Jazzy D's Soul Notes

When I listen to some of the jazz American jazz people have recorded in France and decided to become self-exiled there due to the racism of the USA in the fifties and sixties Paris was a benefactor in many ways. In fact, a recent BBC Radio 4 program explores the encounter between American modern jazz and the French New wave in Paris in the late 1950s and 60s.

Paris in the civil rights era was a hub of artistic collaboration as well as a kind of political refuge - a destination for American jazz musicians escaping racial prejudice and turbulence at home, finding new creative encounters abroad.

As segregation raged in the US, artists from Miles Davis and Bud Powell to Art Blakey and Thelonious Monk felt liberated in the city. Paris was the first foreign city Miles Davis ever visited and it was here he met Picasso. Sartre and Jean Cocteau. "It was the freedom of being in France and being treated like a human being...” he wrote, “It changed the way I looked at things forever. I loved being in Paris and Paris was where I understood that all white people were not the same; that some weren't prejudiced."

The admiration was mutual - French cinephiles loved American jazz. The film score became a key area of collaboration as jazz musicians worked closely with a younger generation of radical directors that made up the French new wave. These scores elevated French films to new levels of intensity, cool, and atmosphere.

Some of the musicians' great but little known work is recorded in these movies. But underlying the beautiful work, this story is one of political exile as well as cultural refuge. For a moment Paris became a jazz capital of the world as well as the free-thinking centre of Europe - a rebuke to prejudice in America, even as it had growing racial tensions of its own.
Paris has made me think about how many different stories are woven together in the city The love affair between French culture especially French film and African American jazz and at the heart of this romance the city itself with its residents from right around the world and its complex web of race relations in Paris the city of light there is one every kind of blues you can think of.

So for your nighttime jazz here is Miles -

Miles Davis - Ascenseur pour l'échafaud



Tracklisting:
00:00 - Générique
2:53 - L'assassinat de Carala
5:04 - Sur l'autoroute
7:24 - Julien dans l'ascenseur
9:37 - Florence sur les Champs-Élysées
12:29 - Dîner au motel
16:27 - Évasion de Julien
17:21 - Visite du vigile
19:26 - Au bar du Petit Bac
22:20 - Chez le photographe du motel


Au revoir, jazz cat signs out.

Enjoy.

I went Italian and had a pasta dish - spaghetti and beef for lunch.



plus some tasty garlic bread topped with extra garlic butter too, and hence so yummy.

Been watching  DVD movies from the common room library -
Beyond Skyline
Species
The Dark Tower.

Somebody has added these to it.

I had not realised until this morning that the clocks went back overnight. At least we gained an extra hour in bed. I though it was ten when i woke up but in fact it was only nine. So i turned on the radio to hear the morning news and the selected reviews of the newspapers (BBC Radio 4) ,then i switched to Radio Four Extra to listen to a piece from Philip Pullman, "Daemon Voices Omnibus" followed by a World Book Club discussion that was originally aired in 2012 with author Paul Auster.

Paul was at the Cheltenham Book Festival discussing his ouvre ,particularly the New York Trilogy.In the audience was another Paul Auster,a musician and teacher who admits himself that is not an avid reader except for the books by the author. Some kind of serendipitous happenstance, but one that amused the author.

Both of these programmes i found fascinating.In the former "personal, entertaining and deeply thoughtful essays, Philip Pullman examines the art of storytelling.

Written over a period of 30 years, they reflect on a wide range of topics including the origins of his own stories, the practice of writing and the storytellers who have most inspired him.

Today's essay reveals how his days at Oxford in the sixties provided the inspiration for the setting of His Dark Materials."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09c1y3m#play

I wished i could have been in Lewes the other day as another author was signing books at the Cancer Research charity shop. The guy signing them was Peter James,a crime novelist based in Brighton that i know my brother reads alot of his books.

Well,i finally got round to ordering the Karin Krog anthology which is expected to arrive before November 4th from Amazon Marketplace,at least ten pounds cheaper than through Prime.

I love my jazz and she is a consummate interpreter of the song.

Later today i will be heading off to my local 'Spoons pub to watch the next episode of Star Trek Discovery.

Last night ,after seeing Thor Ragnarok at our local cinema,with just two screens, i clicked on Shush.se to watch the latest episode of Supernatural. Looks like Castiel is not so dead as we thought.

Pam Grier , the badass mutha of the seventies blaxploitation movies re-emerged triumphantly in Jackie Brown. Then last night whilst watching an episode of Smallville , the early years of the man from Krypton,our Pam appears in three episodes - which are "Absolute Justice", "Checkmate" and "Sacrifice" from season 9. "Absolure Jusruce" introduced us to the JSA - The Justice Society of America - which had Hawkman in the team. Hawkman was part of the first season of DC's Legends of Tomorrow.

Anyway i know her as Foxy.

Foxy Brown Official Trailer #1

The clocks went back an hour. That means we have lost gained an hour of sleep. Still, i had a lie-in listening to BBC Radio 3 this morning (for a change) whom are celebrating 70 years of musical service. So since nine this morning it has been non-stop music without interruptions.

Last night i watched the latest Marvel movie Dr.Strange. It was the first time i went to the independent cinema in Sittingbourne above the Bingo Hall. There are two auditoriums so you have a choice of two films per evening.

Back to the film anyway. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Benedict Cumberbatch was brilliant in it. The special effects are just awesome. A cameo by Stan Lee did not go unnoticed. The ending might hint at another Dr.Strange film to come.

Here is an analysis of the ending - Spoiler alert if you nit d=seen the film yet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7wdBgRq9B4

Worth seeing i think.

Sometimes i really do not know what to put in a blog but that writer's block kind of reaction doesn't happen often . It did yesterday though.

Anyway after a surprisingly fine sunny bank holiday Monday today the weather notched a step up to become even sunnier with temps rising to 27 degrees C. I popped over to Faversham to sell some paperbacks gacked from the left out books from outside a charity shop that is having a refit in Tunbridge Wells the other day. They were in a box with "take for free" on it, and i sold them for three quid - the rest i kept - i took eight books and sold four.

That was the highlight of the day. I spent a couple of hours sunbathing and watched the Steve Jobs biopic DVD. Can i say , what a control freak and dick he is - well that is my opinion of him ,genius or not. I also felt sorry to Steve Wozniak being belittled by Jobs. Fascinating film though.

In the film towards the end, John Sculley (former Apple CEO) arrives in secret at the launch of the iMac and the two make amends. Jobs and Sculley discuss Jobs' life as an adopted child, and Jobs admits that his need for control stems from his feelings of powerlessness in being given up. At the behest of Hoffman, Jobs apologizes to Lisa for his mistakes, admitting that he is "poorly made". Lisa watches her father take the stage to introduce the iMac.



I also finished the whole eight seasons of Charmed again, Think i will leave it for awhile,I am steadily going through Season 10 of Supernatural and so far it's a blast.

Hopefully tomorrow  i will have a remittance from React Surveys as it is the last day of the month. Can it be September so soon?

In Faversham i sold a few paperbacks before heading off to Dover to do a charity shop visit. The weather was sunny for most of the day except for a period around midday when it rained heavily. It did so again on my walk back from the station to the house.

At the covert shop visit i purchased a DVD, A CD and some books. The DVD was the Woody Allen film "Midnight In Paris" with Owen Wilson, Kathy Bates, Micheal Sheen and Rachel MacAdans. The CD is "Our Verizon Of Events" by Emeli Sande.

The books are -






Watched a couple of episodes of Jessica Jones tonight. Off to bed now.

Another crappy rainy morning but at east it wa a drier afternoon.

Last night i watched the latest episode of Marvel's Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D and a film from the 90's called Practical Magic starring Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock. in it
Bullock and Kidman play sisters Sally and Gillian Owens, who have always known they were different from each other. Raised by their aunts after their parents' death, the sisters grew up in a household that was anything but typical—their aunts fed them chocolate cake for breakfast and taught them the uses of practical magic. But the invocation of the Owens' sorcery also carries a price—some call it a curse: the men they fall in love with are doomed to an untimely death. Now adult women with very different personalities, the quiet Sally and the fiery Gillian must use all of their powers to fight the family curse and a swarm of supernatural forces that could take away all the Owens' lives.



It was an enjoyable fluffy romantic comedy type of film.

A clip from Dennis Wheatley;s The Devil rides Out. Classic Hammer Horror!

Baphomet - The Goat Of Mendes



Original full film here -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiimxfU4gH8&ab_channel=ModernArcane

I watched episode 4 and 5 of Supergirl this evening followed by a film called the Oxford Murders (2008) - the latter being a strange noir style thriller that is extremely wordy and that the characters debate several mathematical, physical and philosophical concepts such as logical series, Wittgenstein's rule-following paradox, Heisenberg's Principle of Uncertainty, Gödel's Theorem, circles, the Vesica Piscis, the possibility of perfect crime, Fermat's Last Theorem and its proof by Professor Wiles, the Taniyama conjecture, the tetraktys and the Pythagoreans. There are references, also, of the Butterfly effect.A film that best unraves after a few settings.

Supergirl was as sweet and fantastic as always.