12 gigs a week.

That’s Jazz Man !

 

Monday and I’m back in the world of jazz. Feeling fairly tired but still in the game. Hmmm.

I was having a sneaky look around The Red Lion – no more pterodactyls, although I did notice that the area I don’t go to has been kitted out to look like a typical lounge room of the 1950’s, which is just as puzzling. Or maybe it’s always been like that.

Photos to follow.

Monday turned out to be ‘Stan Sulzman’ day; he’s a larger than life saxophonist, in every way.

 

As the evening panned out it was obvious I really wasn’t match fit – if there was a theme it was a fairly mellow one, with a spiky tinge to it. Which probably described my state of mind too. I need to snap out of it.

Henry Lowther on trumpet and Flugel horn was as good as ever, Dave Green very expressive on Bass. Jeff Castle is new to me on keyboards, a last minute replacement for Ross Stanley, stuck in Southport.

A likely story. I was listening to Radio London a month or two back – Mel Tormé’s son was in the studio doing a session- he was accompanied by Ross Stanley who he described as the busiest jazz pianist in town. “12 gigs a week”. Trevor Tomkins was doing some  fine drumming but for me;

Stan’s the man

Meanwhile this Blog is approaching 7000 hits and my competition is going nowhere. I’ve had one suggestion – Gustav Metzger. Well, for a start the answer is a particular work of art as well as the artists name and in any event it isn’t Metzger.

He’s a very interesting artist though, in the 1950’s and 1960’s he was teaching in West London as well as doing his own art. He would destroy things – sometimes quickly and sometimes slowly. It became known as ‘auto-destruction’ and can be a fascinating mixture of performance art and sculpture, so the answer wasn’t so far out.

One person very much influenced by Metzger was a young Pete Townsend, later to be the leading member of The Who. That’s where the destruction of the guitars and amps in their early act came from.

The problem I have is that if I just gave you three words you could Google out the solution to my question, and I’m just not going to give them to you….yet!

sCLUE No 9

Here’s the question;

7000 what? By whom?

K

Clue Number 9;

He was enigmatic.

The story so far;

It’s a work of art by one of my favourite 20th century artists.

He was very European, a sculptor and an early pioneer of performance art. Some of his sculptures were very intimate – vitrines (small glass cases) filled with everyday objects while others were huge and brutal depictions of a brutal century.

When you’ve got the answer, e-mail it in to me at;

neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

The first right answer wins a combat bracelet, made by me.

 

Neil Harris

(a don’t stop till you drop production)