Jazz Is Totally Up Itself

I’ve been compelled to write a post with this title as a consequence of my previous post in which I slandered another perfectly respectable music genre. However, such is my new-found cantankerousness and intolerance that I find myself able to fulfil this task as well.

I am going to present my argument solely in terms of Trumpet Playing and Anal Retention. Have a listen to the first part of Louis Armstrong’s West End Blues:



Over and over I tried to play that intro on my trumpet, then the tune, slow and melancholic (here’s a later, brassier version, which is also good) yet it flickers with the humanity that Armstrong could rarely keep to himself. Unfortunately I can find no clip of the only track to which I’ve ever attempted to do a striptease: Armstrong’s early recording of Tin Roof Blues (Tiger Rag and it would have all been over in a flash....) Satchmo kept himself ticking with a bit of marijuana and the help of Swiss Kriss, a laxative of which he was such a fan that he once recommended it to Britain’s Royal Family, and I admire him as a man who kept his embouchure clenched and his bowels open.

Now, there were other trumpeters with nice styles (and some modern players of other jazz instruments that I like). But somewhere it goes wrong, it all becomes a bit, well, Jazz Club. And I reckon the cause is Mr Miles Davis. He’s probably a genius, enough people have told me that he is, so I’m probably a philistine, I’m probably missing out. But for me the most accurate word I’ve ever heard applied to him is “costive” – I just want to shake him.... shake him and shout “Wake up, you dozy bastard!! Wake up and go to the lavatory!!!!”.

Fortunately, however, all is not lost. Musicians from other genres have been inspired by jazz and incorporated it into their shtick. Here are my favourite Russians, Markscheider Kunst, whose trumpeter I reckon listened to more Louis than Miles; have a listen to the intro in the 1st one, before the band gets into its lovely Latino-Leningrad stride, then look at the 2nd one if you wanna see them in a proper video. Now, this is obviously just my personal preference, but to me that’s Nice!

Gadjo Dilo’s Peccadillos #3: Big Bird Bumper Edition

My declaration of admiration for Romanian Hattie Jacques Draga Olteanu-Matei, and some comments on Lulu LaBonne’s blog about the sexiness of taller women, may have given the impression that I’m some sort of size queen. This is not necessarily true. If I’m honest with myself I realise that I’ve operated – non-interferingly, though nevertheless whether I or the objects of my attention have wanted it or not - an equal opportunities lechery policy during my adult life, and that larger ladies get their share. In fact, to stress how equal opportunities I am I have conflated lofty and large-boned into the same category. And here are the stand-outs:

East European Lady Tennis Players

These barely need an introduction. They’re all over 6 feet tall, blond, professional, and very much admired. If you’re a tall lady – even a gangly one - I advise you to get thee to a tennis court. Maybe you don’t even need to do that. Try wearing all-white clothes and carrying a tennis racket everywhere you go. Learn a little Russian or Slovakian. Still not working? Maybe get a job wiping old ladies down in a care home; acquire a large monobrowed boyfriend called Oleg; look very very cool 99% of the time but dance like a mentalist every time you hear the strains of I’m a Barbie Girl or Ruslana’s Eurovision-conquering Dyki tantsi Hutsul classic. Still carry the tennis racket though, especially when dancing.


Me (allegedly…)

I once had a girlfriend as tall as I, exactly 6 foot - that’s 1.8288m to you foreign johnnies – which is tall for a lass. It was also a bit Mrs Robinson, though I think the age difference was only 7 years. Anyway. One year I wanted to buy said girlfriend (who I won’t indelicately include in this list) a pair of stockings for her birthday. So I goes to a lingerie boutique in Copenhagen (where we lived) and tells the bint behind the counter “I’d like a pair of sexy stockings for a lady who’s the same height as I am”; she sniggers, audibly, “oh, and what sort would you, err, I mean your lady friend like, sir?” Ahh, ok, I see the way it’s going, and I decide to play it up, “we'll, she’s quite a hairy lady so they’d need to be something opaque and probably close-woven”, “hmm, yes, and I’m guessing she’s also quite muscular – an athlete or a body builder, perhaps? – so something durable”; “oh yes, absolutely... no, deary, those ones are latex”; “yes, lovely, aren’t they; would you like to buy some amyl nitrite as well?”

When the Fat Lady Sings

It seems to me a woman does better as a singer if she’s “well covered”. There are exceptions - the pixieish Björk for instance - but to sing as low and louche as this (though unfortunately these clips don't really do her voice justice) you need to be Yugoslav chanteuse Ljiljana Buttler. The number of larger-than-life jazz ladies doesn’t need listing here for me to prove my case further. So I’ll leave you with Macedonia's famed, fuller-figured Gypsy-Turco-Iraqi-Jewish adopter-of-orphans (sounds like hard work) and Nobel Peace Prize nominee (for the adopting, I’m guessing) Esma Redžepova, backed by the Romanian brass phenomenon that is Fanfare Ciocărlia:

Grin to Win (or End in The Bin)

Living in a country where a direct £40 bribe will get me more healthcare and planning permission than any election candidate can ever offer, I’m not normally that interested in politics. But I’m disturbed by this US election thing: what’s with all the grinning straight at the camera?? Everybody’s saying what a nutter Sarah Palin is now they’ve heard her views on creationism and the environment, but couldn’t they’ve discovered that earlier just by looking at her publicity photos?? Everything about the picture above says “I’m going to believe what I believe and use up the world’s oil and make polar bears apologise and I don’t have to give you a reason why”. It’s not really having a grin I object to, it’s the new angle of attack and the lack of psychological restraint that disturbs me. (Even former president Carter the Unstoppable Grinning Machine, circa 1977, seemed to keep a more respectful distance and one ear hidden out of modesty.) Below is a painting by certified Norwegian nutter (and genius) Edvard Munch.

I once heard a psychiatrist explain that in art therapy sessions any patient who draws a self-portrait absolutely head-on is a nutter. I’m pretty sure the chap in the painting is Eddie himself as he paints like this many times. You’d be very well advised to visit the museum dedicated to him in Oslo, but (despite his talents) not to elect him as your vice-president. Here in Romania I'm continually enchanted by wedding photographs from the 1950s and 60s in homes that I visit. Always shot in glorious black-and-white and at a ¾ perspective with the couple looking into the middle distance to the side of the camera. It doesn’t matter how much they’ve come to resemble Albert Steptoe and his sister Dolly, they always look like film stars in the wedding photo. Even Comrade Ceauşescu knew to avert his eyes a little so’s not to scare us. Now, this is deeply unfair, and let us not forget what America has done for us over the last century by way of cartoons and jazz music, but here’s the alternative to Sarah Palin, perhaps just 1 degree better, Joe Biden: