Catch 22

My soprano sax on holiday in West Wales

"I’m sooo cold," Snowdon tells Yossarin in Catch 22.

Know how he feels. I’m standing in Church Street, Ludlow last Sunday, belting my way through the first set (Blue Moon, Shadow of Your Smile and that odd one I made up, posted on Sunday 10 July).

Foolishly I’ve dressed for the Indian summer that never quite reaches this Victorian passage, shielded from the sun by three storey buildings and given extra ventilation by a curious architectural monument, some kind of a drain, beneath which I play. It’s a three way breeze.  

But it’s good to be out and playing again, even if my fingers are numbing up and my embouchure is frozen in rictus with the cold. I must rethink this if I’m going to play through the winter.  

I’m about to give up when an older lady in blue, comes up very close.

“Are you professional?”

I’m still thinking of the reply when she says . . . bless . . .

“Because you’re very good. Now where do I put this?”

She hovers a pound coin before me.

John Kirkpatrick and man's but an autumnal leaf

To John Kirkpatrick’s Farmers’ Songs workshop and performance at Aberllynfi (Three Cocks in English, but never mind) among those rolling hills west of Hay on Wye. 
And to hear him sing that touching hymn to impermanence:

What's the life of a man any more than a leaf?
A man has his seasons so why should we grieve?
Although in his world we appear fine and gay,
Like a leaf we must wither and soon fade away.

Picked up Brass Monkey’s Head of Steam (no website on the CD cover so you’ll have to search for it yourselves) for its brassiness. Good, but not quite my thing.

The workshoppers rehearsed On Yonder Old Oak and gave such a dreadful rendering during John’s performance that he, quite rightly, foreshortened it. But at least I did get to talk to fellow bassist Roy Hollowell (longest beard in the world) of Still Seeking, who, with his mates busks for charity in Leicester.

Dorothy's Blues

Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet

Is it the performer's curse? The better you know your music, the more mechanical your performance? I'm working on a new routine, maybe with the clarinet in place of the soprano sax. 

I need to beef up my background guitar (recorded on my Edirol, left, and played in the street through my iPod connected to the little Roland amp). It's lost in big streets and I have to find accoustic hot spots like the entrance to the shopping mall in Stratford on Avon for it to work well. 


And I'm looking at new songs. Nice guy asked me to play Take Five in Leominster yesterday. Couldn't oblige.


One piece of music I'd love to add sax to is composer Gavin Bryars' 1971 loop recording of a London tramp singing the hymn Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbczBcz78vo This version has added accompaniment and the gravel voice of Tom Waits.

Street Closures

Ross-on-Wye, Stratford-on-Avon, Leominster-on-Nowhere . . . it's been a busy weekend. Ross and Leominster streets (like Appleby's for the annual horse fair, left) closed off for a French Market.

Ross deputy mayor Caroline Utting invited me to add some street music to the town. Despite complaints (see previous posts) about buskers in the town, it went off all right.
So much so I rejoined the Market in Leominster and did an hour there. In the sun. 

Rounded off the weekend with a stint at Straford-on-Avon. Note: good accoustic in the entranceway to the shopping centre.