EASTER/ WESTER

No visit to a foreign country is ever without event or at least some excitement, especially when that country is one never visited by anyone in the band so far. Our journey to South Africa for the Cape Town Jazz Festival last week had all the anticipation and expectation of a football team heading for a big international World Cup match among quality participants, and a chance to shine at what is now one of the world’s premier jazz events. The stellar thing about this one, though, is that it is not totally dominated by US artists – even though jazz music is by birth an American adaptation of an African theme – but rather a gathering of European, American, Egyptian and other African & South African artists who gave a stunning array of sounds, cultures and accents to a jazz-themed assortment of musical wizardry.

From the Jack DeJonettes, the Joe Samples, the Jimmy Cobbs and the Randy Crawfords of the acclaimed US jazz stable, to the likes of northern Europeans Nils Landgren on ‘bone and female trumpet virtuoso Saskia Laroo with her mixing of jazz, hip hop and funk, then of course to the joyous harmonies and voices of the Mother Continent heard from Madala Kunene, a Zulu guitar master, pianist Themba Mkhize and of course Ladysmith Black Mambazo (South Africa’s ‘national treasure’ vocal group) who preceded us on the main stage last Friday, what a blast the whole thing was! Mpho Skeef and Esther Miller – two female jazz singers who are both by now well known in the UK where they live and ply their trade but both born in South Africa - added another element to the rainbow of entertainers on (and off) stage; then back again to the US-bred Tortured Soul, and Leela James, from the New York mixing bowl – Leela’s band featuring Israeli guitar genius Hanan Rubinstein just to keep the international elements stacking up. As they say in Scotland, it was ‘pure-dead-brilliant’, and you could claim we added a touch of THAT proud nationality, too!

I guess the only other jazz festival with such a world content nowadays would be Montreux, the Swiss establishment that Claud Nobs has been growing continuously since the late sixties, and it beggars belief that there is nowhere in the USA – the cradle of Jazz – that has anything to compare in size and diversity. Shouldn’t questions be asked in Congress or something, or does jazz now have all the importance that was bestowed on its birthplace New Orleans in its hour of need and indeed ever since? After all, Jazz is the true voice of America – the goodwill ambassador to the world, if you will, from a country that truly needs all the help it can get in restoring its light of affection around the globe where so many billions of people now rightly or wrongly mistrust its motives thanks to the abysmal forays of its current presidency into the cauldrons of anti-diplomacy, confrontation and global cultural ignorance or non-recognition.

Perhaps it’s time for a New Note, or just a blue note to once again be ‘The Voice’.

Mind you, if some enterprising soul in the mould of a George Wein (founder of the Newport Jazz Festival back in the sixties) were to pioneer such an extravaganza of musical colour, he would probably find that half the invitees from other continents would be inadmissible to continental US shores by today’s haphazard, scattershot and paranoid guidelines in the INS’s “who’s welcome” playbook, since there would be numerous unconventional and cross- cultural entities to deal with whose backgrounds would likely give them the collywobbles - even if they could pronounce half their names; tough when our ‘grand poobah’ can’t even say ‘nuclear’, isn’t it?

Nevertheless, it’s good to be back in the States again (a reminder of a ‘Forever More’ song for those few of you who remember me & McIntyre’s experimental cross-country rubber band of the late 60s which preceded AWB), and we are all looking forward to a less time-consuming travel schedule than that which we’ve just been through. In the upcoming dates around the northeast quadrant throughout April and beginning of May, a four-hour journey will seem like child’s play after our continental drift across the equator and back – time for just one movie per journey, instead of trying to pack half the Netflix catalog in our bags to fuel the hours of tedium involved in execution of that marathon. I think the realization of the absurdity of such a long journey came at about 5am in Senegal, West Africa when the pilot came on after our refueling stop and said that takeoff would have to be delayed until they could get an ox off the runway! Phil, our soundman said the same thing happened last year, so we are convinced they prod this poor animal with a stick onto the runway every night just to get even with the Western World for a few minutes, and remind us where mankind originated even though he couldn’t fly then; except in spirit and soul – two things that escape all but a few of our financially-empowered gurus of today.

It may even be that same ox from the cave paintings of Mali and Namibia, the bastard!

Talking of paintings, I had a very little time to explore the national art of southern Africa being that we were there over a weekend and they do treasure their closed-shop hours from noon on Saturday until Monday morning the way it used to be in Britain in the fifties and early sixties, and no doubt through all of the Commonwealth countries. A healthy eschewal of commercialism over quality of life and leisure. Consequently, I kept bumping into ‘frame-shops’. As an erstwhile painter, I find myself in endless frame-shops and from time to time see incredibly overlooked bits of great art that have been left in these ‘service’ emporia when the artist can’t afford the framing bill and leaves the artwork behind as a deposit till the pickup can be paid for with a sale assured. I am constantly castigated for my inability or, rather, desire to market my paintings, having such an advantage as I do, when extremely talented and dedicated artists find it hard to find any outlet for their life work; Jacques Pepin, the renowned chef/teacher says “cooking can be fun, but it is serious - My métier is cooking and I paint when the mood takes me – I am a much better cook than I am a painter”. I totally understand and agree as a musician, but painting nonetheless provides another avenue of inspiration that inevitably leads to fresher musical ideas than does a one-dimensional lifestyle – even though the cave-paintings were inevitably, or rather visibly, one dimensional, they portrayed an entire visual representation of their life, their needs, their ‘gods’ (most of them animals), and their prowess over the beasts that either outran them or (when caught) fed them. I think it’s fair to say that if they couldn’t catch them, they themselves became the prey – one thing I no longer think we here today have to worry about, unless we walk around in an “Animal Farm” of our own making.

Returning to America means returning to cheese. I’d forgotten how everything you order in the States comes with cheese just about, unless you remember to ask in advance to have it held in abeyance. I have to say – and this is just my theory – that it must have something to do with the trouser width / bum sizes immediately noticeable in the street. The last two evenings I’ve gone to eat dinner and I had totally forgotten this cheese thing until a perfectly good burger, with perfectly fine meat, and perfectly cooked had a slice of USDAiry plastic welded to it without my asking. It couldn’t be removed as it was also soldered to the bun above and after the first bite it then clung to my top palette, thus ruining the joyous experience of the national dish at its best, unsullied and unadorned with cheeseandpickleand lettuceandmayo. I then had to reorder from a by-now huffed waiter and had to wait until my dining compadres were almost done before a replacement arrived, THIS time with half-done fries, obviously of the frozen variety. Then yesterday I had some delightful, fresh seafood on pasta, and again it was a struggle to fight off the cheese-waving waiter who no doubt would have camouflaged the entire dish in a flurry of grated dairy, so that it could hide inconspicuously by a desert roadside in Nevada while Blackhawk helicopters and F-15s flew vainly overhead in their search for the deadly ‘Seafood Special’ that threatens national security. Anyway, the reaction to both my eating experiences was somewhere between being shunned or sent to Guantanamo for treasonous behaviour. And don’t get me started about the breakfast roll; bacon & egg is enough of an artery-stopper WITHOUT THE CHEESE!

Which in turn brings me to another bloody eating season, and all in the name of religion. Yes, it’s Passover / Easter and whatever the other lots find as an excuse for a bout of gorging. Wasn’t it just Hannuka/Christmas/Kwanzaa etc. and we were all waddling about like stuffed animals? We had a few lovely meals in South Africa, and the portions were – well – British size, which is to say they were ample but not daunting. There really is a national conspiracy here in the US to overfill everyone, and it must be the root cause of so much of the illnesses, allergies, and other maladies real or imagined that keep the pharmaceutical companies in a close tie with the petroleum industry for No. 1 necessity in the Western World. I think the ‘all-you-can-eat’ sign should be summarily banned, just as Britain is now doing with ‘Happy-Hour’ (it is the biggest culprit in binge-drinking), and platters really should be cut down in size so the emphasis is on quality rather than quantity. But driving around the Tri-State area, watching people graze and snack wherever they are or whatever they’re doing, I would forward my personal theory that the real religion in the USA is eating, and the common god, to all, is FOOD. Perhaps the Lord’s Prayer should begin, “our father who art in kitchen……”

Right, I’d better stop before I become the target of a US-led coalition of religious gluttons and cheese farmers, and am deported for anti–obesity sedition and causing culinary unrest. I’m looking forward to the upcoming gigs with some new tunes under our (unstretched) belts, a chance to keep our wheels on the ground and, apart from the Florida festival next week, leave out the flying and the airports for a while. I am tired of buying new guitar cases as the TSA seems to have it in for us musicians, and take great pains to punish our instruments and their protective covering at every turn. Meanwhile, upstairs, we are being searched for “meats, fruits and CHEESES” – I kid you not - and the possibility that any of us are carrying $10,000 in cash. I keep no cheese in my shoes, and if I had that kind of money to carry around, I wouldn’t be playing gigs for a living – I’d be in the oil or pharmaceutical business, or be a cheese conglomerate, supplying Wallace & Gromit and an insatiable nation with its fix.

Meanwhile, whet your musical appetites – a feast is a-comin’, and happy whatever you celebrate this week with your favourite cheeses. Watch out for the holes!

AG

JANUARY SAILS

Welcome to the wonderful world of the year 2003. This is a year of unprecedented promise, of rare prescience, and of

a likely pretty ugly war, too. Many will triumph this year and even more will prosper. Trouble is many will triumph and prosper at the expense of others’ demise; but luckily these irksome victims and statistics are but a necessary hiccup in the grand scheme to rid the world of anyone we don’t like a lot at any given moment. For the rest of us, this will be a year of avoidance, a year of shrugging, of wavering, of tutting and toeing the line complacently and docilely. Speech is no longer free of course and will come to be taxed at an even higher rate as things develop, I’m sure, but for the moment I await my hoped-for rebate and continue typing unabashed and unashamed of my vulnerable position in the debate. Do we smell burning martyr?

It occurs to me on a daily basis that we’re without John Lennon when we most need him. It’s hard to find a strong voice for peace and reason anymore, although it was mildly reassuring to see a few thousand Americans join the world march-for-peace day a couple of weeks ago, and to introduce the notion to their youth that this demonstration, hitherto unneeded in their life so far, is now a vital presence to show the Jolly Rancher and his gang that they will not all toady to warmongering. All you are saying, I believe, is give peace a chance. (such a simple but timeless message, John)

As you know, it always falls to artists and musicians to be activists and protesters, or at least to illustrate the idiosyncrasies of the world we live in and to point out to our deaf and blind leaders that there is another point of view and another way to proceed. We’re living in a time of “hardball” where aggression is to be admired, and in-your-face is the place! Anything else is regarded as wimpy, liberal, lily-livered, socially inept and politically naïve. I dunno where it all went horribly wrong, but I can reliably tell you that a great many of those who espouse this manic push for intolerance and warlike zeal are driven by an incredible amount of self-interest and determination to wipe out free speech unless it trumpets their own agenda and makes their pals rich as hell. Think about that the next time you are tempted to shout “Bomb the Motherpluckers ...whoever they are”

All we are saying...

And now for something completely different:

I’d like to pass on a wonderful joke from Scotland that will appeal to all who like their humour on the scatological side, and who appreciate the great fun to be found in all matters relating to the human condition of breaking wind.

A married couple are lying in bed when the husband lets rip the most staggering thunderous fart. “What in the world was that all about?” asks the incredulous wife. “Fart Football” replies the husband, “and I just scored the first goal. One-nil to me” The wife considers for a minute, then she, too rolls over and lets fly with her own effort. “One-all” she says smugly. Well it wasn’t long before the inevitable second goal came from the husband, and another stunning equalizer from the wife, but I doubt any of us expected her to pull out number three with such gusto and élan. “Three-two to ME,” she cries. Now the husband is really pissed off and in an attempt to redeem himself tries as hard as he can for an answer, but only succeeds in shitting the bed, at which point he gets up and stomps round to his wife’s side.

“What’s going on, John” she says, noting the sudden change in his demeanour.

“Half time” says the husband – “Change sides”

For those of you who might find such stuff a tad on the ‘rich’ side, I would suggest you are probably reading the wrong web page, and certainly following the wrong band for starters. All of the prose I have dished up in the past on this page has been but a thin cultural veneer hiding a steaming vein of filth running below. Though with what’s available on the web nowadays and with the variety of so-called respectable people who are nabbed for nefarious internet ‘fouls’, I should think you’re all pretty much unshockable by now. It’s getting difficult to open up e-mail these days without first having to sift through innumerable offers for something rhyming with “Niagara” and its immediate availability by the truckload, or to download “Filthy Farm Sluts frolicking with fulsome foals & frothing Friars” – not to mention Naughty nuns and their Hot habits - part two.

I actually feel a bit sorry for old Pete Townshend, however, and am willing to believe (until proven otherwise) that he is a wee bit unlucky in that a) none of the supposedly high-ranking police or members of parliament who were arrested were named, b) he was researching a book for some time and had probable justification for investigating a facet of his abused past that is today flagrantly flaunted at all of us, and c) he had tried to tell the authorities about this ahead of the ‘roundup’ where he became the poster boy for the whole sting. I have absolutely no sympathy for any of these cretins who were repeat users of this website – I was solicited once by an e-mail that said “this can be OUR little secret” and when clicked on, there was a drawing of a child, and a banner that said “Father-Daughter Love” I tell you that my blood ran cold, and I couldn’t shut the thing down fast enough – I was trembling and felt assaulted and violated and, though I knew it was deleted, trashed - GONE, somehow I kept expecting it to reappear as if it had polluted my computer and was lurking in there waiting to shock and degrade me at some unexpected moment. Now I realize that all it would have taken for my identity to have joined the FBI’s list of scoundrels would have been to go one more step into the abyss - to log on - as Brother Pete seems to have done. I hope to Hell he’s innocent.

These days, it’s BBC world Service news, football results (fart and otherwise), new cars to drool over and the odd Daily Telegraph crossword that keeps me amused for the little time that I ever get to spend online and onscreen.

I can see how many become addicted to the box, however, and I’m sure that most of you who read this claptrap are already spending waaaay too much time on the internet when there are cathedrals to be demolished, rivers to be drained, mountains to be levelled and trees to be felled for more newspapers to provide advertising space for the multi-national corporate megaliths who need to pry us free from what little is left of our money now that the tide has turned in favour of bare-faced theft and licensed larceny at the highest level. Benevolent capitalism my arse!

Christmas and New Year holidays were good, though, and I hope many of you had as relaxed and refreshing a time as I did this year; I escaped the blitz of commercialism and conscience-twisting that goes along with the Northern

Hemisphere holiday psyche, and ran away to a desert island where I checked the news about once a week just to make sure civilization was still intact and that nobody had yet started firing shots at Iraq / North Korea / Zimbabwe / and/or enter the name of your favored foe here. It was blissful to be able to ignore the hurly-burly of the Messiah’s birthday celebrations, and instead concentrate on the construction of the perfect rum punch, learning how to correctly open a coconut, and knowing how to discern the difference between a barracuda and a needle-fish, so that at the sight of the latter I’m no longer shooting out of the water like a popped champagne cork and landing all over the surface like a madwoman’s shit. I was able to develop a bit of serenity (if not sobriety - these tropical types are not shrinking violets, after all) and for someone who logs more miles in a year than some flight crews and many truck-drivers, it is very cool to be constrained to a bit of land a few miles long and only a couple wide. Well, two and a half if the tide’s out. I saw a wonderful T-shirt down there that I think summed up their attitude to the season: it said “My Liver has been BAD – it must be PUNISHED”, and another, a replica of the shirt worn by agents of the D.E.A. In tiny letters underneath the initials it had

drunk every afternoon

But back to reality I had to come, and to withering cold and things called driving-conditions and wind-chill and

minus degrees of the kind to try the will of the most intrepid arctic explorer. There is work to be done here in the cradle of AWB, and an album to finish now that we have our vocal first mate Klyde Jones on the ship’s bridge; some pretty handy tunes are coming together as I write, and we finally seem to have the time, the space, the will, the songs, and if someone will just give us loads of money ...

Seriously, though, this is our current mission, and apart from a few select dates in February we will keep our shoulders to the pump until this is complete. I was checking racks of CDs the other day in Barnes N’ Borders or some such, and I couldn’t help but notice how irrelevant cover-art seems to be nowadays – not that there’s much space on one of these four-inch squares to begin with. However it does appear that it has little to do with the selling point of records in the modern domain, when you consider the agonizing, double-guessing, debating and redesigning that used to be part of the LP cover process, and without which you couldn’t hope to attract anyone into buying your newest offering. Now, it might as well be a silhouette of the group, some surreal symbol or ‘swoosh’ or, if a solo artist, then a photo that would give Helmut Newton, Richard Avedon or David Bailey indigestion, and would certainly have Herb Ritts turning in his grave. There certainly seems to be a vogue for what I term ‘amateur-chic’ as a design ethic, or maybe it’s just cheaper and easier not to give a shit since all the standards have slipped anyway, and let’s face it, you’re dead lucky if there’s more than one or two good tracks on a CD in the first place. So we will buck the trend, be our anachronistic selves, and we will TRY to come up with the old-fashioned goods inside and out for your delight and

delicacy.

We might fail, but we will TRY!

I will leave you temporarily with the above brief news and views update, and will go and secure my fifth layer of clothing before venturing into the arctic wastes near New York. My people are hungry and I must try to hunt a wooly mammoth or sabre-toothed attorney for dinner, or there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth. There always is anyway – it’s what Fred does best!

Apologies to all who clamored for and were disappointed by lack of a Season’s Greeting on this page before Christmas, but I literally just had time to finish our last gig, fly back to base, quickly dig out a pair of sandals and a loin-cloth, and head back to the airport in the middle of the night for the ‘Desert-Island Special’ at dawn the next morning. I was however pained by my negligence; but my conscience cleared around the time they had brought me my second Bloody Mary, you’ll be relieved to know.

As for the perfect rum punch – one generous slice of lime, fresh from the tree if possible, some crushed ice, a jigger of Pusser’s rum (Mount Gay if unavailable), the juice of a fresh orange, and a good dash of sweet cranberry juice to top off. Shake or stir minimally, find a nearby sunset, and enjoy. Can be taken more than once a day without too much trouble, and should be! Happy New Year.

A.G.