DIY

The weekend was spent redoing a wall in our bedroom. My girlfriend had an idea about how to improve the room, which included tearing parts of a wall down. Luckily, my father-in-law was good enough to help us out. In fact, he did the lion's share of the work with me helping out. It turned out that the wall wasn't insulated, so we had to take care of that matter which was unexpected and costlier than expected.

I spoke to Mats who has spent some time resting and recharging his batteries. One of the things we discussed were possible collaborators at IB Expo 2006. A couple of major names have been thrown about, a few well-known and the odd interesting but unknown namn has cropped up too. I will look into this during the coming months.

A busy week ahead: a couple of lectures ending with an exam for the students on Friday; two concerts (Jon Balke's Batagraf on Tuesday and Linda Pettersson's Up from the Skies on Thursday); a board meeting with the Swedish Musicological Society on Friday and a meeting with the jazz clubs of southern Sweden on Saturday.

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"DIY" is one of my least favourite Peter Gabriel songs, taken from his second solo album, one of my least favourite Peter Gabriel albums despite Robert Fripp sitting in the producer's chair. There are no strong hooks, no really interesting lines, the singing and playing is ordinary and not very exciting. A rather dull song if you ask me.

Clarinet Lament

Swedish jazz giant Putte Wickman passed away on February 14. At the concert that evening I announced 32 bars of silence and lit a candle to remember Wickman and his great achievements within jazz.

My favourite recording by Wickman is a CD called Desire/Mr. Clarinet featuring a stellar crew of Sweden's top session musicians: Janne Schaffer, Bjorn J:son Lindh, Teddy Walter, Magnus Persson and Per Lindvall. A very interesting and unusual setting for the more traditionally inclined Wickman, who really shines in this electric company. As far as I can see, this record is still available, and I can heartily recommend it.

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"Clarinet Lament (Barney's Concerto)" is a classic Ellington track featuring the one and only clarinet master Barney Bigard. I would be most surprised if Putte Wickman was not influenced by Bigard. They both play beautiful, lyrical, melodic solos and melodies with tasteful ornamentations. As is almost always the case with the great Ellington, the arrangement is very well done and superbly performed.

NP: Gavin Bryars - Man in a Room Gambling

Papa's got a Brand New Bag

For my birthday back in 2002, I got a Carlton suitcase from my father. He got a brand new bag. For me. It looked - and still looks - like your average Carlton suitcase in all respects. All respects but one. It looks like it's tie-dyed. That's right, tie-dyed. Like John Sebastian at Woodstock in 1969.

For four years, I wondered if I was the only person on the planet with a tie-dyed suitcase. It have taken it with me on tour with Isildurs Bane in the US, Canada, Portugal, Germany, Belgium, Holland and Italy. I have looked at airports in these and other countries, but nowhere have I seen a suitcase like mine. Which is fine, because I can find my Carlton case at once on conveyor belts, luggage racks and in lounges all over the world.

Then, all of a sudden, I spotted one while waiting for a bus in Malmo during a snow storm only a month ago. And today, I saw yet another while sitting on the train to Halmstad. So to sum up: not a single sighting for more than three years, and then all of a sudden two tie-dyed suitcases appear out of the blue.

In Halmstad, Mats and myself had a good meeting with LE of the local council. We discussed planned IB activities for 2006 in Halmstad and agreed that we will do three projects in alliance with the local council:
1) Workshops in the autumn
2) Music at the inauguration of the library in Halmstad on April 22
3) IB Expo 2006

Mats has rediscovered Yes, and we listened to some of the old stuff: Fragile, Close to the Edge, Relayer, Yessongs and The Yes Album. I suggested to Mats that one thing that separates a good prog band from a bad one is if the music swings, grooves or whatever you want to call it. You can tap your foot to Bill Bruford but hardly to Mick Pointer. Also discussed which CDs I am to bring to the Gouveia Art Rock festival at the beginning of April. I was there last year, met nice people and sold lots of DVDs and CDs. It will be great to go back!

Mats played me some of Mariette's songs he has added his magic keyboard touches to. I wasn't too impressed, but I will wait and see what they sould like when they're finished. A lot can happen between the demo stage and the end product.

After a while, Mats discovered that he needed a power supply for his computer and phoned Jonas, since he has the same computer. Jonas appeared after finishing his sushi and joined the Yes discussions. Jonas has now moved most of his recording activities to his flat since he bought a laptop a few months ago. On the other hand, Mats has moved some of his gear from his Ataraxia studio, because it is too cold during the winter and also because his son Xerxes has moved into the Ataraxia premises.

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One of James Brown's best known songs, Papa's got a Brand New Bag is quite a funky little number, one of Brown's first really funky songs based mostly on one chord. I have heard many unfortunate covers of this track, but no cover has even come close. It's like they don't get the main features: the grooves, the sounds, the grain of Brown's voice. Ain't it funky now?

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NP: Mick Karn - More Better Different

Train Time

I had a busy day today. I started off at the department of musicology preparing my lecture on Wednesday, attending a meeting, dealing with e-mails, sending off papers, booking a flight to Stockholm, rescheduling lectures in March and April and making copies.

In the afternoon, I took the train to Kastrup to pick up Marc Johnson, Eliane Elias and Victor Lewis. It turned out that their flight left earlier from Oslo to Copenhagen. (Does this happen often?) When I arrived, they had already eaten and were ready to leave for Malmo with loads of luggage (ten items, most of them large and heavy). And then there was the matter of the non-arrival of the train on the right platform. To start with, the train was supposed to leave at 15.36 from platform one. The train was delayed and moved to platform two. So we moved too, with all the luggage. I felt embarrased although I had nothing whatsoever to do with the delay. Next, the train was delayed for nine minutes and - would you believe - moved back to platform one. So we had to take all the stuff and go to platform one. Now I was really embarrased, apologized and pointed out that I am not Danish and that such a thing would never happen in Sweden (ahem). And then, without telling anybody waiting why, the train was cancelled. Luckily, the trains run every 20 minutes. I mean, they are scheduled to run every 20 minutes.

In Malmo, we had to take a rip-off taxi to the hotel. At the hotel it turns out that the agent hadn't informed me that Johnson and Elias share rooms. In other words, I had booked one room too many. The suite booked for Marc Johnson was quite cold, especially for someone used to the warm Brazilian sun. An electric radiator solved the problem. To help Johnson & Elias with their jetlag, I got them some fruit, yogurt and crackers in case they need something to nibble on if they wake up in the middle of the night. Also set a new time for soundcheck, the delivery of the bass to be borrowed (courtesy of local bassist Mattias Svensson) and negotiated with the restaurant at Jeriko about the food for Johnson/Elias/Lewis. I am looking forward to the concert tomorrow! If the CD Shades of Jade is anything to go by, it will be a most enjoyable evening tomorrow night. Judging from ticket sales, we will get a good crowd in. Great!

Following my catering work, I was interviewed by Alexander Agrell for southern Sweden's most read newspaper, Sydsvenskan. He was impressed by the artists booked by Jazz i Malmo this spring. He is right of course, there are many big names, and it will be great to hear them during the coming months. It will be interesting to find out what I said to Alexander. It will be in tomorrow's paper. Interesting fact: Alexander lectured classed in jazz and rock at the department of musicology. From 1996 onwards, I have been in charge of these classes. Alexander is one of few music critics in Sweden whose opinion I value.

On the train back the the place I call home, I met L who recently moved here. It's good to talk.

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On Cream's Wheels of Fire you will find Jack Bruce's Train Time. Hardly his best work, but a reasonable time piece.

Miro Bop

Another day, another sold out concert. Well, almost. The truth is, the first concert of the season for Jazz i Malmo (Tomasz Stanko) was a full house. And so was the second concert, held on Saturday when we had the honour of having one of the greatest double bassists in the house: Miroslav Vitous. He was in town for a seminar at the college of music and Henrik Frisk, a fine sax player and PhD student at the college of music, took the opportunity to invite Mr. Vitous to play in Malmo. I can assure you that everyone who heard Miroslav Vitous perform would agree with me that this was a brilliant idea.



Vitous started by playing a solo set playing his double bass and triggering samples from a tiny keyboard. The samples were courtesy of the bassist himself, since he has spent many years sampling orchestral instruments and later releasing them. For those of you into music software, check out these samples, they are great! Mats uses and likes them, and so should you if you work with orchestral sounds.

It was a true pleasure hearing Miroslav Vitous play and he does so in an astonishing way. Obviously, I was aware of his incredible abilities on his instrument, but his ability to swing like a madman, play with a great sense of humour and work with sounds (sampled and percussive bass sounds) were pleasant surprises.

For the second set, Vitous was joined by Frisk and excellent local drummer Peter Danemo for some improvisations, a blues and "Autumn Leaves".

The man himself was nice and polite, joking and seemingly enjoying himself, even playing a Swedish folk song in his solo set. He is very welcome back to Malmo!

The sound engineer, Svante, was a true hero. He arrived at three o' clock in the afternoon for an early soundcheck (Swedish national radio recorded the concert). After the Miroslav Vitous concert, he stayed on to work his second shift: mixing for a club held at the same place as the concert. When I left just after 11 o' clock, poor Svante was looking forward to going home around four in the morning.

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"Miro Bop" is from - yes, you guessed it - a Miroslav Vitous album, Universal Syncopations. On this track, he is joined by Jan Garbarek, Jack DeJohnette and Chick Corea. To my ears, it sounds like Vitous has given each musician a fair amount of freedom to do their thing, and this makes for some interesting listening. You immediately idetify Garbarek, but you also hear that this is a collective effort. The album also features a somewhat restrained but tasteful John McLaughlin on a couple of tracks.

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NP: Miroslav Vitous - Universal Syncopations

My Invitation

What a wonderful invention Skype is! I had a fruitful conversation with Luis yesterday about me coming to the Gouveia Art Rock festival in April. Not only could I speak to Luis for free yesterday, Luis' festival co-organiser Eduardo joined us for a brief phone conference. Unfortunately, the quality left something to be desired, but it was still great to hear about Eduardo buying a Volvo and that everything was going according to plan with the festival. Ticket sales have just started and things are going very well: a third of the tickets are gone already. Trust me, this will a packed festival with some truly fine music courtesy of the one and only Peter Hammill.



The very well-recieved lecture I gave last year at the Gouveia festival is to be published in this years' program. I have two, three weeks maximum, to get it ready. No problem really, but I want to have a closer look at it before I send it off. My manuscript was to be read, not to be printed. This can be compared to playing live and recording an album. Live, it might sound great and people may like what they heard, but when you commit to something being printed, you have to think twice about what you've written, your wordings and readability in general.

Luis and me also discussed my talk for this year. I mentioned a couple of ideas to Luis which he was kind enough to find interesting. I hope something interesting will come out of this in the end.

At Jazz i Malmo, I've got my hands full since our administrative producer has gone on to an exciting project. Hopefully things are now set for our concert with Miroslav Vitous on Saturday and Marc Johnson/Eliane Elias/Victor Lewis on Tuesday.

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NP: The Work of Director Anton Corbijn
A DVD featuring a selection of superb director Corbijn's work. Some great stuff here and some things I have never seen before, like Golden Earring's "Quiet Eyes". Generally speaking, this well-planned series featuing other great directors.

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"My Invitation" is a song from Canadian vocalist/pianist Sarah Slean's Night Bugs album. She isn't that well-known, but if you're into Kate Bush, Tori Amos or Rufus Wainwright, check out this truly fine artist. Night Bugs is a great place to start.

The Man with the Horn

This season's première at Jazz i Malmo got off to a wonderful start. In fact, it couldn't have turned out any better. A full house and a wonderful group on stage: Tomasz Stanko Quartet.



Stanko himself turned out to be a soft-spoken and very gentle man. His trumpet playing reflects this, but only to a certain extent. There is also the other Stanko, the man who was one of the leading horn players of the European free jazz movement during the late 60's and early 70's. Most of his early records were only released in Poland, and I as far as I know they haven't been officially released, at least not outside Poland. My favourite Stanko moments are from later dates. Matka Joanna from 1994 is a fine album and Leosia, released in 2000 is even better. The best album by Tomasz Stanko if you ask me. There is some incredibly dynamic and lyrical free playing on Leosia by Stanko, Bobo Stenson, Anders Jormin and master drummer Tony Oxley. If you are scared of free improvisation, but still interested in it, get this album!

The following day, our new administrative producer quit. Not good. We need a new administrative producer at once, since our previous producer, LL, decided to move on to a year-long project which she will be leading. I wish her the very best. I am sure she will do a great job. But a part of me wishes that she would have stayed, because she did a good job att Jazz i Malmo too. Who will I work with now? And when will we get a new administrative producer?

I met the very nice booking agent Robert Palmen for a couple of beers (and a pub quiz) on Wednesday evening. Another of the really nice guys! The idea is that he will book some gigs for IB later this year. Whatever comes out of this, it was great meeting this guy. We were lousy at the pub quiz though. At least the beer was good!

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Miles Davis has recorded lots of music. A great deal of it is amazing, some of the stuff is truly classic material. But the song "The Man with the Horn" is not. In fact, it is awful. It doesn't go anywhere, there are no interesting improvisations, the vocals are cheezier than Wallace & Gromit's idea of heaven.