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Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Blogging, hot weather and jazz...

Apologies for light blogging of late. That's partly because 1) I'm very busy, 2) bloggers block and 3) its too damn hot ! I even don't like drinking alcohol when the its sunny, I prefer drinking in dark seedy places as opposed to on the beach, which makes me feel sick even with just one glass of JD let alone a half bottle:-)

Hopefully inspiration, and thunderstorms , will strike . In the meantime a musical interlude. A few weeks back I went to see Ornette Coleman at the Meltdown festival. This caused some debate over at Dave's blog and Mr Denham posted on the subject, twice .Now I like to listen to all sorts of music and am always up for discovering artists new to me. I have listened to bits of jazz over the years ( Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane amongst others). Being with Dave has meant hearing lots more ! In talking to him and Jim I have discovered there is basically two types of Jazz, Osler Jazz and Jimmy (Denham ) Jazz. Jim apparently is good time!

So to cut to the chase, here are some you tubes of jazz that Jim won't like . Next week , lucky girl that I am, have the opportunity to watch him in action, playing the drums. I'll report back !

First off John Coltrane with Alabama . This was written in reaction to the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church,by the Klu Klux clan, that resulted in the death of four girls.




Now for some Miles Davis with a track from Kind of Blue, although to really torment Jim I should have uploaded something from Bitches Brew .



After tormenting Mr D, here are some female jazz vocalists which I believe cross the Jim/Osler categories .

I have picked Billie Holiday singing Strange Fruit. Its one of the most powerful songs about racism, where she sings about the lynching of black people .Its one of those songs Im not sure saying I enjoy it is quite how I feel . The lyrics evoke feelings of anger at the suffering and racism.



OK, bit of a theme, here is Nina Simone singing Mississippi Goddam.Nina was part of the Civil Rights and this, like John Coltrane, was partly a response to the Church bombings.

Finally , round off with some Dinah Washington:

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