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DECEMBER 2007
the piano awaits...
the auditorium awaits...
in action during the piano recital [CLICK TO PLAY YOUTUBE CLIP]
talking about jazz, or is it dancing about architecture?
no pictures please...
premiere recordings planned
Tomorrow is big recital night - "Seven Ages of Jazz" Recital Series: Opening Performance - "From the Blues to Bebop and Beyond". I can't wait! The last time I played in public was at the very last Mealody Jazz Club night in Mongolia on March 31st. Since just before I graduated Birmingham Conservatoire in June 1997 up until the end of March this year I managed to perform at least once a week to the public - that's just short of a 10-year unbroken stretch. My fingers have been itching since leaving Mongolia to get this chance again, so I'm not going to waste the opportunity. I'm hoping for a good turn out but don't expect too much since the last concert a member of staff put on had an audience of 20-or-so (in a 500-seater theatre), which was a real shame since the concert was fantastic. The performance will be in a 150-seater theatre - the Kilachand Theatre at DUCTAC - so I hope that it will be a cosier atmosphere for however many people show up. Hannah will be taking some snaps of the proceedings, so there should be a full report with pictures after tomorrow night.
Fri 9th November 2007
All of the pieces went well, some took extraordinary turns in performance, none of them came out the way I've been practising them recently - which reminded me why I never used to practice much before performances in the past. I prefer to see what happens in the moment and take it from there. So I suppose the last few weeks of intensive practice at least got me to a point where I was very familiar with the nuts-and-bolts of each of the pieces, and the happenstances of the moment took it from there. The programme for the evening was as follows (and I've included some audio clips from the second half of the performance itself):
FIRST AGE
- Interval -
FOURTH AGE
One thing I was particularly pleased about was the amount of talking in-between tunes I did. A few people had suggested the evening be a "lecture-recital", but I wasn't sure I wanted to make it as formal an event as all that, good idea as it is. Instead, I prepared a reasonably detailed programme note and waited to see how "chatty" I felt at the time. Happily enough, the answer was quite chatty, so I talked a little about a few of the pieces and their composers/associated artists, with a bit of historical background and biographical detail thrown in for good measure!
After the recital, I was delighted to meet a lady from Berlin who told me she had been waiting a year for an event like this to come to Dubai, and was moved to tears by my performance. You can't get better a review than that. She echoed something Hannah and I have been feeling since we came to these parts - that there is a emptiness about the place that comes from a lack of cultural activity. There are plenty of galleries and art spaces, but not much in the way of musical performance. Hopefully, all that is starting to change now. The German lady and I also talked about my performing for special art exhibitions/cultural evenings she is planning to hold in the near future. Maybe a possible venue for my Day of Quiet Gladness project, or the premiere of On The Road? Time will tell, but I feel I have made an important and valuable connection.
One of the other piano teachers at CMA said last week - and I'm paraphrasing a little - "putting up buildings and cities in the middle of the desert in a matter of years is one thing, but building and sustaining a culture is going to take decades, and a serious amount of dedication". The drummer Stephen Keogh, on the subject of my leaving Mongolia and moving to Dubai, said to me: "you do like it out in the wilderness, don't you!" and I guess I do in some respects. Not that I'd particularly want this chapter of my life to be entitled: "The Wilderness Years"!!! [Ed's note: check out Stephen Keogh's Global Music Foundation website]
Wed 21st November 2007
Speaking of which, we are now very pleased to announce our arrival back in Birmingham for a two-week visit from December 19th. We managed to find reasonably cheap Emirates flights direct to BHX (and back to DXB on January 3rd) and are both extremely excited about the prospect of seeing family and friends for the first time since we set out for Russia back in April 2006. My friend and fellow improviser Mike Hurley, who narrated now is a ship and Book of the Law at their respective premieres in early 2006, is in the process of sorting out a recording slot at Birmingham Conservatoire, our old music college, with a view to recording some four hands/one piano improvisations and hopefully now is a ship and Book of the Law if drummer Miles Levin and vocalist Alison Symonds are similarly available to record.
I'm over the moon! Last night's recital was a success. Not too sure about the exact figures regarding the turnout, but from the applause it sounded healthy. From the piano I couldn't see anything other than a few pairs of feet at the front, so I'll have to ask some of the other teachers at work tomorrow what they thought too and come to some kind of consensus as to approximate numbers. [Editor's Note: the general consensus was between 50-60 attendees]
1. Crossroads Blues (Robert Johnson)
2. St. Louis Blues (W.C. Handy)
3. St. James Infirmary (Anon)
SECOND AGE
4. In A Mellow Tone (Duke Ellington)
5. Lush Life (Billy Strayhorn)
THIRD AGE
6. Billie's Bounce (Charlie Parker)
7. Boplicity (Cleo Henry)
8. Giant Steps (John Coltrane) [click to play]
9. Maiden Voyage (Herbie Hancock) [click to play]
FIFTH AGE
10. Truth Is Marching In (Albert Ayler) [click to play]
11. Blues Connotation (Ornette Coleman) [click to play video clip]
SIXTH AGE
12. Stuff (Miles Davis) [click to play]
13. The Mountain (Abdullah Ibrahim) [click to play]
SEVENTH AGE
14. Improvisation 8 11 7 (Steve Tromans)
15. El Derecho De Vivir En Paz (Victor Jara)
As of today, 10 weeks of the teaching term are now behind me with only two full weeks left, followed by a week of catch-up classes (for students absent for good reason during the term) and a final week of - would you believe in an Arabic country - xmas concerts! Since a good percentage of the student base is expat then I suppose that's not too surprising. Of course they had the huge yule tree on Sukhbaatar Square in Ulaanbaatar - with a soviet red star on top - but this city is so westernised, sometimes it feels more like home than home.