Corey Mwamba

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Entries for Sep 2012

Was having a chat a few days ago with that clever chap Alex Hawkins and he was describing the subject of correlation against causation—like when people think that Joe Harriott copied Ornette Coleman when in fact he didn't; Coleman didn't cause Harriott to go in the direction he did—it just so happens that they correlated musically.

In a similar way, some of my work has been compared to the amazing Walt Dickerson, which is overly kind. But I only heard his music four years ago, so I have a lot of catching up to do in terms of listening!

If you've not heard of Walt Dickerson up to now, here WAS a video I found this morning, with Wilbur Ware on bass and Andrew Cyrille on drums.

I'd initially put this as a comment, but I thought I'd give it its own page. Hope you like! You can also have a look at a loose harmonic transcription

Having spoken to Alex Hawkins the other week, I'd mentioned that there was a video of the Newcastle gig where I struggled with his beautiful music a couple of years back. Then, talking to the amazing Caroline Pugh yesterday, she brought it up as she was in the audience at the time. So I found it, and here it is! {except—no... blip.tv was shut down!}

Get this. I was lucky to get a preview a few months back—but really, get this. This is a vast glorious slab of vital, living improv.

Small bits of web administration between tea and more work on Orrery. I've altered the Atom/RSS feeds slightly so that there's a clearer division between

  • statuses—which are less than 160 words;
  • articles—which are longer; and
  • shares—where the link/embedded medium is the most important thing.

Hope this doesn't inconvenience anyone, but it'll trim the weight of the feeds considerably. Am considering adding tags to things next, but that's miles off.

Bit of traditional grip four-stick wizardry—and tubular bells!—from the super-talented Adrian Rollini.

Just seen this! A fantastic night in Bristol with trumpeter Nick Malcolm's band on bassist Olie Brice's Tie Your Laces. I love how Nick stretches the trumpet "vernacular" in his solo.

Today: Orrery parts. Tomorrow: recording session with Adam Fairhall and Paul Hession! Extremely excited about that one...

an example of my smiley faceWork-wise, I'm off to Leicester today, devising music for Lydia's new show: but in the meantime, if you have visited my contact page recently, you may have noticed that there's a small picture at the side, of my gently smiling face.

That information on the right is now my WebID—about which I'll try to write more—but more importantly my GPG/PGP public key is there too, and I now sign my e-mails with my key. If you're used to handling PGP and you normally get e-mails from me, please add my key; and if not, look up PGP or GPG.

I might also put some resources in the comments.

Yesterday was an interesting day. The rehearsal for Lydia Towsey's show in October moved things on apace; together with Ola Szmidt and Dave Dhonau, the music [made collaboratively] is in a really good place. I'm actually playing keys for this show, which is stretching me—not a pianist really—but I am enjoying the range and tonal world it creates. Dancer Louise Katerega joined us too, and that felt good also. Louise and I haven't worked together for ten years[!!] so it was good to catch up and re-acquaint... time flies...

While that's been happening, I've been staring at circles—lots of them—for Orrery. The score for the three is done, schematics are drawn up for the six others, it's all very technical and is eating large chunks of my life. I took some time away from it to record with Adam Fairhall and Paul Hession: I'm hoping that will turn into a gigging group soon as there were fireworks!

A refreshing perspective to counter the messiah complex/Great Man theory outlook that pervades conversations about the history of jazz:

You hear about the Duke Ellingtons, the Jimmie Luncefords, and the Fletcher Hendersons, but people sometimes forget that jazz was not only built in the minds of the great ones, but on the backs of the ordinary ones. ~ Cab Calloway

Derby City Council's Arts Team [of possibly one person?] has launched a survey about arts development—it'd be great to show a wide response to this so I'm sharing in case anyone sees it here. Please help spread it!

This week I'll be working on musify—I've already done some sharpening of the code itself, but now I'll be re-designing its page. If you're writing chord symbols and wondering how to present them in web-pages without using PDFs or images please give it a look—and let me know what you think!

This is fantastic—a massive fan of Brown here, and loving the combination of music and visuals!

Another early morning, another day thinking about the Orrery,and how consistently conduct the thing.

One Note Sunday gets a rest this month, and to be honest I'm quite glad. October seems to have turned into a behemoth in terms of activity. Not only with gigs and composing; I'm also working in two Pupil Referral Units in London this month, and meetings/writing for Way In To The Way Out. Really nice to be busy—but all at the same time?

The saxophonist David Liebman presents an expansive and realistic perspective on the benefits of jazz education to students in the U.S. Jazz Times.

Although I have seen others write about how the craft of jazz can be applied widely through transferable skills, this is the first article of that ilk I've read that marks out something essential for me in higher education: that the things you learn at university, college and school go beyond their mere practical applications. Well worth a read.

Getting stuff together for the final rehearsal for Lydia's show on 1st October. If you can make it to Leicester it'd be great to see you there!

Cannot sleep; although I've had a restful day today. On Thursday Alexander Hawkins and I met up to talk about Way In To The Way Out; expect some surprises and good things!

a screenshot from Firefox—rare! Also, there's been a small change in design to the signing in process on the Rambles and Gigs pages: I've grouped all the single-click sign-ons [Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, MSN/Hotmail/Live, Y!/Yahoo, Google and WebID] together, you can simply select the icon or word you want to sign in. AND new comments get an edit button—but it only lasts for thirty minutes. I might make it permanent but we'll see.

Sleeping would be fantastic right now. I'm article-hopping right now—and boring myself by staring at Twitter. But it's not helping me sleep.

This is captivating. If you're of the disposition to read along you can—here's the chart. But best to just listen. Beautiful.