Just a man...

Playlist
Ultimate Zero Project - Vienna Virginia 17/8/09
Cloudland Blue Quartet - Splinterheart
Various - Last 12 Months Acquisitions on Shuffleplay
John Coltrane - The Major Works of John Coltrane
Dexter Gordon - A Swingin' Affair
Various - Now That's What I Called Music August 2000
John Coltrane - A Love Supreme

This is how Meg the Black Cat was sleeping when I got up today...



The wee pie!

To the PC and finished off a download, started last night, of an Eddie Jobson concert from just under a year ago in the USA featuring Trey Gunn, Mark Minneman, Greg Howe and Simon Phillips...

Anne declared it to be "not good" at that time in the morning...

On walking into the back room, I realised that I had been looking at two of the three recent paintings either upside down or on their side...

"How do you know this David?" I hear you ask - to which my reply is, "this is how they are supposed to be viewed, trust me"...







This evening I pulled a 2CD set by John Coltrane from the shelves and, probably for the first time since acquiring it in the early 90's, I listened to the piece "Ascension - Edition I" all the way through its 39 minute duration - and it rocked...



Again Anne opined "not good"...

There were/are two takes of this mammoth improv piece by Coltrane's classic quartet with its superb rhythm section of McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones augmented by Archie Shepp and Pharaoh Sanders on tenor saxes (so that's three), John Tchicai and Marion Brown on alto saxes, Freddie Hubbard and Dewey Johnson on trumpets and Art Davis on second bass...



It's frankly cacophonous in places but, if you're in the right mood, there's nothing better - the genius involved here is that of a giant compared to my own amoeba-like upcoming release - in fact in moments like these I doubt why I even bother...

And, really, it knocks Prog Rock into the proverbial cocked hat...

But - you have to be in the right frame of mind to listen, or it's just a great big load of noodling, noisy pish...

Anyway, two takes - so they played for forty minutes, then Coltrane listened back and said, "let's do it again" (I imagine a few eyes were rolled skyward at that one) - it's rumoured there were only two takes because Jones threw his snare against the studio wall at the end of the second take to indicate he'd had enough...

So then Coltrane and the engineeer, while take two was being transferred to a tasty wee reel to reel, decide take one was the one that ought to be issued - then Coltrane headed home with his box containing the tape of take two under his arm...

The album "Ascension" duly appeared around nine months after the recording and Coltrane heard it and said "Hey, that's not the take I wanted - I love the one I've been listening to for the last nine months" - but it was too late...

Or so they thought..

Because, sneakily, when the first pressing sold out, the second pressing emerged with the same cover, sleeve notes etc but this time with take two in the grooves...

The only indication of the difference was an engraving in the vinyl run out groove "Edition II"...

So there you go...

Later on, soundtracked by records I liked ten years ago this month (standout an excellent covers album by Icehouse - "The Berlin Tapes" ) we made our annual visit to see the brilliant Richard Herring - this year promoted to the Assembly Rooms...



...and an updated version of his 2001 hit "Christ on a Bike" this time dubbed "The Second Coming"...

Smart and extremely funny, Herring, a confirmed Atheist, points out the inherent stupidity in religious belief (of course preaching to the converted - although there were three walk outs) and the blatant nonsense in the bible - but here's the tricky part - only if you're the kind of idiot who takes it all at face value and actually believes Jesus was the Son of God and, indeed, a God himself...

Because it's actually not that great a deal really for a God to have been killed on the cross is it?

But, if Jesus was just a "good man doing good things who was around at that time" then what he let happen to him in order to try and change things was a monumental act...

It's just all the idiots who came along afterwards who screwed it all up...

Highlight of the Day : Richard Herring and John Coltrane...