Kathleen Jones's Blog, page 48
December 6, 2013
Stan Tracey - Jazz Legend and Composer
On the day when Nelson Mandela's death is filling the headlines, one of Britain's greatest Jazz composers and musicians, Stan Tracey, died at the age of 86. Known as 'the Godfather of British Jazz' he was never as popular as figures like Johnny Dankworth because his music was seen as 'more difficult' - often crossing the border from Jazz into what you could call 'Contemporary Classical' music. He has left a tremendous legacy of compositions - my favourite being his Under Milkwood setting (click here for Starless and Bible Black) . I came to know Stan because my partner, Neil, ran a jazz festival in northern England for 20 years. I was awed by his music, his kindness and generosity and I loved his dry sense of humour. I last saw Stan when we shared his 85th birthday celebrations here in Italy at the Orvieto Jazz Festival last year and I wrote a poem for his birthday, in which I tried to put into words my admiration and respect.
A Birthday Poem
(For Stan Tracey)
Between the mind
and the hand
are the lines
where the notes
subtract and multiply
the mathematics of jazz.
Twice times five
and eighty eight
monochrome combinations
a musical alphabet
articulating narratives
of sound.
Eighty five years -
and the music still
walks the staves
of a life swung
from ‘stomach Steinway’*
to the concert grand.
A muscular attack
as rhythmic as it was
at thirty. The history
of the genre hard-wired
between the hand
and the mind.
© Kathleen Jones
[* the stomach Steinway is musician's slang for the piano accordion which was the instrument Stan played as a boy]
December 4, 2013
Italian, reduced sugar, three fruit marmalade
With Neil away and the book published, I've had time for some of the other things I love - one of them cooking. You can't get proper English marmalade in Italy - so I've been experimenting with the home-grown citrus fruit to get something that is tart enough but tastes of the Mediterranean sun.
I started with this - a bowl of grapefruit, oranges and lemons - just ordinary ones, not marmalade fruit. The grapefruit and some of the oranges are pink/red and that gives the marmalade a lovely colour. You need 1 grapefruit, 3 oranges (4 if small) and 2 lemons. Chop them into about 8 pieces each
and pop in a pan and cover with water. Leave to stand overnight so that the fruit flavour soaks into the water. The following morning bring to the boil and simmer for between 2 and 3 hours until you can cut the peel with a wooden spoon and most of the fruit pulp has cooked into the liquid.
Take the peel out, scrape away any remaining fruit pulp, and chop as thickly or as finely as you like it.
Boil the liquid down until only 500ml remains. Then add 400g sugar and bring to the boil until the liquid reaches marmalade temperature (109 degrees), or it wrinkles when a teaspoon is popped onto a cool saucer. Then add the chopped peel. Bring back to temperature - if no thermometer simmer for about another 5 mins. Then ladle it into hot jars and seal. Easy-peasy!
You'll need to keep it in the fridge because of the low sugar level, but it's delicious on toast! The Italians also eat marmalade with cheese .........
I started with this - a bowl of grapefruit, oranges and lemons - just ordinary ones, not marmalade fruit. The grapefruit and some of the oranges are pink/red and that gives the marmalade a lovely colour. You need 1 grapefruit, 3 oranges (4 if small) and 2 lemons. Chop them into about 8 pieces each
and pop in a pan and cover with water. Leave to stand overnight so that the fruit flavour soaks into the water. The following morning bring to the boil and simmer for between 2 and 3 hours until you can cut the peel with a wooden spoon and most of the fruit pulp has cooked into the liquid.
Take the peel out, scrape away any remaining fruit pulp, and chop as thickly or as finely as you like it.
Boil the liquid down until only 500ml remains. Then add 400g sugar and bring to the boil until the liquid reaches marmalade temperature (109 degrees), or it wrinkles when a teaspoon is popped onto a cool saucer. Then add the chopped peel. Bring back to temperature - if no thermometer simmer for about another 5 mins. Then ladle it into hot jars and seal. Easy-peasy!
You'll need to keep it in the fridge because of the low sugar level, but it's delicious on toast! The Italians also eat marmalade with cheese .........
December 2, 2013
Tuesday Poem: Norman Nicholson - Wall
The wall walks the fell -
Grey millipede on slow
Stone hooves;
Its slack back hollowed
At gulleys and grooves,
Or shouldering over
Old boulders
Too big to be rolled away.
Fallen fragments
Of the high crags
Crawl in the walk of the wall . . .
A wall walks slowly,
At each give of the ground,
Each creak of the rock's ribs,
It puts its foot gingerly,
Arches its hog-holes,
Lets cobble and knee-joint
Settle and grip.
As the slipping fellside
Erodes and drifts,
The wall shifts with it,
Is always on the move.
They built a wall slowly,
A day a week;
Built it to stand.
But not stand still.
They built a wall to walk.
Copyright Norman Nicholson
from Sea to the West, Faber & Faber, 1981
The 1st December was the official publication date of
Norman Nicholson: The Whispering Poet
, now out in paperback and on Kindle. The paperback is one of those 'enhanced' ones with fold-in flaps and lots of illustrations. It's been a labour of love to write, since I couldn't get any of the major publishers interested, so all the research has been funded by me. But it's been a pleasure. I love his poetry. He writes about the Lake District I know well - the landscape I grew up in. This poem is particularly special - I helped my father many a time (as they say in Cumbria) to repair the stone walls that walked our farm boundaries. They scale precipitous hillsides in ways that defy gravity - erratic boulders left by the glaciers are simply built into them, just as Norman describes.And I love this Andy Goldsworthy sculpture (New York state), which takes its inspiration and title from Norman's poem - Taking a Wall for a Walk
If you'd like to see what other Tuesday Poets are posting around the world, please click on the link to the main Tuesday Poem site and check them out!
Norman Nicholson: The Whispering Poet is available on Amazon at the special introductory price of £8.50 and also on Kindle.
December 1, 2013
Red Sky at Night
A sunset tonight over the Mediterranean - so red it looks apocalyptic!
November 27, 2013
Not Saying Goodbye at Viareggio - again.....
You know that feeling when the train is speeding out of the station with someone on board who is very precious? And you're looking at the tail lights and feeling ..... Well - that!
Just waved Neil off on a train to Milan, en route to Cambodia. It'll be 2 days before I hear from him again and hopefully he'll be there. And then 2 weeks before he comes back....
Meanwhile, I'm supposed to be using the time to get some writing done........
Just waved Neil off on a train to Milan, en route to Cambodia. It'll be 2 days before I hear from him again and hopefully he'll be there. And then 2 weeks before he comes back....
Meanwhile, I'm supposed to be using the time to get some writing done........
November 26, 2013
Tuesday Poem: Sabotage by Shirley Wright
SabotageBluebells in a jam jar
cool wind on hot summer nights,
a snatched throat-catch of Satchmo -
so brightness comes
rolling on waves that splash
the horizon at my feet.
In the thinning of the trees
the deer’s eye holds my own,
slow-watching, patient -
we acknowledge one another
then move on,
blessed unexpectedly.
Autumn fruit falls,
Newtonian, prophetic, the grass
awash with jewels -
the hedgerows hang heavy
bruised with the bounty
of garnet, amethyst.
Stick-of-rock sweetness
bears yesterday all the way through till
mouth melts with memory -
toes curl in wet sand
the sea is in my ear,
and me standing here
sun-stunned
by moments,
fragments that stop the hourglass
like clogs hurled in the machine,
with all the fury and
astonishment of small things.
© Shirley Wright, 2013
from The Last Green Field , Indigo Dreams Publishing
I met Shirley Wright when we were both at the writers' retreat (Singing over the Bones) at Moniack Mhor in Scotland last May. I heard her read some of the poems in this collection, and really liked what I heard, so I bought it as soon as it was published and have been reading my way happily through it ever since. The poems are lyrical and display Shirley's commitment to eco-writing - poems that explore humanity's relationship with the environment. I like Shirley's sense of humour - 'Climate Change' begins: 'There are polar bears in my kitchen.....' and another takes a wry look at our ways of dealing with the new C word, 'In case you're wondering about the Carbon Footprint'.
Becoming serious again, in 'Field' she hopes for 'myths to sing
the branching of our story -
born in the heart of wildwood,
nurtured by wolves
and told in antique voices
to the trees that built us,
whose paper holds our dreams.
Another poem - 'My Father' - won the Sunday Telegraph prize for performance poetry.
'My Father ..
loved fish - their slither
and slide, the rainbow flash
of scales that would leap
and glide past
in silence....
She uses a quote from TS Eliot as an epigraph, 'The historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence.' And this too gives a clue to another of Shirley's preoccupations - the compound nature of time. As in this poem, the past is present in every moment, and we're assaulted with memories 'fragments that stop the hourglass', leaving us 'sun-stunned'.
This is an excellent first collection - a very good read, with some beautiful moments in it. Someone once told me that a collection should always have at least 3 'wow' poems in it - this definitely has!
Shirley Wright
The Last Green Field
Indigo Dreams Publishing
cool wind on hot summer nights,
a snatched throat-catch of Satchmo -
so brightness comes
rolling on waves that splash
the horizon at my feet.
In the thinning of the trees
the deer’s eye holds my own,
slow-watching, patient -
we acknowledge one another
then move on,
blessed unexpectedly.
Autumn fruit falls,
Newtonian, prophetic, the grass
awash with jewels -
the hedgerows hang heavy
bruised with the bounty
of garnet, amethyst.
Stick-of-rock sweetness
bears yesterday all the way through till
mouth melts with memory -
toes curl in wet sand
the sea is in my ear,
and me standing here
sun-stunned
by moments,
fragments that stop the hourglass
like clogs hurled in the machine,
with all the fury and
astonishment of small things.
© Shirley Wright, 2013
from The Last Green Field , Indigo Dreams Publishing
I met Shirley Wright when we were both at the writers' retreat (Singing over the Bones) at Moniack Mhor in Scotland last May. I heard her read some of the poems in this collection, and really liked what I heard, so I bought it as soon as it was published and have been reading my way happily through it ever since. The poems are lyrical and display Shirley's commitment to eco-writing - poems that explore humanity's relationship with the environment. I like Shirley's sense of humour - 'Climate Change' begins: 'There are polar bears in my kitchen.....' and another takes a wry look at our ways of dealing with the new C word, 'In case you're wondering about the Carbon Footprint'.
Becoming serious again, in 'Field' she hopes for 'myths to sing
the branching of our story -
born in the heart of wildwood,
nurtured by wolves
and told in antique voices
to the trees that built us,
whose paper holds our dreams.
Another poem - 'My Father' - won the Sunday Telegraph prize for performance poetry.
'My Father ..
loved fish - their slither
and slide, the rainbow flash
of scales that would leap
and glide past
in silence....
She uses a quote from TS Eliot as an epigraph, 'The historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence.' And this too gives a clue to another of Shirley's preoccupations - the compound nature of time. As in this poem, the past is present in every moment, and we're assaulted with memories 'fragments that stop the hourglass', leaving us 'sun-stunned'.
This is an excellent first collection - a very good read, with some beautiful moments in it. Someone once told me that a collection should always have at least 3 'wow' poems in it - this definitely has!
Shirley Wright
The Last Green Field
Indigo Dreams Publishing
November 25, 2013
Mount Corchia in Winter
Snow on the mountains is too good to resist. Since the recent storms the Alpi Apuane have been looking really beautiful. My friend Alexandra took this beautiful picture from sea level on Friday. Who wouldn't want to be up there?
Photo Alexandra SacksOn Saturday the weather wasn't brilliant - cloud and the odd snow flurry and a grey, lowering sky - but for intrepid mountaineers that only adds to the attraction (we are all certifiably crazy!) We decided to go up the old quarry road that winds its way up Mount Corchia. It was quickly apparent that it was more of a challenge than we'd bargained for. This was more than just a dusting of snow, but deep drifts. There were also fallen trees from the storm, but most of these had been sawed through to make a gap for vehicles. We abandoned the car - it took all four of us to turn it round - but were pleased to find that the four wheel drive of the rangers had only managed to get a quarter of a mile further on. The trusty Peugeot, now more than 10 years old, is a very solid vehicle!
At first we walked in the wheel tracks left by the rangers' landrover, but soon we were trail-breaking on our own. The view out over the sea, where the light was constantly changing, was breath-taking.
The buttresses of Corchia just appearing out of the cloud
By the time we got to the level section below the buttresses, roughly 1350 metres up, the snow was just too deep to walk easily through and it was bitterly cold, even with proper clothing.
But the view of the mountains around us was utterly spectacular. We're aching a bit now, but it was wonderful to be up there in the wind and the snow.
Photo Alexandra SacksOn Saturday the weather wasn't brilliant - cloud and the odd snow flurry and a grey, lowering sky - but for intrepid mountaineers that only adds to the attraction (we are all certifiably crazy!) We decided to go up the old quarry road that winds its way up Mount Corchia. It was quickly apparent that it was more of a challenge than we'd bargained for. This was more than just a dusting of snow, but deep drifts. There were also fallen trees from the storm, but most of these had been sawed through to make a gap for vehicles. We abandoned the car - it took all four of us to turn it round - but were pleased to find that the four wheel drive of the rangers had only managed to get a quarter of a mile further on. The trusty Peugeot, now more than 10 years old, is a very solid vehicle!
At first we walked in the wheel tracks left by the rangers' landrover, but soon we were trail-breaking on our own. The view out over the sea, where the light was constantly changing, was breath-taking.
The buttresses of Corchia just appearing out of the cloud
By the time we got to the level section below the buttresses, roughly 1350 metres up, the snow was just too deep to walk easily through and it was bitterly cold, even with proper clothing.
But the view of the mountains around us was utterly spectacular. We're aching a bit now, but it was wonderful to be up there in the wind and the snow.
November 22, 2013
Despatches from Storm-battered Italy
In Tuscany, on the Mediterranean coast, you don't expect to wake up to this in November. Drifts of the white stuff in the olive groves below the terrace, and temperatures of about 5 degrees.
Our neighbours are still picking olives. The mountains behind us, glimpsed through the clouds, were also white - and this time not with marble dust.
Photo Alexandra SackThe storms had kept us awake all night - thunder and lightning, wind, apocalyptic rain and the percussion of hailstones. And this is what the white drifts are - hailstones a foot deep like frozen snow. But however horrible the weather here has been (and it's been 'bruttissimo'!) it's nothing to the
storm that hit Sardinia
three days ago during the night. 453 millimetres of rain (almost 20 inches) fell in two hours, creating some of the most terrible flash floods ever seen in Europe. The island is devastated - roads and bridges and whole villages washed away and many dead. One family died instantly as a wall of mud, debris and water, burst through their ground floor apartment without warning. Towns and cities were flooded 2 or 3 metres deep in mud and water. Thousands are homeless.
Now the political fall-out has begun. The government have been accused of 'forgetting' Sardinia. Almost its only income is from tourism, but the tourist season lasts only 3 months of the year now, perhaps four in the warmer south of the island. For the rest of the year, Sardinians are out of work. They say that there has been no investment in the island - no money put into the infrastructure and that this neglect has contributed to the disaster. Italian football star Gigi Riva, who lives on the island, said in a newspaper articles (La Nazione) that he believes that Sardinia has been abandoned by the state; 'poi e' come se la Sardegna non esistesse piu'. It is all very sad.
Our neighbours are still picking olives. The mountains behind us, glimpsed through the clouds, were also white - and this time not with marble dust.
Photo Alexandra SackThe storms had kept us awake all night - thunder and lightning, wind, apocalyptic rain and the percussion of hailstones. And this is what the white drifts are - hailstones a foot deep like frozen snow. But however horrible the weather here has been (and it's been 'bruttissimo'!) it's nothing to the
storm that hit Sardinia
three days ago during the night. 453 millimetres of rain (almost 20 inches) fell in two hours, creating some of the most terrible flash floods ever seen in Europe. The island is devastated - roads and bridges and whole villages washed away and many dead. One family died instantly as a wall of mud, debris and water, burst through their ground floor apartment without warning. Towns and cities were flooded 2 or 3 metres deep in mud and water. Thousands are homeless.Now the political fall-out has begun. The government have been accused of 'forgetting' Sardinia. Almost its only income is from tourism, but the tourist season lasts only 3 months of the year now, perhaps four in the warmer south of the island. For the rest of the year, Sardinians are out of work. They say that there has been no investment in the island - no money put into the infrastructure and that this neglect has contributed to the disaster. Italian football star Gigi Riva, who lives on the island, said in a newspaper articles (La Nazione) that he believes that Sardinia has been abandoned by the state; 'poi e' come se la Sardegna non esistesse piu'. It is all very sad.
November 18, 2013
The Tuesday Poem: The Alchemist's Book of Birds from 'Drifting'
I've been lucky enough to be included in the new anthology of art and poetry put together by Harriette Lawlor and Agnes Marton, called 'Drifting'. It's a very beautiful book, though expensive - as all art books are. The theme was metamorphosis and alchemy - change and revival. So I wrote about alchemical birds, the Raven, the Peacock, the Swan - and of course the Phoenix, referencing mythology and an old text which has always fascinated me called
The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz
, written around 1459 but not published until 1616. It was quite a challenge to get everything in under the 40 line limit, so there's only an excerpt!The beautiful painting on the opposite page is by a major Russian artist called Vladimir Karnachev and you can see more of his work here. And he has a Facebook page here . The photograph is, of course, copyright to Vladimir and reproduced here with his permission.
from The Alchemist's Book of Birds
Sceptre
Bone for the beak
strained sky-ward in song
above the notched eye-
that-sees-me. Totem bear
and aurochs, salmon and deer
scotched on the ivory
shaft for the shaman’s hand
Raven
is at the back of the cave. She has come
here to listen to her inner weather.
This is the sad season; blind months
paused until the green feathers
the forest in catkins, larch and brush-
pine and the peacock eyes of the chicory
open blue in the long grass.
Swan’s
feathers to cloak a shaman, the soft skin
and down from the breast, a cap for a maiden
who is swan-necked and goose-footed. Raven
brings sceptre and book and will carry her in the black ship
to her wedding and will not forget
to hoist the white sail for the bridegroom
and the shaman will play on a flute
carved from the wing-bone of the eagle.
And the Phoenix
rising from the ashes of herself
a comet of burning feather and bone
giving birth to an oracle or omen
singing everything out of the ashes of herself.
© Kathleen Jones
If you'd like to see more poetry from The Tuesday Poets, please visit the hub here and check out what they're all posting. The Hub poem today is Pigs, by Les Murray - one of my favourite Australian poets.
November 14, 2013
Back in Italy at last . . .
We're finally back in Italy after a long and tedious journey south in heavy traffic and bad weather. November is later than we usually travel and at times we had to scrape ice off the car, found snow in the Vosges mountains of France, but mainly rain, rain, rain. After negotiating three road closures and passing four accidents, we were very glad to get through the St Gothard tunnel and see Italian road signs. The alps - invisible under cloud from the Swiss side, were perfectly visible and the sun was peering through a thin mask.
Soon we could see the serrated edges of the Alpi Apuane against the sky, just as it was beginning to get dark, and we knew we were nearly home. From a distance, they look like a row of teeth and I often wonder how they would have looked before human beings began to chip the marble from their summits and ridges. According to many, the destruction of the Apuan Alps is one of the 'greatest environmental disasters in Europe' and there's going to be a protest walk on Sunday which I'd love to take part in. http://artislimited.wordpress.com/2013/11/14/on-the-paths-of-destruction-hiking-tour-sponsored-by-environmental-groups-sets-out-to-defend-the-apuan-alps-____________-this-sunday-the-17th-of-november/
We fell into bed last night barely able to talk. This morning I've unpacked the boxes from the car and re-stocked the fridge and tried to get mind and body together enough to think about starting work again. Travelling is absolutely exhausting!!!!
Soon we could see the serrated edges of the Alpi Apuane against the sky, just as it was beginning to get dark, and we knew we were nearly home. From a distance, they look like a row of teeth and I often wonder how they would have looked before human beings began to chip the marble from their summits and ridges. According to many, the destruction of the Apuan Alps is one of the 'greatest environmental disasters in Europe' and there's going to be a protest walk on Sunday which I'd love to take part in. http://artislimited.wordpress.com/2013/11/14/on-the-paths-of-destruction-hiking-tour-sponsored-by-environmental-groups-sets-out-to-defend-the-apuan-alps-____________-this-sunday-the-17th-of-november/
We fell into bed last night barely able to talk. This morning I've unpacked the boxes from the car and re-stocked the fridge and tried to get mind and body together enough to think about starting work again. Travelling is absolutely exhausting!!!!
