March 2007
- 6
Jazz And Improvisation: Interview Portrait
Kathy Dyson, jazz researcher, educationalist and guitarist, kindly shared some of her ideas and time with me in the dressing room at The Band On The Wall – former pre-eminent jazz venue in Manchester. It’s nice to see a musician in a behind the scenes situation, expounding on the process which manifests in the final performance, which you normally don’t witness. Jazz is not unique in its use of improvisation, but it has a unique…
- 12
Photo Agencies
I’ve been looking at the stock image photo sites of Getty, Corbis and Alamy. I’ve known about them for years, never took much notice, but have now researched their ethos and mechanisms. They are responsible for significant changes in the photographic industry, consistent with further effects of the internet: this new digital realm where information is stored, shared and marketed, 24/7, world-wide, in which digital photographs are now a part. As Tim Berners-Lee, originator of…
- 17
Jazz Quotes
Jazz is an intensified feeling of nonchalance - Françoise Sagan If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know - Louis Armstrong One of the things I like about jazz, kid, is I don’t know what’s going to happen next. Do you? - Bix Beiderbecke I like to sleep. There is no set time of day for sleep. You sleep when you’re tired, that’s all there is to it. - Thelonious Monk I’ll play it first and tell you what it…
- 23
Wainwright's Walks
The BBC recently did a great mini series on the walks of Alfred Wainwright. I’m not very enamoured with his books, and agree with the comment of a Lake District walking guide with whom I once conversed: “I think they just have a curiosity value…I can’t walk with them”. There are actually better walking guides, contemporary to AW – check out the books by WA Poucher, published around the 1960s. I used to take them…
- 29
Jazz Dissonance
Landing On The Wrong Note by Ajay Heble (2000) seemed quite an interesting book. It’s sub-titled ‘jazz, dissonance and critical practice’, suggesting that the jazz ethos can be incorporated in a developed model of critical cultural theory. From its early days developed by an oppressed community, then reviled and rejected by a complacently genteel establishment, jazz has represented a vaguely counter-culture attitude. I like that because I think there’s much to criticise about society and…