It's a short clip, taken by an audience member who enjoyed the gig and emailed me.

At one point in the video, it sounds like someone surmises that we are Norwegian—and in fact we were asked afterwards if we were Scandinavian. We are not: but the song was about Norway and so it was an apt assumption.

It was a beautiful gig.

Got a shock when I headed over to the Jazz Services site—it looks much better! It's a Joomla framework, which for the amount of content they have is very sensible; and it has a fresh, clean look. Great!

Wow! Just seen this... one of my favourite bands. Great to watch them playing.

EXCEPT THAT NOW WE CANNOT.

Here's an education. Required viewing by all.

It's nearly September, which means it's web-site overhaul time! You can see where I'm up to so far, and why I'm doing it AGAIN, on my testbed. I have some articles to post this week too, covering all the stuff I got up to from June: another long day at the laptop.

Incidentally, my mate Arun is on the front cover of Jazzwise magazine—pick up a copy!

ALL CHANGE!!

I think the whole website has moved over to the new style! Hope you like!

This.

This is the version of the song that literally stopped me in my tracks and made me seriously weigh up whether I could create something beautiful.

It's also one of my favourite Peterson recordings.

I remember sitting down and listening to this on tape—I think it was on an Atlantic compilation. There was Gary Burton, Eddie Costa, Red Norvo—a stunning cut of Seven By Eleven—and then THIS. This is the song.

Hampton pushes the beat forward, drives it on, mixing bop and swing vocabularies and then—he's fearless!—some highly chromatic language. He's a polymath, open to everything.

It always makes me stop.

I'm sitting, watching the day brighten; and my mind wanders to Keith Jarrett. I'm not a fan of the trio, but I find the early quartets with Jan Gabarek and Dewey Redman stunning: and I think this full-length programme of him, the buttery-toned Lloyd, Ron McClure and Sir DeJohnette shows just what a giant of music he is.

Laying down some tracks for Futuristica Music... some lovely grooves courtesy of DJ Simon S., then off to QUAD to talk about a sound collection project...

Currently digging into Gavin Barras' tunes for September... some lovely dark themes!

Showing Ornette's bop roots, but also how he used it to go somewhere else.

Just read this fantastic quotation:

From the Woody Shaw Legacy page -

1. A well-trained ear
2. A well-trained intelligence
3. A well-trained heart
4. A well-trained hand.

All four must develop together, in constant equilibrium. As soon as one lags behind or rushes ahead, there is something wrong. So far most of you have met only the requirement of the fourth point: the training of your fingers has left the rest far behind. You would have achieved the same results more quickly and easily, however, if your training in the other three had kept pace. (Z. Kodaly)

Something to pin on the wall!

Gunter Hampel is a lttle-mentioned vibist in jazz media parlance; but the fact remains that anyone playing the instrument now has to deal with his musical offerings as well as those of Walt Dickerson, Khan Jamal, Bobby Naughton, Dave Pike...

Here's an inspiring interview with Hampel and Fred Jung. I encourage everyone to check out this master's music if you can: fifty-odd years of creativity!