Jazzy D's Soul Notes

I have spoken to my bro - coming42 - every day and decided to have four days down there in Brighton from Monday 14th, as I think the change will be good and it will help him through this grieving process.

Meanwhile, I have visits to Canterbury and London before I go down to the south coast as well as a second train expedition tomorrow. After yesterday I need a new vibe.

I also hope that bro can regain his enthusiasm to read books again after the passing of his wife.

I may need to bring earphones and an mp3 player. I cannot stand Classic FM aLL day lol!!

Just goes to prove how mad and crazy the US of A is, esp, with these evangelical nutters - no wonder being an atheist is the best way to keep out of this religious turmoil that sickens our world. The series on BBC Radio 4 specifically talks about the culture wars and is called Things Fell Apart.

2. Dirty Books
Things Fell Apart
Episode 2 of 8

1974. A church minister's wife in West Virginia learns of a brand new curriculum being introduced into her children's school. So she decides to read all 325 new textbooks herself. What she discovers horrifies her so much she instigates a Statewide insurrection. But were some of her concerns based on a misunderstanding?

Yes, I say because she did not understand nuance and interpretation, and that saying the Bible is the only book you need to read is total shit in my opinion.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0011ldn

Here is some background information -

The Kanawha County textbook controversy was a violent school control struggle in the 20th century United States. It led to the largest protests ever in the history of Kanawha County, West Virginia, the shooting of one bystander, and extended school closings. The controversy erupted in 1974 when new, multicultural textbooks were introduced that some parents considered blasphemous.

In 1970, West Virginia's Superintendent of Schools signed a proposal for funding to ensure the training of teachers to "induce change" so that children in the state's educational system could elevate and expand above their own cultural surroundings the state views as limited. On 12 March 1974, the English Language Arts Textbook Committee of Kanawha County, West Virginia recommended 325 books and textbooks to the school board for use in Kanawha schools ranging from kindergarten to 12th grade. The books were selected by the Committee based on state guidelines that had been set, including but not limited to some that books should be "multicultural in content and authorship". An English teacher on the committee stated that although she held strong conservative values, she felt that removing books that showed opposing opinions would be equivalent to "telling lies by omitting ideas I know exist". So, clamping down on debate and forcing a singular conservative view. I found it disgusting! But then is the good old USA!

These textbooks were part of a new state curriculum that included for the first time the concepts of multiculturalism and egalitarianism in textbook writing. Most school board members saw no reason to question the state's decision. That is until this insular closed-minded conservative Alice Moore stepped in.

Alice Moore had previously campaigned against sex education being taught in the county and was elected as the only member of the Kanawha County School Board that did not have a college degree. Moore also had four children attending county schools. Moore was concerned by the term dialectology, which implied the teaching of Appalachian English and African American Vernacular English as "equally correct" dialects. Historian Carol Mason writes that Moore did not want White children to learn the language used by African Americans with the belief that it would cause the White children "to speak in ghetto dialect!
She requested and received all 300 textbooks, and claimed that she found unsettling quotations from Allen Ginsberg, Sigmund Freud's writings on the Oedipus complex, and convicted Black Panthers such as Eldridge Cleaver's "Soul on Ice" and by George Jackson. She even took offense to a poem by Liverpudlian poet Roger McGough's "End Of The World".

She even wanted to ban the acclaimed poet Langston Hughes! In an interview with Jon Ronson on this program, she says in reply to Jon's question "Do you remember an author called Langston Hughes?", "I remember these names. I don't remember exactly what Langston Hughes wrote". That already damns her as being an ignorant insular person!

That is why I find extreme right-wing people so dangerous.


This is another fascinating series from the radio.

Resonance 104.4 FM is a London-based non-profit community radio station specializing in the arts run by the London Musicians' Collective. The station is staffed by four permanent staff members, including programme controller Ed Baxter and over 300 volunteer technical and production staff.

Available on the web, it is one of my go-to stations.

https://www.resonancefm.com/

https://www.resonancefm.com/programmes

It also hosts The Wire Adventures in Sound and Music.

https://www.mixcloud.com/Resonance/adventures-in-sound-and-music-16-september-2021/

Once again, the weather remains unpredictable. A dull start to the day, a little shower during midday, and a sunny afternoon. It is knowing what to wear is the problem, and you end up being overburdened with unnecessary clothing when it warms up. But, however you shake it down, this July has yet to be as glorious as the one we had the previous year. I ask myself where is the summer?

I must admit I have not done much today, except complete a report for the Monday visits. Listening to the radio as well and some fascinating BBC programs on Beethoven in these Composers of the Week podcasts.

I have taken the plunge and ordered the seven CD box set of Dinu Lipatti that was first mentioned in Wire back in 1991. They sound remarkably clear and fresh despite being mono and from the forties and fifties.





A bargain at £12 no matter what.

I had a thought - you should be able to listen to BBC music using the BBC app anywhere in the world. I totally recommend it and my recommendations are BBC Radio 6 and BBC Radio 3 night-time radio. The BBC Radio 3 programmes I recommend are Night Tracks, Late Junction, Unclassified ,Jazz A to Z,and Freeness.

It has been another warm sunny day. I did quite a lot of sunbathing whilst catching up on some radio programmes such as The 3rd Degree, You're Dead To Me, The Moral Maze, The Briefing Room, and Thinking Allowed. In essence, not a day being stuck indoors.

I did listen to Stravinsky in the morning and this one by the Hilliard Ensemble.



Off to do some reading now. I am entrenched in a book on Paris about the left bank area between 1946-1960.

So the Classic FM top five is as predictable as ever but then nothing surprises me there as they cater for the background listener and do not cover anything extreme or avant-garde as such. Radio 3 is more adventurous in that regard such as Late Junction and Music Planet.

My current classical top five are -

Giles Swayne - Cry
Edgar Varese - Deserts
Henryk Gorecki - Symphony No.3
Steve Reich - Different Trains
Gyorgi Ligeti - Requiem

Also no adverts on the BBC.
If you are into world music check out Music Planet.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000h6qh

Well, in the end, I did three visits, two in Whitstable and one in Dover.

That was enough for the day.

I have just finished a deep crust filled pepperoni pizza washed own with that other bottle of vino from Tenterden.

I am currently listening to BBC Radio 4 - "The American Art Tapes" -

Whuch is a unique insight into the vibrant art scene of mid-1960s America from an archive of recordings made then and broadcast now for the very first time.

In 1965, the painter and teacher John Jones headed to the United States for a year, intending to record the most important and most influential artists he could find. His wife Gaby and their two young daughters went with him. One of those daughters, Nicolette Jones, is now a writer and critic, and she tells the story of how the family lodged in New York while her father grabbed interviews with Yoko Ono, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg and many more.

This was the moment of happenings, pop art and abstract expressionism, while the long shadow of dadaism and surrealism, represented on the tapes by Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray, reached forward to Louise Bourgeois.

Later, with nothing planned at all, the family set off on a three-month road trip in their old Ford station wagon, travelling across America from East to West Coast, turning up in little towns on the off chance of getting an interview with artists like Jasper Johns in Florida or a young Ed Ruscha in California.

The unique archive of over 100 recordings, gathered by John Jones, lay in boxes in the family home for decades, waiting for him to write a book based on the tapes. He wasn't able to do this and so the family offered the whole set of recordings to the Tate Archive, which acquired them in 2015.

In this programme, we hear a tantalising sample of this extraordinary material, airing a pivotal moment in 20th-century art and revealing John Jones to be on a par with some of the great audio collectors like Alan Lomax and Studs Terkel.

The programme evokes the mood of the time by interweaving the artists' reflections with a soundscape of mid-60s American music, TV and location sound. Art historian and artistic director of the Royal Academy Tim Marlow gives a powerful sense of the artists' achievement as Nicolette Jones conjures up the feeling of a great American road trip through the eyes of the child she was.


https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live:bbc_radio_fourfm

So far this week we had Strom George that came over from Ireland and now we are in the midst of Storm Hannah - but ffs - when did we start personalising storms? They are just bloody storms.


The weather looks more relaxed come Monday and dry as I will be heading to Hastings that day and then Hythe on the way back. I have a supermarket cafe visit and the last charity shop visit to do this month.

Music wise, it is nice to use Mixcloud and check the grooves the DJ's have been playing on 1BTN - A Brighton based cool groove music radio station.

Check this one out -

https://www.mixcloud.com/1btn/turn-on-tune-in-11032019/?utm_campaign=notification_new_upload&utm_medium=email&utm_source=notification&utm_content=html


I will do another music post later on.

Well,it’s back to the overcast indifferent day weather wise. I was going to go over to Sheerness but never got round to it, and i guess that is due to the fact that i overslept and decided i was in no rush to get over there - i still have up to the end of the month to complete the visit.

I got so wrapped up listening to the radio anyway. There was a fascinating selection of programmes on air either on Radio 4 or 4 Extra.

I have been watching episodes of A Town Called Eureka as the whole set of five seasons is available on Amazon Prime.It is still one of the best quirky science fiction tv series on the telly.

Next week my normal regime of Supergirl, The Flash,And Legends will kick in. These series are back from the winter break.Bloody hell, where will i get the time to watch them all.