Jekyll and Hyde

Starting today, I will look back on a series of interesting days. Today's topic: Bill Frisell's 858 Quartet in Malmo.



One of my all-time guitar heroes, Bill Frisell, came to Malmo to play with his 858 Quartet featuring Jenny Scheinman (violin), Eyvind Kang (viola) and Hank Roberts (cello). Having been responsible for getting this unique group to Malmo, I took it upon myself to pick the quartet up at Kastrup airport. Earlier that week, I had spoken to Frisell's tour manager, Claudia, and was informed that the leading man was ill with some kind of flu or cold. Luckily, when I asked him about it, Mr. Frisell said he was "a thousand times better now". Even so, the leader sneezed once during the show (in time, of course).

The music was great. I am very impressed by Bill Frisell's ability to constantly reinvent himself and seemingly always being on the lookout for new musical ventures. The 858 Quartet is a fairly new group, having playing together on Frisell's Unspeakable from 2004 for the first time. The range of musical sounds and styles available from this excellent quartet was nothing short of astounding: early music and contemporary art music (imagine Pachabel, Arvo Part, Philip Glass and Bartok working together); jazz; a Bacharach cover; intense rock guitar sounds; you name it, they played it. And did they play it well! Dynamic, playful and highly imaginative music was the order of the day in this musical table tennis game where composed parts and improvised sections came and went faster than the speed of light.

Amazing music, fantastic musicians, wonderful people with a great sense of humour. I was very kindly given a CD by Jenny Scheinman, and for this I am very grateful. In fact, this CD deserves - and will be given - an entry of its own eventually.

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The ill-fated guitar hero group GTR only released one album, simply called - you guessed it - GTR. "Jekyll and Hyde" is one of several AOR tracks from that album. As with most of the songs on GTR, the highlights are the guitar parts by Steve Hackett and Steve Howe. A quote from Frank Zappa comes to mind when thinking about this album: "Shut up and play your guitar".

Bro

It's a great day today! I am going over the bridge to Kastrup airport to pick up one of my heroes, Bill Frisell. He will perform tonight at Palladium, a concert organized by Jazz in Malmo and Musik i Syd. Unfortunately I have had reports of Mr. Frisell being ill for at least part of this tour, but I will keep my fingers crossed for him to be on the road to recovery.



And tomorrow, I will cross that bridge between Sweden and Denmark once more, since I am off to my good friends at the Gouveia Art Rock festival to lead a discussion on all things Prog. It will be great to see my good friends Luis (and his lovely girlfriend Catia) and Nuno again, not forgetting Eduardo, Carlos, Mario and all the other heroes of this lively, wonderful festival.

This will be the first time I fly with Luxair, and also the first time I will be in Luxemburg, even though it's just for changing planes. I have no hopes for the vegetarian food, but I have hopes of finding a good bottle of Scotland's finest on my way back. And in the best of cases a bottle of Slibovitz, not for myself - I don't touch that stuff - but for Mr. Zawinul, who apparently loves the stuff. At least that's what his agent told me, and I want to have a happy musician on stage on Tuesday and Wednesday at our club.

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"Bro" (Swedish for bridge) is the standout track on The Jolly-Boat Pirates' eponymous debut album. Moving between free jazz, some rock elements, aural signs of folk music, and I even hear some minimalism in there. They don't quite go the distance, but "Bro" is really good.

NP: The Jolly-Boat Pirates - The Jolly-Boat Pirates

Wishful Beginnings

Some brief updates. The course in rock that I have been teaching will be wrapped up next Wednesday with an exam. I have noticed an unusually large amount of absent students when I lectured on the 70's. Also, I have a feeling many of the students have not worked nearly as hard as they should.

At Jazz in Malmo I have been busy organizing a suitable hotel for one of the acts performing at Jeriko this spring. Our regular four star hotel was not acceptable, and to cut a long story short, I was able to book rooms at another hotel. The difference in cost was 500 Euros.

Some good and some bad news on the IB front. The bad news is that we can't muster a proper team at the library inauguration because Klas was busy elsewhere, Jonas will be arriving only a few hours before the gig and our dear Italian friends couldn't make it because they were busy too. Pity, because things are not the same without them.

The good news is that I have recieved two positive initial responses to my invitations to IB Expo 2006. Just like last year, our first choices EG and PM were interested and we will now go on to see if our schedules can fit. My thanks to Tom Griesgraber, who did some serious groundwork and connected me with PM. These are wishful beginnings indeed, but if everything comes together, this will be a fantastic IB Expo!

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On David Bowie's Outside, you will find the track "Wishful Beginnings", co-written by Bowie and Brian Eno. Hardly a standout track, in all its monotony it works as a platform for Bowie's storytelling, which the bizarre tale that is told on this album really needs.