Monday Long Song

The jazz-fusion sweet spot runs from 1969 to 1975, a period where electricity pushed and prodded its way ever further into the previously exclusively acoustic instrumental palate. Miles Davis didn't even regard his seminal 1969 LP 'In a Silent Way' (which effectively kick started the movement) as a part of the jazz genre at all, referring to it instead as '...directions in music...'. Les McCann's 'Invitation to Openness' falls bang in the middle of that sweet spot, being recorded in the summer of 1971 and released the following year. 'The Lovers' takes up the whole of side one and is an eastern infused, ethereal masterpiece. Yusef Lateef and Alphonse Mouzon are probably the prominent names from the jazz world on the LP, but who's providing the guitar hook that threads its way through the tune? It's David Spinozza, whose other credits include Paul McCartney's 'Ram', John Lennon's 'Mind Games' and Don McLean's 'American Pie'.

Les McCann - The Lovers

Monday Long Song

I've featured the work of American guitarist Jeff Parker in this slot before (here). He's one of those musicians who clearly just loves to play and has appeared on 230 albums since 1993, as a sideman, a leader and a band member, most notably as part of Tortoise. Parker's 2016 LP 'The New Breed' is about to get the full reissue treatment via International Anthem's IA11 series. It's a woozy, retro sounding record, that takes this elderly listener back to the glory days of DJ Cam, Req, DJ Krush and similar Mo' Wax-era beatmakers.

Jeff Parker - Executive Life

Old (in) New York

60 years ago today - the fifth of my annual birthday portraits in front of the family radiogram.

This morning you find your roving reporter at the front end of a 10 day stay with my cousin and her family in New York. Interestingly, a couple of things will have changed forever by the time I return to Old Blighty next week. 1) All future visits to my barber on a Monday or Tuesday will be £5 cheaper than previously, and, of even greater significance, 2) My local pub will apparently give me a 10% discount every Thursday. The reason? Today I turn  65....sixty bloody five! Like the t-shirt says, it's weird being the same age as old people, but at least those are two somewhat positive points of my extreme dotage.

I'm obviously writing this ahead of time, but my cousin has already let it slip that they've made plans for my, ahem, big day, even though I will only just have flown into the country and will therefore probably be a complete mess. I can barely make it past 8pm when I'm on home turf these days, so attempting to stay awake, alert and coherent late into the evening of my first day in a different time zone is going to be something of a challenge, to say the least. In a restaurant on the first evening of a New York trip about 20 years ago, after being awake for 24 hours, I momentarily forgot to open my eyes again when blinking and very nearly ended up face first in my meal. I'll let you know how I get on this time round.

Our old pal Brian pointed me in the direction of Community Radio's 'Look Now You're Cursed' nine long years ago and I still spin it regularly. This one seemed appropriate today.

Community Radio - Old New York

Monday Long Song

Have I really never posted this before? It's hard to believe quite frankly. 'Are We a Warrior', the title track of Ijahman Levi's 1979 LP, sits comfortably among my favourite reggae tunes of all time. It lilts, swings and sways, delivering a plea for universal peace in the most soulful way. Let not your arrow from your bow.

Ijahman Levi - Are We a Warrior

Friday Photo #68

A 1930 photo of Joyce in the arms of her maternal grandmother, Anorah.

My Aunt Joyce's life, which began over 95 years ago in an East London terraced house, ended last Sunday evening in a small white room in a Norwich hospital, with my cousin and I by her side. Following a couple of years of steadily declining health, her passing from this world was peaceful.

My cousin has spent much of the last 18 months criss-crossing the Atlantic to care for her mum, while I made regular, though somewhat shorter journeys up and down the M11 to support them both. Latterly my aunt was relocated to a lovely residential care home, just across the Norfolk/Suffolk border, about a mile from my front door. It was by far the longest period she'd spent outside London in her entire life and, unsurprisingly, she didn't care for it much, but it was close enough that I could drop in to see her and report back to my cousin on a regular basis.  

For the first 15 years of my life Joyce, my uncle and my cousin lived upstairs in the same house as us. As a consequence, my cousin and I regard each other as siblings and grew up feeling that we'd each been blessed with an extra set of parents. 

Joyce leaves her daughter, son-in-law and three remarkable grandchildren.

Johnson Mkhalali - Joyce No.2

I Think Therefore I Ain't

Last week came the shocking news that David Johansen has been privately battling stage 4 cancer for a decade and a brain tumour for the past five years. He's been forced to go public with his condition since breaking his back in two places following a fall in November, leaving him bedridden and incapacitated. His daughter has created a site to raise funds for full-time nursing, physical therapy and day-to-day living expenses. The immediate outpouring of love and good wishes from all corners of social media has been heart-warming to see and is a testament to the high esteem Johansen is held in throughout the music world.

I have enough miles on the clock to have seen the legendary Old Grey Whistle Test performance by The New York Dolls in 1973 when it originally aired. I was 13 years old at the time and it scared and excited me in equal measure. I followed Johansen into his post-Dolls career, particularly his first three solo albums. The second of those, 1979's 'In Style', is my favourite. It's a Mick Ronson co-production, an unashamedly commercial record, a little of its time perhaps, but chock-full of big hooks and catchy choruses. Sending you all my best David.

David Johansen - She

David Johansen - Justine

Monday Long Song

Soft Machine founding member, keyboard player Mike Ratledge passed away last Wednesday at the age of 81. Although he left the band as long ago as 1976, his contributions to their first eight studio albums and countless subsequently released live sets are immense and the stuff of legend. Here's the short lived 1969 version of Soft Machine consisting of Ratledge, Hugh Hopper, Brian Hopper and Robert Wyatt, performing on John Peel's Top Gear. Within months Brian Hopper was out, to be replaced by Elton Dean, thus completing what many consider to be the classic line-up of the band.

Soft Machine - Facelift / Mousetrap / Noisette / Backwards / Mousetrap Reprise