Starting off with a little video to convey a seasonal mood all shot down by the River Bollin on my old Sony PAS. It’s been fairly warm, almost balmy of late, with plenty of clear sunshine to make up for the general dullness of the so-called summer. Everywhere is covered with a magnificent carpet of golden leaves at the moment, one of the many joys of living in close proximity to many beautiful mature trees, it helps me to keep from completely descending into depression.
The prevailing economic ‘situation’ vis ‘credit crunch’, ‘economogedon’ or what ever the hell the media are calling it this week is not, thankfully, effecting me too much — yet! Of course, one feels a slight pang of satisfaction at the prospect of superannuated bankers getting shafted by their own gambling exploits and the idea of nationalising and regulating the big banks and the finance sector generally sounds like a wonderfully sensible one to me. Nationalised banks! What next you say, an economy based on industries that actually make stuff, solve practical problems and need inventive creativity instead of one based on effete credit derivatives?
I’m getting closer to my camera upgrade and should soon have a Nikon D300 to play with. I can’t wait to start using an idle collection of old but exceptionally good Nikon manual lenses from the AI era, plus also some not so good Tokina ones with Nikon F mount. It will be interesting to see how these work with a super critical digital camera. Generally, I quite like good old manual lenses, I like a lens to be a lens, just high quality glass and metal not stuffed full of delicate miniature electronics and exotic servo devices in a warpable plastic body. And when it comes to lenses you can’t beat Nikon, the maker of some of the most enduring dream machines in photography to quote one reviewer — quite right too!
GP in the background courtesy of BBC online, a very interesting show tonight (actually last Thursday nights) lots of new (unheard before) Jazz tinged and full on Jazz fired tunes from the past and today.
Music of the moment (other moments) includes one old classic and one very new piece from Manchester’s own Matthew Halsall. Sending My Love is a very accomplished Jazz adventure in the classic post bop modal style — I wouldn’t go so far to say he is almost like a ‘white Coltrane’ but there are some leanings for sure.
Joe Henderson’s Power to The People from 1969 is a classic in a similar mode but much more familiar, it includes the ever timeless classic ‘Black Narcissus’. Herbie Hancock provides keyboard input on this album so there is something of a hint of classic modern jazz merging with that proto psychedelic funkiness of the late 60s. As the title suggests the album is rooted in the black political consciousness of the era which makes for a kind of purposefulness that always appeals to me.