Shutter Island (2010)

Excellent psychological mystery/thriller. Set in a mental asylum on an island off the coast of Boston in the 1950's. Directed by Martin Scorsese, and featuring Leo Di Caprio and Ben Kingsley. Love him or hate him, it's hard to deny that Di Caprio is getting better and better as he ages -- and this performance is no exception. The film has a great atmosphere -- conjures up Hitchcock with a dash of Kubrick (I'm thinking of The Shining).

Based on the novel by Dennis Lehane -- on the strength of this film I wouldn't mind checking out some of his other books.

Raiding the Con Library

Have recently been exploiting my library membership at the conservatorium to the hilt, and plundering its impressive collection of books and dvds. Here is a brief summary of what I've been reading/watching:

Books

"Celebrating Bird: The Triumph of Charlie Parker", by Gary Giddins. A fairly light-weight, but nicely written, biography of the bird man from Kansas City.

"Miles: The Autobiography", by Miles Davis & Quincy Troupe. A great read and an invaluable insight into the thoughts of one of the all-time greats -- though not for those easily offended by "colourful metaphors".

"Kind Of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece", by Ashley Kahn. A bit disappointing -- didn't seem to give a lot of insight beyond what's readily available elsewhere (a lot is lifted from Miles' autobiography, for instance).

"Forward Motion", by Hal Galper. Expounds on the concept of "forward motion" as an approach to jazz improvisation and music in general. I've only scratched the surface, but there are plenty of interesting ideas.

"The Jazz Theory Book", by Mark Levine. Okay, this one was actually "borrowed" from the internet, in pdf form. Very thorough and approachable book that explains the main theoretical ideas underpinning jazz music. A great feature of this book is that it is loaded with musical examples and references to recorded versions where the examples are demonstrated. At the moment, I'm giving it a light initial read on the bus, to let the main ideas wash over me; but I'll be returning to it later, guitar in hand, to play through the examples and get a deeper understanding.

"When Giants Walked The Earth: A Biography of Led Zeppelin", by Mick Wall. Borrowed but haven't started this yet. This one has been on my "to-read" list for a while.

DVDs

"Parallel Realities Live": Pat Metheny, Jack DeJohnette, Herbie Hancock, and Dave Holland. Really enjoyed this fusion concert. Four masters at the top of their game.

"Keith Jarrett: The Art of Improvisation". The title here is slightly misleading as this is really just a documentary on Jarrett's career. He's a phenomenal musician (the Köln Concert, for example), but also a fairly eccentric character.

"The Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong". Hour-long documentary on the great Satchmo. Covers a lot of the same ground as Ken Burns' Jazz and features contributions from many of the same critics. Pretty good.

"Frank Zappa: Apostrophe & Overnite Sensation": a "making of" documentary focussing on two of Zappa's best albums. Some really interesting contributions from the likes of Steve Vai, Dweezil Zappa, and even Billy Bob Thornton. The more I see of him, the more I admire Frank Zappa as an intelligent, uncompromising creative force. But I still struggle to listen to his music for more than a couple of songs at a time.

"James Brown - The Godfather of Soul: A Portrait". Cheesy, fawning documentary that had all the hallmarks of an "authorized" biography -- I was reminded of the biographical video of Biff Tannen that plays at his casino in the alternate 1985 (and serves as a shameless explanatory device) from Back to the Future II. Would be nice to see a unified, critical documentary treatment of funk music.

"Jazz Icons: John Coltrane LIve in '60, '61& '65". Great footage of Trane in his prime, playing with The Rhythm Section (Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb). Stan Getz also appears on a couple of tracks. A lot of the content is on YouTube.

The Bamboos @ The Manning Bar (Friday, May 20)

Caught this show last Friday night. The Bamboos are an 8 piece Melbourne-based funk band, founded by Kiwi born guitarist Lance Ferguson and featuring Kylie Auldist on vocals. They were billed as "Australia's premier funk band" and based on this showing I would be hard-pressed not to concur. They had a great, energetic sound, propelled by Ferguson's driving funk guitar and an extremely tight, grooving rhythm section. I was already reasonably familiar with their stuff (having listened to their albums "Side-Stepper" and "4" several times), but they substantially exceeded my expectations.

I was also very impressed with the venue -- The Manning Bar, nestled in the heart of Sydney University's main Camperdown campus. Great sound, great ambience, cheap(ish) drinks, surrounded by plenty of nubile young uni students -- as well as more than a few fellow aging, leering also-rans. What more could you ask for?

One curiosity that I've now encountered several times in the last couple of shows I've been to: an unusually late start time. The concert was billed as starting at 8:30pm; however, on arriving it turned out to be only the first of two support acts that was kicking off at that time, while the main act weren't due on until 11:00pm. Not a big deal, but it meant that instead of reaching for a beer, I was going for a coffee -- and hoping that I'd still be awake by the time the band came on. So much for being fashionably late -- we were unfashionably, and conspicuously, early.

Miles Electric: A Different Kind of Blue (2004)

Another interesting Miles Davis documentary. This one focuses on the new direction, into the style that would become known as "fusion", that was heralded by the 1970 "Bitches Brew" and Davis' landmark performance at the Isle of Wight festival in the same year. The latter is included in its 38-minute entirety at the end of the doco, which also features some very interesting interviews with musicians involved with Miles around that time.

I found the Isle of Wight "jam" to be fascinating primarily for the feeling that you're witnessing a primordial evolutionary moment in music history. As a piece of music it is not particularly accessible (with my usual weaselly proviso: at least not to me, at this point in time). This is understandable, given that it was pushing the boundaries of what any of the musicians were familiar with, and in the process forging a whole new genre. I'm looking forward to listening again to the "Bitches Brew" album, which for some reason has escaped my attention thus far.

Meet The Fenders

1. Fender USA Deluxe Stratocaster (colour: Olympic Pearl, Maple neck); Fender Blues Junior 15W tube amp. [Also in picture are my trusty Zoom G2 multi-effects unit bought ages ago in Strasbourg, and the Boss RC20XL loop station that I bought last year.]

2. Squier (by Fender) "Affinity" Jazz Bass; Fender Rumble 15W bass amp.

Purchased from The Guitar Lounge in Sydney, which I heartily recommend for all things Fender: www.theguitarlounge.com.au

The Funky Meters @ The Metro

Went to this concert last night. The Funky Meters are the current incarnation of legendary New Orleans funk group "The Meters". They've been around forever (well, the fifties anyway) and can lay claim to having influenced almost all the funk acts that followed and therefore, indirectly, almost all popular music today.

For all that, last night's show will be primarily memorable for me as the first concert I've ever walked out on early. Did I say "concert"? Well, fair enough -- that is what the ticket said -- but it would probably be more accurate to call it a jam session. Now, a priori there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. And, despite an average age that must be north of 60, the guys still give up a mean funk groove. The trouble is, they only seemed to have the one groove: with only one or two brief pauses, the band kept up a raw, grinding -- but above all unchanging -- riff. It was perhaps analagous to hearing a finely tuned ferrari purring along -- but never getting out of first gear. Awe inspiring, but fairly soon you've heard enough.

Worth mentioning that the show was opened by local soul/funk band "The Hands" who were quite good.

Round Midnight (1986)

Interesting film based loosely on events from the lives of troubled
jazz legends Lester Young and Bud Powell. It tells the story of a
fictional saxophonist called Dale Turner (played by real-life jazz
legend Dexter Gordon) who is living in Paris and struggling with
alcohol and drug addictions. It's an interesting portrait of the ex-
pat jazz scene in Paris and features many real-life jazz stars (among
them Herbie Hancock, who also wrote the soundtrack). It is a little
slow though, and the acting isn't always first-rate (understandable
given that half the cast are musicians). Realistically, it is probably
only going to interest fans of jazz.