Category: Music
Ramblings about Jazz
Posted by Rupert on February 1, 2009
I am addicted to a jazz album I found on the cheap last month on my Christmas shopping binge. It is a compilation of pre-war jazz that I found in Bucharest’s main music shop (Muzica). I bought it along with a stack of other cheapo jazz CDs, assuming I could give them to people for Christmas. It was only later I realised the obvious: I hardly know anyone who likes jazz and if I gave it to Gavin he’d smell a rat immediately and expose me as a bargain hunting baglady (Gavin being the connoisseur of the family). And there they sit, in the corner, my stack of jazz CDs, including Sinatra and two by Charlie “the bird” Parker, who I don’t really like, still in their smeared plastic covers.
But this one, which is called Jazz for the Quiet Times, is something else. I just can’t stop listening to it and it must be driving Alina round the twist. I sneakily copied it onto my computer before Christmas in case I found a jazz lover in the family, as I did with a great David Bowie compilation that I reluctantly gave to Moona (parting with it was agony).
I’ve been seduced by Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton and Chet Baker; long gone jazz greats I’d vaguely heard of but had never really listened to properly. For some reason, probably connected to being obliged to read books at school, when people recommend a musician or a book I tend to avoid it. When a fossilised prof would recommend a book it would subconsciously go on my list of “must not” reads.  When our Granny would take us to the world’s best museums, in London, I remember being bored and ungrateful.
To really appreciate an artist I personally have to discover them. Going to a film that you know nothing about can be a great discovery, but if everyone has praised it your expectations are high and all too often you leave disappointed. Maybe the best way to promote a film or book would be tell people to avoid it. If I could learn from this experience I would know that telling people what to do is pointless. I do know this, but I can’t help myself. I guess I was born a bore, a preacher, a nag. The Romanians have a great word for this: Pisalog.
There are some songs on this CD that I could listen to forever. And the more I listen to it the more I realise I don’t know them, as they’re more complex and multi layered than anything else I listen to. Each listen is a fresh discovery. The most inspiring song is called The Man I Love, by Tedddy Wilson; a mellow piano and xylophone number. For me the big discovery was that it was composed by George Gershwin — a worthy American piano composer who one “should” know about, but I for one have always avoided. Now I am hooked and I can see from his Wikipedia page that his songs have been covered by most of the jazz greats as well as the likes of Madonna and Sting.
You may be wondering where am I going with this article? Do I have a point? And I do, even if I am arriving at it in a very roundabout way (story of my life). What I want to say is that music goes well with photographs. This strikingly obvious statement may strike you as evidence that I really have lost my marbles, that my ramblings have gone too far and that I should be thrown into a funny farm. But, before you call the men in white coats let me explain.
Like most people, I have a digital camera and before long I had too many photos on my computer. First stage was to enthusastically send these to friends by email, until they complained that I had clogged up their inboxes. Next stage was to make a selection and arrange them in Power Point presentations, but even after compressing the photos they would still be too big. After that I wanted to add music to my slideshows but I was too thick to work out how to do this on Power Point.
As that point I discovered a programme that was sitting under my nose all along; it comes with the basic Microsoft office suite. It is called Windows Movie Maker and, unlike Power Point, any moron can master it. You just “import” pictures and songs, place them on a timeline (an elongated box at the bottom of the screen), add titles and Bob’s your uncle — instant slideshow with music (or instant home video). Easy. No brain required.
I am convinced that slideshows are the best way to present photos. Let’s face it, most of our photos are lost somewhere on the computer and if we use just 10% of them it’s good (the other 90% are probably not worth looking at anyway). Making a slideshow forces you to make a small selection from a big collection, and you have to be ruthless. I started out not choosing more than 20 photos, keeping it well under a minute but I’ve gradually got bolder and am now at the point where I use a whole song in a slideshow. This may sound pathetic — surely any fool can select some snaps and bung in a song — but I would take real care about it and it would take ages. It was about building confidence. Â
Usually I would make the slideshow and then select the music, and I’d have to listen to loads of songs to get the right match. For my Christmas at Laundry House slideshow I used a Duke Ellington number called Creole Love Call from Jazz for the Quiet Times. But what am I to do with the other songs that obsess me from that album: the George Gershwin piano and xylophone wonder and Earl “Fatha” Hynes playing “if it’s true”?
Problem is the subject of each slideshow goes with a particular song, and each song has its own mood and atmospere. When I made a slideshow with photos from the Glen I used an oriental intro from the new Eagles Album, and for my visit to Translyvania I used a song from a local Hungarian band.
Now I have a new challenge: I want to do a slideshow with the Gershwin number The Man I Love, but I can’t think of a suitable theme. So I keep listening to the song in the hope that something will come to mind, but it doesn’t. My latest idea is to take notes while I listen and see what comes out of my pen, see if I can record my thoughts as I listen. This might be an interesting exercise (or a complete waste of time to those of a more sensible disposition).
Any suggestions?
You can see my slideshows here
Feb 1st 2009
One Response to “Ramblings about Jazz”
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February 4th, 2009 at 16:18
4.02.2009
Thank you for the idea of promoting things by discouraging people to get to know them. It’s so human to try to be different and not to do what other say to you that you should/ought to. I will try it with wife.
You are definitely not a pisalog. I can’t bear to take lunch with this king of people…-:))