their path by rowing upstream to Oxford, ninety-one miles and thirty-one locks. Circumstances even ensured that we did it at the same time of the year, the third week in May.

Just after three o clock on the afternoon of Wednesday the 17^th the three of us shoved off from the landing slip at Thames Ditton. Pete and Bob were at the sculls and I was on the rudder lines. I uttered a confident and seamanlike cry of “give way” and we rowed out manfully into the stream. At this point Judy, our chauffeuse, began to look less apprehensive but we rather spoiled it by hailing her to ask which way was upstream.

Left to right: Ganja the Dwarf, Voltarol, Alcohol

Once this tricky point was resolved we made our farewells and set off pulling along the boundary of Hampton Court palace. It was bright when we started out but the sky had been clouding over for a while and it was not long before it started to rain. At this point we were very pleased that our gear was all stowed in waterproof stuff bags. Three hours later it was still drizzling and we made our first nights camp moored alongside a rather muddy island near Shepperton.

Alcohol wrestles with the camping cover

It was something of a pantomime. None of us had erected a camping cover since I was a lad, the Victorian folding hoops seemed intent on inflicting painful injuries on our fingers and the heavy canvas cover weighed more than we remembered. Eventually we got it up, Bob’s tent was pitched, and with the aid of an entrenching tool sanitary facilities were provided in an adjacent thicket. This first night it took well over an hour and a half to set up camp but we got faster with practice

Ganja and Votarol work on the wine lake

Once order was established Pete cooked supper and I opened the first bottle of wine. We washed up in the river (We carried our drinking water with us but relied on the Thames for washing water) and then opened the second bottle. We followed that with Pete’s secret camping potion, hot chocolate laced with about a quadruple brandy and by bedtime we were three deeply contented men. When we retired to our sleeping bags we slept like logs. We woke at about seven the next morning, breakfasted on tea, dried fruit and muesli, struck the tent and the cover, tidied the camp site and rowed off up river.

That first day set the pattern except that we abandoned the notion of cooking a main meal in the evenings as the weather worsened. From then on we found a pub for a couple of pints, a substantial lunch and coped with plenty of tea and cold food for breakfast and supper besides making serious inroads on the European wine and brandy lake.

Alcohol, Voltarol, Montmorency, a friendly landlord and Ganja the Dwarf

The weather worsened and the wind was pretty consistently against us. On one day it recorded a mean speed of twenty-five knots, and as the heavy rain continued the lock keepers progressively opened the weir sluices and the current ran faster and faster. Passing through Reading we were overtaken by a three year old riding a fairy-cycle along the towpath and several times we were rowing flat out and only just managing to breast the current, while we hunted across the stream for slack water.

Ganja and Alcohol , Rosalind and Actief

On the fourth night we decided that a shower and a dry bed would be a good idea but discovered that most of the cheerful riverside pubs of our youth had been tarted up and become hideously expensive. What is more, in our wet and mud splattered condition we would have been about as welcome as a mild dose of amoebic dysentery. In the end, the friendly keeper at Sonning lock introduced us to “J” and Charlotte, the owners of the hotel boat “Actief” which was moored just above the lock. Despite the fact that they had just said farewell to a full complement of guests and had been looking forward to an evening off, they provided comfortable beds, hot showers, a great deal of wine and a magnificent breakfast.

Restored by good company and this touch of luxury we pressed on upstream and despite being awarded a yellow card, which told us that the current was now too strong for unpowered boats, we continued to head for Oxford and became increasingly confident that we were going to make it. We developed a sneaking feeling of smug superiority when we encountered two more of Tom Balm’s skiffs coming downstream, the crew of one of them announcing that they had asked to be retrieved after only two days.

Alcohol, Voltarol and Ganja the Dwarf 'having a ball'.

Despite the weather we were having a ball and despite an average age of sixty- two, reverting to our juvenile selves. We are none of us the sort of blokes to take readily to stuffed toys but Montmorency, the toy dog that had been loaned to us in place of Jerome’s very real one, began to develop a personality.

Montmorency availing himself of the facilities...

Dafter still, we boozily decided that we were on a quest and adopted the characters of Voltarol, Alcohol, and Ganja the Dwarf. Any one that has suffered from arthritis will be familiar with Voltarol, Alcohol needs no explanation, and two years teaching in a school for disturbed adolescents provided me with the third name. We later added a fourth character to our pantheon, Offa’s Dyke, a Celtic princess of indeterminate gender.

The week wasn’t merely a combination of a nostalgia fest, an endurance trial and a geriatric booze cruise. It was also a journey through a positively magical landscape. Once above Windsor, apart from a rather dreary passage through Reading, the Thames Valley is every bit as beautiful as it was fifty years ago. There wasn’t very much river traffic and because a rowing boat makes very little noise the wild life took next to no notice of us and we saw at close range Red Kites, Parakeets, Herons, innumerable water-fowl, and a quietly busy little water vole. The banks were as leafy as ever and the May blossom brought to mind hackneyed comparisons with lace and foam, and an odour that booted all three of us back to being about ten years old again.

The lock keepers were almost universally helpful, there were still a few cheerful unpretentious riverside pubs which gave us a very warm welcome and most of the folks we shared the river with were friendly and good natured.

Elderly hooligans

When we emerged from the final lock at Iffley we ran directly into a flotilla of Oxford regatta crews who were evidently bewildered by a trio of elderly hooligans chanting “Voltarol, Alcohol and Ganja the Dwarf” but before we could get in to serious trouble we reached the slipway above Donnington Bridge, where two daughters and three grandchildren were cheering and waving flags at us. “Rosalind” was hauled out of the River and on to Tom Balm’s trailer, and our voyage was over. There will be another one next year. Despite a few creaks aches and pains none of us wants to wait for another forty- eight years before we do it again.

The good ship 'Rosalind' and her crew at journey's end.

Well, that was in May 2006. The following year we paddled two Canadian Canoes down the River Wye together, on a quest that we named - unsurprisingly - 'Three men in two boats', and one day I'll tell that story here. For various reasons there has not been a quest since then but we are currently planning one for next year. We are not quite sure what form it will take but it will definitely involve boats and a renewed assault on the European wine and brandy lake. Maybe we'll try to swim across it...

The Afro Sambas

2010-10-19T16:11:00.002+01:00

Baden Powell

When I first started working in a record shop in 1964 (see (High) Street life) I soon discovered the joys of specialist record importer’s catalogues. Good record shops stocked ‘in depth’ in those days, and one of my more pleasurable tasks was to scan the pages of the aforementioned catalogues in search of interesting stock. One such catalogue was produced by a company called ‘Selecta Records’ who were, I think, principally the distribution arm of Decca Records, but they had a fine imports selection and among other things distributed the French Barclay label in the UK. As I observed in a recent posting (French Leave), the French do have an appetite for good music generally and this characteristic manifested itself particularly in the Barclay catalogue in the form of a number African and Brazilian recordings.

At this time I had yet to recognise the passion for Brazilian music that was stirring in me, so I was drawn to the name ‘Baden Powell’ out of sheer curiosity and amusement. When ‘Le Monde Musical de Baden Powell’ arrived in the shop it was with no more than vague interest that I put it on the turntable for a listen but I was hooked from the start. This was guitar playing of the highest order and although some of the tracks were a bit ‘syruped up’ with unnecessary strings, others were sublime. I was particularly taken with a tune called ‘Berimbau’. I didn’t know then what a berimbau was and certainly had no idea that I would ultimately own and play one.

Time passed and my enthusiasm for Brazilian music generally and Baden Powell in particular resulted in an ever growing collection of Brazilian recordings, which went positively nuclear after my first visit to Brazil. My face is extremely well known in many Saõ Paulo CD shops and I rarely return from a Brazil trip with less than 30 albums. Ironically though it was on a regular on-line CD trawl that I first came across ‘Baden Powell – Afro Sambas’ (1991) on the French JSL label. By this time I was fairly familiar with many of Baden Powell’s compositions and was also aware that amongst the numerous people he had collaborated with in his composing career was Vinicius de Moraes, who had co-written ‘Berimbau’ with him.

Vinicius de Moraes

I noticed that, with the exception of the first tack – ‘Abertura’ (Overture) – which was credited to Baden Powell alone, all the other tracks were co-written with Vinicius. I also noticed that one of the titles was ‘Variações Sobre Berimbau’ (Variations on Berimbau), and that a number of the Candomblé gods or ‘Orishas’ were referenced in the other titles (I knew about these from having visited Salvador and through my reading of the works of Jorge Amado). The disc was duly bought and played and I was, of course, hooked.

All though my linguistic abilities are poor and my French in particular is only marginally better than Del Boy’s, I was able to ascertain from the sleeve notes that this was a re-recording of the Afro Sambas and that the original had been issued in 1966 but had been unobtainable for quite some time. Furthermore, Vinicius de Moraes, who had died in 1980 and was therefore not a participant in the 1991 recording, had performed on the original. This original recording immediately migrated to the top of my ‘must have’ list, where it was to stay for the next twelve years or so.

A few years after this initial purchase I was on yet another trip to Brazil and searching through the racks in Pops Discos (see Voltarol in Brazil 2010, continued) when I came across a second-hand copy of Afro Sambas performed by Paulo Bellinati and Mônica Salmaso and immediately added it to my haul for that particular day. I think that I had it on the CD player within minutes of returning to my son’s apartment and was immediately seduced by the wonderful voice of Ms Salmaso and the superb guitar playing of Paulo Bellinati as they breathed new life into these songs. I was also beginning to realise that they had not actually been composed to go together as a suite (although they worked well enough in that respect), because the order in which the songs were performed was different to that of Baden Powell’s 1991 recording, one title was omitted and the disc included an original guitar composition by Paulo Bellinati – ‘Cordão de Ouro’ (Golden Cord), which had been grafted on to ‘Berimbau. I subsequently learned that Mônica Salmaso was only twenty four when she recorded this – it was in fact her first CD – although Paulo Bellinati was a seasoned performer who had already made a name for himself. If I’m honest, I think I actually prefer this album to Baden Powell’s re-recording.

So that was that, and I now had another two artists whose recordings were on my ‘must have’ list. Time passed and I began to think that I was very unlikely to find that original recording unless one of my Brazilian friends knew someone that owned a copy but didn’t want it…or maybe I would find a Japanese reissue (surprisingly, there is a very big following for Brazilian music in Japan). And then, a couple of months ago, I learned about an extraordinarily eclectic reissue label called ‘él’. There, lurking in their catalogue alongside such unlikely bedfellows as Becker and Fagan, Brigitte Bardot, Segovia, Chet Atkins and Malcolm Arnold were a number of Brazilian artists and – yes! Result! There it was, the original ‘Os Afro Sambas’ from 1966 which has been reissued with a Baden Powell solo guitar album from 1963 – ‘Á Vontade’ (loosely - ‘Chilling Out’) – on one CD. When my copy arrived I couldn’t wait to play it but was a bit trepidatious. Would it live up to my expectations? I needn’t have worried. His recording is an absolute masterpiece and well worth the long wait.

In his sleeve notes for the original album Vinicius says – “When the young and talented producer Roberto Quartin approached us about recording this album, we agreed that it should be made with maximum creative freedom and minimum commercial interest. We were not interested in producing a well crafted record but instead to be spontaneous in conveying the simple message of our sambas’. In truth, the net results - which utilise as many amateur and semi-pro musicians and singers as they do professional ones – occasionally teeter on the verge of chaos, and yet it is sublime chaos. These performances capture the spirit of their subject matter and at times transport one to the same heights as “…the powerful magic of candomblé baiano ( candomblé as practised in Bahia)…” to quote again from Vinicius. Here's a sample track.

All that remains to be said here is that all three of these albums are worth owning, but if you must choose between them then the original is by far the best. It’s up there in my top twenty recordings of all time – but then again, so is Mônica Salmaso and Paulo Bellinati’s version! Go on - get them all.

A poster from the past

2010-09-16T15:37:00.003+01:00

Last week I received an email from my old mate, fellow blogger and Blue Two and a Half, Leigh Heggarty. Leigh had, in the course of his guitar tuition activities, acquired this old poster advertising events for January 1985 at the jazz club that I ran for several years at The Load of Hay public house in Uxbridge, Middlesex. Being the good soul that he is, he had forwarded a copy to me, along with a copy of his latest poster advertising events at the club he now runs at that same venue.

This of course was where the recent Blue Five reunion took place earlier this year, and where the Jugular Vein had played one of their first gigs in the late 1960’s. One way and another I’ve had connections to this pub for over forty years!

Seeing the poster after all this time brought back a lot of memories about the musicians involved. Some of them I am still in touch with, two of them are no longer with us but the rest are still playing – and playing well. I’ve had a snoop around on the net and found a fair amount of material about them so I thought I’d compile it all here. I was also very fortunate in that many of the gigs were documented in pictures by a young photographer called Chris Warren who was just starting his career. All the black and white images on this posting are his handiwork (and, incidentally, his copyright). I tracked him down on the net after I started writing this piece, having lost touch with him some twenty or more years ago and was pleased to learn that he was still taking photographs for a living. He has a thriving business and an excellent web site with many examples of his work which you can find here.

The late Matt Matthewson was a fine pianist who was born in that most unlikely source of jazz musicians, The Shetland Isles. He was the younger (I think) brother of the more well known Ron Matthewson, who played double bass with Ronnie Scott Quartet for many years. I’m not sure what had happened, but at some point not long before I met him Matt had had an accident which had affected his behaviour some what. As a consequence he was not always the most reliable musician, and had been known not to turn up for a gig - or to turn up but to forget his piano, as happened at my club once. But for all this Matt was still worth booking because he was a great and inventive player who always provided an evening of excellent and thought-provoking music. Sadly I have only been able to find this rather poorly recorded example to illustrate this. I post one here by way of memory jogger to any one out there who has memories of Matt or, better still, recordings or video footage of him.

Matt was accompanied on this occasion by the club’s resident musicians – The Coverdale/McCartney Trio, featuring Martin Hart.

Guitarist John Coverdale is playing as well as ever and works regularly in the Home Counties. John, like me, started his musical life in the folk clubs before moving into life as a professional musician. Unlike me he went the academic route and went back to study music, eventually attending one of the Dankworth/Laine Wavendon music courses.

I caught up with him earlier this year when we had the opportunity of playing together at the same function which saw the partial reunion of the Jugular Vein. Despite appearances, I am in fact playing percussion and not squaring up for a fight with the invisible man...

The late John McCartney played electric bass in this unit and was one of the few players of that instrument that many of the London based jazz fraternity would work with. John was a dazzling player who swung like crazy, was tremendously supportive of other musicians and was a fine soloist in his own right. It is my intention to devote a whole posting to John in the near future.

Drummer Martin Hart completed that trio. He has a very subtle touch and a very musical ear, and always listens intently to the players he is working with. Martin was never one to blow his own trumpet, so to speak, but he had worked with names as diverse as Dudu Pukwana and John Mayall.

I found this clip of him playing at a jazz club in Surrey in 2008. Unfortunately he's impossible to see because of the juxtaposition of the camera and the saxophonist's sheet music, but you can hear him well enough!

Inigo Kilborn is the musician about whom I know least. He only played the one gig for me and I can’t now recall anything about that evening. I can’t even remember what the instrumentation of his group was, let alone who the musicians were, although judging by the musical company he keeps these days (John Horler, Malcolm Creese and ex Load of Hay regular Max Brittain) they would have been top drawer players. I have found a couple of clips of Inigo but these seem to show him playing Dixieland!

The third Sunday of January 1985 saw the resident trio supporting chromatic harmonica player Harry Pitch. Harry was another regular at the club. He made a good living from session work but jazz is his first love and he is one of the ever growing numbers of improvising musicians whose first choice of instrument is the harmonica. (In fact, the harmonica is in its second phase of ascendancy at the moment – see this posting on the National Harmonica League’s web site – and Harry was part of the tail-end of the first wave so he spans both phases.) Not many people know him for his jazz playing but most people in England are probably familiar with the theme music for ‘The Last of the Summer Wine’. Harry played this for the first twenty five years of the series. He provided harmonica for a number of chart singles over the years, including ‘Groovin’ with Mr Bloe’ and Frank Ifield’s ‘I Remember You’. - Oh, and he played on the theme music for the cult BBC detective series ‘Shoestring’, which ran between 1979 and 1980. Anyway, Harry is still playing and I found this clip of him with Rhythm and Reeds, a group he has run with accordionist Jack Emblow (another regular at the club) for many years.

Incidentally, the bass player here is Pete Morgan, and a quick glance at the poster will tell you that he replaced John McCartney in the resident trio for the last gig of that January. In fact Pete was a regular ‘dep’ for John at the club, as was fellow double bassist John Rees Jones. All three were busy session players and shared the honours between them, but it was always John McCartney’s first-call gig.

The guest for that Sunday was John Nixon, whose first instrument was another most unlikely source of jazz – the English Concertina! (Scroll down this list of recordings to find some examples of his work.) John also plays alto saxophone and double bass (although since heart problems in the early eighties he abandoned double bass in favour of the acoustic bass guitar, which was much easier to manage.

These days he sticks mostly to the concertina but is still playing the occasional jazz gig. John had two independent careers – one as an engineer and the other as a musician – but the music was always the most important thing in his life. He was a much-in-demand session musician who has played for the likes of Barbra Streisand, Paul McCartney, The Kinks(!) and Michel Legrand, as well as providing concertina music (and, where necessary, a dummy concertina for the actor) for more TV and Radio productions than you can shake a sick at. Now retired, he still pushes boundaries and for the last few years has been experimenting with a concertina with built-in MIDI interface. Alas, I could find no footage of John playing jazz, although I do have some in my own archives and hope to upload something in the not-too-distant future. In the meantime, here is one of John’s MIDI experiments.

If there is anyone out there who was a Load of Hay regular back then, I would be pleased to hear from you. And if anyone has an old poster, or some photos, audio recordings or video footage I shall be absolutely delighted to hear from you! Just think, all that great music and an entry fee of just £1. No wonder I never got rich. As the old joke goes – “How do you make a jazz musician into a millionaire? Give him two million”

FRENCH LEAVE PART TWO

2010-09-05T15:14:00.000+01:00

I’m very fond of the music of a number of French composers and on my recent journeyings in France found myself thinking about how much some of this music seems to reflect the French countryside. Now this may well be purely my imagination at work but the feeling is nevertheless there, in the same way that the music of Delius, for instance, always seems intensely English, even when the work in question is inspired by France or America ( for example, March Caprice, American Rhapsody). Maybe I’m guilty of whatever the musical equivalent of anthropomorphism is, but when all is said and done the music of Debussy, Ravel, and, to a degree, Saint-Saëns and Bizet still conjures up visions of French landscapes for me (with the possible exceptions of 'Carmen', ‘Bolero’ and ‘Danse Macabre’). I’m also enthusiastic about the works of Ibert but these seem much more cosmopolitan to me.

Anyway, enough of these ramblings – here are a few examples of what I’m talking about. You may not agree with me but I’m not trying to lay down any laws here, merely giving a point of view. First off, here’s a favourite piece of mine – Le Tombeaux de Couperin by Maurice Ravel. This was originally written for piano and was orchestrated by the composer in 1920 (although he omitted two of the original piano movements). My first introduction to this work was – somewhat surprisingly - a performance of the prelude by the jazz vibraphonist Gary Burton. He recorded it in 1969 on an album called ‘Country Roads and Other Places’, dueting with himself on piano and vibes. From there I found the original piano work and then subsequently the orchestral version. If I had to choose between them it would be the piano version that would win out but I still retain a great fondness for Burton’s version. By way of a compromise, here is a clip of Vlado Perlemuter playing the prelude. I trawled through a lot of clips before settling on this one. In my opinion many orchestras and pianists take it far too quickly, but Perelmuter has the measure of this work perfectly. Check for yourselves – there are innumerable versions posted so have a listen to some and see what you make of them.

Another Ravel favourite is the string quartet. The pizzicato movement from this has been used as incidental music for several films and television programmes over the years but despite this rough treatment the work still holds up for me. That movement has also been performed on the appropriate members of the mandolin family, in a multi-tracked version by the American mandolinist/guitarist Mike Marshall (this is on a very fine album called Gator Strut). Here, however, the pizzicato movement is played by the American String Quartet.

Now here’s an interesting little test of my feelings viv a vis the French countryside and the music. I found this clip of ‘Carillon’ from Bizet’s L’Arlesienne Suite No 1, which has been set to film of windmills in Sussex. It’s a very pretty juxtaposition but despite this I still feel a distinct mismatch between the two elements.

The first two pieces of Debussy that I ever heard were ‘The Golliwog’s Cakewalk’ and ‘Clair de Lune’. The former on BC Radio’s ‘Children’s Hour' in the very early 1950’s and the latter on an EP bought by my older brother, ‘Alcohol’ sometime around 1956 or 57 (see Classical Guess). Later I was to learn that Charlie Parker was much influenced by the harmonies of Debussy and Ravel and was to become well acquainted with their more sophisticated compositions but I have to confess that these two pieces were what kick-started my interest. Incidentally, for those of you who – like me – blench somewhat at the non-pc title of the cakewalk, here’s a link to some interesting observations. Anyway, here’s a piano roll of Debussy himself performing that work, and one of Mária Kovalszki performing Clair de Lune.

It goes without saying that this is by no means a definitive selection. There is a wealth of material to be discovered if you are not already familiar with these composers, but the clips by and large represent the start of my own interest in them. and my recent French trip made me think about them in a new light so I reckon they’re as good a starting point as any.

FRENCH LEAVE

2010-08-27T19:16:00.012+01:00

Well – true to current form I’ve let an even longer amount of time elapse between postings, despite having promised to be back on course. What’s my excuse this time? To quote the late Harold Macmillan – “Events, dear boy, events…” The first of these events was a couple of weeks spent in France. This was planned. What was not planned was that the place where Mrs Voltarol and I were staying was devoid of Wi-Fi connections. As a consequence I was unable to check my emails, let alone update my blog!

The next event to undermine my good intentions was the arrival at Chez Voltarol of my son, daughter-in-law and 18 month old granddaughter from Brazil, for a stay that encompassed my 65^th birthday and its concomitant celebrations (as any right-thinking person would, I spent the first week’s pension money on a family knees-up). Anyway, I’m back on the case again and thought that an assortment of French music would be the way to go with this posting. Well, it was that or ‘Happy Birthday to You’ and I know which I think is the most interesting…

It is a widely held opinion that French popular music is fairly dire, and I’m not about to disavow that – I cannot abide the histrionic bleatings of Edith Piaf, Charles Aznavour and the like, nor Johnny Halliday, Francoise Hardy and similar icons (and don’t bother to comment unless you’ve got something interesting to say: mere outrage at the fact that my prejudice is not your prejudice won’t make it on to these pages. If you feel so strongly about it then write your own blog). However, the French do have an appetite for good music generally, and outside of the world of pop have produced many great composers and musicians, as well as giving cultural ‘sanctuary’ to many more. But I don’t propose to try and analyse this subject here, but rather to give my own personal selection of examples.

My first French heroes were of course Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli. (Django was in fact born in Belgium but spent most of his life in France and made most of his famous recordings with ‘The Quintette of the Hot Club of France’, so I think he qualifies.) I still rate Django in particular as one of my all-time favourite musicians, and If ever I’m feeling a bit depressed I have only to put on a Hot Club CD to instantly raise my spirits. There is a quality of joy about his playing that is impossible for me to resist. Many have imitated him since – and some have equalled his technical facility – but none have had the same originality and innovativeness about their playing. This fact was made all the more remarkable by the fact that Django only had the use of two of the fingers on his left hand, as can be seen in this clip –

And here's a great rendition of 'Limehouse Blues' -

One of my more recent finds has been the accordionist Marc Berthoumieux. I don’t know a lot about him except that he is an exceptionally fine musician, but I first was alerted to his work on a Richard Bona DVD and have since sought out more recordings by him. Indeed, he got his first mention in these pages quite early on, in a posting called ‘Accordion Crimes’ which set out my feelings about the accordion generally. Here are a few examples of his work, including a clip with Richard Bona that I also posted on the aforementioned page.

Of course, the popular concept of typical French music is of Musette accordion, and this a sound that, I suspect, contributes in no small way to the general prejudice against accordions amongst music lovers, but I think that you will agree with me that M. Berthoumiex does not fall into this category, anymore than does Richard Galliano – a French/Italian musician who I also mentioned on that accordion posting. He is another person whose music transcends genre – there are elements of jazz, of South American music, of gypsy music, of klezmer even, all to be found within his playing but never actually defining it, and his latest recording is a venture into the world of J. S. Bach! Here are two examples of his work - one a solo rendition of Astor Piazzolla’s composition, ‘Libertango’ and the other a performance of one of his own compositions – ‘Sanfona’ (a sanfona is a Brazilian accordion) – with Tangaria (two Venezuelans and a Dutchman) and the great Brazilian bandolim (the Brazilian mandolin) player, Hamilton De Holanda.

Another great musician of French/Italian stock was the late Michel Petrucciani an incredibly talented and inventive pianist who suffered from a genetic bone disorder that dramatically restricted his growth. He died at the age of 36 from a pulmonary disorder that was linked to his inherited condition. Petrucciani was influenced by both Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett and yet was very much his own man. He worked with many of Jazz’s finest, including Jim Hall and Wayne Shorter, with whom he made a great album (also available on DVD) called ‘The Power of Three’. Here he is playing with Steve Gadd and Miroslav Vitous in 1998.

And here he plays a tune called ‘September 2^nd’ with Gadd and bassist Anthony Jackson.

My final choice for this first French collection is another pianist, composer and arranger Michel Colombier A study of his website will tell you (a) that he is no longer with us and (b) that he had a huge involvement in the world of French pop music at one time, so this choice would seem somewhat at odds with my earlier comments. However, he recorded one album of his compositions in 1979 – simply called ‘Michel Colombier’ – which is one of my favourite albums of all time. The music defies classification, being an unlikely amalgam of funk and classical components with a jazz overtone. The musicians include Michael Brecker, Larry Carlton, Steve Gadd, Herbie Hancock, Lee Ritenour, Tom Scott, Jaco Pastorius, Peter Erskine, and members of the London Symphony Orchestra – oh, and Airto Moreira, Michael Boddicker, Jerry Knight and Ray Parker Junior! Here are two tracks from this great album.

And that's it until the next post, when I'll cover some of my favourite French classical music - hopefully in a few days time rather than a few weeks!

A bonus at the Barbican

2010-07-13T15:42:00.001+01:00

The other weekend I made another foray to London, this time for a concert by the great Brazilian singer/songwriter and founder member of the Tropicalia movement, Caetano Veloso. Mrs Voltarol and I were both looking forward to it. We had in fact heard about the concert when we were in

Brazil

back in January, when I had received email notification from the Barbican of this forthcoming event. This had produced a flurry of email exchanges with my daughter in London, who promptly secured four tickets (the fourth being for her husband).

Caetano has been recording since the sixties, and although I first became aware of him in about 1992 I have albums of his that span his whole recording career. Like his contemporary, Gilberto Gil, he is a musician who is not content to rest on his laurels, and is constantly experimenting with new approaches and sounds. His latest two albums are a case in point.

On ‘Cê’ (2006) and ‘zii e zie’ (2009) he has been working with a trio of much younger rock musicians, who are now known as ‘banda Cê’. They are Pedro Sá - guitar and backing vocals, Ricardo Dias Gomes - electric bass, Rhodes piano and backing vocals, and Marcelo Callado - drums and backing vocals. Theirs is a very spare and rocky sound which instinct says would clash horribly with the comparative delicacy of Caetano’s voice and the subtlety of his compositions and guitar accompaniments, and yet I find the results on disc extremely pleasing. The quality of the production (by Catetano’s son, Moreno Veloso and Pedro Sá) is such that far from clashing, the contrasting elements enhance the songs.

So far, so good, you might think – the line up for the concert was that of the last two albums and the material was drawn mostly from the most recent of these. The Barbican is a good venue and Caetano is something of a perfectionist as far as sound is concerned, but for me the whole thing just didn’t work. The band was far too loud and to my mind completely destroyed any possibility of achieving the subtlety of balance of the albums. Caetano’s voice was in good form and the musicians never played a bum note but it didn’t gel. The disparities that made for interesting contrasts on disc just made for irritating clashes in the live performance.

I have to admit that most of the audience were happy with the results but they seemed, by and large to be a comparatively young crowd: certainly the manners of many of them left a lot to be desired. For some reason the Barbican staff let in late-comers as and when they arrived, regardless of whether the band was in mid performance or not - and there were a great many late comers. There was a constant stream of them throughout the first 40 minutes or so of the performance. It also seemed perfectly acceptable for members of the audience to get up and go to the bar and back throughout the proceedings, and on one occasion somebody in the row in front of us decided to get up, walk along the row to where her friend sat, and then engage in a loud and spirited conversation with said friend. This of course required her to shout to be heard over the band. She got quite indignant when my daughter requested her, in no uncertain terms, to SHUT UP AND SIT DOWN!

We were none of us happy bunnies when we left the Barbican that night. This had been Mrs Voltarol and my third Caetano concert, my daughter’s fourth and her husband’s first, and for us old hands it had been a disappointment. My son-in-law was not too unhappy with the gig but then he was under the impression that he had just seen Gilberto Gil! (He does not quite share the rest of the family’s enthusiasm for Brazilian music).

So what’s all this about a bonus then? Well, the following afternoon we were all back at the Barbican again to see a performance in the foyer by a unit called Future Band. My 10 year old granddaughter is a part of this group and this is the third time we have seen them perform at the Barbican – once on the main stage, once in The Pit and now this time on the free stage. “OK – I get it”, I hear you cry. “Proud grandparent syndrome if ever I saw it”. And, yes I would be lying if I did not admit to a certain amount of pride, but I have never been one to blind myself to the musical truth for the sake of family loyalty - music is far to important to me for that! But this was a very compelling performance by an incredibly talented and exciting group of youngsters. Who are Future Band? Here’s what it says on the programme –

“Future Band is a creative ensemble made up of 25-30 young musicians from across London. The musical identity of the group reflects the personality and creative voice of every band member, as well as taking inspiration from artists such as Danilo Perez and West African musicians such as Kaw Secca and Outhouse Ruhabi. After a hugely successful performance at the Barbican Centre in July 2009, this year we have been working with musicians from Beit Al-Musica school in Israel, exploring jazz and free improvisation with members of London’s Loop Collective and taken part in an internet link-up with Baltimore Symphony Orchestra project Orchkids among others.

Recently they explored the world of the Gamelan with a visit to LSO Discovery at St Lukes and working with guest musician Aris Daryono, the results of which you will see in today’s performance.

Leaders: Natasha Zielazinski and Detta Danford. Guest leader: Aris Daryono”

The 20 minute performance was absolutely riveting. The young musicians showed such total commitment to the music, and despite the fact that the audience included a high percentage of doting parents I detected no ‘showboating’ at all. The important thing was the music and the group – there was a definite sense of gestalt about it which was a joy to hear and behold. All credit then to the Barbican Guildhall Creative Learning Department for having the vision, and to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama people who have brought this about.

Imagine my dismay then to learn afterwards when talking to Natasha and Detta, that there is a strong probability that funding is to withdrawn from this and similar projects. What an incredibly short-sighted act this would be. Future Band is nurturing and encouraging talent that would not normally get such opportunities and it would be a great shame for those young people to loose this encouragement and tuition. But it’ll be a far, far, greater loss for us all if we are deprived of the potential fruits of this hotbed of incredible talent. You haven’t heard the last of this!

The best laid plans…

2010-06-28T15:18:00.003+01:00

I should have known better than to think that the job was finished (see my apologies at the start of my last posting). There were – inevitably – problems to be resolved that actually resulted in the biggest gap in my postings since I started this blog. However, I can say with confidence that no further work will be required on the last project as the book is now published and being well received, so unless another large job looms up to tempt me away again I shall be back to my regular postings. Yes. I know I said that last time.

Anyway, some time back when I wrote the first tranche of postings about The Jugular Vein, I was contacted by an old acquaintance from the heady days of the West London counter-culture scene of the late sixties and early seventies. Writing under the nom de blog of ‘Venlafaxine, AKA Griff’, he provided me with an audience based retrospective of the band, as well as a piece on the little group of guitar builders that emerged at that time and of which he was one. Richard Bartram - co founder of the JV - was another and he went on to become one of the finest luthiers in the country. I now realise it is more than a year since Griff supplied this second article and it’s about time I posted it. I have transcribed it verbatim from the original hand-written document but have taken the liberty of adding a few links where I felt they were appropriate. The photographs and their captions were also supplied by Griff. Here it is. (This follows on from where the previous one finished.)

PLANE SONG AND HARD CASH

by Venlafaxine, AKA Griff.

Buoyed up by the success of our first guitars, Length and I considered putting the experience to commercial ends. We were joined in this by Mike Hopkins – who made contact via Length’s girlfriend – and of course, Richard.

With No.1. Did I really look like that?

It wasn’t long before I started on No 2. Unlike the small-bodied effort which preceded it, this was to be a jumbo. Richard encouraged me to use more readily available, i.e. cheaper materials, assuring me that he knew someone who had even used driftwood retrieved from the Thames! I had even thought about putting an aluminium top on an old plywood guitar; no steel National, more an ersatz Hayes.

Anyway, the jumbo used regular DIY shop stuff: the top was of Parana pine, a wood lacking the hard and resonant fibres you get in spruce, and soft, but Length had used it successfully on his box. There was no French polish, just polyurethane varnish, but the finished article worked well enough.

Mike produced an ‘early’ instrument I think he called a ‘sarode’, a sort of lute, looking like an outsized flat-back mandolin with 12 strings. Clueless as to how to tune it, Mike set it up like a 12 string guitar – and that was what it sounded like! And when playing, it was difficult to rest on one leg, because its pear-shape encouraged it to slide off! Oh well…Mike had more success with the mandolin he built for John Barron of ‘The Jug Trust’.

We discussed materials a lot. I’m still not convinced of the need for good materials for the back and sides, especially when most folkies use playing positions which make plenty of contact with the (sound deadening) body. Classical musicians, looking for the maximum response from nylon strings, perform in a manner intended to leave the sound box as free as possible, but who plays like that?

Come to think of it, Length did! He spent ages learning Bach’s ‘Gavotte in C major’ and ‘Lute Suite in D’, so the folkies were much impressed and amused when his girlfriend appeared with a pile of books for him to use as a footstool, to facilitate the ‘correct’ playing attitude. Length had plenty of attitude, and this was pure showmanship. I don’t recall noticing any improvements in sound quality, but then folk clubs aren’t the ideal studio.

Richard by now was developing his skills in leaps and bounds. Regardless of the above and clearly looking to the future, he’d been buying expensive ‘instrument quality’ materials from Touchstone – a lot more than he needed for the odd one or two…

I sold the jumbo at the White Bear folk club in Hounslow to a busker, for the amazing (at those times) price of £50. I had expected to wind up with no more than £30. I was embarrassed when he said he knew it wasn’t worth so much, but insisted on paying £50 to encourage me (as if my ego was not already in overdrive!). Months later I saw him playing ‘my’ box at Les Cousins. The guitar looked a mess. Life on the streets is hard, but I felt upset and even more embarrassed over the £50.

No.3 was more properly No. 2½, because it was a joint effort with Mike, who got the order and specification. I think we used my jumbo mould, from which I turned out a complete and assembled back and sides, along with a roughed-out neck. Mike did everything else.

All very encouraging you might think, to make a living at it, but an analysis of our time showed the madness of that. We couldn’t chuck in the full-time salaried jobs we had, especially Mike, married with a child and a big mortgage. Also, I had deeper misgivings about exchanging fun for ‘work’, if you see what I mean.

For Richards it was different. As a bricklayer, he was well paid, and able to suit himself. So he laid bricks when short of guitar work or cash. Richard gradually built up a guitar construction and repair business, becoming more skilled and accumulating labour-saving equipment as he went along. Then came dulcimers and mandolins as well. It was a tremendous achievement, the more so because Richard didn’t stop working on the music.

With Length, Hayes 1970

Length had a scooter, this was different: Triumph T110 engine, Norton frame, fibre glass petrol/oil tank etc.

The sexy looking front mudguard guaranteed wet legs if it rained. Somewhere inbetween flying and riding a horse.

Like the guitars it got me out of my head.

From 1969 came changes which tugged me away from music and guitars. I started a course in engineering drawing at Croyden. I was seduced into buying a new 350cc Ducati motorcycle. Tony Allen, (now a stand-up comedian and Hyde Park orator) organiser of the Hayes Folk Club, wanted to start a local ‘alternative’ magazine and got me involved in that in a big way. Then in 1970 I met my wife-to-be.

Also, in 1970, Richard left The Jugular Vein and, with the talented John Coverdale, formed the duo ‘Canticle’. They may have fancied my mellow-sounding No.1 to complement Richard’s brighter-sounding instrument. Anyway, John offered to buy No.1, but I preferred handing it over on loan for as long as he wanted it, complete with self-built hard case. I don’t really like taking money from people.

My head had clearly moved on, but when John handed back No.1 I was sufficiently moved to fill the gap where the centre joint at the back had opened, with violin purfling. This had happened because I hadn’t thought it necessary to cross-band the joint; silly boy. More fundamentally, the top had developed a distended area behind the bridge, and become concave around the sound-hole…

It had seemed a good idea (to me!) to make struts in the same material as the top, from the off-cuts, since they should have the same natural frequency. However, 3mm thickness is far too slender, and the depth of the struts was also insufficient. Unimpressed by my theorising, Length had shown far greater nous, groping the sound-holes of other people’s guitars to assess their strut dimensions! Even so, I suspect that my weak front may have been responsible for No.1’s softer sound.

No.4

Our little community of guitar-bashers was at an end. As far as I know, Length and Mike took no further interest in building. At some point in the late 1970’s I dumped No.1. You already know the protracted history of No.4. That leaves only Richard…

The Blue Five at The Load of Hay

2010-05-19T11:32:00.002+01:00

Firstly I must apologise for the long gap since my last posting. I have been working on a book-editing/design job for a customer and delivered the finished job to him yesterday…so, where was I? Ah yes, the proposed Blue Five reunion (see previous posting).

I made way up to London a few weeks ago, stayed with my daughter for a few days and then, on Sunday April 18^th, got on the tube to Uxbridge, at the end of the Metropolitan line where I was met by my partner in crime, Leigh Heggarty. Although I spent the first forty two years of my life in that neck of the woods, I haven’t lived there for twenty three years, and last visited (briefly) some twelve years ago. The place had changed beyond all recognition then and it had changed yet again when I stepped out of the tube station on a rather warm and sunny April morning.

I made a quick phone call informing Leigh that he would find me outside the pub opposite the station (the Three Tuns, since you ask), then scurried thither with my guitar and back pack, ordered a pint (Marston’s Pedigree) and settled at a table outside with my book whilst I awaited his arrival. I didn’t have to wait long and was soon going through the usual rituals that you go through when you haven’t met face to face on a regular basis. I got one in for the man and we chewed the fat whilst we finished our drinks, then he led me back to his place by a somewhat circuitous route that took in the location of all my previous music shops in Uxbridge, a shopping mall that hadn’t existed when I was last there and a fine - if distant –view of the new Wembley Stadium. Eventually we arrived at his home where we were greeted by his other half - known to readers of Leigh’s blog as ‘the long-suffering Shirley’. I would just like to take the opportunity of welcoming her to these pages, and to thank her once again for her hospitality. Shirley had prepared a lunch of vegetable samosas for us so after feeding the inner man we repaired to Leigh’s music room where we got down to the interesting business of resurrecting a twenty five year old set in as short a time as possible.

The next few hours put my arthritic fingers severely to the test, as well as straining my memory to breaking point. I had found and sent to Leigh an archive recording of the two of us, made when I still lived in Uxbridge, so that acted as prompt for some of the material. Leigh had also been down to Cornwall around the time of the total eclipse, and had sat in with my then band – Into The Red – when we played the afternoon and evening sessions at Tricky Dickies ( yes – I know it should be ‘Dickey’s’) Wine Bar (now known as ‘Tricky's’) at Tolgus Mount. This fact, coupled with a quick listen to my band’s CD, was enough for his phenomenal musical memory to be note perfect in all of my compositions for that band. By the time we stopped for our pre-gig meal (an excellent vegetable pasta dish prepared - once again by Shirley) we had cobbled together a set list and I was confident that Leigh would have no problems with the tunes or the arrangements although I was by no means as certain about myself!

As we climbed into the car to be driven to the venue, it dawned on me that ‘the long-suffering Shirley’ had not come by her nom-de-blog lightly. She soon delivered us at The Load of Hay and Leigh and I stood for a moment in the car park of that hostelry, staring at the band’s name which was up in chalk (if not lights) by the back entrance.

Shirley returned home with a promise to collect us when it was all over and we wandered in to the pub. I had not been in there for twenty three years or more but not a lot had changed. I swear that some of the same people were still sitting at the bar drinking as had been there when the Blue Five last played there on the night of the celebrated Uxbridge Ginger Group Buskathon in about 1987.

The PA was rigged and the guitars tuned and sound checked, then we did a ‘meet and greet’ with some of the audience. There were a couple of old friends of mine who I am in regular contact with who had loyally turned out to support me, but I was amazed at the number of people who came over and shook my hand and said that it was good to see me back in Uxbridge. The truth is that I couldn’t remember who half of them were but that’s the nature of shop-keeping I guess. Many of these people had been customers of mine when I ran my music shops. The customer always sees the same face behind the counter. The person behind the counter sees an endless stream of faces every day. They might be memorable at the time but they tend to fade a bit after twenty five years…Nevertheless I was very pleased to see them and flattered that they had turned out to see us.

Then two extremely memorable ‘faces from the past’ strolled through the door – Steve Simpson and his brother Bruce. Steve is professional musician of considerable note and Bruce is also an extremely fine player, although he has never made his main living from music. We would often get together and play – in the sixties it was mainly Steve and in the seventies it was mainly Bruce but we had some great musical evenings together. I found this photo in my archives recently, of Steve, Max Emmons and myself playing together circa 1970.

Eventually the moment of truth arrived and we took to the stage. The first set was pretty good, though I say it myself as shouldn’t, and it was pretty well received (with some particularly spirited heckling from the audience that told me that yet another old acquaintance had arrived – Jim Spicer, still carrying the torch for ‘prog-rock’ with his current band, ‘Release the Peach’). The set included a medley of Jobim’s ‘Waters of March’ and Lennon and McCartney’s ‘Dear Prudence’ that I had sprung on Leigh at rather short notice, as well as a Hermeto Pascoal tune called ‘Papa Furado’ that was new to him. My faith in his memory was not misplaced and he acquitted himself splendidly on all counts. However, by the end of the first half my fingers were beginning to stiffen up a bit and I realised that, including the long rehearsal in the afternoon, I had been playing for far longer than at any time since arthritis first seriously began to affect me.

The second set was not quite so satisfying for me as the first one, as I was beginning to trip over my fingers a bit, but Leigh carried us through in fine style and we still managed to get an encore, even though the request for ‘Summertime’ was obviously from someone that hadn’t been there at the start of the evening, because that was the first number that we played. Despite this we played it again and then took our bows and headed to the bar. Leigh got there quite a bit before me as I was once again greeted by many faces from the past. By the time I made it to the counter there was just time for one last pint before they closed, and then it was back - courtesy of Shirley’s good offices – to the house, where Leigh and I sat up talking until well gone 2am, agreeing amongst other things that we must do it again soon. Twenty five years between gigs is far too long.

At this point in the proceedings I was to have included a video clip. Leigh's good friend 'East' (another 'nom de blog') videoed the second set and sent me a DVD of the results but my total inability to upload a track from this means that you are now reading this confession of incompetence instead of watching our encore of 'Summertime'. Watch this space...I may conquer the technology in the near future...

PS. I've just realised that I started this blog in May of 2008 so I've just passed my 2 nd anniversary. Happy Birthday to me!

UPDATE
The Admirable East has done the work for me so here is the aforementioned video of 'Summertime'.

Back in the Jug (Band) Agane*

2010-04-06T18:29:00.000+01:00

* with apologies to Geoffry Willans and Ronald Searle

Around about the end of 1975 I was working in a music shop in Uxbridge (prior to starting my own music business there) when I received a visit from Max Emmons, who was still playing with the Jugular Vein (new readers can catch up with the JV story here). He informed me that the band – which had increased its strength to four members again with the addition of a fine Welsh double bass player called Tom Edwards – had finally secured a recording deal and had cut an album at Abbey Road studios. In the spirit of the first version of the band the material mixed vintage tunes with originals, including one of mine - The Saki Drag – and several songs by Mike Deighan, who had already had a minor hit with ‘Waterloo Road’. I believe that it was this success that helped the JV get a recording deal in the first place, with Mike’s publishers playing a significant part in securing the deal. (I could be wrong about this. Feel free to correct me if you know better.) They also include some unlikely material such as ‘Lady Madonna’ and ‘MacArthur Park’, the latter with some truly inspired lunacy from Mike, who assumed the character of Eddie Waring for the song.

Whoever was responsible for their publicity had done a fairly good job, and when the album – Waterloo Road - was released on Plastic Fantastic Records (a subsidiary of Pye Records) the band was lined up for an appearance on the then popular ITV children’s programme, Magpie (a slightly funkier version of Blue Peter). A couple of weeks ago Tom Edwards emailed me a link to two YouTube clips of the band in action. Here they are.

Anyway, Max’s mission on this day had been to entice me back into the band again. A number of gigs had been booked to promote the album and then Mike had received an offer of work from The Temperance Seven that he would have been crazy to refuse. The idea was that I would ‘dep’ for Mike but on those occasions that he was available the band would become a five piece. It took me about two seconds to make up my mind. By this time my first wife and I had parted company for the last time and she had custody of our children. I had a new girlfriend (who was eventually to become the Mrs Voltarol known to these pages) but she had no objection to my returning to the gigging world - on the contrary, she positively encouraged it!

So it was that I rejoined the fold and spent a happy year performing with the lads in and around London (an extraordinary number of which gigs were in pubs which sold Young’s bitter). Since my original departure from the band its centre of activities had relocated to Balham, with particular reference to The Duke of Devonshire public house (a Young’s pub needless to say). This was the invariable pre-gig assembly point (just in case we were NOT due to perform in a Young’s house that night), rehearsal room and general watering hole for the rest of the lads.

The band had a residency at the Candlelight Folk Club at The Nags Head, York Road, Battersea (long since demolished). Every Sunday night I would trek over to this most insalubrious of venues and take part in an evening of mayhem. Most of the staged, sub-Bonzo Dog Band, props based humour had gone from the band, only to be replaced by the beer fuelled shenanigans of a truly dedicated bunch of drinkers. My ‘ten pints a night’ days were behind me and Max was a relatively modest beer consumer, but Tom (known as ‘Welsh Tom’, possibly to distinguish him from ‘Belgian Tom’, that well known associate of ‘German Nick’ in an old Goon Show script about POW camps) was a formidable artist, as were messrs Deighan and Murfet. The Candlelight Club was no stranger to the pink nosed trouser-elephant, and constant heckling was positively encouraged by the band and responded to with much glee – the worse the put-down the greater the band’s joy.

I would generally miss out on my dinner so as to make it to the gig on time – I didn’t drive, and the journey from Hayes to Battersea by public transport on a Sunday was a time consuming one. Nobby the Roadie had parted company with the band by this time and Max, with his recently acquired van, was now the driver. But like many a cab driver before him, Max didn’t do ‘that side of the river’, so it was always up to me to make it to ‘The Duke’ as my starting point for all gigs. Unfortunately there was little in the way of edible food to be had at The Nags Head. Indeed, some of the meat pies had been on display behind the bar for long enough to acquire their own names. I can remember one unsuspecting guest performer having a pie snatched from his hands by one of the club regulars with a cry of “You can’t eat Fred!”

It became the band’s habit to congregate after the gig at a rather disreputable Indian worker’s café that had originally been known as ‘Elrazako’ but was now known as the ‘Shalimar’. Mrs Voltarol-to-be accompanied us to the Shalimar on a number of occasions, but only ever ate there once. After that she was strangely never hungry when we went there, and to this day will shudder involuntarily when the place is mentioned. The Shalimar didn’t have a menu as such. It had two or three vats of violently coloured curries and a selection of kebabs. There was also an extremely fiery raita (surely defeating the point of that yoghurt-based dish) on offer. You pointed and you were served. As far as the hotness of the dishes was concerned we employed a scale of two that started with ‘Etna’ and ended with ‘Hiroshima’.

Hygiene in this establishment also left a lot to be desired and it was a great source of entertainment for us whilst waiting for our food to peer through the always-open kitchen door and watch the mice playing amongst the sacks of rice. Indeed, during the period of our regular attendance there, the café was prosecuted for 21 separate offences under the Food Hygiene Act. Alan Swainston Cooper – founder member of the Temperance Seven, mentor of The Jugular Vein and writer of the sleeve-notes to the JV’s ‘Waterloo Road’ album – was also a regular habitué of the Shalimar (and indeed, name checks it in the aforementioned sleeve- notes). To say that he had a voracious appetite would be something of an understatement. Woe betide anyone sitting within a couple of tables of him who paused for more than a moment over their food. ‘You leaving that?’ he would murmur as he deftly transferred the contents of your plate on to his. Mike Deighan claimed that all the dogs in the Battersea area had taken to carrying Cooper bags.

Click to enlarge

Occasionally we did get a ‘trump article’ of a booking. We were approached on one occasion when we were playing at ‘The Nags’ by some one who asked us to to perform at his daughter’s wedding-reception in Sutton. Weddings were not amongst our favourite kinds of gigs for a variety of reasons, and I for one was hoping that we wouldn’t accept the gig because I had tickets to see Ry Cooder (supported by a great band called Meal Ticket that featured another old mate of mine with a jug-band background, Steve Simpson) at the then Hammersmith Odeon ( now the Apollo) on the day in question (which a little internet research reveals to have been in January 1979). None the less, Tom duly got stuck into the negotiations as we never liked to actually turn down a gig. “Well,” said Tom, sounding particularly Welsh on this occasion, “It’ll cost you at least £100.” This was an astronomical fee for us at that time and had been tendered in the hopes of putting the booker off, but to our amazement he accepted that sum quite happily. “…and of course” added Tom, hastily, “It’ll have to be a barrel of Young’s for the Lads”. This too was agreed to and the gig was duly accepted so I reluctantly gave my Ry Cooder ticket to someone else. Tom was somewhat scathing when I bemoaned this fate. “Why in God’s name do you want to see a bloody Country and Western singer?” he enquired (although I believe he has subsequently amended his opinion). The then Mrs Voltarol-in-waiting told me afterwards that I had missed a great gig, and still sometimes refers to that night as one of the best concerts she has been to. I think ‘…she only does it to annoy, because she knows it teases…’

Playing again with the band for that year and a bit was great fun, but I began to tire of the emphasis on the booze and was increasingly frustrated by the frequent lack of professionalism. With hindsight I realise that – with the exception of Mike, who was already catered for by The Temperance Severn - it was only me that aspired to a full time career in music. For the others music was a passion but none the less a hobby that helped pay for the beer. So it was inevitable that there would eventually be a clash that resulted in my re-departure from the band. It came over reluctance by the other members to get down to Battersea Town Hall in time for a sound-check. We were playing support to someone notable (I forget who) and I was keen that we made a good impression. The others wanted to stay on at ‘The Duke’ for one more beer. I threw a strop. Tom accused me of ‘just wanting to be a bloody star’ and I resigned. I played the gig that night and then didn’t see any of the others again for the next thirty years. I did meet up with Muff and Max again one afternoon about five years ago. We had a few drinks and I went back to Max’s for dinner and that was that – until I started writing about the band last year.

Nobby the Roadie had tracked me down a few months before I started writing, and had come down to Cornwall for a flying visit. A great many memories were stirred up and he mentioned the idea of a JV reunion. One thing led to another and – thanks to the wonders of the internet I was able to contact many people from the ’glory days’ of the band whilst I was writing its history. I floated the idea of a reunion to the original three – Max, Muff and Richard Bartram – but after some consideration Richard decided against it and the idea was shelved. Then Ron Bartholemew – the man that had introduced us to Nobby the Roadie in the first place – and his partner, Hilary, decided to throw a shindig to celebrate forty years together. Furthermore, as Ron had been a prime mover in the original Freeman Syndicate club at The White Hart in Southall (where the JV played many a gig), he decided that the aforementioned shindig should reflect the spirit of ‘The White Hart Fun Club’ as it became known.

And so, dear readers, the weekend before last I made the journey up to Isleworth from my West Country retreat and played with Muff and Max for the first time in 35 years – and here’s the proof.

The funny thing is, I've got a taste for this reunion lark now, so on the 18th April I shall be doing a gig with Leigh Heggarty at the Load of Hay in Uxbridge, Middlesex. Yes, as frequently threatened over these postings, The Blue Five is all set to ride again!

Voltarol in Brazil 2010, continued – further doings in São Paulo

2010-03-12T18:35:00.014Z

On the morning preceding the Yamandu / Hamilton de Hollanda concert we had paid another visit to my favourite CD shop. Pops Discos is situated at Shop 4, 763 Rua Teodoro Sampaio in the Pinheiros district of São Paulo. It’s a short walk from Clínicas, the nearest Metro Station, which in turn is only a couple of stops from Avenida Paulista, which is where we were staying.

Rua Teodoro Sampaio is THE street to visit if you are a musician. There are probably thirty or forty music shops there selling guitars, basses keyboards, drums, percussion, PA equipment and printed music. There is, however, only one CD shop as far as I am concerned and that is Pops Discos. I was taken there by Alberto on my very first trip to Brazil in 1994 and I have been back on every subsequent visit – often more than once. It is not a large shop – it’s not much bigger than my living room – but by heck, the stock is unbelievable. Every nook and cranny of the place is stuffed with CDs. They have a wide range of material there including much rock and pop if that is your area of interest. They also have a good jazz and classical selection as well as some second hand material, and a fair selection of DVDs.

But it is their in-depth coverage of all types of Brazilian music that keeps me returning to their premises. That and the fact that despite the apparent hotchpotch nature of the stock – at first glance you don’t know WHERE to start – one soon discovers that the stock is well annotated and that the staff can generally locate any item that they have within a couple of minutes. I have in excess of a thousand Brazilian CDs in my collection and I should think that about 60% of them have come from Pops! So, if you are in São Paulo and looking for recorded music, you know where to go! Incidentally if this looks like an advertisement – it isn’t! This is me giving credit where credit is due. However, I did tell the proprietor that I would be posting something on my blog and that I would also post a Portuguese version so that the Pops people could read it too…so here it is. If you don't read Portuguese (and you're still interested) then just scroll on down. There's more of this stuff

"Na manhã do dia seguinte ao show do Yamandu / Hamilton de Hollanda fomos, mais uma vez, visitar minha loja de CDs favorita. A “Pops Discos” fica na loja 4, 763 Rua Teodoro Sampaio, no bairro de Pinheiros em São Paulo. Descendo na estação Clinicas do Metrô que, por sua vez, encontra se a poucas “paradas” de Avenida Paulista (onde estávamos hospedados), uma caminhada de 5 minutos nós levou ao nosso destino.

Rua Teodoro Sampaio é o melhor lugar para visitar se você é músico. A rua deve ter entre trinta e quarenta lojas vendendo violões, guitarras, contra baixos, teclados, baterias, instrumentos de percussão, amplificadores e partituras. Porém, em minha opinião, há somente uma loja de CDs, a saber, Pops Discos. Conheci o lugar quando Alberto me levou lá na minha primeira visita ao Brasil, em 1994, e ela se tornou uma parada obrigatória em todas as visitas subseqüentes – muitas vezes com múltiplos retornos. A loja não é muito grande – pouco maior que a sala da minha casa – mas o acervo é inacreditável. Cada centímetro de espaço está recheado de CDs. Eles oferecem uma extensa variedade de material, que inclui bastante rock e pop, caso seus interesses estejam em essas áreas. Também possui uma excelente seleção de jazz é música clássica, alguns produtos semi-novos e diversos DVDs.

Entretanto, o que me faz voltar, vez após vez, é seu riquíssimo estoque de todos os tipos de música brasileira. A disposição das mercadorias aparenta ser bem confusa – à primeira vista, a gente não sabe ONDE começar – mas logo descobrimos que o estoque está bem organizado e que os funcionários conseguem, normalmente, localizar qualquer item em poucos minutos. Já tenho pouco mais de mil CDs brasileiros em meu acervo e creio que algo em torno de 60% desse foi comprado na Pops! Portanto, se você estiver em São Paulo à procura de música gravada, você já sabe onde procurar! A propósito, se, por acaso, esse texto tem cheiro de propaganda – nada disso! Trata se de um cliente satisfeito atribuindo o mérito a quem merece. Porém, confesso que disse ao proprietário daquela loja que pretendia postar algo sobre eles no meu blog e que o mesmo teria uma versão em português para que o pessoal da Pops também pudesse ler."

Translated by 'Son of Voltarol'. That's m' boy!

The following day we met up with our ex-daughter in law – but still great friend - Marilia, whose continuing enthusiasm for the arts in general and music in particular has led to a rapidly advancing career in Arts administration. We had lunch together and then, in the evening, went to a new venue –Tom Jazz – to see the great Joyce (voice and guitar) with Andre Mehmari (piano), Rodolfo Stroeter (double bass) and Tutty Moreno (drums). I would have paid good money to see any one of these artists, so to see them all together – and in such an intimate setting - was a real treat. Unfortunately there are no YouTube clips of this line up but I'll compensate by including clips that feature the individual artists.

Joyce (or Joyce Moreno as she now prefers to be known: she is married to drummer Tutty Moreno) is generally recognised as a singer and as a composer and in my opinion should also be recognised as an excellent guitarist. Her rhythmic sense is faultless and her chord voicings put many a jazz guitarist to shame, and yet it all integrates with the voice to become one thing. Like all my favourite singers, she never plays the diva – it’s all about the music and being at one with the rest of the band, and as you would expect given that the drummer is her husband, the rhythm section is as tight as tight can be yet full of subtle nuances.

Andre Mehmari is an astonishing pianist who should be more widely known than he is. At the age of 32 he is a veteran of the Brazilian music scene, having won the first national VISA MPB (Brazilian Popular Music) Competition - the most important award for popular music in Brazil – at the age of 21. He is in fact a multi instrumentalist, composer and arranger but, like Joyce, it seems that his music is not ego driven and he is frequently sought by other singers for his great abilities as an incredibly sympathetic accompanist. In this instance he was able to demonstrate this skill and to be equally dazzling as a soloist, creating memorable choruses but never dominating the proceedings.

Rodolfo Stroeter is a fine double bass player who also plays the electric bass. He is a composer, arranger and record producer who, like Andre Mehmari, is as much in demand with other singers as he is as an improvising musician. His own band, Pau Brasil, has long been a favourite of mine. He locked in with the guitar and drums to complete a most gloriously integrated rhythm section.

Tutty Moreno is a real drummer’s drummer. He never appears to be doing anything so laid back is he, and yet the whole band really motors with him driving. I guess the old analogy of the swan applies – when you see a swan glide past it looks so serene on the surface, but if you were to look beneath the water you would see those big webbed feet paddling away like mad. Except that in this case there is no surface to look beneath. My theory is that he does most of his playing in his head, edits it on the fly and only lets out that which is absolutely essential to propel the beat. Even his solos are minimalist yet great. If only more drummers could dispense with the often unnecessary pyrotechnics that so often find there way into solos. Tutty is probably one of the most ego-free drummers I’ve ever come across and that was the thing that made this a great evening of music – this was another example of a band as a gestalt, where individual egos made way for the collective sound.

After the gig Marilia took us back stage to meet the musicians, who were as assured and yet modest as you would expect in the light of what I have just written. Joyce will be playing in England in November. The last time I saw her in this country her band included her husband (unsurprisingly) and Rodolfo Stroeter, so I’m hoping that they will be coming over with her this time. I’ll keep you posted as and when I have information. Oh, and I have a promise of interviews with Joyce, Andre Mehmari and Rodolfo, so watch this space…