Oliver Wood Photography

Casey Benjamin with The Robert Glasper Experiment

A few shots from the excellent Robert Glasper Experiment gig on the 21st November at Band on The Wall in Manchester (UK). Solid and highly accomplished musicianship was guaranteed from this quartet of distinguished contemporary jazz musicians and a reverential (and typically civilised) audience contributed to an atmosphere of pure artistic enjoyment. The line up includes Robert Glasper on piano (keyboards), Casey Benjamin on alto, tenor sax and vocoder, Chris Dave on drums and Derrick Hodge on base guitar. Brilliant and faultless solos were provided by all too.

This line up features on the up coming album ‘Black Radio’.

It was great to be in Band on The Wall after so many years. My first visit since the legendary venue re-opened and now it seems to be hosting a very impressive list of musicians from the jazz, R&B, Soul and Blues genres.

Casey Benjamin with The Robert Glasper Experiment

Casey Benjamin with The Robert Glasper Experiment

It’s another very short entry today, very little to discuss just now the weather has turned bleak and wet again so that is limiting various outdoor operations at the mo.

Again the highlight of the week has been another recording session with Rob, sorry “Gerald Westmoreland” Jazz Critic :) This time we did a few bits and pieces about the village and other things but the main purpose of Wednesday evenings session was for Mr Westmoreland to have a final ‘practice’ before his appearance on the ‘Roundabout’ show on Bollington’s Canalside Radio at 10pm.

Rob, AKA Gerald Westmoreland Jazz Critic. by Oliver Wood

Here you can hear him discussing Miles Davis “Kind of Blue” in my ‘studio’ with a short clip of the Roundabout show at the end, all very good stuff.

I’m in something of a local interest mode at the moment and planning quite a big revamp of the Prestbury pages on my site. The idea is to incorporate much more photography along with my videos and sound recordings.

The highlight of the week has been a few recording sessions in my own ‘studio’ with my friend Rob. He is about to present a Jazz show on Bollington’s local community radio station Canalside FM. The show will be dedicated to one of his favourite albums namely Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue”. In fact, we both share a love of this classic and it was probably the first real Jazz LP that I owned. I have an idea to see if we could record other shows here, maybe one dedicated to Joe Henderson’s 70s mile-post LP “Power to The People” as a follow on and then package the whole thing as an MP3 for Canalside FM, just an idea.

We had a lot of fun experimenting with various voices but decided in the end that Rob’s own natural voice was the best option. Back in 1999 I made a recording of Rob in the churchyard tool shed or Coach house where he is discussing various thoughts on life, memories of travelling adventures and a youthful life in the merchant navy etc. Rob wanted to do a follow on from the 1999 session where he was discussing an erstwhile ambition to emigrate to New Zealand. Having since revisited the country with some German friends Rob recounted the experience in typically charismatic style.

It’s another beautiful day and I should be out with my camera or at least getting on with a number of well overdue household repairs!

St Peters Churchyard 16th March 09

Again we write with an almost empty head but it is necessary to make the obligatory seasonal entry. Things are still pretty much the same for yours truly and as previously mentioned there is a sense of a state of becalmed relaxation, which is very pleasant. Of course it will not, cannot last, as is always the case.

Spring has arrived in Prestbury and there is much joyful colour all around. Monday was exceptionally pleasant sunny, warm and still, just as springtime should be. Now of course this pleasant stillness and clearness of sky is just a seasonal lull, a glimps of a mini proto-summer before the depressing slide into sick climate syndrome and the grey, wet, flooded out reality of real summer months.

I spent much of the afternoon helping Rob to clear up around Ford House in preparation for a sale. Working out doors in the sunshine with Mr N talking cinema, jazz and philosophy is the closest I can get to a sense spiritual fulfilment in Prestbury. It is such a pity that the village has lost the opportunity for a proper community centre in Ford House, a proper ‘drop in’ facility with IT and all sorts of other free ‘community’ share-ins would have been quite nice really. Prestbury needs at least one institution based on socialist principals! I suspect that it is destined to become yet another highly expensive private property though.

Music of The Moment.

It’s music of the moment time, but this time it is a desire for something exceptionally rare that is unavailable as any kind of download.

Joyce & Nava Vasconselos Visions of Dawn

Again Mr Giles Peterson has introduced me to another rare gem of an album. Visions of Dawn was a collaborative effort between Joyce and Nava Vasconselos two significant artists in the 70s Latin ‘Western’ cross over mix-up – apparently. And of course it has attracted a lot of attention as part of my ongoing discovery of progressive 70s Latin Jazz, Latin Soul and Folk Jazz. So far I have only heard the song Chegada (last track on the album) but it was impressively atmospheric in that narcotic inspired way that is essential in all such matters. Lots of reverberating vocals, spatial guitar and distinctive and refreshingly unusual harmonies. I just love these chronologically retrogressive discovery adventures.

Not a huge amount to write about tonight but I thought I should make an effort to at least get one more entry in before the end of January, it is going to be a bit patchy.

I’m right in the middle of redecorating the kitchen at the moment and planning some very colourful experiments with traditional paint finishes and a fairly big dose of artistry. I have a crazy idea to combine a period specific Georgian artisan look with Matisse-like colour effects.

Also been experimenting with the SoundCloud audio file-sharing site, which has now gone public, previously this site was a closed professional network for invited individuals only. I have just uploaded a simple speech recording, more as a test really and originally intended for my Face Book profile. I also have an idea to use the SoundCloud facility to host some additional sound recordings for my own site, if that is permissible? Well I did say it would be ‘patchy’

I’m looking forward to a cycle over to Timperley to see my brother and SIL soon. It will be my first proper long ride of the year. Round trip is about 36 miles and I really do need to get out with my camera again. I seem to missing so much of the day now that I have gone into nocturnal mode!

Music Of The Moment(s)

Milton Nascimento Clube da Esquina DJ Cam Lost and Found comp, Rasmus Faber Where we Belong

This time we have an odd but rather satisfying collection of albums (and tunes from albums) which range from the rare and characterful to the more lightweight and pleasantly intriguing.

I was quite excited to find Milton Nascimento’s rare 1972 Clube da Esquina album on Itunes the other week. Recent activity on GP has reinvigorated an interest in Latin Jazz with a difference. The 1972 Clube da Esquina album was the first to represent a certain transition in Brazilian music to the western cannon and it embraces a whole range of interesting modes including a very odd take on the psychedelic style.

DJ Cam from Paris is a bit more predictable but never the less I find a lot of his more ‘chilled’ and ambient stuff to be rather appealing, potential sound track material. He is quite well known thanks to Chris Morris’ extensive use of his music in the groundbreaking Jam TV series and Blue Jam radio series of the 90s

Lastly we have a very much more strait-laced artist in the form of Rasmus Faber from Sweden. I’m not hugely keen on most of his MOR dance stuff but do rather like some of the more Latin style tracks on this album which feature the vocals of Clara Mendes.

So that’s it for now, still feeling a bit down, odd and under motivated at the moment. Roll on springtime!

It’s that time of year again, though the atmosphere is strangely subdued.

The Yule tide is going to be a solitary event (mostly) for yours truly this year, though there will be the usual round of get-togethers with brother and SIL which I am looking forward to as always.

My current employment situation could have been a lot worse if it wasn’t for so much support from ex colleagues, something for which I am deeply grateful. Networking opportunities seem to abound and hope springs eternal plus any other cliches that come to mind. An almost lost university friend has come back on the scene too, just before she is off to Africa on yet another amazing and purposeful adventure. Of course, it all serves to illustrate just how dull my existence is in comparison, but it is inspiring in its own way. However, I can’t think further than another technical job at the moment, though as always, the allusive Broadcast field beckons once again.

The noble ideals of situationism have become something of an obsession lately but now I have the opportunity to engage with other like-minded individuals through various Face Book groups. Situationism offers some form of inspiration and hope in the current circumstances. I think it is a golden opportunity to disengage with the ‘spectacle’ of consumerism and become more creative and truthful. They always say that hardship and adversity lead to enhanced creative insight and I tend to think that there is some truth in this, at least on a personal level. At one time the disengagement with the shallow and artificial concerns of consumerism lead to an enhancement of greater cultural and spiritual awareness on a societal level. Though now I feel that we have become too dumbed down, too automated by capitalism and the notion that you are what you own to ever reach the hights of transcendent living. The notion of creativity has been usurped by the ‘society of the spectacle’ to such an extent that now the idea of creativity is just another form of commerce. Creativity as a business plan, or vomit inducing Christmas TV schedule and not a cypher for the enhancement of natural lived experience.

Who knows what 2009 will bring, but we may just see the emergence of some form of radical ideal, or the development of a new cult idea; but I’m not holding my breath.

Music of the moment:-

Emanative When on Earth and Sun Ra When Angels Speak of Love

Emanative is a relatively new find (courtesy Giles Peterson) and a most enjoyable one. This experimental Nu Jazz outfit from London crosses a range of boundaries but their soulful songs are as smooth as velvet. Dear old Sun Ra is guaranteed to provide the perfect accompaniment to the most enchanted and thoughtful moods, enlightening our existence here on planet Earth long after his return to outer space.

Happy Yule to all my occasional fleeting and chance reader(s)

Little to write about tonight just relaxing with GP on the download trying to think of something to do. The weather has changed yet again and reverted to the predominant theme of heavy leaden skies with frequent showers, it seems that we are locked into this depressing climate for the foreseeable future, not so much ‘global warming’ as global drerying. The conditions do however, make for rather interesting photographic effects and it has dawned on me just how many of my pictures now appear to be shot under such heavy and almost apocalyptic conditions instead of clear blue skies. One of the great things about life at these latitudes is the drama of cloud and the ever-changing lighting conditions that it creates, skies that look like a messed up artists pallet under a slow drip. I think this is something that I would really miss if I had to decamp to latitudes in negative figures.

GP has just mentioned the erstwhile Tribe label once again following a ‘special’ on this 70s vehicle for avant garde, deep and spiritual jazz, which of course leads to this:-

2 New for June:-

Hastings St Jazz Experience and Marcus Belgrave Gemini

Two classics and must have items from the 70s so called ‘post bop’ ‘post Coltrain’ Detroit jazz scene are heading this way:-

Marcus Belgrave was one of the Tribe label’s prime movers and Gemini defines the whole Tribe feel quite nicely. To me it sounds wonderfully nostalgic and reminds me of tripped-out brassware heavy work for the Afro and converse generation, big powerful and full of 70s soulfulness. In short, both of these albums seem to dovetail with the Dwight Trible ‘Horace’ period quite satisfactorily.

Note to self: Total mileage: 9,150.6