Short notice, but for anyone in Oxford this evening, please do come to the Port Mahon (on St Clements), where we have a great double bill of Sardinian guitarist Paolo Angeli (expect Frith and Bjork tunes!), with the quartet Nostromo.



Not our usual instrumentation this evening - the Port Mahon has no piano, so I'm 'plugged in'...Rhodes, Organ...anything I can find to create happy mayhem. I'm very excited about it, in fact - we rehearsed with the electric instrumentation on Sunday, and the music went to some very interesting areas.



Hope to see you there!



Was going to post some thoughts here about Evan Parker's wonderful solo from the Rising Sun on Sunday, along with Stefan Keune and John Russell's as-always-fantastic duo...but each time I tried to get these thoughts out, they came totally mangled...it was to do with levels of perspective: how depending on the aspect one takes at any one time in the performance, it can be at once incredibly busy and incredibly spare, slow-as-treacle or classic improv whirligig. But I couldn't quite formulate the thesis! At any rate, it was an great, great gig. Listening to John Russell, I had that feeling you sometimes get listening to familiar players...thinking halfway through: 'actually, you are one of my very favourite players'(!) Everything he plays seems to have such a deep bluesiness (almost), and to be at the same time abstract as you like, and very personally melodic.



In other news, look at this absolutely awesome video of Stravinsky-conducts-Stravinsky. Quite something!