Tahoe Snow

Have to notify you all that we were unable to get to Lake Tahoe for tonight's concert at the South Shore Room, Harrah's, due to massive snowfalls overnight in the passes leading to the region

from the south Bay Area. Please stay home, stay warm, and don't attempt to get there unless you're prepared to spend many, many hours in stopped traffic, have chains for your vehicle, and are hell- bent on skiing/skateboarding, and you DON'T plan to get out of there until next week!

Meanwhile, we will re-schedule this date for a more clement weather period next year, and look forward to that. I hope you're not too disappointed, and that you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

We had to find a little light relief at the prospect of being stuck for days in one of the high passes, and that our Thanksgiving dinner call would be "The Donner Party of eight - your table's ready."

Meanwhile, we're sorry to have to miss this much-anticipated gig, and we thank the folks at Harrah's for their understanding. This unexpected winter storm took us all by surprise.

Alan Gorrie, sat Nov. 20, 2010

GOODNIGHT, LONDON

Following on from my recent exhortations to snap up the remaining tickets for the Ronnie Scott’s week, it appears you took heed and promptly did same, giving us an unqualified success and sold-out shows every night of what turned out to be a magic week in Soho. From what I could see and hear around me, the reaction was palpable and genuinely appreciative, and the comments relayed to us by staff and other in-house functionaries seemed to be glowing and generous, to say the least.

The band had a blast, and most of the sets exceeded our projected energy level – in no small part to the instant feedback of yourselves out there in the house – and our ability to reign in our normal concert show to such an intimate space without noticeable compromise musically or sonically was more than gratifying for us, too. It’s always rather daunting to gamble that our kind of noise will translate to a venue as venerable, and therefore as under-the-microscope as that, given our audience’s demanding nature. Our fellow musicians (and sometime critics) and the club itself must measure us against the legends that have graced that hallowed stage. It seems our fears were unfounded, but we weren’t half on a bit of ‘edge’ to begin with, until we settled in to the vibe of the place and the routine of rehearsals and nightly showtimes to hone our knives to surgical keenness for the upcoming rigours of the weekend’s double-show nights.

There were a few lighthearted moments, too; on Friday’s first show, we heard repeated squawks from a table off to the right, as a besotted (and well-lubricated) fan tried gallantly, but vainly, to interject garbled outburst of lyrics to Let’s Go Round Again between much of our set – rather like one of those motorway service station rubber toys that you can wind up & shake, and out comes a strangled Elton, Elvis or Frosty The Snowman. It gave us, and a few in the house a spot of light relief from our otherwise determined and deeply-committed set, but culminated in her getting on stage, grabbing Onnie’s mic., and proceeding to launch into a moment of spontaneous karaoke on said song. Fred, our ever-coiled ‘mossad’ security-saxophonist, leapt across, took the microphone away, and gently eased her exit from stage right with an implored, “Not now, MUM”, to the audience which gave a potentially difficult moment a light touch while we regrouped to perform the much-desired piece itself.

A standout memory from Wednesday night was the welcome reunion with old friend Jim Mullen who sat in for the end of the set with us, and played some spine-tingling guitar on Put It Where You Want It. Jim and I first met at the Blue Workshop, a mid-sixties ad hoc fortnightly jazz & blues gathering in my hometown of Perth (along with Molly Duncan & Roger Ball – later to become our ‘Dundee Horns’ – and a fledgling Robbie McIntosh, original lynchpin to the very idea of what became AWB), which saw us all delve into hitherto untried combinations of young and uninhibited ensembles, and an anything-goes approach to stuff that was mainly and patently way above our heads, but which resonated in our souls and gave us the necessary moxie to flee the coop for London one-by-one, and end up with lasting alliances and the ensuing kudos that has provided us all with a blessed existence at the heart of our, then, dreamed-of future.

Thanks again, Jim, for another magic moment for the annals, and for an obviously-thrilled house that went away with an extra story to tell. That’s what Ronnie’s is all about, as I said in my prior piece, and long may it continue to be so. Our thanks to the staff who worked their collective ass off throughout the week, ferrying vast oceans of expensive refreshments to packed houses without ever seeming to get in our sight-line or in our ‘zone’ during the quieter moments of the set. I think the exuberance of the somewhat-gruelling week physically (and mentally) for us was best defused in a moment of farce as we departed the club doorway for the final time at about 3am on Sunday morning, as a posse of Soho’s Finest beat cops were preparing to split up and end their weekend’s street vigil and patrol, right beside us. Their brisk move off coincided with young McIntyre bumbling down the steps to the pavement on his club exodus, his gig-clothes hanging-bag over his arm, whereupon one of the protruding coat hangers snagged the belt clip of one of the members of the constabulary as he strode off, trailing Onnie with him until the pair of them seemed to engage in a mutually-shocked surreal tango in mid Frith Street as each tried to extricate the other from their highly-unconventional entwinement. Had we all stopped howling with laughter, we might have considered the possible consequence of what must have seemed to the officer-in-question a likely attack on his personage, with who-knows-what results. Fortunately it provided a brilliant footnote to an extraordinary week of music and fun, and the ability for us to put to rest a sense that this had been a big missing piece in squaring the AWB circle back to where it all began for us – just two streets away, at the Marquee, in 1973.

As the lady would say in the Greek caff round the corner, “it was luvalee week, dahlin’, dunnit?”

Alan Gorrie, Sep.16, 2010

LONDON CALLING

We are coming back to London, this time to the original home of world-class jazz and blues in the capital, Ronnie Scott’s, for our Soho debut. We’re booked to play the week of September 6 through 11 this summer, and the band is full of expectations and anticipation for the visit. The only previous (and unpaid) time we were on that famous stage was at a record-company do for the press launch of “Show Your Hand” in 1973, and all I can remember is a bloody hangover that lasted a week. This time, however, the gig will last a week - we will be more abstemious.

We’ve always eagerly looked forward to our many Jazz Café sojourns over the years, but there is an extra frisson of excitement to this particular pilgrimage, as it will complete a missing piece of the AWB jigsaw puzzle. Because it’s Ronnie’s, everyone is buzzing about how we can best perform as much of our musical history as possible in that week – everything we collectively love from the not-inconsiderable catalogue of hits (and misses - some of those are the best), and in which context to play them. We’re also hoping some of our muzo pals will join us through the week for spontaneous combustions and surprise guest appearances if they’re in town.

When we were mere musical ingénues and apprentices in the late Sixties and then early-Seventies London, if there was a spare fiver in the pocket, we would go to Ronnie’s to hear an Elvin Jones, Art Blakey, McCoy Tyner, a Return to Forever or even a ribald late set with “The Melly” – all for a quid with an M.U. membership – and still have the means to order a ‘Spag Bog’ for that night’s meal (and probably the next day’s too; these were tough times). Of course there was Ronnie Scott himself, along with Tubby Hayes, Pete King, the other Ronnie (Ross), Bill LeSage, Harold McNair, Alan Skidmore, all of whom on a good night could hold their own against any NY squad – recordings prove my point – and of course, Ronnie’s pithy and witty delivery introducing his peerless performers was some of the best stand-up in town. A shrine to an everlasting and continuing musical legacy, of which we’re proud to now be a part, set as it is against today’s backdrop of machine-driven and loony-looped ‘music-products’, where the pitch-rider is far more important than the pitcher.

Dinosaurs we may seem to be to some (who obviously don’t get about enough), but take a trip to BB Kings in NY City, The Birchmere in DC, or The Greek Theatre in L.A., and see what the music does to a hardened and consummately-educated ethnic audience and you will realize that this shit is timeless, irrespective of the newer names in our lineup or the ages of its protagonists (I seem to remember Blakey’s Jazz Messengers had an ever-changing name-call too, to their constant benefit). We can’t wait to stir the porridge and lay down some grooves in a few weeks. This should be an historic, and not-unemotional week for a band that flew in the face of dire warnings back in ‘72/’73 that it “couldn’t be done”. Once again, we will bloody-well do it.

If all of this reeks of hyperbole, then wear a mask and read on. I am not kidding when I say that this is undoubtedly the most committed and spirited version of AWB since the blood-rush of the original days, and that special six who took it past the winning-post first time around. A warning, though: there won’t be any tickets left after your hols. (in fact, as I write, only Mon – Wed. have many real seat choices left, and a mere sprinkling at the weekend), so get your dibs in now. It’s our sole UK event for this year, so please don’t miss a somewhat special premiere at Ronnie’s. See you all in Frith Street, Sep. 6,7,8,9 (one show each night) Sep.10, 11 (two shows each).

A.G.

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

ANOTHER YEAR

Salutations, soul fans, and welcome to another year – the 35th in the career of AWB – and hopefully one that will wear a little easier on the tread than 2006. We seemed to be out there most of the year and the travel bag never got unpacked once; just a change of nightie to allow for climate differentials according to our next ports-of-call as they came at us thick and fast like bagels out of a dodgy toaster. Mustn’t grumble though – it’s good to be able to enjoy your collective company as much as we do, especially at this stage of the game when a lot of our contemporaries would give their top strings to have our kind of date-sheet.

Now, without dwelling on the morbid, I want to make mention of some fine people who have meant a great deal to us, who died in 2006, and left us all the poorer by their absence. Most notably, Arif Mardin – our producer, mentor and dear friend who passed away in September. It’s some irony that, at Arif’s birthday party back in March, both Peter Boyle and Ahmet Ertegun were present; now they, too, are gone and we will miss Ahmet’s earthy growl. Always the face of the Atlantic Records we knew and loved – along with Jerry Wexler, of course, who signed us to the label back in ’74 – Ahmet, brother Nesuhi, Tunc Erim and Arif were the Turkish ‘mafia’ here in New York and took every opportunity to challenge us Scots when ‘the shots’ were down, and we found a great collective kindred spirit among them and their families that sustained us in our first years of self-imposed exile in the USA.

Of course, you all know about Wilson Pickett, Billy Preston, Ruth Brown and the one, the only JAMES Brown; finally Robbie Mac. will get a chance to play with him on the nightshift – the only gig he would rather have done than be with ‘his boys’, AWB - and the guiding template for our groove from day one. Seemed he would forever Stay on the Scene – Like a Sex Machine. Alas, not.

Which brings me to where’s it all going; I still find it hard to believe that Tower records is no more, and idly wonder just how long the CD will even be around when the places to actually browse and buy are drying up. I know the argument is, “well, just go on line and get it”, but to me there’s something fundamentally wrong with sitting for hours in front of a monitor, gaining weight, diminishing sight, and atrophying everything else while blagging for music - might as well just download it, live with the squashed (MP3) quality, forget artwork & package and give it all the magic of a soft parcel from Granny, no more, no less. I hope I don’t sound dinosaurian when I say that rooting around for hot, new records used to have a certain frisson of adventure and excitement to it, but it did, and if Goody didn’t, then The Wiz might, Tower/Virgin/HMV SURELY would, and could I be the first to brandish it in front of pals and impress the gals? It all now seems so very ‘ho-hum’ as music is released before it’s really ‘released’, and you can snatch anything anytime from anywhere, if you’ve a mind to sit vegetating in front of the primal screen. It’s even got so bad that police no longer turn over your house any more in the dawn raid – they just take away your computer, since that’s where 90% of your 21st Century life will be found….wanting!

So, 2006 saw a shift of power in America, with GWB now having to make nice noises for the first time in his tenure (how uneasy that must sit with him of all people), not to mention Darth Cheney who appears to have retreated to the undisclosed location he occupied right after 911. Perhaps they’ll find him just like Saddam – beard an’ all – muttering about the apostles, Halliburton, Kellogg Brown and Root while brandishing an unloaded skeet rifle in all directions. Mind you, Tony Blair’s still sniffing around Georgie-boy like a horny cousin that needs shagged from time to time, and will go along with just about anything that’ll keep his grinning head above water. He, too, could sink his party in the UK this year with the same warhead that did for the old gang in the USA. AND, while I’m on the body-politick in some form or other, I would like to mention to you all that there is a big new push to pass legislation in Washington DC that would allow the giant media companies to own everything – TV stations, newspapers, radio, film studios, internet and outernet and for all we know your local PTA newsletter. You may recall that Michael Powell (son of Colin), then head of the FCC, tried to ram it through two years ago. Needless to say those of us who live or die via broadcasting and media activities fought hard and won that skirmish by a slim margin. Well, they’re at it again and to be brief it would mean the virtual end of independent news, radio or TV, and basically a WalMart-ization of the media. That leads only one place, the monopoly and total manipulation of news and views across the country. If you live in The States, and if you value local broadcast freedom, please, PLEASE call or write to your congressman immediately – the vote is on the 16th of Jan, next Tuesday. If you don’t know how, log on to MoveOn.org and they will tell you whom to contact. It’s easy, and we all of us thank you in advance.

Before I go, there’s a milestone I ought to mention. As of May this year, Onnie and myself will have completed a forty-year partnership which started in ’67 in London with the Scots Of St. James, a resident group at the famous club of like name (The Scotch), and where Beatles, Byrds, Animals and other rare species hung out after dark and gave us our first up-close glimpse of real stardom and celebrity when Paris was a city, and Hilton a hotel. Back then it was “I’m a Rock Star – Keep me IN here”. We then set off for Germany, Sgt. Pepper was Man of the Year, the world was our proverbial clam, and it’s fair to say we’ve never looked back except to marvel at our bloody good luck and the great friends that helped us along. A toast to all of those here and gone, and a very prosperous New Year to the lot of you. See you onstage!

A.G.