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Feline update

the little guy went back into the vets yesterday morning for Chemo II, and was put on a drip to rehydrate (not been eating much). This was a different type of chemo, even more mild than the last one, no side-effects etc. I went in to visit him this morning, and he’s the perkiest he’s been for over a month – was purring and scenting me, putting his widdle pink feets up to try and get me to pick him up (impossible cos he was still attached to the drip, but I did get half into the cage he was in and give him maximum snuggles).

Anyway, all looking v. good for fairly aged feline, ginger edition. He’ll be home later today, which is always a good thing. Miss having him around, and I think it unsettles the tabby edition of the FAF… not that he misses the ginge, just that he’s not sure what’s going on.

Soundtrack – King’s X, ‘Ogre Tones’ (new album, major return to form – possibly in their top three or four albums – heavy like Dogman, harmonies like Ear Candy. Oh yes)

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Last night's gig

Last night was the first of the Recycle Collective gigs. Usual Darbucka affair WRT to getting there, setting up, dealing with people who are ‘just there to eat’ etc. But all fine.

Music was great – Trip played a fabulous set, as always, and went down supremely well. The sound was great (well, except an earth hum off his bass whenever he wasn’t touching the strings, which was less than ideal…) and his between song banter was funny and engaging too. Good stuff.

After him, our first surprise guest of the series – JazzShark had sent me a link a week or so ago to a guy she’d seen live, called Jeff Taylor – the MP3s on his MySpace page were amazing. a few days later another message arrives from La Shark that Jeff is coming to London. So we exchange emails, meet up for lunch on Monday, and he says he’s coming to the gig, so I suggest he brings his guitar.

He did, and so I got him to play three songs, which were fantastic. A great performer/vocalist/guitarist/songwriter. The whole thing. He really ought to be huge. I’m sure he will be, and the select audience from Darbucka will be able to see that they saw him first.

Then onto Theo and I – we played a mixture of the tunes from Open Spaces and some improvised stuff, including a marvellous improv thing with Jeff on beatbox/vox/weird noises. the sad part of all this (sorry, guys) is that once again, the minidisc has let me down and is blank. It might be that it was still blank from the last time I tried to record a gig, and I’d not formatted the disc. either way, I’ve once again missed out on documenting some marvellous music. Bollocks. It’s getting to be something of a frustration with me – I’ve not been able to record a live gig for lord knows how long, and would really like a document of how I’m playing these tunes now (and I really ought to have had a copy of the Edinburgh show!) I need to come up with a fool proof way of doing it. If I had a roadie I’d get a rack-mountable minidisc deck wired into the rack so I could just put a disc in and go, but I just haven’t got the car space or the muscles to carry it.

So all in all, a great night’s music. The only disappointment was the size of the crowd, which was surprisingly small. I guess there are a few factors, like the Jazz Festival being on, and it not being that long since my last Darbucka gig, but it’s been well publicised… It seems like Theo and I generally struggle to pull a good crowd in London, which is frustrating, as it’s probably the most rewarding musical collaboration I’ve ever been involved in. He does fine if he’s playing with his quartet, and I do fine if I’m playing solo, but together it doesn’t seem to get the peoples in.

The next Recycle gig definitely needs to be bigger. I know these things are meant to grow, but still…

Anyway, it was a fab night, those that were there seemed to love it, Trip got to play London and went down a storm, and we all got to hear Jeff Taylor in a setting that we’ll remember for a long time.

Today, Trip and I are down at the ACM in Guildford for another clinic/masterclass thingie, which will be a lot of fun – it’s a great school, and is always good to go and play for the students there. Hopefully we’ll leave them with something quality to take away.

Soundtrack – Bill Frisell, ‘East/West’ (new double live album from my favourite guitar player – great stuff, a return to form)

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Gig week is underway

This morning was the first of a few gigs ‘n’ stuff this week. Trip Wamsley arrived yesterday afternoon, and last night we headed into town to flyer outside Bill Frisell’s gig, which finished earlier than expected, so we went round to spitz to flyer outside another gig, which was more successful, and also bumped into the lovely Sebastian Merrick, promoter extraordinaire (booked me for my first ever solo gig at the Troubadour!), who in turn introduced me to two people I’ve been a fan of for a while and have wanted to say hello to – John Walters, jazz writer for the Guardian and Unknown Public amongst others, and Fiona Talkington, one of the presenters of the world’s finest music radio show, Late Junction. So that was a good night!

Then, this morning, Trip and I were giving a clinic/masterclass thingie at the Access To Music ‘British Academy Of New Music’ in East London, which went really well – a class of mixed musicians, we talked a lot about the thinking behind taking your instrument outside of its formal context, and Trip pulled apart the technical side of one of his tunes. Most entertaining it was too. Looks like I’ll be back at the college before long…

And then onto tonight’s gig. I’m really looking forward to this – playing with Theo is always a treat, watching Trip is always a treat. No idea how many people will be there, but it’s listed in Time Out, and there are flyers and posters up all over the place so there could be a few people come down!

Time to get ready to leave… see you there!

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good feline news

After a pretty down day on saturday, the fairly aged feline perked up a bit yesterday, especially when offered tuna for the first time in his life (or at least, since we’ve had him) – that’s clearly a favourite. He was a little more cuddly, slightly more vocal, and generally on the up.

That still didn’t prepare us for this morning’s return to the vets, who on examining his tummy by feel, said the lump had ‘gone’… yup, ‘gone’. Of course that doesn’t mean the cancer’s gone, or that we’re clear or any of that nonsense, but it does mean that the chemo is working its magic and we may have a little longer than the two weeks I was assuming was our time frame until I heard the word ‘gone’ this morning.

So, thanks to those of you who’ve been chatting to God about this. Whether or not it’s miraculous is at this point moot – the result is of more interest to me right now than the method (and, to be honest, the ramdomness of much that is labeled as miraculous just causes more theological and epistemological questions than it answers…

But I digress. Raise a glass to the small furry ginger one!

Soundtrack – Juliet Turner, ‘Live’.

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home from the vets

The Fairly Aged Feline is home now. The vet gave him a chemo injection which has reduced the size of teh tumor considerably already (cats are amazing creatures – far better at getting better than we are!), and a steroidal anti-inflammatary to reduce the swelling in his stomach, and bring down the fluid levels in his body cavity.

And now he’s here, lethargic, but seemingly happy. Picking and choosing when he wants cuddles and when he wants to be left alone. Complaining about the lack of v. tasty food. He and his fellow fairly aged feline are now reaquainted after much sniffing and some tentative mutual washing.

He’s currently sat behind me on the floor of the office, probably waiting to see what strange bass students I’ll be bringing in for him to sniff today. Straight back into his usual routine then.

Soundtrack – Eric Roche, ‘With These Hands’ (not bought it yet? put it on your christmas list!)

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from bad to worse

We were hoping for the best while preparing ourselves for the worst. And got the worst.

According to our lovely vet, the tumor is too big to operate, and anyway the fairly aged feline has got fluid on his lungs that mean they couldn’t put him under the anesthetic. So pretty much as bad as the situation could be.

He’s going on chemo to see if it will reduce the size of the tumor to the point where it’ll be operable, and also he’s being treated for the lung thing, so that if it does shrink they’ll be able to do the operation. But all in, the future doesn’t look that bright for the furry ginger one.

And we’re heartbroken. After the pain of losing The Aged Feline just over a year ago, we thought we’d have these two for years and years to come – they’ve settled in fantastically well, and become a vital part of the life of the house, having their own routines that we have to fit round, and their own novel ways of communicating. the tiny ginger one had a few delightful idiosyncrasies and was one of the clingiest cuddliest cats I’ve ever come across, never happier than being bundled up in someone’s arms for a big cuddle.

So we’re still hoping for that miracle, hoping that the chemo will work better than it ever has before, hoping that our genius vet can remove the tumour, and that our little guy will have years of happy life left. But it’s really not looking likely at all.

Soundtrack – Prefab Sprout, ‘Steve McQueen’.

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bad fairly aged feline news…

So we’d noticed that the ginger fairly aged feline had been looking a little listless of late, was eating less and losing some weight, so this morning we took him to the vet. He’d been coughing a bit too, so we thought it might be some kind of cat cold or flu or something…

The vet checked him out, went a bit ashen faced and said he could feel a huge tumor in his stomach. Now way of telling what kind of tumour it was, though the speed it had grown suggests something not good at all, and the prognosis wasn’t very positive at all.

There are a range of possibilities – at one end, it’s a spleen tumour, which can just be removed, and he should be fine. at the other end it’s a tumour on his bowel and that’s not good at all. Really very very not good.

So we wait. He’ll be opening him up later on to find out what the score is, and will call us, but we’ve basically had to say provisional goodbyes, cos there’s no knowing which way it could go. If you’re the praying type, a few words with the big man would be much appreciated.

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When blogging changes your world.

I read loads of blogs.

From the blogs I read, I discover other blogs.

Some of them are just silly and hilarious (like this one, sent to me via BDB’s blog).

Others show the world-changing potential of blogs. Not ‘world-changing’ in the sense of ending the conflict in the middle east, or convincing the world to stop ignoring the hurricane devastation in central america, but world-changing in the sense that you see the world differently after reading them. They remind of what the world is really like, both good and bad, and take you out of your own concerns into a world where things are very different.

One such blog is All About Ali – the story of a woman’s battle with stomach cancer. This one I picked up from Pip Wilson’s blog – Pip has a fantastically benign form of tourettes, which makes him reiterate how lovely the world is on an almost hourly basis. He posts lots of pictures of lovely people, and the occasional inspirational link. And if you ever need to be told that you’re lovely and valued and special and a ‘beautiful human person’, Pip’s blog is the place to go.

Anyway, All About Ali is a deeply deeply moving blog. I recognise Ali and her hubby from Greenbelt. I’m sure I’ve spoken to her hubby on more than one occasion. We’ve certainly got quite a few fairly close friends in common. The blog is a beautiful and heartbreaking read, but gives you much faith in people. Have a read, and say a prayer for her. If the power of positive thinking, prayer, great friends and regular glasses of champagne count for anything, she’ll beat it no problem.

And now I really ought to do some work, having spent the last hour and a half reading blogs!

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destroying all musical boundaries

A student turned up yesterday morning having been working on Jaco‘s arrangement of ‘Blackbird’ by The Beatles. He was making rather a nice job of it, but one of the things I often witter on about in lessons is the notion of active and passive learning – passive learning being just the copying by rote of a particular piece of music (or scale or interval study, or whatever) without taking it any further. Active learning would pull it apart into its various musical components, why does it work, what are the chords, how can I take that style of arrangement and apply it to other tunes, are there any new techniques that come up in this piece that I can absorb into my playing, and how else can I play this same tune?

In answering this last question, whenever anyone is doing this tune (it’s a standard for bassists to have a go at), I play them Bobby McFerrin‘s solo voice arrangement of the same tune, from his album ‘The Voice’. Which happens to be one of the greatest solo performer recordings of all time. The lovely thing about it is that conceptually it rips the roof off of what’s possible on any instrument – if one man can do all that with one unprocessed voice, how much more can I do with my bass than I am currently doing? What kind of leaps of logic, what kind of seemingly insane musical experiments have lead to Bobby being able to perform like that? It’s clearly not a style that one stumbles into, and I’ve no doubt that his arrangement of Blackbird took months and months to perfect, though he makes it sound so effortless on the CD.

If I were to draw up a list of most inspirational recordings for solo performers, this would be right up there at the top.

Oh go on then, here’s my top some, in no particular order –

Bobby McFerrin – The Voice
Don Ross – Passion Session
Michael Manring – Soliloquy
Kaki King – Legs To Makes Us Longer
Eric Roche – With These Hands
Pat Metheny – One Quiet Night
Keith Jarrett – Scala

a lot of these are solo acoustic guitar records, which I guess just reflects the fact that more people are experimenting with interesting music on solo guitar than on other instruments… or at least, I’ve been exposed to more solo guitar music than anything else…

Any others to add to the list? Stick ’em in the comments section at the bottom.

When I’m working towards a new album (as I am at the moment) I tend to ‘use’ music in a more knowing way than at any other time – I put things on to consciously take me out of my comfort zone, to re-orient my ears towards another space, to offer up possibilities for my own playing. I’m very much at the mercy of the things I listen to. in the last lot of recording I did, I recorded tracks that were heavily influenced by Morphine (the band, not the drug), M83 and Eric Roche. Bobby’s music takes me into another space altogether.

Soundtrack – Bobby McFerrin, ‘The Voice’.

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