Finished around 9:00 and then listened to it back on the headphones - Jorg was up as I could hear weird blues music coming from his room...
At 10, it was downstairs for a leisurely breakfast, lashings of coffee, toast, holey cheese and vegetarian bacon bits - listening again to CBQ, this time on the main HiFi in the living room (Jorg's favourite track is "One Last Show" - the loudest and most raucous), then doing a washing and washing up the dishes....
By 11 we were ready to go uptown top ranking for some shopping etc...October has been a rather quiet month on the CD front...
It's a lovely sunny day (turned out to be the hottest 27 Oct on record..) A day ticket for the Borg and I use my OAP Bus Pass....
Up the Royal Mile and down Victoria Street - Jorg wants to look in whisky shops...
Then pop into the library where Jorg gives me some recommendations and I end up borrowing:-
Pharaoh Sanders - Black Unity
Weather Report - Sweet Nighter
Scolohofo (Scofield, Lovano, Holland and Foster) - Oh!
Tony Williams - The Joy of Flying
Off my own bat, I choose:-
Esbjorn Svennsson Trio - a live in NY CD
Donald Byrd - Freeform
LCD Soundsystem - LCD Soundsystem (which Alan Brodie recommended a while back)
Jorg has a huge collection of Jazz - his favourites are James Blood Ulmer and Miles Davis...
In the summer of 1992, he visited us in Edinburgh and hung out at our record shop. He'd never heard jazz. An Oscar Peterson album was playing....from that day, his bank balance has taken a battering....
We pass the "Bazaar" on George IV Bridge - a shop dedicated to bellydancing and the Indian Subcontinent's arts. Jorg's wife is a bellydancing instructor and, after much picking and choosing and humming and hawing, he buys a 2 hour long DVD of the world's best dancers live at the Folies Bergeres in Paris...
We head, via the University, for Avalanche but stop by the Mosque for lunch - superb curry for a mere £3.75 each. We sit out in the open with lecturers, students and mosque attendees enjoying the sunshine and the cuisine...recommended...
Into Avalanche and Jorg snaps up the Van Der Graaf Generator Box Set while I buy a disc of the complete Oboe Concertos of JS Bach, a 3CD box of Schubert's songs and The Very Best of Sandy Nelson - pop drummer extraordinaire...
Then to a few art shops and jewellery shops looking for presents and souvenirs and to Forbidden Planet for a Spiderman doll for Ansem...in the end nothing is bought but we'll be back tomorrow no doubt...
Our DVD is knackered and I source a replacement at Richer Sounds - Jorg scoffs at how little cash I am willing to pay for the player...I will buy one soon...
We stop off in the Royal Mile again for a well deserved drink and a rest, before heading to Cockburn Street to Fopp and Avalanche...
In Avalanche, Jorg picks up the new 2CD version of Miles Davis' "Round About Midnight" and I get The Tempatations "All Directions" which includes the great "Papa Was A Rolling Stone"; the best of Ohio Players (see track 9 : "Fopp" - I wonder if this is the origin of the Record Store Chain's strange name....and a Marc Moulin CD from 1975 - apparently a jazz classic...
And so to the strangely named Fopp....
Much browsing ensues...at one point, I realise I have far too many CDs in my hand - Jorg is a bad influence - I put back two 2CD sets of "Miles Davis live at the Blackhawk" and a Ben Harper 3CD Box...
I end up taking just two to the counter - the new disc from Grandaddy, "Excerpts form the Diary of Todd Zilla" and another recommendation from the Jazz Man, Larry Coryell's "Spaces", recorded in 1969 with John McLaughlin, Chick Corea, Miroslav Vitous and Billy Cobham but, strangely, not released till 1974. So, members of Weather Report, Return to Forever and Mahavishnu Orchestra on the same album - has to be a good one, surely?
Jorg tries to get the staff to reduce the luxury box set of Miles' "Complete Jack Johnson" from £50 to £30 to reflect the price of the standard long box. Not surprisingly, his overtures are rebuffed...
Instead he settles on two Japanese Roxy Music pressings, "Manifesto" and "Flesh and Blood" - he is a real sucker for special packaging - he'll take a digipack over a jewel case, everytime...
On the bus home, I call Anne on the mobile and find she's been trying to call me - my phone is on vibrate but in a pocket which seldom makes contact with my body - probably not the best place for a vibrating mobile phone. Alan Brodie has called and we'll meet up briefly tomorrow evening before he sets off for Dundee while Anne, Jorg and I go down to The Shore for an indian and some live jazz...
Back home we spend the evening drinking and listening to our new CDs - Anne enjoys most of the music. The new Dar Williams CD has arrived via e-bay - I play her version of the Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" and then we watch the Floyd at Live 8 - Jorg didn't see it happening. He complains that an extra guitarist is present. I resist the temptation to reveal to him the obvious use of backing tracks on "Comfortably Numb"...
I copy a couple of concerts for him - one by John Scofield, Joe Lovano, Dave Holland and Al Foster and one by Vietnamese guitarist, Nguyen Le...
After watching the highlights of yesterday and Tuesday's footie it's bed time...
Today we went mental on CDs alright....
2 comments:
Hey you're making me green with envy especially mentioning that Coryell release.
Sweetnighter is a superb WR album. a band in transition hitting on some wonderful grooves. Will, written by Miroslav Vitous, is sublime - that cor anglais gets me every time.
Opened up this morning, saw your comment, and went immediately to "Will". Your review is right on the button.
I had the pleasure of seeing the band live on the "Heavy Weather" tour back in, I think, 1978 at Edinburgh Usher Hall - Pastorius on Bass.
The sleevenotes for "Sweetnighter" allude to this being the least "composed" WR LP and I think it sounds the better for it..
Re cor anglais - this, along with oboe are two of my fave solo instruments. I love Andy Mackay's oboe work in first phase Roxy Music and another "pop" cor anglais player is Iva Davies of Aussie stars Icehouse...
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