On the Beat

The shuffle on my iPod is determined to make me listen to Coltrane. In 105 tracks, it has thrown up four tracks from A Love Supreme (live and studio recordings), plus Ascension, something off Blue Trane and something unlistenable from the Olatunji Concert. (And this is on top of me playing Transition on CD on Friday night.)

But then, it also seems to have discovered an inordinate fondness for the sitar, selecting two tracks from Indo-Jazz Fusions as well as a track heavily featuring sitar by Courtney Pine.

I have no idea what it means, but it does seem to get its way.

Edit: ...and just for good measure, it is now playing Alice Coltrane, too!

Those of you who pay attention may be aware that I quite like Duke Ellington; indeed, he is one of my heroes, and I think the guy was a genius. He made some of the most powerful, life-affirming music of the twentieth century.

Today, I have done something I don’t remember doing before: I let my iPod shuffle through a single artist – Ellington. I currently have 105 Ellington tracks on my iPod (I took most of the 24-CD centennial edition off my iPod because when I shuffle randomly, his music came up disproportionately; so I cut back to just specific LPs – Such Sweet Thunder, the Far East Suite, Black, Brown and Beige, Newport 1956, the Queen’s Suite and so on).

I started at about 10.15am – I decided I didn’t want to listen to the remembrance service, and I couldn’t decide what Ellington I wanted to listen too. So I let the iPod decide.

Five hours later (OK, I did have a break for lunch whilst I listened to the World This Weekend…), I am a little over half way through.

It has been invigorating: such variety, such beautiful and exciting music.

Wonderful.

I must do this more often!

iPods are most likely to cause injury to cats...

via Arbroath, who also had this excellent photograph...

I have been looking at the music I have on my iPod. For someone who is passionate about music, and rather into numbers and analysis, this is a heady combination: for the first time, I can actually quantify my music collection. It has been a curious exercise.

A while ago, I reckoned that I probably had more versions of the tune A Night In Tunisia than any other. Now I know I am right: I have ten versions of A Night In Tunisia on my iPod, and nine of ’Round Midnight (somewhat tweaked to take account of random variations of the names – Around Midnight and ‘Round About Midnight, for instance; the joys of messy data…).

( Cut whilst I go on about how many tracks by different artists I have… )

I have had my iPod to play with for just over two days.

I am addicted.

Unfortunately, my new best friend comes attached at the hip to iYunes, which irritates the hell out of me.

So far I have got up to M on my rock/pop CDs (which means 801, to me. And Massive Attack and George Michael and ...). There is such a long way to go.

On Wednesday evening, I met up with my brother, the first time I had seen him in more than six months.

We sat in a pub and drank some beer (actually, my brother drank cider. Fortunately, he didn’t have ice in it, but still.) We talked about family stuff, sifting the wood for the trees.

He also did something that we had agreed we wouldn’t do, and something that he knew I didn’t want him to do.

( Read more... )