A quick reminder...Barkingside play Oxford for the first time tomorrow evening. At the wonderful (at least - as I remember it: I think the last time I was there I was sitting having my mind-boggled as an 11 year old by someone playing the Goldberg Variations, with L'Ile Joyeuse as an encore) Maison Francaise on Norham Road.



Our first couple of gigs on this Jazz Services tour - in Reading and Sheffield - were great fun, and I think (hope) we played some wonderful music.



Also on the bill is solo oboe from the fantastic Nick Benda. And of course, plenty of copies of the new CD.



Speaking of which, the reviews are just starting to come in. We had a nice write-up of both Barkingside and the Convergence Quartet recently at All About Jazz. Here's a Barkingside-specific one from Bagatellen by Derek Taylor. And rumour has it there'll be a couple more within the week or so...



If you don't want to listen to us this weekend (fair enough), then listen to this. I'm normally really sniffy about compilations, but I've had this one on nearly non-stop over the last week or so. UNBELIEVABLE. Was it Leonard Feather who made the comment about Ben Webster being the Clark Gable of the tenor saxophone - 'at once a brute and a hero'? This is along the same lines. Webster can be so unbelievably gentle and unbelievably powerful almost at the same time: the same is true of Curtis Mayfield. And the falsetto!!! It's a bit of an odd comparison in some respects, but the way he disappears into the stratosphere reminds me of the feeling I had when I first heard the Albert Ayler Greenwich Village recordings (my first Ayler). They'd finish the theme statement ('Truth is Marching In' is the one which stays with me the most), and then Ayler would disappear up, up , and further up into his altissimo, to this almost indeterminate, but completely perfect pitch.



And I hadn't realised that Mayfield was one of the few guys around this time and idiom writing his own material. They are incredible songs. 'I'm The One Who Loves You', 'Keep On Pushin'', 'People Get Ready' (of course), etc. etc. etc.



Incredible stuff. [Looking forward to checking out the William Parker Curtis Mayfield Project, which has just appeard on CD, I believe...]