I did a two hour delivery shift this afternoon. Most welcome and useful, given the haemorrhaging of money out of my account, recently, keeping Flo’ on the road.
Sitting in our lovely garden now. Enjoying sublime sunny weather. Birds singing all around.
It’s tough, sometimes…A glimpse of the tiny pond…
I’ve been thinking about enlarging our tiny pond. Hmmm!? Tim kindly gave me some more pond liner. We shall see…
Dad’s b’day card…Inscription…Chester, enthroned, earlier in the day.
Dad’s birthday get together was fun. He treated us all to a Chinese takeaway. And we had a video call with Abbie and Dan over dinner and pressies…
New Faces… 1952 Horace Silver Q’tet 1 1955 Horace Silver Q’tet 2 1955 Silvers Blue, 1956 Six Pieces, 1956 ✓ Stylings Of… 1957 Further Explorations, 1958 Finger Poppin’ 1959 ✓ Blowin The Blues Away, 1959 ✓ Horace-Scope, 1960 Tokyo Blues 1962 ✓ Silver’s Serenade 1963 Song For My Father 1964 ✓ Cape Verdean Blues 1965 ✓ Jody Grind 1966 Serenade to a Soul Sis’ 1968 You Gotta Take a Little… 1969 That Healin’ Feelin’ 1970 Total Response 1971 All, 1972 27th Man 1973 ✓ Silver n Brass Silver n Wood Silver n Voices Silver n Percussion, 1977
In terms of material and performances this should’ve been a five star recording. And in terms of my enjoyment of the music, it very nearly is.
Butt… and it is, sadly, a rather large butt…
Sound quality is an issue. The mic’ on Bill Evans’ piano is either damaged, too close, or something similar (simply overloading on signal?), as there’s a degree of distortion on all the piano that is just bizarre.
Herbie’s flute and Chuck’s bass are well enough recorded. But Paul Motion’s drums are, on occasion, rather thin and distant. Not a good day for the studio engineers, this one!
And, alas… oh, woe is me. Or rather woe is all of us. Because, as already mentioned, this is a great date in terms of personnel and material. The performances are good. Possibly very good? But they’re definitely marred by the audio issues.
Most particularly the distorted piano.
I’m actually surprised by two things; that it was released at all. And that, in our ‘fix it in the mix’ age of digital wizardry, it hasn’t been cleaned up. I’m sure software exists nowadays that could significantly improve the sound.
Despite this, it still scores relatively high, for me. Because, whilst the distortion is an annoyance, the overall vibe of the album is terrific. This really comes close to Nirvana. I hope one day someone dies the decent thing, and restores the piano to a more pure pristine sound.
So, all in all, an oddity. A great album, sadly spoiled somewhat by a technical issue. But nevertheless worth having and enjoying.
There’s lots of both beauty and ugliness in life. So there should be plenty of both in Art, is Art is a reflection of life.
But maybe Art differs, somewhat, in that we may have more control (although that might be illusory?), and therefore the search for perfection that in Life can be tortuous, is perhaps more feasible in Art?
Anyway, I find that here I am, in my 50s, and still a fan of traditional Art forms, like drawing, painting, printmaking and sculpture.
Perhaps analogously, I still like records and CDs? I like to possess an object; the Thing is important!
Despite all my efforts – two new (front) tires; new rear number plate bulbs; a wash; a hoover/tidy, etc, throughout; checking bulbs, oil, fuel, tyre pressures, and so on – Flo’ failed her MOT.
Apparently she needs new rear disc pads, and steering tracking rods. So I’ve gone ahead getting all that done. What with the recent new clutch, and the renewal of my car insurance (now a combo’, with Admiral for SD&P, and other folk for H&R), the new tyres, and suchlike, she’s cost me £2K in recent times!
And even your budget is as tight as mine? With surplus funds non-existent… that’s tough!
And of course, sadly, the nature of my current working/earning scenario is that when I’m without wheels, I lose earnings. So I’m hit with a double fiscal whammy…
As I type this I’m
Waiting to hear how The Garage have got on with Flo’. Will I have to cancel my 4-5:30 delivery shift? I expect I will. But I hope I won’t. We shall see.
I just called them (2:30pm), and got no answer. Hopefully ‘cause they’re so busy getting Flo’ fixed!?
My dearest, oldest, longest term friend, Dan Ellis, passed away, last night. At 8.55 pm. Taken from us all by a rare form of cancer, Thymic Carcinoma.
As I reflect on the parts of my life that I shared with him, I think my fondest memories are amongst the oldest.
We met at Comberton Village College, secondary school. We were young and innocent, kids becoming teenagers.
I recall staying over at his parents’ enchanted and enchanting cottage, in Little Eversden, for sleepovers, and suchlike. Dan’s parents, like Dan, were really wonderful people.
The atmosphere of their family home was unique and magical. It was a favourite place of mine, to visit. Truth be told, I envied Dan such a Heavenly home.
I’m not sure that that idyllic place remains? As it was largely built/added to by Dan’s father, with no concerns re building regs, etc. And, after both Dan’s parents had passed, it was sold, and possibly knocked down!?
In 2000, whilst we were all still living in London, I was privileged to be asked by Dan to be Godfather to Ailwyn, their first child. And I wrote a little song for him, which I remember playing for them, in their parents paradisical garden.
Dan and I also played music together, many times, over the years. Although drums are my main instrument, I would play guitar and sing, and he’d accompany on flute. Sometimes joining in on vocals.
His lusty singing of the chorus on ‘One More Cup Of Coffee’, by Bob Dylan, was a testimony to his own love of that rich, dark. stimulating bean!
I’ve painted the lute courses, or even pairs of double strings. Not great, perhaps? But they’ll have to do. Next I need to add the frets to the lute. And a bit of shadow, and/or something of interest to the rather bare background.
Hmmm!?
I think I’ll go back to occasional copies of ‘Old Masters’, as a bit more of a regular thing. Good for skill building, and poss’ saleable?
My ol’ pal Ben Carter introduced me to Georg Baselitz, many, many years ago.
I’ve got a couple of other books on him. But they’re neither very big nor very comprehensive. And GB is, like Picasso (although not as Vesuvian), prodigious in his output.
Unboxed and unwrapped…
Another thing GB has in common with Picasso is painting a lot of ostensibly ugly or cack-handed stuff.
But I think, in both instances, there are combinations of in-built and cultivated aestheticism, and skills – with line, colour, form, composition (even touch) – and thinking, all of which combine to give the artworks a kind of energy, and even beauty, that I really respond to.
The back.
So far I haven’t read much of the text. Basically I’ve thumbed through the whole thing once, mainly looking – in awe and wonder, for the most part – at the artworks. But what little text I have read, has mostly consisted of GB quotes.
These occasionally rather opaque aphoristic pronunciations remind me a bit of stuff folk like Guston and de Kooning (both artists I love) are alleged to have said. I’m not sure what I make of the verbiage?
I find I like a lot of his work, a lot.
Where such artists are most eloquent is in their art works. And what these say or mean to me may have little or nothing to do with what their creators might talk about. And frankly I don’t care about that.
Rather egotistically, perhaps, all that concerns me, is what these things mean to me.
This slender little volume looks right down my boulevard. Rather slight, at only 36 pages, though. Nevertheless, I think I’ll get a copy at some point soon. If I can.
I found this pencil drawing and unfinished oil painting, today. Behind another old artwork (an abstract print), in our lounge!
The reason I call this The Absent Procuress is because in the original there’s an old crone – the titular Procuress – on the right. I left her out. Good riddance!
Thought I’d try masking…
This kind of stalled, on the lute strings, many years ago. Anyway, now I’m suddenly doing art again, I figured why not try n’ finish it?
Step one completed.
So I painted the strings in today. Kind of. They need separating into pairs, or ‘courses’ (I think?). And, the way I’ve gone about it, they also need ‘knocking back’, and shadows need redoing, etc. So, there remains quite a ways to go.
Hopefully I’ll do some or all of that tomorrow, when Flo’s MOT forces me to stay home anyway. I’m also expecting the deluxe new Taschen Baselitz tome to arrive in the morning… can’t wait!
