The Multi-Modal Mersey Gate
Villivaru
2 of the 1000 Maldive Islands
Biyadhoo
Funk Van Gogh
The original Mania Brothers graphics!
Klepto
Dipso
Nympho
Pyro
William Wilberforce
Jelly Roll Morton 1917
http://www.redhotjazz.com/Jellyroll.html
Crystal Waters
Now that.....is Jazz..!!!
The delicious Lauryn Hill
Barbados
Malian Bedouins
Tinariwen
Joseph Niles
Yat Kha
Abdullah Ibrahim
http://www.abdullahibrahim.com/intro.html
Jimi Hendrix
Marvin Gaye
The Multi Modal Mersey Gate
Introduction 1970s 1980s 1990s
2000s
Musicman 1….2000
I
returned from the Maldives .... energised and feeling like I had rejoined the
human race. There is an old jazz joke... "I've been down so long...I
thought I was up..." and that was me. I had had the time to relax and look
forward. The CGI options were now clear....and my creative brain went into
overdrive. The plan was conceived in an area of the Indian Ocean where fishermen
and island life felt so right....so simple....and where people with absolutely
nothing created happiness ....with a measure of honesty and truth that connected
with me completely.
By March 2000…I had saved a
£5000 cash deposit and bought a one bedroom flat for £37,000. This became the
nerve centre of operations. I sold windows….3 appointments a day….and spent
every spare minute in between…. developing my skills in Cubase…. Ejay…..
Propellorhead…… Reason……Sibelius…and any other music software that
became available! I finally gave birth to the Mania Brothers ….. electronic
musical slapstick of the Marx Brothers kind….…..and Funk Van
Gogh evolved……(see Artist page)...as a direct result of me changing my approach. Jazz is
harmonic…enharmonic or both….but knitted together as the harmony creates
musical delights relative to the intervals being created. I suddenly started
layering sound like a multi-layered cake….. a multi-storey car park for
obscure musical phrases and ideas.....electronic horns squirting on top
of a triggered bass loop....and hard drum samples decorating the top like icing and
candles. I can only quote Joosman…who reviewed one piece…
An Elephant Dream…/Frozen Alps Remix) - Funk Van Gogh
(Down Tempo/Ambient)
Is this another spelling mistake? An avant-garde outré piece that owes more to conceptual rather than musical form. For 99.9% of you, this will seem like a load of randomly arranged samples that sound crap. However, for Funk Van Gogh and me, it is a daring exploration into eJay to prove that it's an extremely versatile tool for translating abstract ideas into an aural rather than written medium. I found this inspiring, both in thought and execution. Good
Joosman XIII: Unlucky for some…
And that
was me…..
I had
basically dreamed up an idea……completely mad…and definitely
unplayable….. to create music from the point of view of the animals. Elephant,
Eel, Horse, Whale….all were interesting …and definitely had issues! “The
Last Whale Train” is simply the voice of the very last whale left on the
planet…after whaling was finally cancelled! Aagghhh mean….you would be just
a little pissed off….wouldn’t you!!
But this gave me the means to test out all of the
software to its limits….and really use the samples to their creative best.
After all….even a musical instrument can be a
dangerous weapon…..in the wrong hands! Funk Van Gogh became a vehicle
for any style or genre that I decided to create in a CGI mode. The Mania
Brothers had long been on the back burner ….thus I projected a Marx Brothers
theme of crazy….. "what’s it really like in there?" ….and set about
writing the tracks. “Voices” and “Mania…wot Mania?” simply wrote
themselves as I worked with samples and layers of sound…..and I added an
extremely complex track consisting of 13/8 verses…. and an 18 beat cyclical
chorus. “Overloaded” was conceived 30 years ago….and was deemed unplayable
many times! “Fundamental Vision” is an electronic CGI version of a reggae
tune that also I wrote 30 years ago. Based on a conversation with Jean-Paul
Sartre... where he attempted to explain that one’s perception is only as good as
one’s fundamental vision! Well err….yes…!!
2000, 2001 and 2002 disappeared in a haze of creativity. 50 or 60 tunes fell out of the sky. Unfortunately I also fell completely out with my new girlfriend.....who had no comprehension of the moment in time that I was in. I can only plead compulsive musical disorder...and a once in a lifetime opportunity!! So back to celibataire status for me... and creative juices went off of the scale! By 2003 I was also working with real live musical people again....folk rock.... and original tunes as well. We were just on the edges of something unique and post-modern when the strangeness that is immature ego conscious invaded the space like a plague of mad acid driven rats. Having played in Liverpool's Cavern Club....watched Arthur Lee and Love play Liverpool University.....and discovered a delightful beer that was fondly called "Red Eric"....I lost interest very quickly.....!! I think the tipping point was being accused of having bad time by some 2 to a bar freak...!! I can after all sit on a drum machine for hours...pick your tempo....!! I couldn't play 2 to a bar if they were the last drunks on the planet...!!
I had had many opportunities to contemplate the length and breadth of my extra-ordinary musical journey while sitting down at the computer....and the conclusions began to startle me ...really. The majority of Jazz musicians that I had worked with were not particularly visionary by nature. Old school jobbing musicians who could read dots.... worked the circuit all week long....and played their Jazz on the weekend. £15 for a Sunday lunchtime session. I met Lol Coxhill many years ago at High Wycombe Bus Station....and he...like most others...played the bollocks out of his Soprano Sax...but was basically starving. Then there were all the "young turks" who were travelling the Jazz road....full of their own pretentiousness ...and devoid of anything original. I realised that Saxaphone Jazz players demanded one approach....Guitar Jazz players demanded another....Swing Bands another..... and your real Hard Bop players yet another...!! Cogito Ergo Sum....all were derivative......and I began to think about Roots....... Jamaica....... The Caribbean.....and my HND BTech Jazz History. The Slaves in the fields....Ring Shouts......... call and response.... messages passed across miles of country by voices.... The Black Codes of 1898.... William Wilberforce..... The Abolition...... The ownership of musical instruments that occurred within 15 years of said abolition...... King Oliver..... Louis Armstrong........ and maybe ... just maybe..... the Roots.....!!! Jelly Roll Morton used to walk to the docks in New Orleans and listen to the Stevedores singing as they unloaded their cargoes. He then went home ... changed his suit... pulled a street girl... and then played the tunes on his piano. This he did up to 15 times a day. They sure made his jelly roll...!! As he did ours...!!
By September 2003...I had secured a place at Access to Music in Manchester to study a very modern workshop based teaching Diploma for one year. Beehive Mills was a happening place.......and as I began to focus on the conclusions to all of this "deeply structured thought" ....I started putting together my PTC.....Professional Teaching Course... perhaps the most important piece of work that I had to submit in June 2004.......!!
Xmas 2003 was the point at which the penny finally dropped. I booked a cruise ship flight to Barbados.... Xmas and New Year.......2 weeks....with the first night in a hotel....and decided to look at the East Caribbean. I walked from Worthing...through Crystal Waters.... to St. Lawrence...that first evening......and found a bar where the crew of the Ark Royal had tried and failed to drink the place dry. The plaque on the wall explained that Ian Botham had taken the England cricket team in there and finished the job in half the time..!! Finally I asked a toothless mama where I might find a room....and ended up talking to Ann Springer....who fixed me up with an apartment on the beach at Crystal Waters for £300..for two weeks...!! " I am researching a music project" I announced.. " I have dollars...." "Show me the island...and I will treat you like a sister for 2 weeks" Fair Play.....this she did...I dined out with 2, 3 or 4 absolutely exquisitely beautiful women almost every night....went to parties with the island's musical community.....and ended uptreating her to a smart dinner at Daphne's on the West Coast as a thankyou. It is worth mentioning that my 7th house Uranus continued apace. As Anne and I sat at the bar in a club near Daphne's later....a man in a perfectly ironed white cotton suit approached us.. ivory black and speaking perfect English with a soft accent. He asked in very polite terms if he may have a cigarette? "Of course" says I....and as he accepted the proffered flame from my lighter....looked hard into my eyes....smiling imperceptibly. The message was clear. "Behave yourself...we are aware that you are here...!" So I did...!! The days were lazy.... I swam with an 86 year old engineer... who told me of the secret waterfalls of the Grenadines.....BBQed with a man of 104...who had total recall of 1904...aged 5....bought fresh pineapples from barefoot ragamuffins.... discovered the Boatyard in Bridgetown..... and watched amazing performances of live music including a New Year blast..... 45 minutes of Prince's Purple Rain......but no Roots....no folk history....zero.....nothing existed of the previous life. The best of musical technicians.... but all American Coca Cola Culture...Whoops...!! Bingo...!! Eureka...!!
I recovered each afternoon ….on the beach….digesting the immediacy of my experience….juxtaposed with everything I knew about the other end of the Caribbean Island Archipelago…Jamaica….. to the West…with all of its Roots history…. and began to think about Barbados. Lauryn Hill of the Fugees was really the only known musical name….little did I know that a young Rihanna was getting her world domination package together about 2 miles from my apartment.......and it wasn’t long before the synchronicity kicked in!!
On the plane...I had watched "Pirates of the Caribbean"...and my mind wandered to a family situation. My father was called William John Hill. This was a tradition in his family. The first born was named William John...and history records that this had indeed been the case for at least 15 generations. My mother had caused great uproar when my elder brother was born and had insisted on breaking with tradition and naming him Peter John. Now it just so happens that one of the first known as William John was a pirate. He and his trusty band used to plunder the British ships that left Liverpool to supply the army fighting the American War of Independence for George 3rd. As they passed by the coves of the North coast of Ireland....the Irish piratical brethren filled their boots. It is historically recorded that William John met his untimely end...when his ship was run into the Mersey estuary by British Men O' War.... and sunk with the loss of all hands...!! But trusty old William John had 25 children.......and me thinks that many of these would have found their way to the rich coastal waters of the Caribbean....to continue their piratical tradition long after King George 3rd's ridiculous tax on the number of windows in your house that had given rise to the term "daylight robbery"...!!
Imagine my surprise......on leaving the plane at Grantley Adams International.....to find that every one of the 7 parishes of Barbados....St. Michael....St James...et al... are filled with Barbadians...called Hill...!! I went to the local pharmacy to get some mosquito sauce....and after discussing Gynaecologists in Vancouver....his brother....!! my brother....!! small world....!! what.....!! the pharmacist suddenly launched into a monologue.....!!
" Oh maaaa Gaawwwddd....Doris....come here Dorrreeess.....looook at dis maaan's eyes....looook at dis maaan's nooooossse....Dorrreees.....heee's a Hill....!!!
There was a distinct rattling of pill bottles that suddenly stopped. Doris appeared from behind the curtain...stared at me as if seeing a ghost.....!
" Oh maaaa Gaawwwddd..."
It suddenly all made perfect sense.....all of it....hundreds of years of it......I was completely and utterly blown away...stunned and silenced...!!!! Back on the beach...I thought of Johnny Depp...Keith Richard...Bob Marley... the mobility of people... their traditions.... and the music that was unlocking the door. I was in fact a brother 17 or 18 times removed to half of Barbados. Or rather " Same Great Great Great Grandfather....different Mother...!! I chanced a look at a map...... and thought about the specially built Clipper Ships that sailed to New Orleans...and then on to Liverpool with Cotton and Tobacco.... and the third leg of their triangular journey... with their barbaric and inhumane cargo...!!! There staring me in the face was the Latitude line 10 degrees North. Following this East from Barbados takes one straight to the mouth of the River Gambia..... in West Africa..... 3000 miles away across the Atlantic Ocean. I remembered Alex Haley and his "Roots" TV series... Kunte Kinte.... the character had been named after a village on the Gambia River. In that moment.... my World Music Program took shape. 15 lessons on musical theory.... advanced theory.... and harmony.... and another 15 lessons on World Music...... how to write it... how to play it.... and how to recognise the genres that had evolved in Africa...... and travelled across the Ocean.
I was ecstatic and overly excited as I returned home. I remember going to see Tinariwen at the Band on the Wall in Manchester in February 2004. Another of those split second decisions.... Michael Gilbourne...a dear friend and percussionist was standing alongside me..... " that's it....I'm selling up and going to Africa...!" My tutor Steve Rawlins...to whom I owe a great debt of gratitude to this day....could see that the inevitability of it all was leading me....the journey had well and truly begun...!
I returned to Barbados at Easter 2004 for a week.....and stayed with friends. The excuse was resources. I had discovered Gospel Soca.... the Latin influence had travelled across the water....Salsa....Bossa...Samba....and fused with Christian Gospel Choirs to produce Soca music such as Joseph Niles CD "How beautiful heaven must be..." I collected about a dozen examples of wide ranging styles....watched the first day of the Bridgetown Oval Test Cricket match....and headed back to Grantley Adams at 5pm as the Windies were all out for about 54 runs. The customs officials can spot a drug mule at 300 paces and so I was cool...! Once the dogs have had a sniff.... everybody parties. I wandered into the jewellers in Duty Free....looked up to see Jade Jagger browsing.... and the cheapest prices starting at about $10,000. I was...and still am extremely uncomfortable in these situations..... so I headed for the gate and boarding area. My little tin bucket looked positively archaic alongside the towering Virgin 747....and the mothballed Concorde...next door....but the richness of my creative endeavours more than matched the sterility of a first class sleeper cabin ...with free drinks...!! By the time we reached Manchester at 7.30 am. the following morning.... the computers had chattered... the dogs had sniffed..... and everybody was presumed innocent.... so the Red Channel was curiously sleepy...!! My 5 litres of Cockspur and Mount Gay 43% proof dark molasses based Rum sailed on home with me......."Ooooaaagghh Jim laaadddd....!!"
I completed the 30 lesson PTC right on time...... in June 2004...felt very very nervous about letting it out of my sight...... graduated with good scores all round...... and put my one bedroom apartment on the market. I felt completely rounded in my musical education....having looked at Robert Plant with his Moroccan Orchestra.... Yat Kha.... a Buddhist collective from South Siberia.... and Abdullah Ibrahim... AKA Dollar Brand.... from South Africa... amongst others. I gave up work.... checked out some seriously new advances in Astrological planetary discoveries with Eric Francis at Planet Waves.....and began a period of relaxation while awaiting an offer circa £95,000....for my home!! As I took a break from composition.... I began to search the Internet...Gambia and Senegal... "Hello Marvin .... What's going on.....?"
It was obvious.....immediately..... that the music of Africa had been carried on the oceanic winds......and that the full disgrace of a thoroughly disgusting period of history had produced some extraordinary and quite magnificent results. Like Diamonds......crushed for thousands of years....from an initial simple carbon fossil......African people had created didactic musical genres time after time after time....wherever their antecedents had landed. From Cuba.....Jamaica......and the Latin South....to the Delta Blues of Mississippi.......and on up to the hard north of Chicago and the New York Jazz of the 1940s and 1950s.....not forgetting the Swing Bands of Count Basie and Duke Ellington....the styles just kept on coming. Chiron transited Capricorn at the beginning of the 20th century.... and again in the 1950s.... and again in the 2000s. The musical cycles are evident...although some would argue that they became more visible as the Aquarius transit began. The first cycle ended with the supremacy of John Coltrane.... Miles Davis..... Dizzy Gillespie and a host of others...! The second cycle began in the 1950s with Rock n Roll...including the iconic Chuck Berry....and the iconoclastic Little Richard. By the 1960s.... Jimi Hendrix.... Stevie Wonder..... Marvin Gaye..... Smokey Robinson....... the Detroit Motown label....... Philadelphia Funk..... and the immortal James Brown..... had all produced new genres that stand supreme to this day...!! Quincy Jones is a man who grew up in the first cycle..........starting out as 3rd trumpet in Henry Mancini's Orchestra. He really came into his own in the second cycle as Producer...Composer ...and Arranger.... Frank Sinatra... Michael Jackson et al......and....as he approaches 80 years of age..... is now mentoring young trailblazers like Jay-Z at Def Jam. Jay-Z is married to Beyonce...is recording with Alicia Keys.....and is himself mentoring Rihanna......now that....is class...!! Chiron ...it would seem...is proving to be one extra-ordinary healer of the musical kind...!!
I can only quote an article that I wrote for the Gambian Observer...!!
"Every
American administration since the end of the McArthy witch hunts in the 1950s
has paid tribute to the ongoing contribution of African American artists and
musicians. Their playing of world music has been simply immense. Supposing it
could be proven with DNA coding that you were the 27th cousin, once
removed, of Duke Ellington. His classical work “Black, Brown and Beautiful”
would become a little bit more important than your new car or hairpiece! Of
course, if you are sitting there thinking that you would rather be Bob
Marley’s sister, then that is OK! I find
it exhilarating that my watchman in Fajara is the Mandinka double of Miles Davis
as pictured on his album Tutu!; that John Coltrane, who mashed up my head with
“A Love Supreme” live in Antibes in 1965, could be a Wollof
from Upper River Division. Jahass! Jazz!! How would you like to play
tonight?
Why on earth would you want to do anything else?"
But I am getting ahead of myself !!
I spent June...through December 2004..... examining every last item on the internet about West Africa. The Gambia river estuary seemed to be the focal point. All of life.... and the human melange/melee.... expresses itself through its river estuaries.... and since we are talking Mersey....out of Liverpool....and Mississippi...out of New Orleans......this completed the set of three...!! I accepted an offer of £89,000 for my apartment....completed on December 17th....and bought a 12 week open ended return from Manchester to Banjul International... departing 21st January 2005. I sourced a weeks accommodation in Fajara with Will and Sue Dennett.....who offered a lifeline and support system..."till I found my feet"....and proceeded to dispose of the contents of my home....say my goodbyes......and get ready....!! I spent the Xmas holiday at my mothers house while she was away on holiday...... and was pretty excited about everything ...until the dreadful boxing day Tsunami in the Indian Ocean.
I came very close to abandoning the project entirely....and instead heading for Indonesia. However....there are enough people and organisations in the world ...who responded in a way that perhaps I could not. After much soul searching....I headed for Manchester on a sunny but cold January Friday.
The Gambia..... West Africa 2005
Tabaski…January
21st.
“
It’s the smell of Africa……”
One
of the two little old ladies seated in 22 B and 22 C suddenly announced to the
cabin in general. I always check-in early on an out bound flight….get myself a
window seat on the Port side about halfway down the aisle. 22 A was great. For
some reason 75% of manoeuvres are turns to the left….so as the wing dips
…you get a great view of the earth below.
We
had flown due south from Manchester for about four hours…… and as we crossed
over Portugal and headed for the Moroccan coast…. the cloud cover gradually
thinned out…. and suddenly there it was ……Africa!!
Two
more hours tracking the coastline was perhaps one of the seven wonders of the
world to me….. and a sharp left 90 degree turn over Dakar…the capital city
of Senegal… was like hitting the home straight after a particularly gruelling
35 year marathon.
Over
the River Gambia estuary….and a 45 degree turn as we hit final approach. I
could see Mango trees …. Baobab trees…
one coastal highway…
whose asphalt was
glistening in the hot dry sun…. and lots of dwellings…. all marked out in
square and oblong shapes in a myriad of colours!
“Yes…it’s
the smell of Africa….” She repeated…. “ You know the first time I landed
in Africa….in Nigeria …in 1953….it was a grass airstrip…..and the
Captain had to get out and lift up the engine cover….and fix his own
gaskets….”
At
that moment….with sublime synchronicity…..the landing gear started to
deploy… with a massive roar…and there was that heart-stopping moment as the
innocence of her remark produced a flicker of absolute terror in all who had been
listening to her charming memories. Then the feelgood factor returned…. and I
knew that I was in for a white-knuckle ride…..
one that would indeed change me forever.
As
I finally appeared on the simple steel stairway and descended onto the
tarmac…in a truly baking hot heat the
like of which I had never before experienced…. the smell of Africa did indeed
reach me….. something indescribable…. unforgettable… a warm glowing
signature that just kept on saying “Welcome home”
Known
as the smiling coast ….one could immediately feel the nature of West
Africa…. The Gambia…. and a people whose philosophy is inspiring.
“It’s
nice to be nice”
I
cleared customs….paid my £5 entry tax….picked up my bags and my Electric
Bass…and as promised ….met up with Will and Sue…..who guided me through
the melee ….and out into the sun and their waiting 4 x 4.
We
drove out of Banjul International……and Will explained that he was taking the
inland route back to Fajara….this avoided the cosmopolitan coastal highway….
and led us up through Lamin to Serrekunda…..and left onto Kairaba Avenue
leading to FaJara….and their compound.
To
say that I was overwhelmed is a complete understatement. People milling around
everywhere….old 1950s trucks and yellow and green saloons held together with
string …wire…and simply anything that was available.
The
head space was a shift to complete anarchy. All value scales went off of the
radar…..survival is at the core of every decision……and I sooned learned to
be comfortable with this……no panic…..no worrying…..no strategies to get
you through….simply…be here now….but make sure that you are 100% focussed
as you make your decisions….for they will help you to live for another 24
hours.
I
subsequently learned that we travelled through what we call suburbs on that
journey….. and that these were home
to about 200,000 people. We arrived at Will and Sue’s compound about an hour
later…and I entered a cool….well kept garden with a beautiful room that was
mine for a week. I headed straight out again….to swim in the Ocean….and as I
returned at about Sunset….6 pm…..the streets were full of people….singing
..dancing….and all dressed in brightly coloured clothes.
Tabaski.
The
Muslim festival when everyone who can afford it……buys a goat…. slaughters
it….. and feeds family…. friends …. colleagues….and generally follows
the African Muslim tradition of giving to the community. I was taken by surprise
by the warmth and generosity of Spirit of everybody in the community….it is
part of the strong family tradition that has embraced Islam. I drank a couple of
cold beers…..ate some food from one of many street cafes…and marvelled at it
all...and that warm beautiful smell.... and wandered home to sleep. Day One…!!
Introduction 1970s 1980s 1990s
to be continued…..
Paul Richard Hill
2010
Copyright © 2010. Musicman 1. All rights reserved.
