Monday, November 12, 2007

Communism and free jazz

I just love the way Wyatt comments on how it is possible to join a communist party, as cited in Sunday Morning Herald November 10: "People would say, 'How can you join a party that hardly exists and has as much chance of survival as an ice cube in a furnace?' I'd say, 'If you've been a free jazz fan going along to free jazz gigs where the group has regularly outnumbered the audience, even when there are only three people in it, it is very easy to join the Communist Party.' "
Comicopera has achieved rave reviews all over the world. Quite contrary to my feelings, the reviewer in "The Straits Times" (Singapore November 9), states that one instrumental speaks even better than the songs: "Curiously the most telling is a track without words. Just listen to the instrumental On The Town Square, named after a square in Louth where he lives, it's a panglobal arcadia of sounds". I don't quite get it, but it sounds smashing. Our French friend's "Une Discographie De Robert Wyatt", now present (among a lot of other stuff!) an old Soft Machine portrait from Down Beat.

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