Emotional training for next spring’s long races has begun in earnest, with last night’s concert by an avant garde Norwegian jazz trio in Basingstoke.
Long before the end I was losing the will to go on, but knew I had somehow to dig deep, drawing on resources I didn’t know existed within, to see me through to the end. Bursting through the doors at the end, gulping lungfuls of fresh, rainwashed Hampshire air, was as big a relief, surely, as tottering over any marathon finish line.
Has to be reported that my wife reacted differently, gushing to Tord Gustavsen after the show, as he was signing her newly-purchased CDs, that she was “floating in heaven”. I’ve never known her to be so poetic beyond the embrace of her husband.
OK, I admit it — I’m being less than fair about the band. They were pretty good. In fact, they were probably outstandingly good. I’m just not that skilled at hearing this sort of stuff for the first time. Once I’ve survived a few renditions of the CDs, I’ll probably admit to actually quite liking it.
I’m ambivalent to jazz. It used to leave me cold, but with a wife who’s so keen, I’ve had to learn to live with it, and I even enjoy it sometimes.
I remember waking up at 4 o’clock one morning and, unable to get back to sleep, idly switching the radio on and catching a bit of mesmerising John Surman (pictured) for the first time. Perhaps helped by the liberating sense that I’d ‘discovered’ him before M, I sort of adopted John Surman as my own. From that day, I started collecting the odd CD and broadcast whenever I could.
Surman’s music slows down the whirling of the planet. His music creates time. I recommend him to anyone who has to think for a living. I quite often plug myself into his dreamy, minimalistic saxophone when seeking calm in the middle of a noisy office.
But hark, a C#m7+2+4+6 [fortissimo] to finish up on…… it’s still a mystery to me why jazz musicians always look like… like the way that jazz musicians always look.
As for training of the more physical kind, there’s not much to report. I can still feel an ache in my heel, and perhaps because I’ve been protecting it, and walking in a slightly different way, I now have a remote pain creeping up my right calf too. Maybe it’s OK. Maybe I should go out for a gentle jog and see where I end up.
What else? Ah yes, good response from an American in a bar when asked what he thought of ‘Princess’ Camilla. “Man, if I had his money I’d be looking for a hotter gal than that.” (As reported in the Guardian.)
I like a bit of straight-talking, as long as I’m not the subject of it. It’s rarely flattering. It’s also best that I’m not the one doing it, as I’m usually made to regret it. The more sagacious Americans say: “You get more with honey than vinegar”. It’s a trivial piece of wisdom, but one I should embrace more closely.
You gorgeous people.
