For Sale: Waving Goodbye To The Drum Kit That Drummed For Kylie

I’m selling a drum kit.  Quite an extraordinary drum kit too.  It’s a Trixon Speedfire  - have a look at it here.  It’s lovely isn’t it.  It looks like something that would be played by a band in a groovy night club in The Jetsons.

 

Here it is being played by me in the gym at Harrow School.  (the first time I’d been in a gym for about 35 years).

This was for an advert for a motor car made by Lexus.  I featured in the ad for 0.00007 of a second but in this film (just before Kylie appears) you can admire the beautiful eccentricity of the drum kit’s design for quite a bit longer.  You can also admire the Prince of Wales check on my second hand Armani suit.

Back in 2003 I fancied buying myself an unusual drum kit.  A chap in Munich was selling one so I decided to motor down and purchase it.  I took along my old drumming mate John Sutton so that he could keep me amused on the autobahn.  It was a freezing night and inevitably my clapped out Nissan Prairie broke down – we had conked out by a little emergency telephone box and so I whimpered in English and in five minutes a big burley mechanic turned up and asked me to open my bonnet.  He then proceeded to start bashing something underneath the bonnet with a very large mallet.  I have no idea what he did but the engine started immediately and we made it all the way back to Leytonstone with the Trixon and with no further trouble and they didn’t charge me a penny. We love those Germans!

So the poor Trixon has been living in the cellar for quite a few years now – it’s absurd design hidden away in its cases.

Now I wanted to buy a painting.  My wife Joy thought this would be a perfect opportunity for me to raise the funds by selling my ridiculous mid-life crisis car.

But as I’m still going through the mid-life crisis – (so far I’ve clocked up 15 years and have about another 5 to go)  I said I’d sell the Trixons instead.

Here’s the painting

This is lovely too and we can look at it all the time rather than have the Trixons unused and hidden away.

So, before it goes on ebay is anyone interested?  It’s £2,900.  (a drum shop in central London had one up for sale at £5,000 – it had been used by the drummer in Bill Haley and the Comets but the condition was rotten – not a patch on mine).

You don’t have to be able to play the drums just have the room for a little bit of modern art – you could use it as a coffee table.

Why A Jazz Vacuum Cleaner Sells Better Than A Concert

Pitie's Mini Musing:

As someone involved with marketing jazz, I’ve been aware for some time of the desirability of avoiding the “J” word so as not to put off a large chunk of the paying public.  However if you’re selling any other product but the music itself it seems to be a positive advantage.  I don’t know who compiled the list (otherwise I’d give them a credit) but a hell of a lot of surfing hours must have gone into proving the point:

It is not jazz, it is an economical car. 

It is not jazz, it is a vacuum cleaner. 

It is not jazz, it is a case for an electronic diary.

It is not jazz, it is a child's toy that switches from being a car in to a robot. And back again. 

See the rest of this amusing article here.

Going All Tarantino On Cadogan Hall

Jeep's Blues.  Choosing the right tracks for your movie.

Quentin Tarantino doesn't use film composers on his movies - he takes great records and matches them to the action with an impressively adroit touch.  It made me think that I'd love the job of combining my favourites with the upcoming movies of the modern masters (but not dealing with the endless legal wrangles to get permission to use them!).  Here is my short list of some of the finest matchings  of sound and visuals.

2001. A Space Odyssey

• The Blue Danube.  Johann Strauss.  2001.  A Space Odyssey. Stanley Kubrick 
• Natural High. Bloodstone.  Jackie Brown.  Quentin Tarantino. 
• Up Up and Away. The Fifth Dimension.  Born on the Fourth of July. Oliver Stone

Woodstock

• Wooden Ships. Crosby Stills and Nash.  Woodstock.  Michael Wadleigh
• Funeral Canticle. John Tavener. The Tree of Life. Terrence Mallick 

The Tree Of Life

And from TV:

• On a Clear Day.  The Peddlers.  Breaking Bad

Breaking Bad

Now what brought this on was thinking about Jeep's Blues - The Duke Ellington number which opens our Newport Jazz Festival tribute concert on November 18th at Cadogan Hall.  This was used in the terrific movie 'American Hustle'; and what an inspired choice.

Jeep's Blues, Duke Ellington, American Hustle

See it here (I also love the use of Chicago's 'Does Anybody Know What Time It Is') - so I'll stick those two on my list.  I'd be interested to hear of any other particularly brilliant choices that you love - I hope to discover some more memorable moments.

Jackie Brown

Sax Exploits: Saving Duke Ellington

We're staging a 60th Anniversary Tribute concert to The Newport Festival at Cadogan Hall on November 18th as part of The London Jazz Festival, heavily featuring some of the finest work of jazz luminary Duke Ellington. Here's a tremendous piece from a few years back by The Guardian's jazz critic John Fordham. He succinctly sums up just what an important gig this was for The Duke, re-booting Ellington's flagging career.

Fordham: "In an electrifying performance by the band, Gonsalves – who hadn't played the piece in a while, and was initially uncertain of his way around it – played 27 improvised choruses in a raunchily R&B and gospel-inflected manner. It was an astonishing example of a musician playing way out of his skin – and one who had never been in Ellington's front rank of star soloists."

The 1956 Newport Jazz Festival appearance helped keep him and his band in clover till Duke left us in 1974. Follow the link for the full Fordham article.

The Newport Jazz Festival - The 1950s - A 60th Anniversary Concert at Cadogan Hall

On 18th November 2014, Richard Pite’s  Jazz Repertory Company in conjunction with The London Jazz Festival continues its series of concerts at Chelsea’s Cadogan Hall with a celebration of the early years of the Newport Jazz Festival, one of the hottest events on the global jazz calendar to this day and this year celebrating its 60^th anniversary.

In 1956 Duke Ellington’s Orchestra came to Newport and presented a concert which George Wein, organiser of the festival, described as “the greatest performance of Ellington’s career… it stood for everything that jazz had been and could be.” 

The Newport Jazz Festival 60th Anniversary Concert at 

Cadogan Hall for The London Jazz Festival

November’s concert at Cadogan Hall will feature the Echoes of Ellington Orchestra directed by Pete Long (Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Orchestra / Jools Holland’s Rhythm And Blues Orchestra), and will feature music from the best-selling Ellington at Newport 1956 album including Jeep’s Blues and the legendary Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue famous for its 27 choruses from Ellington’s sax star Paul Gonsalves in a performance that created pandemonium on the night and subsequently revived the fortunes of the Duke.  Echoes of Ellington will also perform Manteca and Cool Breeze, performed by the Dizzy Gillespie Band at their 1957 Newport appearance.

Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue - Paul Gonsalves  

The show also features music from two classic films of the 1950’s which celebrate  Newport. 'Jazz On A Summer’s Day' was Bert Stern’s beautifully photographed celebration of the 1958 festival and  the timeless classic ‘High Society’  features Cole Porter’s delightful music and features Louis Armstrong alongside Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly.

'High Society' with Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby

Pete Long’s Echoes of Ellington and singers Iain Mackenzie, Tom Langham and Georgina Jackson capture the magic of these historical milestones, performing them with a level of authenticity that is second to none and November 18th 2014 is set to be their best concert yet.

Commemorating Louis & The Duke's Anniversary With A Little Narcissism...

So here at Pitey Towers we’re rather chuffed and rather miffed simultaneously – chuffed that our November 14^th Cadogan Hall show Goodman and Miller at Carnegie Hall has sold out (hurrah – trebles all round!) and rather miffed that our fabulous November 18^th concert  “The Newport Jazz Festival – The 50’s” has sold around nine tickets and so at this rate we’ll be barricading the door to keep the bailiffs out.  Now, this won’t do at all so we have sprung into action and Mrs P  is currently parading up and down the Kings Road with her sandwich board on whilst I am offloading a lorry full of fake Swiss watches down the local and giving away free tickets with each purchase.

Now, just to give you an idea of what you may be missing – Arkwright, our wrinkled old retainer, has been down into the Jazz Rep archives, blown the dust off the file and served up on a silver tray with a hock and seltzer a review of Louis and Duke 1933 at last year’s London Jazz Festival.  By crikey that was a cracking night.

(Tickets available here for the 18th November)

Review By Peter Vacher - Louis and the Duke

Richard Pite’s Jazz Repertory Company has cornered the market for large-scale celebratory excursions into past jazz history. Remember their successful replication of Benny Goodman’s famous 1938 Carnegie Hall concert? This time round, it was two fanfares in one, the first half reprising Louis Armstrong’s ground-breaking appearance [with his ‘New Rhythm Band’] at the London Palladium in July 1932, this followed eleven months later by Duke Ellington and his Famous Orchestra, also making their European début at the same venue. Oddly perhaps, a certain Max Miller, by 1933 known as the ‘Cheeky Chappie’, was on both bills.

And yes, it was true that both these visiting jazz luminaries were cast as variety artists, appearing with a mixed bag of comics, jugglers and the like, this the result of musician union and Ministry of Labour stipulations then current. All of which was explained in Russell Davies’s sure-footed introductory narrative before the music got underway. That this was in the hands of Keith Nichols ensured authenticity but history also generated the idea that the concert proceedings should recall some of these long-gone variety artists. Thus we had a juggler, a Max Miller clone, a shake dancer, a drum routine, a ukulele act and most amusing of all, the sight of Richard Pite’s burly figure encoiled in a sousaphone, playing the Hungarian Dance no 5 alternately on this mammoth brass instrument and on a tiny piccolo fished out from a pocket.

The music accomplished much, most notably via Enrico Tomasso’s brilliant recreations of the Louis repertoire and Nichols’ avuncular and witty handling of the second-half as his Blue Devils dealt lovingly with the 1933 Ellington material highlighting Tomasso again and fellow-trumpeters George Hogg and Peter Horsfall, all impressively spirited. Just to hear them play ‘The New Black and Tan Fantasy’ was a joy.

"I didn't believe in reincarnation - not until yesterday when (JATP) was brought back to life and playing better than ever!"

The Jazz Repertory Company presents A Tribute to Jazz At The Philharmonic. Cadogan Hall, London. Sept. 14

Charlie Shavers, Howard McGhee, (or) Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie (tpts); Charlie Ventura, Flip Phillips, Illinois Jacquet (ten); Tommy Turk (tmb); Oscar Peterson, Nat Cole (pno); Les Paul, Barney Kessel (gtr); Ray Brown (bs); Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich (dms); Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday (vcls).

(Review by Lance)

I didn't believe in reincarnation - not until yesterday afternoon that is when Cadogan Hall was transformed into the Shrine Auditorium, LA and the above star-studded line-up was brought back to life and playing better than ever!

Buddy and Gene having a drum battle, three tenors honking and squealing selling excitement by the second. The trumpet battle - was it Shavers and McGhee or Roy and Dizzy? They played fast and loose with Georgia Brown she was never sweeter until these guys "kissed" her and sent her, and us, home with a smile on her/our face.

Of course  it wasn't all wham, bang, thank you mam! we had a seductive ballad medley, vocals by Nicola Emmanuelle as Ella and Georgina Jackson as Billie. 

The Peterson trio, as seen through the eyes of Nick Dawson (pno), Nigel Price (gtr) and Joe Pettitt (bs), opened the show with introductions from Richard Pite as Norman Granz and later as Gene Krupa.

Pete Long, Ray Gelato and Dean Masser blew a rousing, was it, Billie's Bounce? that turned into a Pier Six brawl with the tenor players slugging it out for chorus after chorus then 8's and 4's and 2's.

Interval time and I thought it can't get any better than this but it did!

Richard Pite and Elliott Henshaw recreated the drum battle, Dean Masser blew Body and Soul which segued into Callum Au playing I'm Getting Sentimental Over You and Tom Walsh blowing I Can't Get Started.

Pete Long was now on clarinet - not an instrument I associate with JATP - and he sounded good maybe Buddy De Franco did a stint with the Granz circus?

Perdido, maybe it included Mordido and Endido, had everyone going for broke and the only causalities were the audience whose blood pressure and adrenalin flow must have hit the ceiling! Long reminded the worshippers of how the old JATP audiences were unrestricted in their  applause and, if they didn't quite reach the heights of those wild hipsters, some of whom would eventually desert jazz for Rock and Roll, the mature misters and missus' present did their best. My larynx was most certainly in overdrive!The Blues kept the tradition going although I had hoped that Dawson and Price would do a take on the legendary Cole/Paul choruses.

The final trumpet battle 'twixt Tom Walsh and George Hogg meant the concert ended on a high and I use the word intentionally. Top C was merely the starting point for these guys and I've been on a high ever since!

Lance.