Temptation - Part 2

[rhythmaning]

So where was I?

• Maybe this doesn’t count, but I remember buying my first jazz LP at Garon’s Records in the covered market in Oxford.  I already had a few jazz LPs, given to me by my father, but the first one I bought myself was the Birth of the Cool (Miles Davis, or more precisely the Miles Davis – Gerry Mulligan Nonet).  I still have the LP; just recently I got the remastered CD, too.  It was pure fluke that my first jazz LP was such an auspicious purchase: I simply recognised Davis’ name.

 

• Dancing manically at C’s twenty first birthday party to Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart.

 

• On a trip to see friends in Cambridge and staying up all night playing Echo & the Bunnymen’s Over the Wall.

 

• Splitting up from C, I played Closer (Joy Division) obsessively; such cheerful music.  Thank god I didn’t have any Leonard Cohen.

 

• Shipbuilding (either version – Costello’s, or the original by Robert Wyatt) has me sitting in A and A's flat in Kingston Road with its pockmarked kitchen wall, watching TV news reports come back from the Falklands war; grateful the UK no longer had conscription.  How things have changed in the last twenty years.

 

• Temptation (New Order) takes me back to eights week in 1982; I bought it as a present for the girl with electric blue eyes.  I think I still have it, somewhere, so I guess I never gave it to her.  (There was no romance here.  Honest.)

Comments

[pshtaku.livejournal.com]

I thought Shipbuilding was written by Costello - I'm sure it's credited as such on Hue & Cry's Bitter Suite...

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

Costello and Langer. But it was originally performed by Robert Wyatt - Costello asked him to play it.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

I think Costello's summary is that he's embarrassed to sing it compared to Wyatt's version. Well, actually, he says it pisses all over his rendition. But he DOES like the trumpet part on his version.

Didn't realise you were into "Bitter Suite", Frankie - there's some lovely sax playing by Tommy Smith on an otherwise superflous cover of "It Was A Very Good Year", and I love his version of "Mother Glasgow"

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

The plaintive trumpet on Shipbuilding is by Chet Baker - a swansong to the rather sad end to his playing career.

And there is a whole lot that could be written about Tommy Smith!

But that is for another time...

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

I didn't realise that was Chet Baker - wasn't he part of the composite character played by Dexter Gordon in "Round Midnight"?

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

Most of Dexter Gordons character was based on Lester Young and Bud Powell, perhaps with a bit of Thelonious Monk thrown in (Bud Powell was remembered by Monk in "In Walked Bud" - from the Genius of Modern Music album, which also was had original "Round Midnight").

Not sure about Chet Baker - he wasn't a very sympathetic character: he was drug-riven and driven, being thoroughly unpleasant in the process. But he played beautifully. (Ronnie Scott said that the better they sounded, the nastier they were - though I think he was talking about Stan Getz.)

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

The character in Round Midnight was definitely a cuddly addict...