Hooptedoodle #495 - Joseph Spence Revisited

I still own a lot of CDs, which I am told is very 1990s. I don't care - they are mine, and I love them (most of them), and I can play them whenever I like, in super quality, without asking anyone, without leaving my personal details all over the web and without watching someone's bleeping adverts.

Recently I've been making an effort to tidy things up a bit, get rid of stuff I don't want any more, spot old discs which are starting to degrade (and rescue them if possible, if it's worth it), and do some serious-quality rips that I can play in the car. I've had some interesting reunions with a number of voices from my past.

 

Joseph Spence

(1910-1984)

During this latest period of avoiding the news I spend a lot of time listening to Finzi, Ravel, Fauré and odd-bods like George Butterworth and John Jeffreys, so it was a bit of a culture shock to meet up again with Joseph Spence.

Joseph was a pipe-smoking stonemason in the Bahamas, who had a fearsome local reputation as a guitarist and entertainer. Word sneaked out in the late 1950s, when he was visited by collectors and the Folkways people and was recorded in his home. He became something of a celebrity, was recorded again, more professionally, and was booked for a tour in New York and Boston in 1964. This didn't go wonderfully well. His family were very religious, and did not approve of drinking or songs about inappropriate behaviour. Thus he was allowed to travel to the US only on the understanding that he was accompanied by two women members of his family, who monitored his behaviour very carefully, and appeared on stage with him, singing hymns. 

This is why you have probably never heard of Joseph, in the same context as you have probably heard of Blind Gary Davis, Mississippi John Hurt, Rosetta Tharp and others from those days. However, the fact remains that Joseph was a self-taught phenomenon - wildly gifted and completely unfiltered. His guitar playing is remarkable (he was a noted inspiration to Ry Cooder, Tommy Emmanuel and all sorts of people), and he sort-of sings along (deedle deedle), coughs and mutters his way through performances. Most importantly, his music is happy - it is very difficult not to smile at his work.

After the failure of the Newport Foundation tour, Joseph returned to live in peace in the Bahamas, and disappeared almost completely, though I am sure that he was still the life and soul of the spontaneous building-site parties, and that his sisters still disapproved of the rum. 

And I'm sure he wasn't a bit bothered.

 

 

Hooptedoodle #485 - a Rare Touch of Class - Cleo Laine

 A respectful note from me for the passing of Dame Cleo, who has died at the age of 97. Here's a little dalliance with Shakespeare; my favourite track from what was one of my very favourite albums when I was a student (and subsequently, in fact).

 

William Lawes (1602-45) - don't shoot the pianist

 Something a little different this morning. I like to make small collections of music appropriate to the historic periods which I wargame - nothing overly serious, just mood-setting stuff.

This started about 10 years ago, when I put together a couple of CDs of Napoleonic marches (a stirring addition to tabletop warfare, though you have to stand ready with the off switch when it begins to do your head in). This is an interesting way to unnerve an opponent...

I tried to extend the idea to the War of the Spanish Succession, but was immediately challenged by the fact that bands didn't actually march in step at this period, so any formal "military" music is mostly music containing sound effects which parody warfare - typically composed by Lully and Delalande and similar, for the entertainment of Louis XIV and his guests at gala dinners. There were regimental bands, but their main duties involved playing concerts or festive music.

Thus it is no surprise that the ECW presents the same problem. There is contemporary "soldier" music available on record, much of which consists of ribald drinking songs. I was pleased to come across the work of William Lawes, a native of Salisbury, in Wiltshire, who spent most of his adult life in the service of Charles I. William was a composer, lutenist and viol player who produced an impressive portfolio of sacred and courtly works.

 

William Lawes

 

William survived the Siege of York, and seems to have spent his time with the Royalist army. Charles had him seconded to the King's Lifeguards (possibly to keep him close to the monarch, and out of harm's way); Lawes was killed at the Siege of Chester, in the rout following the Battle of Rowton Heath.

Here is a sample of his music for small groups - if you are interested, there is a fair amount online, much of which is very pleasing. This has been one of this week's better surprises.

 

Hooptedoodle #470 - Saturday Night Out in Maryhill

 Very nice too - I hadn't suddenly come up with a death wish, I went to a gig in Glasgow last night. I was at the Queen's Cross Church to see a solo concert by Julian Lage, whom I like very much. Simplest possible format: acoustic guitar, mostly improvised, just played into a mic. Unbelievable - a privilege to be there.

I found this on Youtube, which is a clip from his show in Dublin the night before. It might not be your thing, of course - maybe you had to be there...

 

Hooptedoodle #463 - Bonne Nuit à la Yé-yé Girl

 Memory of long ago - a gentler age?

I heard this morning of the death, at age 80, of Françoise Hardy, who was never a great singer, certainly wasn't much of an actress, but had a breathless, fragile quality which caused me some (respectful) stirrings in my teens.

This is naive, but charming, I think. Seems like yesterday.

 

 Thank you, Françoise.

 

Hooptedoodle #461 - Another Man Done Gorn

 While I'm on a run of avoiding "me-too" tributes, here's a recollection of a childhood hero of mine, who passed away this week.

Points in its favour?

(1) It was composed by Henry Mancini, which is class by any standards

(2) It helped to enliven what would otherwise have been the most creepy period of American pop music on record [see what I did there?]

Hooptedoodle #435 - Christmas with the English Pastoralists

 My Christmas got off to a flying start when I had to go to bed, unwell, on Saturday morning. A situation which would have been recorded in the cricket score-books of my youth as RETIRED HURT.

Not wishing to dramatise anything here, but I was coughing like an elderly horse, and I was pretty much convinced that I had Covid again, but I have been testing regularly since then, all negative, so I guess I have the flu. Boring.

Right.

Well, I have retired to the attic bedroom (as one does), and I have been relying for entertainment on a USB stick of mp3 music which I recorded a few months ago - I have a few of these, for the car, or any outlying BluRay player; this one is titled French Impressionists and English Pastoralists. A sort of private joke for what kind of music it is.

The French bit is easy enough - Ravel, Debussy, Fauré, Hahn, Ibert, a few others. The English category is less obvious; the composers are associated (in my mind) by the style of music rather than the strict dates. Vaughan-Williams, Delius, Bax, Butterworth, Jeffreys, Finzi, Gurney.

Having stashed my festive food in the freezer until some time when I feel up to it, I'm living on Lucozade and Gerald Finzi - musn't grumble.

Finzi gets me to the point I wanted to discuss here. He's better known now than he was, but still not very popular. Finzi himself lived from 1901 to 1956, first of all in London, was evacuated during WW1 to Harrogate and then moved in later life to Gloucestershire. He is probably best known for his song settings of English poetry, with piano accompaniment, but he also produced some beautiful orchestral work.

 

Gerald Finzi (hurrah!)

I got a real shock when I first heard his Éclogue, for piano and orchestra, on the radio in about 1998 or so. Very moving. Heart stopping, in fact. I understood that he had written the original piece around 1928, as part of a piano concerto which eventually was scrapped. After Finzi's death, his publisher rescued two of the surviving movements as separate pieces. So that must have been around 1960. I couldn't understand how someone who listens to as much music as I have could never have heard such a lovely work; in fact I had never heard of Finzi at all. How could this be?

Well, the start of the explanation is that on that morning I was listening to Classic FM, which was a commercial classical music station in the UK. I would not have heard it on the BBC. Good heavens, no. This is because of the personal bias of one Sir William Glock, a legendary music critic and organiser. Glock is regarded as one of the great men of British music - his influence is still around, though he has been dead since 2000. Glock studied piano with Artur Schnabel in Berlin, and became convinced that modern music was the way to go. He was music critic of the Daily Telegraph and then of the Observer, and ran summer schools to support the growth of "avant-garde" music. His belief was that anyone who wrote music with a more traditional harmonic system - especially if it involved arrangements of folk tunes - was old-hat. Therefore Vaughan-Williams was especially not welcome, as was anyone who had studied under, befriended or (possibly) even heard of Vaughan-Williams.

 

Sir William Glock (boo!)

From 1959 to 1972 Glock was the BBC's Director of Music, and from 1960 to 1973 he was also head of the London Promenade Concerts. He was a despot. Anyone who was on his (alleged) blacklist of composers would not be performed on the BBC, and there was just about a shut-out on all concerts in London. It might have been possible for concerts to have been performed, or even broadcast, in the more provincial parts of Britain, but who cared about that?

If someone was known (or suspected) to be on Glock's list, the effects were far reaching. The UK recording companies would not touch them, since the BBC would not play or review the records, and there was little scope for public performance. I recall, as a young man, being told that Vaughan-Williams was really an eccentric amateur and would have done much better if he had been a more fastidious orchestrator. Who told me this? - that's right - the good old BBC.

Glock didn't only put a stop to some British composers having an audience in Britain; also Aaron Copeland, Franz Schmidt, Szymanowski and a few others were not encouraged.

In later life, Glock was Director of the Bath Festival, and undoubtedly had some positive influences in the field of music, though his obsession with Pierre Boulez strikes me as a bit odd. However, I recently obtained (at last) a CD of the works of John Jeffreys, which was recorded in the last year of Jeffreys' life, 2014. The sleeve notes on the CD explain that Jeffreys and a few of his contemporaries were unfairly ignored during their productive years, and though Glock and his legacy are not mentioned it is obvious why. At one point, Jeffreys, who had a tendency for depressive illness, was frustrated to the point of destroying the manuscripts for most of his (extensive) portfolio of work.

Well, that does it for me. I hope Glock got a severe talking-to when he arrived at the Pearly Gates. The whole thing smells of the Russian Government banning American music. You will not listen to this, because I say so.

It's rather a long piece, but if you don't know the Éclogue, here it is. I promise you will feel better if you have a listen.

Hooptedoodle #431 - A Little Fresh Air

 I've had a fairly suboptimal week, all round. I am pleased to record the fact that the decorator finished painting the outside of the house yesterday, firstly because such projects rather take over the diary and the daily routine, secondly because we were extraordinarily lucky with the weather, and lastly because he has done a wonderful job. Very pleased indeed.

 

Chateau Foy resplendent in new paint, ready for the Winter - very clean and shiny indeed. 

We even have a lovely day to show it off to advantage

 

Apart from that, the week has been a bit lumpy. I am, of course, depressed to bits by the relentless news of the Real World, though the reality aspect is becoming questionable, and have tried to avoid contact with the radio news for a while. Late last night, while I was sorting out my books upstairs, I had Radio 3 on, and a piece of music came on which stopped me in my tracks. This is The Lark, by the splendid Kate Rusby, which I have heard before, though not this version.

 It would be melodramatic (not to say unmanly, chaps) to claim that it moved me to tears, but let's just say it came close. It comes as a bit of a shock to realise that, in a world dominated by greed, self-interest and cruelty, there are still things as lovely as this.

This was a revised recording made about 10 years ago, and I am delighted that it also features Nic Jones, one of the lost legends of British folk music, who was forced to retire from performing when he just about killed himself in a car crash in the 1980s. A real voice from the past - Jones has struggled with physical injuries and brain damage, so it is pretty much inspirational that he should be present on this recording. 

 

Hooptedoodle #425 - Well Off-Topic: A Needle in a Very Old Haystack

Openers - Irrelevant Rants

 Before I get into this particular digression, l'd like to present a couple of current brief rants (gentle, I hope!), which are off on yet another tangent:

There is a general theme here, which might be that school education is lacking in a couple of useful basics - in particular, there seems to be a general lack of understanding of a couple of situations...

(1) Many motorists seem to believe that if they are driving 5 feet behind the car in front on the motorway then they are travelling faster and making better progress than if they were, say, 50 feet behind. No - sorry - this is idiotic and dangerous (and may be related to the widespread belief that joining a rugby scrum at the very edge of the luggage carousel at the airport will somehow enable you to get your bags more quickly). Dumb.

(2) A current favourite of mine: radio commentators on football matches will invariably say something like, "so United are now 2-nil up, and if Rashford had scored that sitter after 3 minutes they would be 3-nil up". No - it doesn't work like that. If Rashford's (hypothetical) shot after 3 minutes had gone in then the whole game from that point on would have been completely different, and, in this completely different game, United might now be still just 1-nil up, or might even be 6-1 down, or the Earth could have been destroyed by an asteroid, though this is less likely. Commentators are supposedly paid for their work, so it would be better if they smartened up a bit.

OK - rants over...

Main Act - A Needle in a Very Old Haystack

I have got used to the idea that, given the Internet, it's possible to find out all sorts of interesting things - all we need is for the data to exist. If you go back a certain time, of course, the data is necessarily sparse, and we are losing our instincts of what to do if Google doesn't find what we are looking for. At least I am.

Our present emergence from the dreaded Covid restrictions means that, for the first time in over 2 years, I can actually go back to playing music in the company of others, maybe even for the entertainment of others. This is heady stuff, so I'm feeling my way into this - starting off by checking to see if my former collaborators are still alive, and remember me...

One possible (lightweight) project is sparked by an acquaintance of mine (whom I shall call Jeff, since that is, in fact, his name), who is a great enthusiast for the works of George Brassens, the French chansonnier, and is a lifelong disciple and walking expert on the whole subject.

 

George Brassens (1921-1981)

If you are not familiar with Brassens then I'll respectfully suggest that you might check him out. For insular Brits, he might be noted as the man who inspired our own Jake Thackray.

Here's a sample, from a film soundtrack made in about 1964:

 Right - back to Jeff. Jeff intends to present some occasional entertainments featuring Brassens songs (Jeff lived in Bordeaux for a while, and his wife, in fact, is French), and he asked me would I play second guitar for him. That sounds like a fun project - the music is pleasing, and not particularly complex - so I agreed to give it a go. If we get to the Edinburgh Fringe then I may wish to renegotiate my wages, but we'll address that as and when.

Jeff asked me if I was familiar with Brassens' work, and I said not in much detail, but I had heard some of his songs and liked the general style. I also added that I had seen Brassens in concert, when I was a kid, and that is where my story really begins. 

Jeff politely but confidently put me straight on this - that it was very unlikely that I had seen old Georges in Britain, since it is a well known fact (apparently) that he only appeared twice over here - once in London and once in Cardiff - and that was all. However, I was confident that I had seen him at a concert for schools in Liverpool in about 1961/62 - I remembered the concert pretty clearly, though I wasn't sure where it was staged, and Brassens is not easily mistaken for anyone else.

Partly to avoid having to write off my recollection as further evidence of advancing dementia, I did a bit of research. I contacted a few surviving contemporaries of mine from school, and even put a note on the Facebook page for our former pupils, and...

I got one hit!

One other old fogey was present at the concert and remembered it. My school sent along a contingent from the more serious French classes, and we joined parties from other schools for a special show (presumably sponsored by some worthy educational group) which took place in the old school hall of Liverpool Collegiate School, which was in Shaw Street (which is almost Everton). We have no real evidence - no selfies, no signed programmes - but we both know it happened. We were there, man.

 

Suitably Victorian engraving of the Collegiate's main school hall - now that's a proper school!

It does occur to me that Brassens' political profile (a self-professed anarchist) and the adult humour in his songs would make him an odd choice for an improving concert for teenagers. I also remember that the senior girls from some of the "posher" schools present (Belvidere, Aigburth Vale, Blackburne House) made a big deal out of laughing at the jokes in his songs, which suggests that either they had far better French teachers than we did, or else they were bluffing.

Jeff is not at all put out about any of this, since there is a possibility of his making a name for himself by re-writing the official history of Brassens, but we could use a little more certainty in the evidence. I'm not sure what more I can do at present, so I'll leave him to get on with it.

I am left to ponder what on earth this was. It is impossible that Georges would have travelled to the UK in those days to play a single concert in a school in Everton, which leads me to:

(1) Maybe he did the schools concert as a matinee, on the back of a proper concert he was putting on locally - this suggests that the local concert was part of some kind of national tour, which - if it happened - would certainly be known to his historians. 

Or, possibly

(2) The concert was part of a tour playing to schools, which seems a weird thing to have taken place, and, if it were true, would again be well-known to his followers.

I think you get the germ of the matter - I have run out of ideas. I could have attempted to make contact with the Collegiate people, but the school as it exists today has very little continuous history with the 1960s, and to contact actual former pupils of the school of a suitable vintage I would have to join their Facebook page, which I am not allowed to do. I suppose I could contact the guy who organises the Facebook page, though - hmmm.

Anyway, it was interesting to rake among the compost for a while, but I think I'll leave Jeff with a small conundrum he can think about!

Hooptedoodle #403 - Radio Tarifa

 This morning I have a lot to do, so I was having a look through my CDs to find some invigorating music to get me going. Ah! - Radio Tarifa - just the job... 

I was a big fan of these guys - still am, I guess, though they no longer exist. I am always a little nervous of World Music as a heading - so much of it can be meaningless if you weren't brought up in the culture and the musical traditions of the country you are listening to, though it's often very refreshing, and sometimes eerily familiar.

Radio Tarifa were something of an enigma - founded by two Spanish students of medieval music and North African music, they teamed up with a Flamenco singer, and became very successful in 1993. The band is named after a fictitious radio station they dreamed up, in Southern Spain, and the music, they reckoned, is the sort of stuff you would pick up late at night on such a station. The emphasis is Mediterranean, rather than Spanish, so there's all sorts in there - Flamenco, Jewish, Algerian and Moroccan music, and what I would regard almost as "Turkish Wedding" music, a rich mixture - always energetic, always brilliantly performed. They specialised in exotic and ancient instruments, and, though much of the material was traditional, they wrote a lot themselves, "in the style of" this multi-cultural genre they had created. I have seen a couple of live shows on video, and was confused to see that the band, on tour, was enormous - though nominally a 3-piece, they had many guest players. A real riot.

Their aim was to explore the music of the Mediterranean area as it was before the current nations were so well defined - when the Moors were still in Spain - maybe 15th Century is some kind of watershed; though this sounds a bit academic, the music is often festive and exciting. Heartily recommended by me, for what that is worth. The band took an extended break in 2006, which became permanent, alas, when the main singer died in 2012.

The track in the video clip is from, I think, their 3rd album, Cruzando el Rio, which dates from 2001. Of course, you may find it irritating, but it's great music for washing the recycling, I can tell you!

Hooptedoodle #394 - Auprès de Ma Blonde

 Here we go - a song from the time of Louis XIV, reckoned to date from the Franco-Dutch War of 1672-78, and much loved as a marching song by French soldiers right up to modern times. The informal performance here is by the remarkable Olivia Chaney, who is English, though her accent is spot-on. I'm very much in favour of Olivia, generally.

I was taught this song by my mother when I was a toddler. Years later, in my French class at school, we were asked if anyone knew any French songs, and I offered this, for which I was put on detention by our teacher (the Headmaster, as it happens), because the song was inappropriate. When I protested that it was a very old song, and told him where I had learned it, he said it had been inappropriate for a very long time, and my mother could take a detention too.

The romantic drama in the verses has been hand-polished over the centuries, I am sure, but the chorus is straightforward enough:

Next to my blonde, who does it well, does it well, does it well;
Next to my blonde, who makes me sleep well.

The Headmaster, Bill Pobjoy, has been dead for years - his biggest claim to fame was the fact that he expelled one John Winston Lennon from the school (before my time, I hasten to add), of which he was always rather proud. In truth, I think old JWL needed to be expelled. 

***** Late Edit *****

My old friend Norman, who is something of an expert on all things to do with the Beatles, has gently taken me to task over the Lennon episode - he points out that, strictly, JWL was not expelled, but the school arranged for him to transfer to Liverpool Art College. Technically, that is correct, and there are a number of books which testify to this now (some of them almost certainly written by Norman), but there is no doubt that there was no way that Lennon was going to be allowed to stay - the place at the Art College was engineered (partly under pressure from one of the teaching staff, Philip Burnett, who was convinced that Lennon was a mad genius), but JWL was very firmly escorted to the exit.

A digression follows - possibly an unnecessary one, but fairly conclusive in my mind.

It was the practice at the school for successful or prominent Old Boys (former pupils) to return from time to time, to give an address to the senior school (this was a boys' school, by the way). On one such occasion, Peter Shore, who after many years of active work for the Labour Party had finally been elected, a few years before, as MP for Stepney, came to speak to the 5th and 6th forms about his life in politics. The talk was pretty boring, I regret to recall, but it was also heavily Socialist, which caused very apparent unease to Mr Pobjoy, who shared the platform with our guest speaker.

Shore finished off his talk with an unbelievably weak call to glory (this was mid-1960s): "...and let us work to make sure that the Britain of the Beatles is a Labour Britain!".

There was a smattering of routine applause, then the headmaster, po-faced, stood to offer very taut thanks to our guest, and added the message that one of the Beatles had been a pupil at the school, and that he was pleased to say that he had expelled him. Dead silence - we all filed out, listening for pins dropping, to return to our classes.

It goes without saying that no musicians were ever invited to speak.

 

Peter Shore, MP

I raise the matter only to give the unofficial, but obviously whole-hearted, view of the individual involved. Further claptrap: Peter Shore went on to hold a number of Shadow posts in Labour Opposition cabinets, and held some real offices in Harold Wilson's government. His political career is thought to have been hindered by his lengthy devotion to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (to which he became strongly opposed in later life). He died, Wikipedia tells me, in 2001. As a side issue, I am delighted to note that his father-in-law was the Canadian-born historian and academic, EM Wrong. A finer name for a historian never existed, surely. This is straight out of Monty Python.

Enough - I hope that gets Norman off my back.

***********************

Hooptedoodle #393 - Music - Instant Time Travel

 Righto - lovely morning here, so I was browsing through the CD racks, looking for something suitable, to keep me in a mellow mood while I try to sort out my mother's tax return. I came up with this, and it stopped me dead...

 I remember exactly when and where I bought this album, and I can see it like a photograph. My first wife and I went on holiday to California in about 1990 - we flew to San Francisco, rented a car (a Chevrolet Monte Carlo, which had sort of sporty, "coupé" pretensions, but drove like a small lorry), then we had 2 nights in San Francisco, drove up through Sacramento and Auburn (which places I knew a little) and then stayed at Nevada City, up in the old goldfields, for a couple of days, then through the forests to Mendocino. A few days there (we stayed at the MacCallum House, which I think is still there - great food) and then we drove down the Pacific Highway, stayed at Carmel for a few nights, and then on to LA to fly home. About 12 days total, I think - I have a slightly blurred recollection of most of it, but I remember we had a good time.

One thing I remember very clearly. Last morning in Mendocino, early, after I'd packed our lorry ready for the run south, I was taking a walk down by the sea, to bid the place farewell - it was very misty, and at one point I was walking across some sort of "village green" area, thinking about coffee, when I heard music. Unmistakeable - Jim Hall on guitar, floating over the gardens. I found the source of the music, a bookshop, opening onto the green, exchanged greetings with the owner, and bought coffee and a pastry from him. I asked was the CD for sale, and he said yes, it was, so I bought it and took it away with me, which didn't please him a lot, because he was listening to it. Such is commerce, I guess.

This is the first track from the album - the tune that was playing through the mist in Mendocino - 30 years ago. This is Paul Desmond, on alto sax, with Jim Hall on guitar, playing When Joanna Loved Me.

Perfect. I shut my eyes and it's a misty morning in California, in another century.

I'd like to revisit Mendocino again sometime, but it's on a long list, and I realise I probably never will.

Hooptedoodle #385 - Chick Corea

 Another personal hero gone. Chick Corea, the jazz pianist, died this week, aged 79. He became famous when he played with Miles Davis in the late 1960s (in a band which for a period featured 3 electric pianos - Herbie Hancocks, Keith Jarrett and Corea, which some might say is at least 2 too many...).

Then, of course, he became a leading light in his own right in the Jazz Fusion thing, which divided the world neatly into those who felt it wasn't proper jazz at all and those who felt it didn't quite make it as rock music either. I was playing a couple of his CDs this morning, and it occurred to me that the 1990s was longer ago than I had thought. Good, though.

Here's a track that I like. Thanks from me, Chick. Rest easy.

Dondaine

 Moving swiftly on (before I get a glimpse of Mr Trump's pardons and have an aneurism), here's a workmanlike wargaming picture. My original reasoning for my WSS basing scheme was that, since the units only have 3 bases and they'll be doing some Old School tactical manoeuvring, I wouldn't bother with sabots, though I've become very used to using them of recent years.

After just a few test games, I confess I have changed my mind. Sabots there will be. They will not be magnetised, and - since my cunning WSS base sizes give a standard footprint (approximately) - I have adopted a one-size-fits-all plain sabot. Current thinking is that sabots will be a resource for the battlefield, and will be issued when needed. My Napoleonic units each have their own magnetised sabot, and they spend their lives on them, so this is a conscious departure from my standard system.

Because the sabots are a bit long and narrow, I was worried that 2mm MDF might warp if painted on one side only. I ordered in some samples from Uncle Tony Barr at East Riding Minis, and am pleased to find that they give no problems, so a bigger order will be on its way.

 Here's a quick photo, to give the idea. These should save time and broken bayonets.

Infantry and cavalry in line or column of march - even one of my strange limbered batteries 

 

Oh yes - dondaine. One of the many French nursery rhymes my mother taught me when I was an infant was En Passant par la Lorraine, a lengthy tale of a peasant girl who may or may not have captured the heart of the King's son (the song has a quirky, uncertain ending) through her fetching appearance, complete with clogs. This song contains the chorus hook-line:

avec mes sabots, dondaine,
oh! oh! oh! avec mes sabots

I have never been able to find out what dondaine means - and still haven't really got to the bottom of it. I am assured by one of my French relatives that in fact it means nothing - it is just a song-filler expression (equivalent to "tra-la-la" or, I suppose, "hey-nonny-no"). That's kind of an anticlimax after all those years of wondering, but I guess life is a bit like that.

If anyone knows different, please shout.

Here's a noble rendition of the song - just to prove it exists. I am confident you will not last to the end of the clip, but - take my word for it - this version only uses about half the verses my mother taught me. Obviously French kids had a good attention span in the days before Instagram.

 

Hooptedoodle #373 - Annie Ross

Sad to learn that the death has occurred of Annie Ross, the singer - mostly known in Scotland as Jimmy Logan's sister, and mostly not known very much at all elsewhere. Annie was a class act - she joined the prestigious American vocal act Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, a move which was almost unknown for a British artist in those days.

Here's a link to (probably) their most famous record - Centrepiece, from 1958. Quality. Love this stuff. The trumpeter, by the way [nerd section], is probably the great Harry Edison, since he is credited as co-composer on the recording. [If the link doesn't play - which is happening to me a lot lately - just click on "Play in Youtube"]

Hooptedoodle #317 - Segovia - Not to Be Sneezed At

 I've had a fiddly sort of week, sorting out my accounts, paying bills, tidying up. I also invested a little time in sorting some more of the dreaded lead pile into potential units for painting, and boxing them up in plastic sandwich boxes, labelled with Sharpie pen - "3 bns French lights - no command" and similar. You can see how this might work - if I can find where I have now put the little boxes I can get them painted up - if I can't find them then at least I have lost the lot in a single step, which is efficient in a rather specialised sense.

While I was involved in this scientific and worthwhile activity (which must look uncomfortably like mucking around to the rest of the world), I was listening to BBC Radio 3, as one does (or could do - other stations are available, of course). One of the recordings they played was of the great Spanish maestro of the classical guitar, Andres Segovia, and I was reminded that I am old enough to have seen him in concert - long ago, when the world was young.

Sketch of Segovia in concert in Brussels in 1932 - before my time...

My recollection was that the concert took place at Leith Town Hall (that's sort of Edinburgh to you), but I could hardly believe that such a gig ever took place. So I took time off the sorting and boxing to check online, which, of course, is exactly why these jobs take so long and where the accusations of mucking about probably arise.

The Leith concert did take place - in winter time, in early 1971, when Segovia was a plump-but-sprightly 78, on what was expected to be his final European tour. I got a ticket through my friend Thomas, who was very keen and had recently joined (I may not get this quite right) The Edinburgh Classical Guitar Society - it was they who were putting on the concert, and it must have been something of a coup for them. I went along because I was a fan, and also because I might never have the chance again [digression: I once saw Louis Armstrong at the Liverpool Philharmonic, exactly because my mum thought I should go, since it might be the last chance. If Napoleon comes to your town, you should go to see him, so you can tell the grandchildren, or bore some future generation of blog readers].  

Leith Town Hall in sunnier times - in fact, I'm not convinced the concert was in this part of the building

Thomas and I arrived late, just before the concert started. There were a couple of hundred people in the audience. It was dark in the hall, and pokey, and freezing cold (you could see your breath at the start, and the guests all kept their hats and coats on). We seem to have been seated on folding wooden seats, so it was also creaky and uncomfortable, but the worst thing of the lot was the acoustic ambience of the hall. Church-like echoes, and Segovia himself was almost inaudible - everyone had to keep very quiet throughout, and it all got a bit tense. I am getting ahead of myself...

At the appointed hour, Old Andres came out onto the platform. He didn't speak or smile at any time of the show - I can hardly blame him. He tuned up for a minute or so, and then began his performance - a nice bit of Albeniz or something. After about 30 seconds, someone coughed, Segovia stopped, glared around the hall and started again - from the beginning. Same thing happened during the third or fourth piece - laser-beam stare and start again. Since everyone seemed to have a seasonal cold, the whole thing became very edgy indeed. Everyone in agony in case they sniffed, or their chair creaked. I began to convince myself that I was certain to sneeze. While aware of the privilege of just being there, I spent the rest of the first half just wishing the thing was over.

Came the interval, and I joined Thomas in an adjoining room, where cups of tea (from the municipal urn) were available. I recall that I was still wearing my gloves. Thomas was spotted as a new member, and was buttonholed by the secretary. How were we enjoying the concert? Thomas and I had just been moaning to each other, but Thomas was tactful enough to avoid telling the Hon Sec that it had been one of the most harrowing hours of his life. He did ask why the heating wasn't working, and the question was dismissed out of hand. Warming (wrong word) to his theme, Thomas suggested that if the concert had been at the Edinburgh Usher Hall, or any serious concert venue, some tasteful amplification would have been used to boost the sound to a level where the paying audience could actually hear it. A couple of good condenser mikes and a competent sound man and the music would have been perfectly fine with just a gentle boost. Tasteful - you know how it might be.

The Sec almost had apoplexy, and raved on about how you cannot possibly reproduce the sound of the guitar through a microphone or any type of amplification equipment. Eventually he paused to take a sip of his tea, and presumably to gather his strength for a further onslaught.

For the only time I can ever remember, Thomas got a bit annoyed.

"Tell me," he asked the Sec, "at home, do you have recordings of Segovia?"

"Oh yes, I have just about everything he has recorded, including some very rare pieces which I obtained through a Spanish subscription club of which I am a member - wonderful, wonderful music, much of it from when he was in his prime."

"And you enjoy listening to these recordings?" asked Thomas, innocently.

"Of course - there is nothing finer"

"You do realise," Thomas continued, "that there isn't a little man in your gramophone playing a little guitar? - the sound comes from an electric amplifier, though a loudspeaker, and was captured for purposes of the recording using microphones. You did know that?"

The Sec turned on his heel (quite rightly), went off to rub shoulders with Andres himself. With luck, Segovia might just have bent his ear about the state of the hall, especially the sound, the near-darkness and the bloody temperature, and the fact that, by the way, the tea was crap...

The second half was slightly less stressful - the presence of all those coated bodies must have warmed the place up a bit, but I was still more than a little pleased when it was over, we could move around a bit and I could get rid of the flat area on my backside.

Segovia may have stopped touring, but he was still recording in 1977, when he was 84. He finally died in 1987 - I hope he was warm and comfortable and everyone kept quiet for him. Thomas lives in Northamptonshire now, and is still trying to play classical guitar, bless him.

Me, I live in Scotland and spend time mucking around with toy soldiers. We are - all of us - always just one cup of tea from history.

Hooptedoodle #312 - The Limpet and the Critic

This evening I have the house to myself, since my wife and my son have gone to an information evening at his school.

I like to dine simply on these occasions, so I made myself a sandwich of peanut butter (crunchy, of course), Jarlsberg cheese and just a touch of Marmite. Pretty good - all I needed apart from this was a glass of water and I was happy enough. Switched on BBC Radio 3 and caught part of a concert given in Edinburgh by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Main item on the programme was to be Vaughan Williams' Sea Symphony, of which I've never been very fond, but we kicked off with Thea Musgrave's Turbulent Landscapes, which I really don't know at all. The theme of Ms Musgrave's suite is a musical interpretation of 6 paintings by the artist JMW Turner, and batting at No.4 was Turner's very quirky War: The Exile and the Rock Limpet, which I hadn't thought about in years. I have always found this picture very haunting, though I never quite knew what to make of it. You may write an essay on it for your homework - 1000 words will be fine. Perhaps you could bring out the implied contrast between imperial glory and the minutiae of Nature - or any other theme you like will be fine. You will have marks deducted if you mention the size of Napoleon's hat, by the way. Reference to the British guard will be OK, however.

Mention of marks deducted reminds me of a private joke which my late cousin Dave and I kept going for years. We lived through a period when it seemed that new works of art were judged by the weight of the justificatory text which accompanied them, rather than the work itself. We once attended a concert at the Liverpool Philharmonic at which the first item was a recently-commissioned orchestral piece about the coming of the Industrial Revolution to agricultural Britain (well, England, I guess). The composer himself gave an introductory talk lasting about a quarter of an hour, in which he described his interest in the subject, how (and why) he had been approached to compose the piece, and how he  had attempted with contrasting tone colours and symmetrical harmonies to create an image of smoke and fire against a rural idyll. He then conducted the piece himself, and I swear it lasted about 4 minutes.

Dave and I were transfixed. We were about 17, and we immediately declared war on critics, radio announcers and all pseuds in general, and we invented a scoring system, which awarded "faults", rather in the style of equestrian show-jumping. The speaker/writer could collect single faults for the use of undergraduate gushiness such as "lambent" or "plangent" (etc), and there were also a few biggies for words or phrases we really disliked. A "clear round" was a rarity - a text or talk which contained no offending words at all.

Back to the present, the night of the peanut-butter sandwich. Tonight's announcer on the BBC (who was only reading a prepared script about  the Musgrave piece, poor sod) scored 4 faults for "juxtaposition", which is always accompanied by a faint klaxon, but otherwise performed well enough. Dave died and dropped out of the game years ago, but I still keep my hand in with the scoring system when I get the chance. I have a few newbies since Dave's time - "Zeitgeist" gets 8 faults - which is a double-refusal or something - and I have a few others.

This all smacks a little of inverted snobbery, which is never attractive, but it really just reflects a long-held prejudice against the posturing bourgeoisie - though it occurs to me that it may reveal me as the biggest pseud of the lot!



**** Late Edit ****

Because the comments got me interested again, I thought I'd put a link to the relevant Part IV of Thea Musgrave's suite, as discussed.

Now here's an interesting idea: after you've heard the music, you could go and paint a picture giving your idea of what it portrays. Then someone could write another new piece of music interpreting your new picture, and so on, for ever. Great, eh? Like the most pretentious game of Chinese Whispers in history. If we produce a variation on the showjumping analogy, the limp little quote from La Marseillaise must be worth 8 faults on its own? And, just in case you missed it (because you were asleep?), there is a reprise at the end, which is no more inspiring and must be worth a further 8 - no VAR allowed.

****  ****

Hooptedoodle #262 - Owls of Derision - plus one more from the Small World Dept

Topic 1: Lately we've been puzzled to hear owls hooting during the day in the wood behind our house - even experienced countrymen like Dod the Gardener are puzzled by such behaviour. Well, we've now seen one in the garden - a couple of visits. The Contesse is still working to get a better photo - this is what she's managed to date.

Online experts suggest that it is a Little Owl, though we had thought it might be a Short-Eared Owl, more renowned for their daylight hunting. In the upper picture, you will notice that the blackbird sitting close by does not appear to feel at all threatened.

Topic 2: I only relate this story because it involves a couple of surprising coincidences - the subject matter may be of little interest, so I shall deal with it as quickly as might be decent.

My view on coincidences is boringly downbeat - they interest me, but I believe that the proportion of truly unlikely events in our lives is about as small as you would expect; when something unusual happens, however, we remember it clearly, so that our perception is distorted - we think remarkable things happen more often than they do. Get to the story, Foy...

Well, I've recently been trying to sort out my mp3 collection of the old BBC radio Goon Shows from the 1950s - many of the official published compilations of these shows were edited to drop the musical interludes, but most of mine are intact - sometimes a bit frayed, admittedly, but all the shows are complete. The Goon Shows had music of a good standard - apart from Wally Stott and the BBC's own orchestra, they also featured Ray Ellington's Quartet, and then there was Max Geldray, the virtuoso jazz harmonica player. All a bit dated now, maybe, but good stuff - and, anyway, nothing could be more dated than the Goons, dear boy.

Ray Ellington had a hot little band - on hearing them again, I was interested to note that his electric guitarist was exceptionally good - in fact he sounded most un-British, to be unkind about it. A little research revealed that he was Lauderic Caton, a Trinidadian, one of the leading pioneers of electric guitar on the English jazz scene in the years after WW2. He was friendly with, and a major influence on, a couple of the other lads of note of the day - especially Dave Goldberg and Pete Chilver. He was also noted for being a skilled luthier, and produced good-quality converted electric guitars in the days when it was impossible to obtain modern American instruments in the UK.

Pete Chilver circa 1948 - with electric guitar produced by Lauderic Caton

Goldberg I knew of - a Liverpudlian - but Chilver was a new name, so I read on. He shared a flat in London with Goldberg for a while, was very highly regarded - even by visiting American players - and played with (amongst others) the Ted Heath band and, for a while, Ray Ellington. Then, it seems, he married the sister of the girl singer in Heath's band (are you taking careful notes here? - there will be a test at the end), moved to North Berwick (which is where I live!) in 1950, retired from playing professionally, and thereafter managed his wife's family's hotel, the Westerdunes (now long gone). He also opened the West End Jazz Club, in Shandwick Place, Edinburgh - a place which I vaguely remember, though it was no longer a jazz club by the time I went there. Pete died in 2008, in Edinburgh.

Remarkable - so here's an important English jazz guitarist from the 1940s that I had never heard of, and he even became a prominent resident in my own neck of the woods! Only thing to do was email my old chum and former associate Hamish, for many years a hero and stalwart of the Scottish jazz scene, who has now also retired to the North Berwick area. Sorry to bother him, but did he know anything about Pete Chilver? - and I included some background details.

Hamish mailed back to say yes, he did know Pete a little - latterly Pete and his wife Norma retired and moved to Barnton Avenue, in Edinburgh. Hamish had been to his house there.

It seems that the handyman who now helps Hamish's wife around the house and garden used to work for Mrs Chilver - who is now in a care home, I understand - and only recently he had to dump a load of old acetate 78rpm masters of recordings from Pete's professional days [ah - drat]. Furthermore, the very night before he replied to my mail, Hamish had been a dinner guest at Westerdunes House - for many years converted into apartments, but now restored to its original state. Prior to this he had never heard of the place, never been there, and until my note was unaware of the connection with Chilver.

Westerdunes House

Now that is a bit of a long shot, I think. It looks a nice place - must have been a swanky hotel - healthier than the London clubs - a smart move by Old Pete? In passing, his friend Goldberg died of a drug overdose in the 1960s, when he was only 43. The Devil's music, your Honour.

Hooptedoodle #259 - Allan Holdsworth - A Unique Voice

I only just found out that Allan Holdsworth died last month, at his home in California. Another guitar hero gone. Oh well.

Holdsworth was never everyone's cup of tea - often too intense, too inaccessible. Of course, the equipment freaks and the technique warriors and all the rest of them (and just about every moron you know probably plays guitar - there's me for a start) have consistently missed the point by an enormous distance over the years - how he played, and the hardware he used, are very small parts indeed of a complex whole; the important bit, in the end, is what he had to say musically, and his was a unique voice - sometimes a breathtakingly emotional one.

He will be commemorated for his pioneering use of polychords, his completely original, alternative approach to functional harmony, his terrifying technique (based on what has become known as the "hammer-ons from nowhere" style of legato playing - no-one ever played like Allan - probably it's just as well), and the characteristically wide intervallic leaps in musical phrases. He developed his own way of playing, and he didn't sound like anyone else. He was born and raised in Bradford, and he took a pride in being an awkward Yorkshireman - he developed his own approach because he didn't find anything else that could produce the music he heard in his head. I guess he really was a genius - we hear a lot about geniuses, but they are thin on the ground.

Even as a (sort of) disciple, I can't take too much of it in one sitting - a lot of the music is very angular - uncomfortable - and if I try to visualise what he is doing I have to go and lie down. If you are a fan, please excuse my bumbling effort to pay tribute. If you are not, then I suggest he was worth a listen. He was never hugely popular - you will see why - but once you've heard him you will recognise him.

Here's a ballad from 1989.

And here's a live piece recorded in Frankfurt 8 years later. The album version of this track (same line-up) uses double bass, which I think is a big improvement (more space to breathe), but this is still good.

 Thanks, Allan.