Following on from my last post, I write to complete the story of the quarantunes. After a hiatus of almost a fortnight, in which I thought I’d finished, I recommenced on 8 July with an original tune, ‘Three friends in winter’. From an album of the same name this was the only composed piece, and one that has always has a special place in my heart. When the trio launched the album in 2006 Jessica Nicholas reviewed us and wrote of this selection: ‘utterly mesmerising, evoking the same organic sense of ebb and flow as the fully-fledged improvisations, but adding a hymn-like melody and an odd-metered waltz feel that saw all three players dancing in unison.’ (Such expression and the understanding behind it, being part of the reason Jessica’s departure from ABC Jazz is to be regretted.) Anyway, lockdown was still on, and playing a tune each day had been providing a kind of musical focus that I welcomed, in the absence of live performances or any meetings with colleagues. Some listeners had even expressed sorrow or disappointment at my having wound things up. So I kicked off again. The performances were not strictly daily – I took brief breaks here and there – but I got to a second hundred pieces, and here they are. Once again, uncredited pieces are written by me.
8.vii.20 Three friends in winter
10.vii.20 Never let me go (Evans/Livingstone)
11.vii.20 Spir (Luke Howard)
12.vii.20 Theme from ‘The Mask’ (Edelman)/This masquerade (Russell)
13.vii.20 He was too good to me (Rodgers/Hart)
14.vii.20 It’s easy to remember (Rogers/Hart)
15.vii.20 My one and only (Gershwin)
16.vii.20 April
17.vii.20 Circling
18.vii.20 Blue moon (Rodgers/Hart)
19.vii.20 Smoke gets in your eyes (Kern/Harbach)
21.vii.20 Shostakovich Prelude 1 (messed with, because it’s so bloody awful)
22.vii.20 Naked (Ben Lee)
23.vii.20 ’Round midnight (Monk)
24.vii.20 Que sera sera (Livingstone/Evans)
25.vii.20 Moments of lucidity
26.vii.20 Bodylistening
27.vii.20 The book of love (Stephen Merritt)
28.vii.20 Taking a chance on love (Duke/La Touche/Fetter)
29.vii.20 The one I love belongs to somebody else (Jones/Kahn)
31.vii.20 You must believe in spring (Legrand/Demy)
1.viii.20 Love is here to stay (Gershwin)
2.viii.20 Three’s a quorum
3.vii.20 Here’s that rainy day (Van Heusen/Burke)
4.viii.20 Blackadder (Goodall)
5.viii.20 Free-ism 5
6.viii.20 That joke isn’t funny anymore (Morrissey/Marr)
7.viii.20 Hereinafter
8.viii.20 We kiss in a shadow (Rodgers/Hammerstein)
9.viii.20 Free-ism 6
10.viii.20 Almost like being love (Lerner/Loewe)
11.viii.20 Ballad in search of a title (Grabowsky)
12.viii.20 Free-ism 7
13.viii.20 Little kids holding hands
14.viii.20 Cheek to cheek (Berlin)
15.viii.20 Make someone happy (Styne/Green/Comden)
17.viii.20 I’ll see you in my dreams (Jones/Kahn)
18.viii.20 Dienda (Kirkland)
22.viii.20 Persephone at Enna
23.viii.20 The mask goes over your nose, dickhead [free]
24.viii.20 Pure imagination (Bricusse/Newley)
25.viii.20 Guess I’ll hang my tears out to dry (Styne/Cahn)
26.viii.20 You make it easy to be true (Adamson/McCarey/Warren)
27.viii.20 Free-ism 8
28.viii.20 Oh! Look at me now (Bushkin/DeVries)
30.viii.30 Strike up the band (Gershwin)
31.viii.20 Charade (Mancini)
1.ix.20 Everything comes down to poo (Fordham/Marx/Lopez)
2.ix.20 Just friends (Klenner/Lewis)
3.ix.20 Spring is here (Rodgers/Hart)
4.ix.20 Craft and art
5.ix.20 Improvisation and ‘Slane’
6.ix.20 Yours and mine
7.ix.20 You’d be so nice to come home to (Porter)
8.ix.20 The new ships
9.ix.20 untitled 253/2016
10.ix.20 Recovery
11.ix.20 Stars fell on Alabama (Perkins/Parish)
12.ix.20 This quiet life
13.ix.20 Dream a little dream of me (Andre/Schwandt/Kahn)
14.ix.20 Free-ism 9 (for Sarah)
15.ix.20 Last night when we were young (Arlen/Harburg)
16.ix,20 untitled 274/2016
17.ix.20 I should care (Stordahl/Weston/Cahn)
18.ix.20 Maybe (Strouse/Charnin)
19.ix.20 Never having known
21.ix.20 We’ll be together again (Fischer/Laine)
22.ix.20 Untitled 264/2016
23.ix.20 Everybody hurts (Stipe/Mills/Buck/Berry)
24.ix.20 Golden brown (The Stranglers)
25.ix.20 Well, I mostly hide
26.ix.20 My funny valentine (Rodgers/Hart)
27.ix.20 Opinion fear
28.ix.20 The song is you (Hammerstein/Kern)
29.ix.20 Bridge over troubled water (Simon/Garfunkel)
30.ix.20 Joy Spring (Brown)
1.x.20 Shenandoah (Traditional)
2.x.20 Sigh no more (Doyle)
3.x.20 Four words of Elizabeth Hunter: Interlude
4.x.20 Heat wave (Berlin)
5.x.20 Improvisation and ‘St Clement’
6.x.20 You have been loved (Michael)
7.x.20 Sooty’s return
8.x.20 Earth (Sleeping at last)
9.x.20 I’ve got a crush on you (Gershwin)
10.x.20 Triste (Jobim)
11.x.20 l.s.
12.x.20 Spring Yaoundé (Marsalis)
13.x.20 The look of those leaves
14.x.20 Media vita I
15.x.20 Media vita II
16.x.20 Cyclosporin (Browne)
17.x.20 Prism (Jarrett)
18.x.20 Prelude to a kiss (Ellington)
19.x.20 Giant steps (Coltrane)
20.x.20 Mr Leckett’s etiquette
21.x.20 Someone to watch over me (Gershwin)
22.x.20 From this moment on (Porter)
23.x.20 Contrapunctus XV from ‘The art of Fugue’ (Bach)
Again, one traditional piece. Thirty-five originals. Thirty-eight standards, including five Rodgers and Harts and five Gershwins. Eight pop tunes, which is twice as many as last time: finally something by The Smiths, a George Michael, some R.E.M., Simon and Garfunkel, and The Stranglers’ ‘Golden brown’, thought of because I was making a crème caramel and the instructions told me to work the sugar and water till they turned that way. Seven from the jazz repertoire, including Coltrane’s ‘Giant steps’, a piece I almost never play and have only once played in public, when a particular saxophonist who couldn’t play it himself called it on a gig half way up the Sofitel. Three written by colleagues – Allan Browne, Paul Grabowsky and Luke Howard. Two selections taken from TV programs, and five from motion pictures. And one classical item to wind things up. This one I rehearsed and rehearsed, and while in the end it wasn’t absolutely perfect I felt I gave it what I could. I was determined to finish things on my birthday, with a hundredth item, so time was limited.
I’ll go again with ‘sharing is caring’. To have music in common is to attest to our humanity. To see things imperfectly, amorphously, but with no imprecision of feeling. Your sense isn’t my sense, but both shake the heart. And if we feel like it we can talk about it. And smile. Behind our masks.
All selections are public and have stayed on Facey so if you’re interested and haven’t checked any of them out you can. The new Facebook is ugly and dumb and whereas you used to be able to go a page and scroll down with year and month options these have been removed, for reasons best known only to the blockheads who make the Facey rules. Still, scrolling is so 21st…
10/xi/2020