On A Roll

Radio 3's documentary 'Rolls, Records and the Return of Myra Hess' told the story of the player piano or pianola (or as some like to call it, 'the reproducing piano'. Though its presence in the middle class drawing rooms of the early 20th century ended with the advent of radio and the phonograph, it remains a unique instrument. No piece of hi-tech digitalia could ever reporduce the physical sensation of a skilled player's performance in quite the same way, and to think it's all done with paper, cogs, hammers and wheels seems almost unbelievable. The great Myra Hess commited a few performances to the roll, and the results (even on the radio) were remarkable, and to me anyway lifts the pianola out of the realm of antique curiosity to something much more important. Before the advent of sequencers, it could also handle material that couldn't be played by a human without suffering permanent physical and mental damage (see below!)

You can listen again till Saturday 2nd Feb.

Stockhausen on Aphex Twin on Stockhausen

I randomly found an interesting article on Karlheinz Stockhausen from an old issue of The Wire. In 1995, Radio 3 sent the composer a package of tapes of music (by Aphex Twin, Scanner, Plasticman and Daniel Pemberton) and asked for his opinion.

These were artists he had supposedly influenced - the Radio 3 programme was called Advice To Clever Children - so it's very funny that he dismisses the four pieces and then recommends some of his own works which would be "very helpful".

I wish those musicians would not allow themselves any repetitions, and would go faster in developing their ideas or their findings, because I don't appreciate at all this permanent repetitive language. It is like someone who is stuttering all the time, and can't get words out of his mouth.

Fair play to The Wire, as they got responses to Stockhausen's suggestions from the "clever children". Full article (Q8). http://www.sinologic.com/newmusic/stockhausen.html

The Poetry of History

...is the title of a new Radio 4 series exploring, er, the links betwen poetry and historical events. Not the most obvious place to look for a top notch music documentary, but Sunday's episode was just that. Shakespeare scholar Jonatahan Bate talked to the mighty Linton Kwesi Johnson, whose fusion of dub (provided by Dennis Bovell) and poetry soundtracked The Brixton Riots of 1981.

Listening, I was taken back to my first exposure to LKJ, which was courtesy of Radio 3 (honest!) in the late 70s. Though I lived only 60 miles from Brixton, this dark, dread-filled sound laced with stories of police brutality, bereaved mothers and random, racially motivated violence felt like it was coming from another planet. It was one of those moments; though to paraphrase Morrisey this was music that said nothing to me about my life, it kind of fleshed out the TV coverage of burning police cars - this was like proper news from an alternative source. LKJ wasn't just talking about this stuff, he was living it. And the music...this was miles away from Bob bloody Marley; spacey, bassy and beautiful. I went out and bought the records, but it kind of felt like I shouldn't be; I felt they weren't meant for me. I always expected to be asked questions at the till ("Sorry lad, that's not for the likes of you. How's about the new Cure album?").

I sort of still feel like that. A couple of years ago I saw LKJ in a lift at Broadcasting House. I really wanted to tell him that nearly twenty years ago his words had somehow touched a white Grammar school boy living in Kent, but I somehow didn't quite have the guts.

And if I ever see him again, I still won't have them.

Me and Mr Jones

One of the perks of working for BBC Music (apart from bumping into Melvyn Bragg in the lift or encountering someone dressed as Pudsey Bear in the gents toilet) is getting to hear stuff you'd never come across otherwise, and sometimes even having your precious muso-snob preconceptions overturned. Last week I found myself in the BBC Radio Theatre for a live broadcast of Radio 3's Jazz Line-Up. First on the bill was trumpeter Sean Jones. Mr Jones is a Lincoln Centre (er, sorry, Center) alumnus; from poking around his website I'd pegged him as one of those shiny, technically gifted, well dressed but kind of anonymous jazzers that roll off Wynton Marsalis' production line every couple of months. The music samples sounded polite, overproduced and sort of...dull. So I wasn't expecting much.

But sheesh, they were (to use proper jazz parlance), cookin'. Or even smokin'. And though to a Home Counties reared white middle aged baldie like myself the concept of 'cool' is a bit foreign, these guys definitely had something. And Mr Jones can really play the trumpet; loads of notes, sure, but all the right ones and in the right order...

We'll be putting some of that set on the Radio 3 site from Dec 3rd...but till then, here he blows...