How Does The Music Feel?

A friend of mine told me that at a recent jazz workshop, a very well known drummer said to him (concerning drum students attending the workshop), 'Man, all these guys can really play - and they all sound terrible!' A very funny remark, but with a huge truth contained inside it. As contemporary jazz grows ever more complex - especially in the field of rhythm - and as jazz schools raise the technical level of students to unprecedented heights, there is no doubt in my mind that we are often guilty of ignoring one of the most important elements of all music - its rhythmic feel.

By 'feel' in this context, I don't mean a generic feel as in 'swing feel' or 'Brazilian feel' or something like that, I mean the groove or the rhythmic centering of the music. I notice more and more that the idea of getting a good rhythmic feel - as opposed to playing accurately and in time no matter what the time signature - seems to be further and further down the agenda, if it's on the agenda at all. But the feel of music is incredibly important - it's arguably the most important thing, since it evokes an immediate response from the listener. And most listeners - which is something we musicians often forget - are not players. They're civilians, they're not in the jazz army and they don't care about the complexity (or lack of complexity) of music. They're there to listen and to experience, not to analyse. Most people couldn't care less whether you play in 15/8 and superimpose a 3 feel on top of that. That's the kind of detail that is only of interest to musicians.

Not that I've anything against complexity per se - I've spent a lot of my professional life playing complex music and spent countless hours trying to figure out how to do it and get better at it. I enjoy both simple music and complex music - to me it makes no difference what means you use to get to your message. As long as you actually have a message that is more than just the technique of the music. And there's the rub - I think there's a lot of music around that is solely about the techniques being used by the players, rather than having an overarching intent that is beyond the technique.

Of course this is an argument that has gone on forever in jazz - every generation of jazz musicians has accused the next generation of sacrificing feeling on the altar of technique. There's an element of circling the wagons about this kind of thinking, of protecting something - real or imagined - from the attacks of the avant garde. But this is not really where I'm coming from with this - it's more about the idea that no matter what form of rhythmic expression you choose, that it should feel good!

Feel good? What does that mean? Couldn't it be said to be subjective? Well, ultimately yes. But I do think the idea of something feeling good is not as abstract a concept as it might sound. What I mean by this is that the rhythm of the music should feel as if its coming from a central place, that it should have a weight, an internal energy a kind of groove template from which the music ultimately emanates. Without this central core the music just won't feel good - it may have a lot of detail to it, it may be technically adept and accurately in time, but it won't have that spark, that energy that carries the internal message of the music and that connects it to a tradition of some kind.

This word tradition is important here. Most rhythmic music is, or was at one time, connected to dance. Dance needs a rhythmic core that gives the fundamental energy to the dancers and around which all the music happens. There are so many examples of this - Afro-Cuban music, Belly Dance, Samba, Indian classical music, and of course at one point, jazz.

Jazz moved away from dance a long time ago, and indeed it's hard to make any case for jazz as a contemporary dance music after 1950, but the fact that jazz once was associated with dance has meant that the rhythmic impulse of jazz  always had a central core -  a groove - around which the music moved, and from which the music emanated, no matter how active and complex the music that whirled around this central core was. Despite jazz losing its direct connection to dance, and the rhythmic physicality of playing for dancers, the ghost of the the dance has always been there. This is the 'feel' which I'm talking about when I say that the music should feel good.

It seems to me now that this connection between feel and the music is often lost. Perhaps in chronological terms, the music has moved so far away from its dance origins that the physicality of the rhythm of jazz is something that is being forgotten or buried under the detail of an often complex music. Which would not just be a pity, but would also be dangerous waters for the music to sail into. Jazz has a hard time in the market place these days (or what remains of the market place...), and the permanent removal of a rhythmic feel good factor, would be a tragic loss for the music.

Because this rhythmic feel good factor is part of the music's history and tradition. The ingenious rhythmic placement of Armstrong's lines, Basie's rhythm section, Bird's rhythmic power, Blakey and the Messengers, Miles phrasing, Miles' various rhythm sections, the Coltrane Quartet, Monk, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Headhunters, Weather Report, Wynton's first quintet, Steve Coleman and Five Elements, Wayne Shorter's current quartet, Brad Mehldau. The music of all of these players and bands, despite their often widely different styles and different eras from which they come, exhibit the rhythmic impulse that I'm talking about - a connection to groove and rhythmic physicality around which the rest of their music is formed.

I'm missing that rhythmic and groove impulse in a lot of the music I'm hearing recently. Drummers are hyper-active but often without a foundation - all that clattering piccolo snare drum stuff, fill after fill without any room for an underlying groove to make its presence felt. Bassists playing without connecting with the drummer, pianists and guitarists comping without rhythmically interacting with either bassist or drummer... Soloists with lots of notes but not really locking into the rhythm and the time. Generic grooves played without any understanding of the tradition and impulse from which they originated.

Musicians need to check out the fundamentals of the music and the history of the music. Anyone serious about playing jazz must study the rhythm and the rhythmic impulse of the music, and in particular they should study the feel of the music. Listen to this aspect of the music of the great players past and present and try and identify the rhythmic DNA that circulates through all of their music, giving it its rhythmic strength and feelgood factor. To all serious musicians - don't just ask yourself how your music sounds - how does it feel?

Here are three examples of rhythmically powerful pieces of music, all very different, all of which have a great rhythmic feel at the core of the music.

Wayne Shorter's Quartet - abstract and impressionistic yet rooted




Here's Herbie Hancock, Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette swinging mightily while playing both complex harmony and rhythm




Steve Coleman and 5 Elements connecting complex harmony with interlocking odd metre funk

Tasteful? What's in a Word?

I just read a review of an album in which the critic described the rhythm section's playing as 'tasteful' I really hate when critics use that description of someone's playing, because to me it denotes several things.

First of all, when the word tasteful is used to describe the playing of the rhythm section, either individually or collectively, it tells me that the writer probably has no idea what to say about the them, and probably doesn't have enough knowledge of the intricacies of rhythm section playing to venture anything other than this bland phrase. It's a cop-out on the writer's part - a one-size-fits-all phrase to use when you've no idea how to differentiate the playing of one rhythm section player from another. It also implies an under-appreciation of how important the rhythm section is - the kind of writer who will  apply the 'tasteful' soubriquet to the rhythm section will usually have written extensively about the soloists in previous paragraphs and then, feeling they have to say something about the rhythm section, will describe their playing as tasteful. It's the same kind of lazy writing that trots out cliches like 'getting up close and personal with......' to describe an interview with someone.

If the rhythm section have had the good manners not to distract the writer from listening to the soloists, whom (ahem), after all are the most important members of any group, the critic will describe them as tasteful. Which brings me to my second point.

'Tasteful' can often be freely substituted by the word bland..... The kind of rhythm sections that are described as tasteful often are units that plod along, playing the right changes, keeping the time in an efficient way, doing nothing to frighten the horses. They have no identity and fulfill a function - they don't get in the way. Like good children, they are seen and not heard. Anonymous. In short, they are a terrible rhythm section. A rhythm section should always be adding to the music, not staying out of the way of it. This doesn't meant that they have to be incredibly active all the time in terms of amount of notes played (it depends on the context), but it does mean that whatever they're doing should be vital to the sound of the band, to the energy of the rhythm, to the forward motion of the music. It should be vital, not tasteful.

If a critic says that a rhythm section is 'tasteful' it usually means one of three things: 1) The critic has no idea about rhythm sections, how they work, or what to say about them. 2) The critic likes his or her rhythm sections to be of the 'seen and not heard/servant of soloists/Bebopper's Labourer kind. Or 3) The rhythm section is crap.

A final point in this mini-rant. What does 'tasteful' even mean in this context? Does it mean played with good taste? A subjective judgement if ever there was one...... Does it mean polite and well mannered? Or does it mean, appropriate to the music? For my money, the latter is the true definition of tastefulness. If a musician is playing in a way that is apposite to the requirements of the music he or she is being tasteful. Elvin Jones, rampaging through 'Transition' with Coltrane is the epitome of tasteful playing. Ron Carter, rhythmically and harmonically nudging and bossing Miles' band is tastefulness personified. Monk's comping behind Coltrane is an object lesson in good taste. Good taste is about doing the right thing in any musical situation, it is not necessarily only about being polite and self-effacing.

Poor Bill Evans is always burdened with that cliche by critics who see things in a very simplistic way. Because his music is lyrical and often on the quieter end of the dynamic spectrum, his playing is often thought to be 'tasteful' in the same way that a restaurant pianist's playing could be described as being tasteful. Quiet, not getting in the way, not drawing attention to itself. Well mannered. This does such a disservice to the depth and complexity of Evans' playing. Whenever I see a critic describe Evans' music as tasteful, I just can't take anything else they say seriously. This is a surface listener, a lazy writer, someone who really doesn't have the equipment to talk about the music in any depth.

If you are a jazz writer, please don't use this vapid cliche when describing someone's playing - do a bit of research instead, listen a little harder, tell us something worth knowing about the music you're describing instead of giving us some bland bromide that fulfills your word count but means nothing. 

In my opinion, describing someone's playing as tasteful is in the worst possible taste..........

Chin43: Dwoogie "Babble Off"

Chinstrap are delighted to present "Babble Off", 11 nuggets of gold from the vaults of the marvellous gentleman who goes by the name of Dwoogie, made between 2000-2003. It is an album for an extremely decadent electronic party at the apocalypse. Frantic rhythms and a reservoir of textures fly about like pinballs, competing for space with unforgettable melodic hooks, revealing a wild clatter of twenty-thousand stocks of kitchenware thrown down a vast staircase into a digital abyss from which delicious popgasmic flowers bloom. 



This release comes with artwork designed by another prime slice of gent, the great Oblivian Substanshall.

And direct from Kraków via Dwoogie mail come the following safety announcements...

1. Bloo. The title came from bluegrass, as I wanted to make as stupid a bluegrass piece as I could. Reckon it worked, personally.

2. Bieszczady. A region of Poland in the very southeastern corner. The oldest people who live there have been inhabitants of 5 countries during their lifetimes without moving house. The area was depopulated of its local minority inhabitants in a murderous campaign by the Polish authorities. It’s still mostly empty. I like it.

3. Fox On The Run. Play on words. The original “Fox On The Run” was by The Sweet, of course. But that’s irrelevant. The voice you hear on the track is Polish newsreader and now editor of Polish Newsweek, Tomasz Lis. Lis is the Polish word for “fox”. In the extracts you hear, Lis is cursing like a soldier, on mic, about how fucking shit a particular news item is. “Kurwa” is the Polish equivalent of “fuck”. It appears frequently on this track.

4. Last Train to Bemblow. “Bemblow” is a very poor transliteration of Polish “Bębło”, which is a village outside Kraków. My ex used to work there. It hasn’t got a rail link, but the track sounds trainy, so there you are.

5. Diana’s Chauffeur. An aural representation of what driving into a tunnel at 100mph might sound like.

6. Touch. Just a silly piece of scrap. No idea where the “Can I touch it?” sample came from.

7. The Last Snowman. This was written around one Christmas, when I sent it to members of my family as a present. The title is designed to mislead. It has nothing to do with winter. It’s a direct translation of the Polish epithet “ostatni bałwan”, which means something like “total idiot”. This may change your view of the song. It may not. Who cares anyway?

8. Soukup in Babylon. Named after a crazy Czech bus driver I came across outside Plzeń – one Pavel Soukup. We were staying at a campsite called, for reasons unknown, Babylon. That’s the title of the track. “Babble Off” is also a reference to this stay.

9. United State. At the time this track was being written I was working on a grammatical analysis of a foreigner learner’s English. In certain contexts, they said “United State” rather than “United States”. It was my job to find out what those contexts were. An interesting task, surprisingly enough. Unlike this note.

10. Mood. I found an online version of Frank Herbert reading “Dune”. A book I enjoyed very much as a teenager. The section I used for the recording is about Paul Atreides being trained by his weapons master Gurney Halleck. “Mood” is not important in this context.

11. Smackin’. Who doesn’t like “Smoke On The Water”? Well, me, for one, so I did a version with the stupidest sounding synths I could find. Incidentally the increasingly loud drone in the first section is a sample of King Crimson’s “Elephant Talk” slowed down and played backwards.

On The Road with Pekka - Part 1, Europe

In October and November of this year I took part in a two-legged tour with the great Finnish alto player Pekka Pylkkanen and as part of his Global Unit group. The first part of the tour took place in France and Switzerland, the second leg in Japan. I've played in this group in the past and it's always fun, being made up of great musicians from different parts of the world (hence the name). For the European leg the other musicians, apart from Pekka and myself, were the American pianist Greg Burk and the Brazilian drummer Carlos Ezequiel. Both wonderful musicians, I've played with them both before in Pekka's group, and with Carlos in several other configurations, including a memorable trip to India earlier this year.

My trip began as so many do, with having to get up at 4am (bleh.....) to catch the red-eye to Geneva, and from there to Basel where we were playing two nights at a wonderful club, The Bird's Eye. We were also going to do some live recording, some recording during the day, and combine that with a studio recording at the end of the week in France. A lot of people don't realise what musicians have to do on the road sometimes - in this case, we had four musicians who have come from four different countries, travelled long distances, went straight into rehearsal, put two sets of music together in 90 minutes, soundchecked, ate quickly and then played two sets of music. And some people think being on the road is glamorous!

Considering how little time we had and how tired he were, we played some very good music - a mixture of originals by Pekka, Carlos, Greg and I, and a few arrangements of jazz standards. But the extremely long day kicked in, and I definitely hit the wall half way through the second set - got totally exhausted and had to dig deep to keep my concentration and play competently at least for the last few tunes.

But a good night's rest will do wonders, and the next night was much better - the band sounded better and we were starting to get a real grip on the music. The result of getting to know your material in jazz is always one of creating a feeling of both tightness and looseness - tightness in that the written and composed material is played better, and looseness in the sense of a feeling of freedom within the material that comes from having confidence in knowing that material well. We got into some good energy and the audience responded warmly - it all boded well for the next day's recording.

And the recording the next day was indeed a good one - it was nice to record on stage rather than in the often sterile environment of the studio. And since we'd played the music the previous two nights we had the cushion of both being comfortable with the material and the recording environment, which is a real bonus. We recorded pretty much all our material and then recorded a bunch of improvised short vignettes - pieces improvised on the spot, each one started by a different member of the band. I've always liked doing this - these pieces can often reveal aspects of the band that are not evident in the written material. I haven't listened back to the material yet, but I'm looking forward to hearing these pieces - I think we did some really nice ones!

Recording finished, we headed to Basel airport (which must be the only airport in the world that straddles the border of two countries......), hired a car and drove into France. We headed for Metz to stay overnight, and on the drive there got into some lengthy discussions of politics and economics and the current political/financial situation. Jazz musicians should really record these on-the-road conversations - on this trip we pretty much solved all the world's problems - who needs politicians and economists when you have a jazz quartet to sort everything out!?

(Metz Cathedral)

We had some time off the next morning before heading to Fontainebleu, so Greg and I took a look around Metz, an interesting town that shows both German and French influences. The Cathedral is renowned and when you step inside you can see why - it's a vast Gothic construct with a soaring ceiling and featuring beautiful stained glass windows by Chagall. The size of it and the fact that people have prayed there since the 5th Century gives even an atheist like me an idea of the power religion has had on the minds of people over the centuries.

And the power that good food has on me in France should not be underestimated either - having basked in the glory of Medieval religion, it was time for Greg and I to bask in the glory of local French food, at a local market and to eat a simple but great lunch at a famous soup counter in the market, beside the cathedral. I partook in the delicacy of Boudin Noir with apples (an acquired taste perhaps, but one I acquired a long time ago, raised as I was on Black Pudding - the irish equivalent), while Greg had some fantastic slow-baked lamb. French food is often thought of as fancy and chef-y, but regional French food tends to be both simple and delicious.

And the food theme continued as we headed off for Fontainebleu to play the next gig - at a jazz club that is owned by and is an annexe to a Moroccan restaurant. The R-Jazz Club is a cosy little club and the owner and his family are lovely people - genuine enthusiasts who love the music and their club. It was really a pleasure to play for them, and also a pleasure to eat the wonderful food they provided for us before and after the gig - all jazz club gigs should be like this!

(Gourmet Market - Milly La-Foret)

We stayed the night at a small hotel in the nearby town of Milly La-Foret, a small quiet place that sports a gourmet market (more food!) on Saturday mornings. All kinds of artisan products were on display and the market demonstrated again the importance the French place on food - if only all countries were the same in this regard.......

And then it was off to another small town - Dammarie-Lès-Lys

 (Pekka and Carlos at the studio)

We were recording in a studio in the engineer’s home – I like these kinds of environments, again they’re a bit different to the airless bunkers that often constitute studios these days. The engineer’s house was in a small town in the countryside and the whole scene was pleasant and conducive to relaxed but concentrated work. Where else but France could you take a break and have a lunch of Confit Duck in a local restaurant? We got all the tracks recorded that we hadn’t managed to get to in Basel, and we re-recorded a couple of others, and then we headed for Dammarie-Lès-Lys where we would be staying for the next few nights.

Dammerie is close to Paris, and we had a day off the next day so it was a foregone conclusion that we would head into town at some point. And what a perfect day for a trip to Paris it was! A beautiful late Autumn day, bright sunshine – it was almost like being on the film set of one of those Hymn-to-Paris movies that Woody Allen makes. Carlos and Greg went in earlier and went around the Louvre, (Carlos commented that his smile is more mysterious than that of La Giaconda – see below and decide for yourself….), Pekka and I headed in during the late afternoon and we met up with the guys, walked around in the sunshine along the Seine, and had a delicious and very good value dinner in a great traditional Bistro, before heading back to our hotel in Dammarie. Sometimes being a musician IS glamorous! Or at least lots of fun………

(Carlos enters a smiling competition with the Mona Lisa)

The reason we were in Dammerie was because of its proximity to CMDL – the school of Didier Lockwood, where we did a combined workshop and concert performance. The school is in a lovely setting and has a student body of around 100, which is a perfect size in my opinion – big enough to be interesting, but not too big to become impersonal. I got together with the bassists, and we discussed various bass related issues, but also musical issues in the wider sense. When you get together with a group of students whom you haven’t met before, and you only have an hour, it’s hard to get into much concrete information, since by the time you know what it is they wish to work on with you, the time is almost up. But they were a very receptive group, we managed to get into some interesting stuff, and a good time was had by all.

After the workshop we played a concert for the students for about an hour – really fun, because at this point we really knew the music and were able to get into it immediately and explore it more fully at the same time. This was our last gig on this leg of the tour, so it had the usual bittersweet flavor that these last gigs on tours always have.

To give you an idea of some of the music we played, here's a recording of a piece of mine called 'Traditional', recorded live at the Bird's Eye club on the second night of the tour.

 

(Greg, Pekka, Carlos and I, outside the Bird's Eye Club in Basel)

 So that was that – some travelling, lots of music, lots of new music recorded, and lots of good food! I left the next morning to go back to Dublin to change my clothes re-pack my bags, and head off for the second leg of the tour – Japan!

Chinmix 04 - Simon "Robodub" Mathewson mashes the Chinstrap Back Catalogue

A delicious mash-up of the Chinstrap Back Catalogue by Simon Mathewson, the cheeky chappie behind the recent ROBODUB release.

Judgement! Competitions, Critics and the Jazz Meritocracy

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There’s been a lot of judging or discussions of judging in the online jazz world recently.

Ethan Iverson started one of the balls rolling with his questioning of the value and artistic merit of jazz competitions. This was prompted by the announcement of the impending Thelonious Monk competition, which this year focused on drums. The competition was subsequently won by Jamison Ross . People weighed in with varied opinions which ranged from outright support to outright opposition.

Then in another dust-up, the very strange jazz critic Brent Black launched an attack on George Colligan, ludicrously dismissing him as ‘second rate’. Needless to say this triggered an outpouring of scorn for Black’s opinion, and Black did himself no favours with a bitter, mean-spirited and puzzling tirade directed at Colligan’s gracious response.

And finally the Canadian pianist  Andrew Boniwell responded to Peter Hum’s review of his new recording with what might be best described as icy fury.

All of which made me think about this whole issue of our being judged by others, and indeed judging others ourselves. To what extent does the judgment of critics have an effect on musicians? What effect does winning a competition have? Or what effect does losing a competition have?

Seventeen years ago I was a  competition winner myself - the 1996 Julius Hemphill Composition Competition for this piece:

I must say I didn’t benefit immediately from winning, though it has to be said that competition was very small compared to the Monk Competition. Nor was it a stressful event for me, since there was no performance element involved, and no jury to look at out of the corner of my eye as I played. What winning did do for me was to give me a lot of confidence as a composer, and there’s no doubt that this kind of public approval of your work can have a very positive effect on you. On the other hand, If I hadn’t won it I don’t think I’d have been discouraged – I didn’t expect to win, and no-one was more surprised than me when I did.

But Ethan’s main point was whether such a competition would encourage individuality, or whether it would have the opposite effect, rewarding whoever was closest to the mainstream. The question is sometimes asked whether Monk could have even got into the final of the competition named after him? There's no doubt that if you have a panel of six judges, the winner will have to not only impress as many of them as possible, but also do whatever he or she can to alienate as few of them as possible. The more personal and idiosyncratic a performer is, the more likely they are to polarize the jury. There have been many famous cases of this in the classical world, the most celebrated of these being the Chopin competition of 1980 where Ivo Pogorelich, (a performer for whom the word idiosyncratic could have been coined), was eliminated in the third round, despite Martha Argerich calling him a genius. I have a feeling that a performer like Monk - a guy whose playing very much flew in the face of the prevailing pianistic orthodoxy of the day - would have had an equally polarizing effect on a jazz piano jury......

There's no doubt that in these difficult days for jazz musicians, anything that can help you to raise your profile is welcome, and winning something like the Monk competition is about as high-profile as it gets for jazz competitions. No doubt winning this competition will help Jamison Ross, but looking at his profile and bio, it's clear that he was already on his way - as were the 2nd and 3rd prizewinners, which confirms for me what I've believed for a long time - jazz is a meritocracy and always has been.

It's also a marathon rather than a sprint, and though something like winning a competition or getting a gig with a famous bandleader will definitely help, in the end it's the work you produce over a long period of time that will ultimately decide whether you succeed or fail. There are many examples of players who got a lot of press and attention at one time, maybe even a major record deal, and yet are hardly remembered these days. And I believe that this is because they ultimately didn't have something that could be sustained over a long period of time. They undoubtedly had some aspect of their music that was attractive for a while, (at least to the jazz media), but in the final shake-up it wasn't sustainable and didn't develop, and their star waned as a consequence of that. Jazz is quite Darwinistic in this sense and I think this is a good thing.

Jazz musicians have to deal with a lot of unfairness - the dice is loaded against them in so many ways - but within the jazz community I think, over a period of time, musicians achieve the status they deserve. I believe that if  you are a really great player, and you have something original and personal to offer, then sooner or later you will get recognition for that. 

Often you hear a story about this or that guy being a great player but never getting recognition, but as a general rule I don't buy it. If there's a truly great player who's not working, there's usually a reason for it - they're alcoholics, or junkies, or socially impossible, or difficult to deal with, or completely flaky, or recluses, or cripplingly shy, or something along those lines. I've yet to meet a truly great player who takes care of business but who's sitting at home forlornly waiting for the phone to ring........ 

Maybe New York is an exception to that rule, in that there are just too many musicians there, so someone can indeed be a great player but struggle to get recognition among the jostling crowds of other great players. But NY is different - a once a year gig at Small's under your own name and a 'tour' of Europe consisting of 6 gigs counts as being a success for a lot of people there.

But even in NY you can make a career for yourself if you're talented enough and have something to offer over the long term. In this way jazz hasn't changed - ultimately what's going to decide your status is your own playing. If you're a great player, you're immune from the slings and arrows of outrageous critics like Brent Black. His attack on George Colligan is toothless because Colligan's career demonstrates more than words ever can, the stupidity of Black's opinions. Someone who has played with a who's-who of contemporary jazz, including being a current band member of Jack DeJohnette's band has the ultimate imprimatur of the jazz world. His work and success is the the proof of his quality - this is the final arbiter of his quality and nothing that Brent Black can say can alter that. 

And jazz has always been like that and even though the jam sessions, that for many years were the proving grounds of aspirant jazz musicians, have ceded their Gladiatorial position as arbiters of musical ability, it's still true to say that the opinion of your peers is the one that is most important. Play well and you will eventually get the attention of established players, play with them and you will get the attention of the public and the media. I've lost count of how many times I first heard hitherto unknown (at least to me), great players when I went to see a band led by someone of real status - Mulgrew Miller with Woody Shaw, Terence Blanchard with Art Blakey, Gabriele Mirabassi with Rabih-Abou Khalil etc.

Yes it's nice to get a good review, yes it would be useful to be on the cover of Downbeat, yes it would be very helpful to win a major jazz competition. But ultimately what a jazz musician needs in order to succeed over the long term is the approval and admiration of his or her peers. Jazz has always been a meritocracy and it still is one. Competitions and critics may come and go, and you (or media admirers of yours) may talk a good game, but eventually you're going to have to shut up and show everyone the music. And thank heavens for that.

Chin42: ROBODUB

We would like to introduce you to ROBODUB, a project from composer & visual artist Simon Mathewson. Seven slices of dub created by robots who have developed impeccable taste, these are superbly crafted genre compositions that sit together like coloured blocks as a superb listening experience, a kind of geometric reggae from a melancholy dystopia. How about that then?

More from Simon Mathewson, including music for synchronised swimming, Victoriana comic strips, and video feedback films here.

Chinmix 02 & Chinmix 03, collated by The Superfools

Continuing our series of mixes on Chinstrap, we continue with two mixes by New Mexico's remarkable sound-collagist The Superfools. 

Chinmix 02 is The Superfools choice of cuttings from the Chinstrap back catalogue, collaged and melded in his own unique fashion.

Chinmix 03 is probably going to be your new favourite mix - a collage of mambo and related music from across the past fifty years, from the artist with a mission to create genuinely Latin-American sample-music. How can you resist?

Chin41: Anthony & Substanshall "Culture Is Not Your Friend"

We are delighted to present the continuing collaboration of Anthony Donovan and Oblivian Substanshall. "Culture Is Not Your Friend" is an hallucinatory journey down a rabbit hole of filth and magic, a meeting of minds that proceed to explode. Dig in!

Like this? Dive into the first Anthony & Substanshall collaboration here.

My New CD - Renaissance Man

The photo on the cover of my new CD 'Renaissance Man' is of my father Brendan, taken in about 1950, it shows him in a very relaxed moment, complete with cigarette and cup of tea, and is one of my favourite photographs of him

Renaissance Man is written in memory of my father and its genesis goes back a long way in that if it hadn’t been for my father it’s doubtful if I, or my brother Conor, who plays drums on this recording, would be involved with music in the way that we are today.

My father passed away at the age of forty eight, when I was seventeen, and he was an extraordinary character. He wasn’t a musician but he was an absolute devotee of music, with very specific tastes – classical music from 1880 onwards, and jazz from 1945 onwards. So we were raised with the music of Bartok, Stravinsky, Ravel, Shostakovitch and Prokofiev, and the music of Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, and Errol Garner. As children, (there were eight of us!), he would play games with us where we would have to identify the instruments of the orchestra, or identify a particular soloist in a jazz piece. We didn’t realize it, but he was giving us a fantastic aural musical education, and for some of us he was setting the course of our future careers in music.

This was 1960s Ireland, a conservative, culturally isolated place, so our experience of all this great modern music was pretty unique for a child of those times. And when you’re a child, the music you hear is the music you hear – nobody told us that ‘The Rite of Spring’ was ‘difficult’ music, or the music of Bartok or Miles – to us it was just our everyday music.  And it wasn’t just in music that my father played the role of cultural evangelist, he was also interested in literature, film and the theatre and introduced us to everything from the Marx Brothers to Lewis Carroll, from ’Twelve Angry Men’, to ‘Three Men in A Boat’. Thanks to him we had a thorough cultural education at a time, and place when something like that was very hard to come by.

I wrote this piece on the 30th anniversary of his passing and I decided to write a piece for jazz guitar trio and string quartet – two classic ensembles of their respective genres that would be the perfect vehicle for what I wanted to express. In choosing the musicians to play the piece it was a foregone conclusion that my brother Conor would play drums on the project, for obvious familial reasons as well as the fact that we'd played together for over 20 years.

(John, Conor and I at the rehearsal for the 1st performance of the music)

In choosing the guitarist for the piece, I wanted someone who could not just play the instrument well, but play in many different emotional climates - which is not a common quality in many players, and certainly is rare in young players. So I asked John Abercrombie to do it - we'd worked together several times previously and I had studied with him in Banff in the mid-80s, so we knew each other on both a personal and musical level. John is of course one of the great contemporary guitarists with a unique approach that is much more multi-faceted than most guitarists, or indeed musicians. John has the ability to play completely sparsely and quietly, or to completely burn. he also has a unique harmonic approach and sound and is a true improvisor. His sensitivity to the music and what I was trying to do with it was perfect for this project and he played the music beautifully.

In choosing the string quartet, I knew I needed really good players - in writing the piece I wanted to represent my father's love of modern classical music and I definitely didn't want a typical jazz 'string pad' effect. The writing for the quartet is very involved and very challenging at times, and Ioana, Cliodhna, Cian and Kate really did an amazing job on the music, I couldn't have asked for more.

(Rehearsing the piece at the 1st performance in 2005)

The piece itself is in six movements, each one inspired by some memory of my father: some are inspired by quotes from his favourite books, some by music he loved, and some by general memories I have of him.

1) Stillness/Movement

A recollection of my father taking me cycling up to Killiney Hill, a local beauty spot, at dawn on a summer morning around 1970 when I was about 12. There were few cars in those days, and even fewer at 5am, and there was this feeling of being the only two people in the world -  utter silence. Then the birdsong began, and got louder and louder till it reached a cacophony......

2) Mr. BP

Brendan Patrick Guilfoyle, was my father's name and this is a lyrical tune dedicated to him

3) George's Hat

This refers to a line from 'Three Men in a Boat' - 'It was George's hat that saved his life that day' - that my father found hilarious  - and it is hilarious! If you know the book you'll know why, and if you don't then check it out!

4) This Was Very Odd Because

This refers to another line from classic literature, this time 'The Walrus and the Carpenter' from Alice in Wonderland', which my father would read to us and we would be expected to know the last line of every stanza.

5) It Was The Middle Of The Night

Although my father was a wonderful man with so many great qualities, he also had his dark side for sure, and could be pretty scary at times. This movement reflects that aspect of his personality

6) 2 Degrees East

The only explicitly musical reference, to John Lewis' blues 'Two Degrees East, Three Degrees West'  from 'Grand Encounter'. My father loved this piece and played it incessantly. The theme is referred to here, but the treatment is completely different to the original.

Here are excerpts from each movement in order

  Excerpts from 'Renaissance Man' by RonanG


And here is a little film about the making of Renaissance Man

My father passed away before any of us began playing seriously, and I’ve always felt that it was so unfair that he never got to hear the results of the groundwork he laid for us. But I also feel very fortunate to have been able to write this piece, and to have such great musicians perform it. Renaissance Man is written in recognition of the great gifts he gave to us, and the debt we owe to him.


As a little bonus - here's some footage of myself, John, Joey Baron and Michael Buckley playing a quartet arrangement of the 2nd movement, 'George's Hat'

Whenever you release a new recording it's an exciting and special moment, but for me, this release is particularly special and personal. In this case the importance to me of the music being widely heard outweighs any other consideration and so I'm selling the physical CD for a very low price. If you're interested in purchasing a CD you can click on the Paypal button at the top of this page. If you want to buy it in downloadable format you can do it here

Down With Jazz! Bejayzuz!

It’s not that long ago that Ireland was to all intents and purposes a Theocracy, not unlike present day Iran. In a similar way to the contemporary Iranian state, right up to at least the 1960s, the country was under the thumb of a cabal of clerics who interfered with every aspect of the state and whose number one concern was the wielding of their own power.  They interfered in every aspect of Irish life and left a legacy of brutality and child abuse (such as in their schools and Reformatories), which Irish people are still having to deal with today. But disgusting as the institution of the Catholic Church was,  (and often still is), occasionally the behavior of some of the dimmer members of that church, through the stupidity of their actions, gave us a badly needed laugh at the Church’s expense. One such dimwit was Father Peter Conefrey.

Conefrey was the founding member and leading light of the ‘Anti-Jazz League’ in the 1930s – a movement he hoped would rid Holy Catholic Ireland of the corrupting effect of jazz. Coneferey was convinced that jazz (although what he thought of as jazz would certainly not be recognised as such by any jazz fan or musician), was destroying the morals of the young people with its unholy rhythms and lewd dancing. He managed to lead a march against jazz through a tiny town in Ireland and through his contacts get questions asked in parliament about why Irish music was getting displaced on the radio by this sinful jazz music. But under the thumb of the clergy though Irish politicians may have been, this was too ludicrous for even the most devout Irish politician and the movement fizzled out relatively quickly. There’s a fascinating documentary on it here

This coming weekend I'll be taking part in a festival called 'Down With Jazz' which humorously takes the anti-jazz movement as its theme, but has in fact the opposite intention of the idiotic Father Conefrey, in that it is celebrating Irish jazz.

Over three days sixteen bands will show the variety and quality of the music produced here in Ireland by the local musicians and it should be a great festival since there's never been a higher standard of jazz music being played in ireland than there is now.

I think it's fair to say that in western Europe, Ireland's jazz scene is the one that is least known outside of its own borders. Every other scene in western Europe - the French, Italian, German, and various Scandinavian scenes for example - all would be known through various famous practitioners who have gained international reputations and are well known everywhere. Musicians such as Enrico Rava, Martial Solal, Jan Garbarek, and John Taylor are known internationally and through them people know there is a scene in the countries in which they live. Ireland would not be known in the same way in the jazz world, and truth be told, up to recently, while there were some great musicians here, there wasn't enough of them to constitute a 'scene'

Jazz had a slow start in Ireland - there were jazz influenced jazz bands in the 40s and 50s, but the first real jazz musicians began to appear at the end of the 50s and into the 60s with players such as the pianist Noel Kelehan and the drummer John Wadham, both of whom were world class. There were other players around the scene who were good also, but the real breakthrough came with the appearance of Louis Stewart, the great guitarist who was the first domiciled Irish musician to get international attention. Before that the bassist Rick Laird had played with musicians such as Sonny Rollins and Wes Montgomery as part of the house rhythm section in Ronnie Scott's Club in London, and later went on the play with the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Due to his Mahavishnu stint and appearances on various 'Jazz Icons' DVDs, he remains Ireland's most famous jazz musician. However Louis Stewart broke the mould in that he was the first Irish jazz musician, living in Ireland whose work was recognised internationally and he performed with Benny Goodman and a host of other great musicians during his career. A phenomenal guitarist, he inspired a generation of Irish players (including me), and made them believe that this music could be played at the highest level by Irish jazz musicians.

My peers and contemporaries, who came up in the 80s, included some really great musicians, many of whom were determined to expand their horizons beyond Ireland, some by moving abroad, some by studying abroad, and all of whom were very interested in current trends in jazz. Many of us were interested in developments beyond the customary hard bop style of the Dublin jazz scene and the result of that was a broadening of stylistic approaches in the Irish scene and the founding of something that every other European country had - a jazz school.

It took a lot of time to get the full time courses going there, but when they did the school had a real impact on the development of the music in Ireland and aspiring jazz musicians now had access to the same training and information as their European and American counterparts, as well as getting to sit in classes with many visiting musicians of renown. All of this, with the addition of the rise, development and ultimate boom (and now bust!) of the Irish economy had an explosive effect on the jazz scene here. With the coming of serious money into the economy more musicians started to land up on irish shores and this is turn enriched the scene further. Recordings were made, tours undertaken and organisations such as the Improvised Music Company, (the promoters of this weekend's event), created imaginative events and programming.

And this weekend will show the variety and quality of what's currently on offer in Irish jazz at the moment - everything from electronic-infused improvisation to traditional jazz, from through-composed large scale compositions to standards, from duos to big bands. The Irish jazz scene has come of age and the festival is a great showcase for the many great musicians and bands now playing here.

Here's Phisqa, a group that is an exemplar of what effect the influx of overseas musicians has had - led by a Peruvian drummer, it features a South African saxophonist, an Italian guitarist, a Venezuelan pianist and an Irish bassist

More traditional fare will be on display too and I'm really looking forward to playing some standards with the truly world class saxophonist Michael Buckley

I'll also be playing a set with 3G - a family affair that features my brother Conor on drums and my son Chris on guitar.

Things have really changed for jazz in Ireland and hopefully this (sold out), festival will help to make more people aware of the musical riches the scene currently contains. As they might  say in Ireland, regarding this weekend's doings - 'if Father Conferey was alive today he'd turn in his grave.....'

Chinmix 01: Chinstrap 40 Retrospective, collated by Ergo Phizmiz

A selection of choice cuts of sound meat celebrating 40 releases on the Chinstrap netlabel.

Collated by Ergo Phizmiz.

Featuring music from Bebe del Banco, Oblivian Substanshall, Vernon Lenoir, Plushgoolash, Albert Glasser, The Superfools, Martha Moopette & Heather McCallum, The Last Hat Girl & Dwoogie, Vulnavia Vanity & Ergo Phizmiz, Pete Um, Elvis Herod, and Talulah Lotus.

This is the first Chinmix, of which there shall be more! Next up in the series is a rather marvellous mix of mambo by The Superfools. Good.

Chin40 - Ergo Phizmiz "Papalaka Papalaka"

A spoken-word audio/video opera by Ergo Phizmiz, with text entirely snipped from the writings of Noel Coward. The audio is created from Ergo's collection of gramophone records, a sample from Monteverdi's "Combattimento de Tancredi", a wooden kitchen door, and Ergo's "Hallucination Duets".





"The Impulse to Shoot at Every Shadow" by Ergo Phizmiz from Ergo Phizmiz on Vimeo.

Text-Collage, Sound-Collage & Production by Ergo Phizmiz

Voices by Ergo Phizmiz, Flora Bertolli & Martha Moopette

* * *

N

When the curtain rises the stage is in darkness.

There is the sound of voices. Enter Young Man

followed by Young Woman. He turns up lights,

disclosing a comfortable little study with

a sofa, armchairs, books, etc.,

and the remains of a fire in the grate.

*

M

In January I went to Paris and breakfasted daily, curtains of wisteria

and serried ranks of snow capped mountains.

F

For the whole of the following year I did not work, my cough rapidly disappeared,

and then in a moment their colour and vitality faded.

M

Some little question of English grammar I bit her arm right through to the bone.

F

I drilled resonantly, a slight strain, you play exclusively in your mind,

I may add, that was not entirely free from superciliousness.

M

To this day we still meet occasionally and have a good time, but

the paths back into the past are long and tortuous, and new faiths,
like new policemen, were sick and tired of it.

*

F

My last link with familiar life, disappearing down the

M & F

handbags, hats, coats, sandwiches, apples, oranges, shoes, stockings, and bits of fur,

a tinny piano, too many chairs, a few mottled looking glasses,

always a pervasive smell of last week's cooking.

*

M

Small miserable groups of people huddled in corners.

I had still one more battle. Cockie in his box,

Mother to greet us blind in a dirty kimono, nor could
I have chosen a more thoroughly unsuitable place.

F

Conducting a furtive, illicit detail, but the climax
was always the same.

M

I soon became bored and wanted to go home,

made up into dark little rooms and passages,

and one could see across miles of marshes,

a square edifice wearing perkily a pink corrugated tin roof,

falling to pieces,

*

N

The noise is deafening – the chorus in various travelling dresses

are clustered round the low counter, trying to get the baggage examined

quickly, and talking, and shouting.

Young Englishman strolls languidly in.

*

M & F

there were two small ponds, five poplars,

a ramshackle garden consisting almost entirely of hedges,

and an ancient, deeply green orchard with thick grass

and low growing apple trees, hats, coats, sandwiches,

apples, oranges, shoes, stockings, and bits of fur,

a tinny piano, too many chairs, a few mottled looking glasses,

always a pervasive smell of last week's cooking,

two small ponds, five poplars, a ramshackle garden.

*

F

I was suddenly conscious-smitten by the sight of a poor old gentleman,

raspberried with the utmost fervour, although far from assured,

had at least been enough to procure me a dignified pose.

M

It was the result of careful thought, only for the sake of the salary,

seemed to be a static, over-cautious mania for travel and change,

but to me it wasn't foolish at all.

*

N

She takes the breakfast-tray from side table and rests it on her knees.

She proceeds to pour out coffee, she sips some of it

and then begins to eat a little toast. The telephone rings again.

She takes off receiver and speaks with her mouth full.

*

F

It is patronising, of course, to a certain degree,

but not consciously or disagreeably so;

I managed tactfully to erase some of the bloodstains.

As a new animal I received many surprising visitors in my cage.

M

My vision of myself at eight and twelve and sixteen is clear.

I know how I looked, of course.

Superlatives flew through the air, richochetting off mouldering midsummer.

F

Even Irene forsook me for a while.

*

M

I used to get packets of bacon on credit, restraining

the impulse to shoot at every shadow cast by the street lamp.

F

Her failure lay within herself, in her abrupt pride, and

sudden sharp intolerance, and her inability, when in certain moods,

to accept the small change of friendship, even from those

who loved her dearly,

M & F

deeply green orchard with thick grass

and low growing apples trees, hats, coats, sandwiches,

apples, oranges, shoes, stockings, and bits of fur,

a tinny piano, too many chairs, a few mottled looking glasses,

always a pervasive smell of last week's cooking,

two small ponds, five poplars, a ramshackle garden.

*

N

Black out. Close tabs.