The Nels Cline Singers

I made a new musical discovery at the weekend. On Friday night I got to see the Nels Cline Singers - a jazz trio of guitar, bass and drums with not a singer among them. They are a bit avant garde-ish at times and they get out there on the edge with lots of electronic effects and obscure percussion. I know it’s not for everybody but I loved it. They are fronted by Nels Cline this quite amazing guitarist (Jazz Times recently called him “The World's Most Dangerous Guitarist” – that might be a compliment, but I can see what they were saying).

You can check out some of his work on his myspace page.

Should I really ride a motorcycle.....

I had lunch this week with an old friend that I hadn’t seen for a while. She has recently (last year) donated one of her kidneys to her then boyfriend and now husband, who was in desperate need of one (imagine the coincidence of being that compatible). I was telling her about my motorcycle acquisition and how I was enjoying riding. She sounded enthused not so much because of me enjoying the riding, more because motorcycle riders are the most significant group of organ donors (in their search for a kidney they had done a lot of research in this area). Apparently, 4th of July weekend is the best time for finding a donor too. Perhaps I will forgo that motorcycle trip I was planning this 4th.

Poor old Wordsworth

What is this world coming to? I was dismayed when I was back in England recently to hear that in Wordsworth country (The Lake District) it had been a poor year for daffodils and so, to compensate, one establishment was actually planting artificial daffodils so that people could enjoy their expected Easter floral display.

Now today I heard on the radio that in another attempt to enhance tourism in the Lake District and to make Wordsworth more acceptable to younger folk, Wordsworth's most famous poem - I wandered lonely as a cloud... - has been updated and set to a hip-hop beat. What's worse there is an associated video with some guy dressed up as a squirrel prancing around these fields of artificial daffodils.

I'm sorry - I just don't see the need for this.

The Hot Club of San Francisco

I got a chance to see the Quintet of the Hot Club of San Francisco at the weekend. These guys play so-called gypsy jazz and are modeled after the Quintette du Hot Club du France (the famous band with Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli who played in the 1930’s and 1940’s). This San Francisco version are pretty faithful to the style – all acoustic – a lead guitar, a violin, two rhythm guitars, and a double bass. They played lots of the old Reinhardt and Grappelli material along with a few modern ones.

They were excellent – the lead guitarist Paul Mehring was just a wonder to behold, however, when you think that Django played all this stuff with only three fingers on his left hand, then that is even more remarkable.

Interesting guitars that they all had too – apparently the favored instrument for this type of music is something called a Maccaferri (played by Django himself) and made back in the 30’s and 40’s by the Selmer company. You can buy an original Maccaferri for $17,000 here, though its had a few changes in its long life.

Mr Maccaferri the designer of these instruments had an interesting life too – originally a luthier, then a classical guitarist of some renown and then after his performing career came to an early end he became creative with plastics making plastic saxophone reeds, and then a plastic guitar (not as something cheap, but as a serious quality instrument). At the time of his death he was working on a plastic violin. Somehow these plastic instruments never really caught on – I wonder why – check them out.

A Dead Dog Story.

So a couple of weeks ago, I was driving to work and the neighbor a couple of doors down was going to, what I thought was, his work. The scene was idyllic with him getting into the car and his wife and two daughters waving goodbye at the front door. I stopped and commented to him how that was the perfect image of domestic bliss – one happy family. His reply was a bit a bit terse and I drove on.

I saw him again today and he explained he was not going to work - he was carrying the body of the family dog into the car to dispose of it. The dog, older than both their children, had died in the night and they were all grief stricken. I was a little off the mark with the domestic bliss and happiness thing.