,

VOICE TO THE BLACKBIRD + bits and pieces

I have mentioned Lennon´s social commentary and xxx reminded us of Lennon´s far more obvious protest call for a Revolution, which I felt at the time was a Dylanesque call for Mankind to rewind to the beginning and to start again. I suppose tht at the time, as nowt but a child, I had vague notions that Paul´s song was a summoning of the spirit, but I interpreted everything on those days as proclamations of love. I took the song as being about a girl who had left her lover, and that lover´s realisation that she had wanted 7 needed her freedom.
,

THE FIFTY BEST OF JAZZ before the fifty best of jazz

The Dead Sea Scroll of jazz piano. (Literally a scroll; a generation of pianists learned the song from its player-piano roll.) Johnson’s performance of his self-composed rag codified the Harlem “stride” flavor of syncopation, ornamentation, and improvisation. It inspired Duke Ellington, Bud Powell, and Jaki Byard; in the likes of Jason Moran and Christian Sands, its spirit lives on today
, , ,

YANKEE DOODLE WENT TO TOWN

There are reasons I remember and treasure the song, so well, though and those reasons include a black and white (I´m sure) American movie and one of my favourite movies stars, who to add to all this confusion, apparently never actually said on screen the phrased he became indelibly associated with of  ´ýou, you dirty rat´ whilst pointing a gun at someone.
, ,

TRIP WITH TEGUEY around the towns and villages of Lanzarote

With the twenty one males of Teguey all dressed in cream trousers and white shirts, Ruyman in a fabulous green dress and Jose Manuel dressed similarly to the band, it was nevertheless the old fashioned multi-layered swirling skirts of the female dancers that really took the eye. Although I am never likely to be asked to replace Craig on the judge´s panel of Strictly, even I could detect the elegance and the grace these couples brought to what seemed to be traditional celebratory dance.
,

YUSAN JAZZ ENSEMBLE &  Avishai Cohen Ensemble

The set by Yusan was a pulsating hour of music that didn´t sound pieced together or ´fused´ in any way. Instead it ebbed and flowed and easily accommodated all the styles and influence these incrfedible musicians have brought to this ensemble.
, ,

ELVIS THE MOVIE IS HERE

Dee had been impressed by the actors and characters of the black female singers in Elvis: The Movie , who were new names to her other than by reading them from her studies of Aretha Franklin. She had fully enjoyed Elvis; The Movie, though, Then, more or less simultaneously, we both said, ´So often, we only know half the story, don´t we´?
,

LANZAROTE FOLK SET FINE EXAMPLE

I think Cintia is right to speak of her work connecting with the´feeling of our people:¨ I would go further, though, and suggest that her works offer any tourist who can find the ´time to stand and stare´ might come to understand a little more of Lanzarote and Canary Island tradition and what life was like for previous gnerations here, before the planes brought the visitors here. Cintia´s installations speak of the dignity of the men who caught food out on an often volatile ocean, and she captures the quietude of the working men who wrote poetry too. and the competetiveness of the children who had to make their own sport and games on Lanzarote.
,

I spy JOSEPHINE BAKER, a musician on a  special mission

Drawing on a plethora of new historical material and rigorous research, including previously undisclosed letters and journals, Lewis upends the conventional story of Josephine Baker, explaining why she fully deserves her unique place in the French Panthéon. 
,

WOODY´S EDUCATION CENTRE LEGACY& Phil Ochs´ Fellowship

The Woody Guthrie prize has been awarded over the past few years to luminaries like Springsteen, Joan Baez, (left) . John Mellencamp, Kris Kristofferson, Mavis Staples and Pete Seeger. “We hope that the Woody Guthrie Prize will shed an inspirational light on those who have decided to use their talents for the common good rather than for personal gain,” says Woody Guthrie’s daughter Nora. “With his dry wit, Woody always preferred to call himself a ‘commonist.’ His quote from John Steinbeck’s character, Tom Joad, says it pretty simply: ‘Wherever children are hungry and cry, wherever people ain’t free, wherever men are fightin’ for their rights, that’s where I’m gonna be.’

Rochdale And Lanzarote, similar in shape, size, and style !

The kind of joined up, grown up interactions between enterprises such as English Folk Expo (represented by Tom Besford) and  dedicated media services such as all across the arts (as represented by Steve Cook) my own sites here at Sidetracks And Detours and Lanzarote Information, Steve Bewick at Hot Biscuits and Larry Yaskiel, who so willingly shares opportunities with his readers at Lancelot, can surely deliver the strong support network that will enable artists to focus on their creativity,….to the benefit of all of us and society in general. In fact, Mr. Cooke treads heavy footprints all across the arts for the rest of us to follow. He is a prime example of how effective networking saves time, cost and energy, and a look at his current all across the arts round up in the glossy Style magazine(a newish venture, this dor Steve) will help he and and Ruth (who has taken over the editorship of the magazine from her father Colin Meredith) deliver news ever more widely.