Geri Allen who sadly passed away aged 60 yesterday. Easily one of the best jazz musicians to emerge out of the 1980s:-
On holiday on the Costa Blanca, and have seen a poster advertising Earth, Wind and Fire appearing in Torrevieja tonight. Not into music in a big way, so haven't the faintest idea as to what songs they sing.
They were a big part of my youth, Saturday night under the plastic palm trees on the Pier in Southampton. They were always better than just your average disco group, this was my favourite of theirs....
It is really intriguing hearing pop groups perform live and I have seen a number of groups "by accident" as they have been part of jazz festivals I have attended. Not all the groups are a success but I would single out "Earth, Wind and Fire" as probably amongst the best. I would also put Chic in the same category - I heard them for the second time last year and most of the band members are really jazz musicians doing a day job. There was far more room for improvisation than I had anticipated but "E,W & F" , whilst obviously missing those original members who have unfortunately passed on, are right n the money. I thought they were extremely good. For me, there is a massive divide between the quality of music played by black, American artists who emerged from the 1960's onwards and up until the 1990's when the quality seemed to dry up. Black music took a nose dive with Rap which effectively consists of 4-bar segments and isn't particularly challenging. It is also fair to say that the white groups I have seen have been pretty under-whelming too and I have walked out of gigs by the likes of Joe Cocker through shear boredom. Sting is probably amongst the better white audiences ( but his origins were through jazz) and hearing Cyndi Lauper deliver a blues set was worth the money for the novelty effect alone. For me, 20th century music is fascinating because of the massive journey music went through. In classica music alone, the century saw the tail end of the Romantic movement, flew through Neo-Classical, took in serialism / atonality and minimalism and ended up being influenced by jazz. If you broaden music out in to more popular realms, it is clear that black artists have dominated from the 1920's onwards from Ma Rainy singing blues, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Robert Johnson, Charlie Parker, Miles, Coltrane, Ornette, Ray Charles, Hendrix, Prince, EW & F, etc, etc. Despite some massive developments in music, black musicians unquestionably shaped and gave music in the last century it's defining moments.
Don't forget some of the white boys though, Ian - Bix for example. And then there's Eric, the Beatles and Elvis. Stevie Ray is another .....
OK, a bit of chat on the transfer thread about signing a lad called Chopin. What do I know about classical music? - nothing. So I've decided to listen to to 3 hours of "the best of" 14 composers over the next 2 weeks. So I've started with Chopin. Review number one: a bit like being trapped in a lift for 3 hours. He's not Status Quo is he?
Led Zeppelin would like a word too (though of course they were heavily influenced by Robert Johnson etc). Grunge would be keen to speak to you too. Along with elements of dance music.
I wouldn't expect Ian to have ever heard of the Grateful Dead, but they were essentially a whole music genre and industry in themselves. The first band ever to encourage bootlegging, and make more money from touring than from selling records. Somewhere in the world, there exists a recording of every single Grateful Dead gig, which is quite something considering they never played a song twice exactly the same way. Their influences came from every aspect of American culture, folk, blues, country, jazz, rock 'n roll, and even classical.
Oops, misread the poster. Actually performing here 30th julio not junio, so plenty of time for their fans to book a trip over.
Happy Birthday to punk goddess, Debbie Harry, who is 72 years young today. (I had a major schoolboy crush on her!) She is going strong with Blondie having a new album, Pollinator, out...
