The legendary Gerda Geddes aka Pytt and a young Kinthissa.
Discovering this lovely photo of my first Chen taijiquan teacher with her teacher and mentor, the pioneering Pytt (Gerda Geddes) sent me off to Kinthissa’s website only to discover a long piece she’d written for Tai Chi Chuan & Oriental Arts Issue 33 Spring 2010 , entitled ‘The Quan of Change: How I changed from Yang Style to Chen Style.
Of the piece Kinthissa says,”The world of taijiquan changed in the 1980s with the opening up of mainland China. Two barely known themes, fundamental to the training, began to emerge: Zhan Zhuang — the standing qigong, and Chansigong — the technique of twining silk. A book I wrote last year, Turning Silk: A Diary of Chen Taiji Practice(Lunival, 2009), documents an old timer’s plunge into this new world. This article describes the main themes of the book and adds some vignettes from those years.”
It’s a great piece. She vividly recalls an era when the Marylebone Road, extending to Euston and Kings Cross, was the taiji artery of the city and names like John Kells, Rose Li and Master Chu brought back taiji memories of my own. From the Seventies up to today she practices relentlessly adhering firmly to the hands on lessons learned from her current master, head of the Chen Family, Chen Xiao Wang. If you’re interested in taijiquan or practice it, The Quan Of Change’ is a good read that goes from London to China to Italy (her current home) and it will have you reflecting on your own posture and the nature of the art’s “refined turbulence”.
TONY ALLEN: MASTER DRUMMER OF AFROBEAT is the focus of a forthcoming autobiography co-written with saxophonist/writer Michael E Veal.
Tony Allen: An Autobiography Of The Master Drummer Of Afrobeat is out in September and Tony has got together with saxophonist/writer Professor Michael E. Veal, who played and toured with Fela and penned the excellent Fela: The Life and Times of an African Musical Icon,to produce this wonderful insight into the life and times of Africa’s most influential and innovative modern drummer.
“My goal was for the book to feel like a continuous, relaxed session of Tony telling stories. This was essentially how we conducted the interviews, and this kind of narrative flow I have tried to preserve here.”says Veal adding that his aim is make the pages “speak” to the reader.
As Tony Allen: An Autobiography Of The Master Drummer Of Afrobeat is essentially an “academic” publication Veal’s approach is a wayward and unorthodox and for that we have to give thanks. This is not a slice of dry academia, what we get in this incredibly fruitful collaboration is 160 pages of rich revealing narrative that is so engrossing that I missed my stop on the tube.
The Original Funky Drummer!
Considering that Tony has been a devoted herb smoker since his teens his memory is remarkable. He is a brilliant story teller and from the moment he decided to pick up a pair of drum sticks he regales us with anecdote after anecdote from the pre-Fela era to beyond. As such he gives us a detailed insight into how the Nigerian music scene works. He deals with the bandleaders, the clubs, the rivalries, the payments (or in Fela’s case how he’d come back to Tony to borrow money he’d just paid him!), the tours (amid the civil war and to the USA), and the musical influences that shaped his drumming and the evolution of the music.
Basically, I couldn’t put the book down and it had me sifting through the records to provide a soundtrack to the narrative. Loved it. It’s out in September order your copy today.
Tony Allen: An Autobiography Of The Master Drummer Of Afrobeat – Tony Allen & Maichael E Veal (Duke University Press £16.99)
SELEKSHAAN OF MINT CONDITION JAPANESE BLUE NOTES FOR SALE! All titles £20 each + £3.50) P&P – except Jimmy Smith £10.00 each. Please share this list with your fellow Blue Note fans! Hit me back if you’re interested in any title.
Stanley Turrentine – Look Out (BN 4039)
Stanley Turrentine – Dearly Beloved (BN 4081)
Stanley Turrentine – Jubilee Shout (BN 84122)
Lou Donadlson – Swing & Soul (BN 1566)
Lou Mecca Quartet (BN 5067)
Freddie Redd – Shades Of Redd (BN 405)
Lou Donaldson – Time Is Right (BN 4025)
JR Monterose + Horace Silver, Philly Joe Jones etc (BN 1536)
Lou Donaldson Quintet – Wailing With Lou (BN 1545)
Hank Mobley – Workout (BN 84080)
Hank Mobley – Soul Station (BN 84031)
Hank Mobley – Hank (BN1560)
Duke Pearson – Profile (BN 84022)
Duke Jordan – Flight To Jordan (BN 84046)
Stanley Turrentine – Comin’ Your way (BN 84065)
Jackie McLean – New Soil (BN 4013)
Donald Byrd – At The Half Note Café Vol 2 (BN 4061)
Donald Byrd – At The Half Note Café Vol 1 (BN 4060) Donald Byrd – Byrd In The Hand (BN 84019)
Stanley Turrentine – Never Let Go (BN 84129)
Freddie Hubbard – Hub Cap (BN 84073)
Walter Davis Jnr – Davis Cup (BN8408)
The Jazz Messengers Live at Café Bohemia Vol 1 (BN 1507)
Jimmy Smith – A Date With Jimmy Smith Vol 2 (BN 1548)
Finally, a soundtrack to ‘The Art Of Buying Reggae Music…..’ is LIVE on our stereophonic-supply site.
Sugar Minott with Jah Bunny & posse
Back in October 2011, I posted a piece here that recalled my reggae-music buying missions, during the early/mid Seventies, from Dalston Lane to Seven Sisters. Almost two years has elapsed since then and despite a couple of people promising me an invite onto their radio shows, to document the said journey live on air, it didn’t actually transpire. However, with a little enthusiastic help from one of the Stoke Newington massive we’ve now got the job done.
When the Brownswood crew exited for the Worldwide Festival in Sete last weekend radio producer Kathryn Willgress and myself took over the legendary basement to cut this broadcast. We could have done a back to back mix with the tunes but decided that only a pirate radio-style show, complete with anecdotes, would do it justice. So, there you have it.. have a listen, read the piece… and enjoy a slice of lost London!
Frederick Douglas’ famous speech ‘What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?’ provides the theme to the next Nexus – One World concert at St George’s Bloomsbury.
The monthly Jazz Warriors International/Nexus – One World concerts at St George’s Bloomsbury have so far plumbed extraordinary depths. Maybe it’s the profound nature of the dates, subject matter, the music and the venue that have resulted in a form of alchemy.
The initial Nexus – One World Music concert was held on the the date that Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated, another celebrated the legacy of the remarkable African American composer William Grant Still while last month’s performance – as readers of this on-line journal will know – was dedicated to freedom fighting suffragette Emily Davidson.
The line up of musicians, which has included pianists Pat Thomas, Robert Mitchell and Paul Gladstone Reid, violinists Lizzie Ball + Omar Puente, vibes/marimba player Orphy Robinson, percussionist Adriano Adewale, flautist Rowland Sutherland, vocalists Cleveland Watkis and Fumi Okilji, have blown us all away. And that includes our host Bonnie Greer.
Lous Armstrong & Billie Holiday
So, here’s warning of the next concert which will be held on Thursday 4th July. Appropriately on July 4, 1900, trumpeter Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong was born in New Orleans and on July 4, 1852 Frederick Douglass delivered his ground breaking speech at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York titled “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” The line up for this event is Django Bates (piano), Nikki Yeoh (piano) and Cleveland Watkiss (vocals).
Nexus -One World is held at St George’s Bloomsbury and it’s starts at 6.30pm!!(Not 7pm). Tickets £10 at the door, £8 advance booking, £6 concession. For tickets rings 020 7242 1976 or email concerts@stgb.org.uk
Another great voice from the pantheon great R&B vocalists, Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland, passes away at 83.
Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland RIP
Having been schooled on what’s become known as “Northern Soul” I was inevitably given a couple of post all-nighter introductions to the distinctive husky and soulful tones of Mr. Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland and inevitably felt saddened when I heard that he’d passed away at the age of 83.
Considering that he was born in Tennessee in 1930 and had left school in the third grade to work in the cotton fields Robert Calvin Brooks aka Bobby Bland built an amazing career. Inspired by the pioneering blues guitarist T-Bone Walker he moved to Memphis where he joined the Beale Streeters – a loose-knit collective whose members at various points included Johnny Ace, Rosco Gordon, Earl Forest and B. B. King. He traveled as a part of the Johnny Ace Revue and recorded for the Chess, Modern and Duke labels – you can savour his classy, bluesy and soulful big band recordings via the ever dependable Ace Records.
The young Bobby Bland followed BB King and worked for a while as his valet and chauffeur. Following a stint in the Armed Forces he took on the same role for Junior Parker but also featured as Parker’s opening act. By the Sixties was headlining his own tours playing as many as 300 one-night engagements a year. Along with James brown and BB King he also warranted the title of “hardest working man in show business.
Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland’s music was rooted in the blues but after studying the recorded gospel sermons of Aretha’s father – CL Franklin – he emerged as a stylistic pioneer with a distinctive “squall” and one of the warmest voices in rhythm and blues. Despite being eclipsed during the Motown and Stax era of the Sixties he bounced back and broke through to a wider audience in the mid-70s with the classy ‘California Album’ and ‘Dreamer’ – which gave the world a classic ‘Ain’t No Love In The Heart Of The City’. A couple of collaboration albums with his good friend BB King followed but the majors were no place for Bobby Bland and it seems fitting that he finished his recording career cutting 10 albums of archetypal southern soul at Mississippi-based Malaco label.
As a singer Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland was umbilically linked to a generation of hard working African-American’s who resonated with and took refuge in the trials and tribulation of life expressed in the lyrics and sentiments of songs like ‘I Pity The Fool’, ‘Farther Up The Road’ ‘I’m Not Ashamed’ or ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’. I definitely have a soft spot for those songs and will continue to spin the vinyl and give thanks for the soul and sustenance that Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland gave us all.
THIS THURSDAY at St George’s Bloomsbury THE JAZZ WARRIORS INTERNATIONAL/Nexus celebrates the life of suffragette EMILY DAVISON – anunrepentently militant activist who, on June 4th 1913, stepped onto the racetrack at the Epsom Derby with the intention of disrupting the race or possibly attaching a suffragette flag to the bridle of the horse belonging to King George V. The result was disastrous collision and the serious injuries she sustained resulted in her death four days later.
Emily Wilding Davison : 11 October 1872 – 8 June 1913)
Emily Davison was seen by her contemporaries as something of a wild card. She worked along Sylvia Pankhurst who was a socialist and was imprisoned nine times for stone throwing and arson. In prison she went on hunger strike while in Holloway Prison and was brutally force fed. She was not alone in her actions and history tells us that the battle for the Right To Vote for Women was a prolonged and bitter struggle. In fact, it was only after huge demonstrations, civil unrest and the impact of the 1st World War that the Government finally relented with the Representation of the People Act in 1928.
The suffragettes made great theatre of Davison’s funeral. The coffin was brought back to Victoria Station and taken in procession through streets lined with people to St George’s Bloomsbury. The 6,000 women who attended the service were asked to dress either “in black carrying purple irises, [or] in purple with crimson peonies, [or] in white bearing laurel wreaths… Graduates and clergy marched in their robes, suffrage societies, trade unionists from the East End. The streets were densely lined by silent, respectful crowds.
The Funeral – Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death
One hundred years on and in the same church that hosted her funeral The Jazz Warriors International are to deliver a night of music that celebrates the courage of Emily Davison in the struggle for human rights and dedicate their performance to those women around the world who have yet to achieve the basic right of a vote.
The previous three Jazz Warriors Int. / Nexus concerts have conjured up some amazing music and the line up for this concert features a wonderful array of artists including Elizabeth Ball (Violin), Fumi Okiji (Voice), Omar Puente (Violin) and Pat Thomas (Piano)
The evening will be presented by author Bonnie Greer
ABOVE: Rowland Sutherland performs at May’s Jazz Warriors Int/ Nexus.
Tickets: £10 at the door, £8 advance reservations, £6 concession.
Email: concerts@stgb.org.uk for reservations or phone 020 7242 1979
Emily Wilding Davison (11 October 1872 – 8 June 1913)
‘FREE ANGELA and All Political Prisoners!’ Fanny Feeny and her daughter Coco ventured to a small cinema in Paris in search of a legend from the past. Despite being busy touting her own film projects and marking university exam papers Fanny felt compelled to pen a few words for Ancient To Future.
As a teenager back in in the Seventies, the name Angela Davis was as familiar to me as was her iconic afro. It marked the decade along with other symbols like the face of the Ché (which adorned teenage walls across the country), Mao Tse Tung and Cassius Clay, who had somehow transformed into Mohammed Ali, for reasons that weren’t very clear to us at the time. However, they remained images, two dimensional representations of what were to become part of our collective memory of our childhood. Some people have a handful of white bordered, square, faded photos of themselves wearing flared trousers and big hair. I don’t have them any more, but I remember them well.
Shola Lynch’s film ‘FREE ANGELA and All Political Prisoners’ covers four years of Davis’ life. The faded appearance on the screen of a mass of archival footage (where did she get all that?) helps weave a story that was shrouded in a mist of familiarity. It felt like a part of history I might have once understood better, but of course I didn’t. During the Seventies Angela Davis was portrayed as a dangerous trouble-maker and the details were skipped over, which was of course, why she seemed so cool.
Angela Davis speaks at a Black Panther rally in Defermery Park, West Oakland.
As an African American raised in Birmingham, Alabama, Angela Davis was one of few who was able to complete her education in Germany and France. Her arrival as a philosophy professor at U.C.L.A. with ties to the Black Panthers and the Communist party, set her on a collission course with the University board chaired by the state governor, Ronald Reagan.
Memorandum To: All Faculty From: Ronald Reagan, Governor Date: June 19, 1970 This memorandum is to inform everyone that, through extensive court cases and rebuttals, Angela Davis, Professor of Philosophy, will no longer be a part ot the UCLA stalf. As head of the Board of Regents, I, nor the board will not tolerate any Communist activities at any state institution. Communists are an endangerment to this wonderful system of government that we all share and are proud of. Please keep in mind that in 1949 it was reaffirmed that any member of the Communist Party is barred from teaching at this institution. Cordially, Ronald Reagan,Governor
Her supposed involvement in the murder of a judge and consequent imprisonment constitutes most of the film. It combines period footage, with present day interviews of her friends, family and Angela herself. There are a few re-enactments, insinuated more than shown, shadows and silhouettes, where Davis is represented by her niece, Eisa Davis. ‘FREE ANGELA and All Political Prisoners’ tells the story of a generation, brothers and sisters, fired up by injustice and police brutality, inspired by the ideas and rhetoric of Black Nationalism and Black Power who readily risked their lives to fight for a fair deal. There’s no voice-over, the footage tells the story like it was.
Angela Davis’ fight against the judiciary was based, not only on the lack of concrete evidence involving her in the murder of Judge Harold Haley ( she had bought the gun a few days before ) but also on each American’s right to own a gun. The film does not dwell on this issue at all but it’s interesting to ponder on the fact that Angela Davis’ aquittal came about largely thanks to the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution which states that “… the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
The love story between Ms. Davis and Black Panther, George Jackson, adds genuine poignancy to the film and the distance that Ms. Davis’ wanted to put between herself and “Free Angela” falls to the wayside, momentarily betrayed by her body language, when she talks about Jackson in the interview.
In the United States particularly it was one of those periods when change was squeezed out of the system by the sweat and blood of a brave minority who were willing to look the state in the eye, and say – “no more, this is not the way it’s gonna be”. It was a period of turbulence, struggle and pain, a pain which finds it’s voice in the primal screams which tore through the cinema when the news of George Jackson’s death in the film was announced. The unease at this point, brought on by the voice of jazz singer and activist Abbey Lincoln, made the hair on my arms rise and the woman in front of me look away from the screen and put her face in her hands.
Fanny Feeny 31.5.2013
Angel Davis 2013.
Watch out for showings of ‘FREE ANGELA and All Political Prisoners’ in the UK… it was shown at BFI Film Festival 2012 and is currently showing all over the US.
Sadly, I missed the preview of this epic documentary film which its director, Phil Strongman, described as the “Apocalyse Now version”. However, he assured me another showing was imminent! Obviously, negotiations are afoot and in the meantime I’m sharing with you the trailer…
Earlier in the week I braved the rain and headed off to Rough Trade East for the second launch of Holloway – a lovely little hardback volume that unites the words of Robert Macfarlane and Dan Richards with the evocative monochrome drawings of Stanley Donwood. I’d pre-ordered the book online as it was hot off the press that day and felt a little tinge of excitement as I skirted Hawksmoor’s Christchurch Spitalfields and headed for Drays Walk. A buzz on a book. Odd.
Upon entering the shop one was greeted by Stanley’s ‘Emerald Holloway’ – an expansive 4 x 2 metres piece constructed in several panels. Apparently, you could buy it but you had to take it way yourself. At the counter I found Caught By The River‘s Jeff Barrett enthusing to Andrew Weatherall about Jessica Pratt, Thee Oh Sees and musing on Count Ossie’s version of ‘Way Back Home’. To my delight, Rob Gallagher also appeared and we both agreed that his and Demus’ Suffolk rooted William Adamson recording seemed nicely in tune with this event and the Caught By The River ethos.
Stanley Donwood along with Cefmor Tallboy had set up in the back corner of the shop and were encouraging the curious to print their own commemorative poster on a proofing press… which I did and felt rightly chuffed with the result. In fact, as I pulled the roller over the block the final clunk punctuated the opening words from Dan Richards who proceeded to pay his respects to the late Roger Deakin, the writer, environmentalist film-maker, broadcaster and swimmer to whom the book is dedicated. Dan explained how the initial letterpress limited edition (270 copies) of the book had inspired Faber to take it on board and then read aloud a piece he’d penned for The Quietus.
Holloway – the book – recounts a journey that followed on from Robert Macfarlane and Roger Deakin’s initial foray into south Dorset. It was in September in 2011 that Robert, Stanley and Dan traveled to same spot in search of a holloway.
“The three of them stood looking out into the void, gazing in the approximate direction of the valleys of the holloways. But there was nothing there, only wraiths, only shadows. They descended from the hill fort, feeling their way, each yard of country having to be uncovered, and all the while followed, haunted by silence.
Towards the close of the day they perhaps found the hollow way which they had been looking for. The everyday had gone, and night was falling swiftly. Things began to happen secretly around them, and the past conspired with the present, and those that had found the holloway before them were part of that present.”
Holloway – Pencil (special edition)
Another link in the chain that connects us to Holloway is Geoffrey Household’s classic 1939 thriller Rogue Male. It was this book that initially led to Deakin and Macfarlane to visit Dorset in search of the hide that the book’s nameless hero hews out of a Dorset holloway. And on this night, it was down to Andrew Weatherall, who looked like a well inked, fedora wearing, 21st century William Morris, to read the passage from the book where the main character does just that. I’ve since learned that in 1976 Rogue Male was a made into film starring Peter O’toole and was recently serialised on the radio. It’s now on the reading list.
In between readings were were transported out of the East end and into the Dorset countryside with field recordings made at dawn and dusk. Birdsong and gunshots! The readings culminated with a fascinating piece from the Caught By The River’s An Antidote To Indifference compendium read by its author, Malcolm Anderson. He’d grown up in south Dorset and while he had never heard the term “holloways” he was still in thrall of these hidden highways – the history and the mystery.
Outside it continued to rain and the slippery cobbled streets etched with the footfall of previous generations sparked thoughts of inner city “holloways” – well worn but now forgotten pathways once frequented by “dissolute, loose, and insolent people harboured in such and the like noisome and disorderly houses, as namely poor cottages, and habitations of beggars and people without trade, stables, inns, alehouses, taverns, garden-houses converted to dwellings, ordinaries, dicing houses, bowling alleys, and brothel houses.”
Mr B’s Special Edition with a Stanley Donwood Dust Jacket!
Here’s a very handsome hardback of Rogue Male with a Stanley Donwood dust-jacket. There are only 500 of them. It’s £12.99 – https://www.mrbsemporium.com/
Plum Publications
Excellent resource for run by Ted & Debbie in California, both long time martial arts practitioners…. lots of books, dvds etc with informed reviews based on experience.
SUPA DUPA rare 'n' old skool Nigerian Ju Ju, Fuji & hi life…
Just haul up the the groovemonzter, log on & stream the majestic sounds of Sir Shina Adewale, Dr Orlando Owoh, King Sunny Ade, Cardinal Rex Lawson, Queen Oludunni Decency, Tunde Nightingale, Alhaji Sikuru Ayinde Barrister…. wonderful!
the blue moment
Richard William’s exellent reflections on the world of music and….
Plum Publications
Excellent resource for run by Ted & Debbie in California, both long time martial arts practitioners…. lots of books, dvds etc with informed reviews based on experience.
ancienttofuture.com 