Moiré music

Andrew and I went to the Bracknell Jazz festival. We had to be up early so we could buy me a spare motorcycle helmet, as the one I’d managed to borrow from Susie’s new boyfriend Vince proved much too small. Andrew bought a cheapo white one with peak and visor.

It was an enjoyable journey to Bracknell, the breeze warm as we powered along the motorway into Berkshire, stopping in Slough to check we were on the right route. . . .

It was incredibly warm. A marquee stood in the grounds of South Hill Park, overlooked by a terrace and a bar, and hordes of people sunned themselves in the fierce heat or packed the marquee to listen to the music of Dreamtime. Andrew and  I worked out an itinerary, to get in as much music as we could. I was so impressed with Dreamtime that I bought their album from one of the record stalls.

Joachim Kuhn and the Siger Band were so-so and the John Williams Octet produced passionless, empty jazz, but Lol Coxhill & Associates were excellent, with a quirky array of sounds, voice-overs, electronic synthesized screeches & moans . . .

The main attraction for Andrew & I were Miroslav Vitous & Stan Clarke who played an electric/acoustic bass duo. SC played bits of “School Days” & had us smiling in fond remembrance . . . His bass playing was unbelievable! Next up was Trevor Watts Moiré Music which was one long afro jam with congas, percussion and voices and received a rapturous reception, then the Gordon Beck Quintet which was being recorded for a forthcoming LP, and finally, the main attraction No. 2, the Carla Bley Band, Carla Bley (orange outfit, spindly legged, large yellow sandals) introducing her band with an appealing breathlessness & innocent enthusiasm. They played a Bley arrangement of Thelonious Monk’s “Mysterioso,” but we left before the encore to beat the rush.

We had a wearying tense journey back along the seemingly interminable North Circular Rd, Andrew anxious and angry over his malfunctioning rear light . . . We were back in Stoke Newington at two a.m.

No. 1

I got three letters; one from Dad, another from Mum, and the third from Andrew.

Mum’s letter disturbed me; it was uncharacteristically drawn out and struck me as emotional. She ended it with, “Thank you for being our son,” a phrase which puzzled me a great deal. She’d picked up on comments I’d made in my last letter home about my the moving house business and she feels her intuitions have been proven right and I’ve now been left “high and dry,” with nowhere to go. She mentioned Andrew and I having similar interests: “you could do all kinds of things together.”

The final paragraph declares that, “Dad once told you to look out for yourself first and I think he’s been proved right. If you don’t look after no. 1, no one else will.” As I said, the letter disturbed me but also touched me and made me laugh with its almost childlike innocent questioning phraseology. “It’s quite uncanny how you all think like us. Should we be proud or sad, do you think?”

She also mentioned Nanna P. and her messiness and that Nanna B. is bitter about our Calverdale holiday, saying, “Who wants to go on holiday to look at a lot of bloody cows!” Says Mum, “I feel sorry for her and her sort, don’t you?”

I know she doesn’t like writing letters and the fact that she penned such a lengthy one shows how worried she must be. So tonight I rung her up and reassured her, although she sounded doubtful. She also mentioned that Nanna P. has had her X-rays and is nervous about the results, and recently had £90 stolen by a conman who bluffed his way in to her flat by claiming to be a council workman. He asked her to put her finger on the kitchen tap to check for drips and left her standing there while he raided her purse.

I rang Andrew tonight too. In his letter he offered to buy me a ticket to Bracknell Jazz Festival as a birthday present. I wonder if this was partly inspired by Mum’s anxious ‘phone discussions with him about me? He told me he’s buying a 550cc Suzuki and will have it in time for the Festival.

Jazz, delicious hot, disgusting cold

After a pretty unremarkable Black Americans tutorial, Susie and I met Lindsey and went down to the Cellar for some food. As usual, I had a baked potato with cheese, tuna and mushroom filling for £1.00.

Susie left early and Lin. and I found ourselves alone together. I say it that way deliberately. I couldn’t think of anything to say beyond the utterly trivial and utterly pointless, and I felt at the time that she was in the same plight too.

A jazz group played a few laboured, uninspired pieces, while L. and I got drunk. I cashed and spent the better part of two £5 cheques.

Brains of the living

The thermometer on the landing is down below 70°F for probably the first time in ages. I got up at twelve to grey clouds and wet, windy weather: the rain streamed down from a flat colourless sky, a dull roar as it beat steadily against the roof. But gradually it slowed and stopped, the clouds broke, and the sun shone down on a glistening garden.

Minutes after I’d got downstairs, Mum and Dad got back from a walk up in Burndale: they told me that Robert has bought two bronze Buddhas for £50. I got up to find a postcard from Pete and a dole cheque waiting. . . .

Nanna B. is back in hospital for a sprained tendon, but Mum, Dad, the doctors and everyone else seem to think she shouldn’t be there. She lies red-faced and robust in a ward full of grey geriatrics at death’s door. Mum silently suffers her fears for the future, seeing only a vision of she and Dad burdened with the care of their crippled mothers: “It’s going to be hell,” says she with a long face.

Andrew rang at teatime to say he’s got an interview for a job next Thursday at twelve and he’s “nervously optimistic.” He sounded fairly content and I get the impression he’s having a good time in London. Tonight he’s going to see saxophonist Elton Dean at The Empress of Russia pub.

Whenever we watch the evening news a tense, pregnant silence settles on the room; Dad’s face is set in a mask of bitterness and anger, Mum’s in one of lined resignation. Tonight, the outrage and inquests over the downing of the South Korean 747 continue, the Russians admitting that “warning” shots were fired but they are preventing Japanese search parties from entering the crash area. It’s sad that the West’s anger can’t be expressed too strongly for fear of causing undue aggro with the USSR, and anyway the Americans will be after political mileage from this incident, for they’re not far behind the Russians in the murder stakes, after all. . . .

In Israel, Menachem Begin has gone and Shamir looks set to follow as leader. In Beirut, the fighting has died down, while in Chad it has just erupted again after a three-week lull. Just a typical day. . . .

After midnight I watched Archie Shepp backed by the Paul Hart Quintet on Channel 4’s Jazz programme. He did a version of “Yardbird Suite” which was too laid back and middle-of-the-road for my liking. He’s now more mellow and less frantic than in his angry days of old – I know which version I prefer. I haven’t listened to much jazz at all recently as I’ve been living on a staple diet of The Fall, Public Image and The Pop Group.

Peasants with free milk

I had to sign on at nine. Dad drove me down to the Admiral St. dole office, the sun already glaring at us from a clear sky. Away across Knowlesbeck, the Cluder valley slumbered under a washed out haze.

We pulled up in Admiral Street to find a large queue of people young and old outside the doors. At desk 13 I signed paper work and was told “Thank you.” Money should come next week. We drove back to Farnshaw as Dad had to sign on too, and then up to Bentsworth to a pet shop to buy daphnia for Dad’s amphibians. The broad stone-walled fields towards Bethany basked green and still in the sun. We got back at about ten-thirty.

I spent a lazy afternoon writing a letter to Shelley and just wasting time. I felt like going down to Phases later so I rang Grant—his brother answered; he was out, didn’t know where he’d gone or when he’d be back—so I asked him to tell Grant to give me a ring back but he never did. I couldn’t decide whether to go out or not and eventually decided not to bother.

My musical tastes are almost schizophrenic. I like jazz but also P.I.L, the Fall, The Pop Group, etc. Andrew has brought back all his records and they’re almost exclusively jazz—I couldn’t concentrate exclusively like that. The two types of music appeal to two different sides of my character, although I can’t reconcile the two.

It’s still smotheringly warm (76°F) even at this late hour, the sky a uniform light grey, a hint of hot rain drops in the steamy air, just a breath of warm breeze in the branches. Dad methodically waters his precious garden. Mum watches a programme about India on TV.

Nothing breaks this grip of Northern domestic stagnation.