Jun 2008
Praises
Jun/06/2008 *
chatter
* permalinkage
Hey,
I’m was at a BBQ yesterday for a friend’s birthday. Suffice to say I had a few drunken conversations, the one I remember was about karma. I realized that there was this huge disconnect between some of oldest friends and a very small band of merry burners (all of whom don’t know it).
Anyway I woke up this morning, checked out of my friends place and got on the Docklands Light Railway back to Stratford, East London. This is a cool little above ground train that runs really slowly through the docks, the business districts and finally the post industrial heartland of London’s eastend.
I’ve had your Destination Burning Man Trilogy on my pod for a while but just haven’t been at the time and place. But trust me this was perfect. I put on Reintegration, as this train wound through equally beautiful business and residential districts. Most are deprived but on this sunny Sunday morning everything took on a new light. Particularly with the perfectly judged, wonderfully paced mix that you’ve created. I could go on about how I loved your choice of tracks (which I did) but that would be missing the main point. I got back from SF to London in Feb and I thought I had that playa feeling all the time. Yeah I was receptive but damn your mix has brought it all back. Not reintegration into the world but reintegration back into the fold. Back to feeling the power of potential. Good shit, my friend. Good shit. Keep it up.
Our camp this year is going that bit larger. Finally a theme camp. We’ll have a DJ rig with some decent soundpressure. It’d be a total pleasure if you could drop by, spin or just hang out.
Peace.
Wanobi of Ohmland
I’m was at a BBQ yesterday for a friend’s birthday. Suffice to say I had a few drunken conversations, the one I remember was about karma. I realized that there was this huge disconnect between some of oldest friends and a very small band of merry burners (all of whom don’t know it).
Anyway I woke up this morning, checked out of my friends place and got on the Docklands Light Railway back to Stratford, East London. This is a cool little above ground train that runs really slowly through the docks, the business districts and finally the post industrial heartland of London’s eastend.
I’ve had your Destination Burning Man Trilogy on my pod for a while but just haven’t been at the time and place. But trust me this was perfect. I put on Reintegration, as this train wound through equally beautiful business and residential districts. Most are deprived but on this sunny Sunday morning everything took on a new light. Particularly with the perfectly judged, wonderfully paced mix that you’ve created. I could go on about how I loved your choice of tracks (which I did) but that would be missing the main point. I got back from SF to London in Feb and I thought I had that playa feeling all the time. Yeah I was receptive but damn your mix has brought it all back. Not reintegration into the world but reintegration back into the fold. Back to feeling the power of potential. Good shit, my friend. Good shit. Keep it up.
Our camp this year is going that bit larger. Finally a theme camp. We’ll have a DJ rig with some decent soundpressure. It’d be a total pleasure if you could drop by, spin or just hang out.
Peace.
Wanobi of Ohmland
|
Esbjorn Svensson, leader of e.s.t., R.I.P.
Jun/06/2008 *
cornerpocket
* permalinkage
Pianist Esbjorn Svensson dies last week in a scuba accident off the coast of his home country Sweden. An amazing, passionate and intelligent piano player, performer and composer, I was fortunate to catch his band e.s.t. at the Vancouver Jazz Festival a few years ago. Kidd Logic, Carol Freelander and I made the pilgrimage north to see them at the East VAncouver Cultural Centre ("the Cultch" if yer cool) and the concert really blew me away. The venue is very small with a tiny stage surrounded by close-in balconies full of people three-deep. Up in the balcony seats, you are pretty close to being right on top of the performers, and I was able to look down and watch Svensson's hands abuse his piano from a bird's-eye view. Breath-taking.
Marcey and I coincidentally were planning on seeing e.s.t. again, next week, once again at the Vancouver Jazz Festival. We have tickets for the show, which featured e.s.t. opening up for the John Scofield Trio. I was so close to seeing them again, but alas, it isn't meant to be.
I uploaded an amazing e.s.t. performance over at the Live Archive. Click for more: a heartfelt tribute from a jazz critic in Enland....
If you're the
DJ on a jazz radio programme, as I am, you face the
task of dealing with the death of a significant
musician at some point or other. Live on air, it's no
easy task: how do you actually say that a person has
died? How do you maintain formality but also point to
the dignified joy of the music? What do you miss, the
person or the work? Your tone of voice, almost
inevitably, is gauged too far towards stiffness - I
avoid referring to someone as having "passed away"
but it's often all you can say. It's easy to make a
slip, and if it's live, you'll never get another
chance to show your appreciation for that person or,
in the case of the Swedish jazz pianist Esbjörn
Svensson, your love.
I'm not looking forward to my show on Sunday, where I will pay tribute to Svensson, one of the great jazz pianists and composers, who died last week at the age of 44. There's no question of me getting this broadcast wrong - my listeners already know how I'll be feeling. They know because I've told them of my admiration for Svensson, and because they heard the music. Endless plays of Elevation of Love, which still makes me smile, cry and want to drive across Europe in mad abandon, or critical appraisals of the Esbjörn Svensson Trio's Viaticum - which I slightly criticised, for God's sake - will mean that my listeners will be tuning in for a tribute from a number one fan. I'm worried I won't deliver.
I found the Esbjörn Svensson Trio in a massive gold mine of a record shop in Hamburg. Bored with the usual thing and knowing I could find the "good stuff" in northern Europe, I headed to the record shop at the earliest opportunity. I grabbed Tomasz Stanko, Miroslav Vitous and a few bargain basement compilations. Just as I was moving toward the electronica section I noticed the cover of Strange Place for Snow. Seeing this enticing minimalist design made me buy all the EST they had, and driving back to the ferry I listened all night.
The mix of autobahn and EST was delicious - I had found what I was looking for in jazz. It was jazz, but it was pop and it was dance music. It was sensuous, soulful and funky music, executed with precision and passion but tempered by the self-awareness of competent jazz players honestly stretching the potential of the music. I underline that this music was born out of self-awareness, not self-consciousness; this wasn't an exercise in vanity. This confident group made music that they wanted to listen to and invited us to join them in understanding it. We came in droves.
I was lucky enough to interview the trio in Southampton for my show around the release of Seven Days of Falling. It was my first radio interview and probably the most nervous I've ever been. I was allowed to watch the soundcheck and sat at the back of the auditorium to watch EST perform Elevation of Love, with me as the sole audience member. I remember suppressing tears as I sat, mouth open, staggered that these guys could do this live. To this day it's my favourite track: its seamless variations and nods at all the musical styles still wows me. Esbjörn - though he wouldn't take credit in the interview - had constructed the most moving piece of music, its progressions wrenching the listener into a blanket of beauty no matter where the CD is played.
My meeting with Esbjörn was probably the most star-struck I've ever been. I only ever saw EST live again once in Hamburg and embarrassed myself by shedding tears (again) at their performance.
Probably for the first and last time, my show on Sunday will be a tribute to my favourite musician: a champion of the European sound - indeed Svensson was the European jazz sound - a man whose musical mind, as complex as it was, embraced all its listeners, whether jazzheads or not. I'm not looking forward to my show, but I will convey how much Esbjörn Svensson meant to jazz and to jazz fans. We have truly lost a genius and it breaks my heart.
--Sam Christie, The Guardian's musical blog
I'm not looking forward to my show on Sunday, where I will pay tribute to Svensson, one of the great jazz pianists and composers, who died last week at the age of 44. There's no question of me getting this broadcast wrong - my listeners already know how I'll be feeling. They know because I've told them of my admiration for Svensson, and because they heard the music. Endless plays of Elevation of Love, which still makes me smile, cry and want to drive across Europe in mad abandon, or critical appraisals of the Esbjörn Svensson Trio's Viaticum - which I slightly criticised, for God's sake - will mean that my listeners will be tuning in for a tribute from a number one fan. I'm worried I won't deliver.
I found the Esbjörn Svensson Trio in a massive gold mine of a record shop in Hamburg. Bored with the usual thing and knowing I could find the "good stuff" in northern Europe, I headed to the record shop at the earliest opportunity. I grabbed Tomasz Stanko, Miroslav Vitous and a few bargain basement compilations. Just as I was moving toward the electronica section I noticed the cover of Strange Place for Snow. Seeing this enticing minimalist design made me buy all the EST they had, and driving back to the ferry I listened all night.
The mix of autobahn and EST was delicious - I had found what I was looking for in jazz. It was jazz, but it was pop and it was dance music. It was sensuous, soulful and funky music, executed with precision and passion but tempered by the self-awareness of competent jazz players honestly stretching the potential of the music. I underline that this music was born out of self-awareness, not self-consciousness; this wasn't an exercise in vanity. This confident group made music that they wanted to listen to and invited us to join them in understanding it. We came in droves.
I was lucky enough to interview the trio in Southampton for my show around the release of Seven Days of Falling. It was my first radio interview and probably the most nervous I've ever been. I was allowed to watch the soundcheck and sat at the back of the auditorium to watch EST perform Elevation of Love, with me as the sole audience member. I remember suppressing tears as I sat, mouth open, staggered that these guys could do this live. To this day it's my favourite track: its seamless variations and nods at all the musical styles still wows me. Esbjörn - though he wouldn't take credit in the interview - had constructed the most moving piece of music, its progressions wrenching the listener into a blanket of beauty no matter where the CD is played.
My meeting with Esbjörn was probably the most star-struck I've ever been. I only ever saw EST live again once in Hamburg and embarrassed myself by shedding tears (again) at their performance.
Probably for the first and last time, my show on Sunday will be a tribute to my favourite musician: a champion of the European sound - indeed Svensson was the European jazz sound - a man whose musical mind, as complex as it was, embraced all its listeners, whether jazzheads or not. I'm not looking forward to my show, but I will convey how much Esbjörn Svensson meant to jazz and to jazz fans. We have truly lost a genius and it breaks my heart.
--Sam Christie, The Guardian's musical blog
Black Cab Sessions & Blogotheque
Jun/06/2008 *
resources, etc.
* permalinkage
I am
absolutely in love with the Black Cab Sessions
-- try
out the set from My Morning
Jacket for staters. The
simplest ideas are so often the best.
In a similar vein, I am in love with the "live" sessions produced by French website La Blogotheque. I've only had time to dig on the Jose Gonzalez set -- wow! how does he do that? -- but there are lots of tasty offerings from Caribou, Stephen Malkmus, Animal Collective, Taraf de Haiduks and other diverse musicians.
In a similar vein, I am in love with the "live" sessions produced by French website La Blogotheque. I've only had time to dig on the Jose Gonzalez set -- wow! how does he do that? -- but there are lots of tasty offerings from Caribou, Stephen Malkmus, Animal Collective, Taraf de Haiduks and other diverse musicians.