Scarborough and Diminished 5ths

Have got further wrapped up in the seemingly tangible possibilities of playing Jazz music this week. It has been a combination of my visit to Hannah and Glasgow the other week when Jazz and Jazzers were everywhere, reading a Miles Davis biography and for the first time (you may be surprised) being able to practice with any sort of continuity. I am in the process of learning all my scales, before I apply them to the monster ‘Building a Jazz Vocabulary” book that I bought a couple of years ago in a fit of inspiration. When it arrived I realised I needed to know my scales before could do anything else and never got around to doing it. However, with California offering ‘History of Jazz’ aswell as ‘Beginning Jazz Improvisation’ I certainly want to know what I am talking about verbally and tonally before I get there, and now is the time.

This also solves the problem of the happiness/lyrics conundrum- basically, I can only write non-political lyrics and emotional music when I am in the grip of an emotional rollercoaster or general slump in my relationship with the world. In the last year or so my life has been fairly blissful and so I have written almost no new music. Instead everything has been about jamming and the imperative moment. That was cool though, and perhaps what I have needed, but I feel now the time has come (I am 20 now for fucks sake!!) to get SOLID and pursue a four pronged musical sword to cut through people’s conscious and capitalism:

Prong 1- Be a faultless, original and dynamic clarinet and sax player that can add a handful of magic to any band or song and jazz it up like a motherfucker.

Prong 2- Be able to perform solo (for busking, open mics and travelling to start with) with Mbira/Clarinet/Guitar or whatever and build up a set using original, (maybe some non-musical like storytelling or…one of my lecturers at SOAS used to busk with banjo and puppet, which he controlled through movement of his shoulders) high quality material. The only trouble with this is that it will probably need to involve me singing, which gets harder and harder the more I smoke and the less confidence I have in it. My range has got lower, and with the exception of the Waterboys I have not found any good tunes that fit it (help!)

Prong 3- One day, perhaps soon, perhaps not, start a band that, like Pony Club, can be something I can put all my heart into and believe in. After the Ponies I was really chuffed with what we had achieved but mentally exhausted and had enough of all the things you have to do as a DIY punk band before you even get to play the music. And making sure the band was rehearsed and tight and not go on stage without the knowledge you are purveying a high quality, danceable, tight product. But now I feel I have the appetite to do it again, and now with a much better idea of the music I want to be creating. I am starting to master some computer programmes aswell, which means the flow of music between myself and collaborators can be fast and interesting (someone can do a beat in London, pass it on to me in Santa Cruz for melodies then back to Scarborough for mastering!!! And all the while there is a discussion about the music going on). Whatever it ends up as, the first gig is going to start with no lights and a Tibetan singing bowl.

Prong 4- Maybe once all the above is completed to a reasonable level, or has failed miserably, lose all sense of reality and start experimenting with sound till I die. I want to rebuild music from the beep.

What do you think?
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Incidently, had a lovely week this week- the sun has been shining over Scarborough and had some ‘moments’- sat with sam on a peninsula cliff thing at between cornelian and cayton bays and realising I could be in the Caribbean (the sea was turquoise, the sand almost white and no people!); biking to staxton (and the first place me and lizzie kissed) with sam, kai and james to visit sam’s old haunts and screaming down dirt tracks; jamming with james grunwell, ex-Frequency guitar player and good guy (played some clarinet on his mogwai-esque tracks- perfect); listening to Lauren bang out her first tunes on guitar; fast jams with sam; sam’s new drum machine skills with my Mbira… ahhh, life is indeed like a box of chocolates- you never know what you’re gonna get, but it is very likely to be sweet and chocolaty.