Mingus

It is a middling sort of day - overcast and occasional rain. I am doing more phone shop visits - having already done Hempstead Valley and Miadstone, and finally Ashford.

I picked up another Charles Mingus CD today, £The Black Saint and The Simmer Lady". Another Mingus classic in fact.

Charles Mingus - The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady (Full Album)

The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady is a studio album by American jazz musician Charles Mingus, released on Impulse! Records in 1963. The album consists of a single continuous composition—partially written as a ballet—divided into four tracks and six movements.

0:00 Solo Dancer
6:40 Duet Solo Dancers
13:23 Group Dancers
20:45 Trio and Group Dancers/
Single Solos and Group Dance/
Group and Solo Dance


Personnel:

Charles Mingus -- bass, piano, composer
Jerome Richardson -- soprano and baritone saxophone, flute
Charlie Mariano -- alto saxophone
Dick Hafer -- tenor saxophone, flute
Rolf Ericson -- trumpet
Richard Williams -- trumpet
Quentin Jackson -- trombone
Don Butterfield -- tuba, contrabass trombone
Jaki Byard -- piano
Jay Berliner -- acoustic guitar
Dannie Richmond -- drums


Enjoy.

Poems Of The Week

A bit remiss of me but i have not done a poetry post for awhile so here are three today -


A Century Later

by Imtiaz Dharker

The school-bell is a call to battle,
every step to class, a step into the firing-line.
Here is the target, fine skin at the temple,
cheek still rounded from being fifteen.

Surrendered, surrounded, she
takes the bullet in the head

and walks on. The missile cuts
a pathway in her mind, to an orchard
in full bloom, a field humming under the sun,
its lap open and full of poppies.

This girl has won
the right to be ordinary,

wear bangles to a wedding, paint her fingernails,
go to school. Bullet, she says, you are stupid.
You have failed. You cannot kill a book
or the buzzing in it.

A murmur, a swarm. Behind her, one by one,
the schoolgirls are standing up
to take their places on the front line.



Diving

Poem by Andrew Motion


The moment I tire
of difficult sand-grains
and giddy pebbles,
I roll with the punch
of a shrivelling wave
and am cosmonaut
out past the fringe
of a basalt ledge
in a moony sea-hall
spun beyond blue.
Faint but definite
heat of the universe

flutters my skin;
quick fish apply
as something to love,
what with their heads
of gong-dented gold;
plankton I push

an easy way through
would be dust or dew
in the world behind
if that mattered at all,
which is no longer true,
with its faces and cries.



Helen Of Troy Does Countertop Dancing

Poem by Margaret Atwood


The world is full of women
who'd tell me I should be ashamed of myself
if they had the chance. Quit dancing.
Get some self-respect
and a day job.
Right. And minimum wage,
and varicose veins, just standing
in one place for eight hours
behind a glass counter
bundled up to the neck, instead of
naked as a meat sandwich.
Selling gloves, or something.
Instead of what I do sell.
You have to have talent
to peddle a thing so nebulous
and without material form.
Exploited, they'd say. Yes, any way
you cut it, but I've a choice
of how, and I'll take the money.

I do give value.
Like preachers, I sell vision,
like perfume ads, desire
or its facsimile. Like jokes
or war, it's all in the timing.
I sell men back their worse suspicions:
that everything's for sale,
and piecemeal. They gaze at me and see
a chain-saw murder just before it happens,
when thigh, ass, inkblot, crevice, tit, and nipple
are still connected.
Such hatred leaps in them,
my beery worshippers! That, or a bleary
hopeless love. Seeing the rows of heads
and upturned eyes, imploring
but ready to snap at my ankles,
I understand floods and earthquakes, and the urge
to step on ants. I keep the beat,
and dance for them because
they can't. The music smells like foxes,
crisp as heated metal
searing the nostrils
or humid as August, hazy and languorous
as a looted city the day after,
when all the rape's been done
already, and the killing,
and the survivors wander around
looking for garbage
to eat, and there's only a bleak exhaustion.
Speaking of which, it's the smiling
tires me out the most.
This, and the pretence
that I can't hear them.
And I can't, because I'm after all
a foreigner to them.
The speech here is all warty gutturals,
obvious as a slab of ham,
but I come from the province of the gods
where meanings are lilting and oblique.
I don't let on to everyone,
but lean close, and I'll whisper:
My mother was raped by a holy swan.
You believe that? You can take me out to dinner.
That's what we tell all the husbands.
There sure are a lot of dangerous birds around.

Not that anyone here
but you would understand.
The rest of them would like to watch me
and feel nothing. Reduce me to components
as in a clock factory or abattoir.
Crush out the mystery.
Wall me up alive
in my own body.
They'd like to see through me,
but nothing is more opaque
than absolute transparency.
Look--my feet don't hit the marble!
Like breath or a balloon, I'm rising,
I hover six inches in the air
in my blazing swan-egg of light.
You think I'm not a goddess?
Try me.
This is a torch song.
Touch me and you'll burn.

Book 56 - Stephen Alford "The Watchers"

Stephen Alford "The Watchers : A Secret History of the Reign of Elizabeth I" (Penguin)





An interesting and engrossing book detailing the activities of the network of spies and informers, the ‘Watchers’ of the title, set up and run by Walsingham, Essex, Burleigh and Robert Cecil to protect Elizabethan society from the catholic threat. Alford cleverly illustrates the perceived magnitude of the threat when he describes an imagined assassination attempt on Elizabeth by catholic agents and the ensuing chaos when she dies from her wounds.

Alford concentrates on the ordinary men in the network, the ones recruited and paid ad hoc – many ended up in debt - the double and, in one case, triple agents, collecting information and sending it back, by letter, to their masters. He details how letters were intercepted, decrypted, and sent on their way – a device used most famously to break the Babington Plot and to force the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots – how torture was used for force confessions, and how catholic spies were become double agents.

Its easy to draw parallels between those Watchers and the recent revelations of the lengths today’s Elizabethan watchers will go to in order to protect society and there are lessons here - the manipulations and use of entrapment in the Babington Plot is a good example - are a timely reminder that we should also consider just how far we want the state to go to preserve our way of life. Thought provoking.

Great Pop Songs #6

I am in Spoons pub at the moment not knowing that they are having a quiz going on. My ears pricked up when one of the questions asked which former Spice Girl had an album called Free Me?

This was posted on my blog in June 2014.

Originally posted by davesmusictank at Great Pop Songs #6

I was really happy to find this CD and  i can happily say this was one of my best finds of the day.





Emma Bunton – Free Me (2004)
Tracks : Tomorrow / You Are

I love the single Maybe, Hadn’t heard it in ages so bought this CD for 50p in a Chatham chairty shop Maybe is a superb pop track based on riffs borrowed from the Pizzicato 5. After repeated plays of "Maybe" I left the CD on and was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. Lots of good melodies with a handful being very easy listening inspired.

Maybe

Several spins later I found myself besotted with Tomorrow, a fantastic pop song with just enough soulfulness, tension and release to hit all the right spots. The string and horn arrangements are reminiscent of something Tony Hatch would have done for Petula Clark in the 60s. You Are is another great mid-tempo pop song with a proper ear worm for a chorus. It’s ultra-sweet but very infectious.

Tomorrow

I also love the ultra – slow final track called So Beautiful but it may be too sugary for some people. The lowest point of this CD which should really have been a highlight is Emma’s run through of Crickets Sing For Anna Maria. It’s less of a run and more of a flat-footed pedestrian stroll.

Notes :
Nick Ingman handles the orchestral arrangement on Maybe and Tomorrow and both were written by Emma and a Mr Bondy….Yak Bondy. Yak is obviously a songwriter with a deep love of easy listening and further investigation on Discogs reveals his songwriting is all over a range of 90s and 00s CDs by the likes of Lisa Stansfield, Amy Studt, Billie Piper, Rachel Stevens, S Club 7 and the Spice Girls.

Gavyn Wright (sometimes spelt Gavin) is another name to note. He’s a violinist and orchestral arranger who has worked with an amazing array of artists. He’s on several tracks here working alongside Nick Ingman and his name pops up in the credits of loads of other pop CDs.

Summary :
This whole CD is an excellent and interesting listen. It has Easy Listening references threaded throughout it and no poor tracks excepting perhaps the very mundane run through of "Crickets Sing For Ana Maria". If you like "Maybe" and "Tomorrow" try "You Are" too. If all three float your boat then there’s probably other stuff on this CD you’ll like too.

(Thanks to Ian for supplying the details here)


Yes i know ... a gulity secret pop album - but i love it!

Discovery

Trailer time - looks good - the new Star Trek Discovery series.

Just Wondering

What do you like to collect or hoard?

What do you believe we are missing in this world?

If you could stretch time what would you do with your time if you had a couple of hours extra in the day?