CHEERS to Bill and Michael in PWM, our Laramie, Wyoming-based friend Irish Patti and ...... well, each of you at Cheers and Jeers. Have a fabulous weekend .... and week ahead.
ART NOTES — an exhibition entitled Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia, 1948–1980— a look at (either) the brutalist architectural heritage of socialist Yugoslavia (or) the underappreciated architecture of Tito’s Yugoslavia ... either way, caught between the East and the West — is at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC through January 13th, 2019.
At MOMA in New York CityYOUR WEEKEND READ is a tale of money-center bank HSBC gone awry, entitled Inhuman Resources— involving a whistle-blower and sexism with a gender-role reversal — written by David Dayen, the writer formerly known as d-day.
CHEERS to the author John Irving— who wrote “The World According to Garp,” as well as “The Cider House Rules’’ — who has won the Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award (named for the late U.S. diplomat who brokered the 1995 Bosnia peace accords) …. a lifetime achievement award for literature's power to foster peace, social justice and global understanding.
THURSDAY's CHILD is named Lucy the Cat— a South Carolina kitteh who hitched a ride with a neighbor going to a summer home in Maine … and soon going home.
Lucy the Stowaway CatUNSURPRISINGLY the world’s most bicycling-prone nation is The Netherlands (with 1.3 bicycles/person) …. now, their cities are in a battle to construct ever-larger underground bicycle parks— with the result that law enforcement is now more keen to ticket illegally-parked bicycles, and the national government eager to construct more bike paths to accommodate expected growth.
THE FBI REPORT related to the Russian spy arrest this week included this:
"Butina, age 29, and U.S. Person 1, age 56, are believed to have co-habitated”
All I could think of when reading that ………………….
Wallets without any shields…. was Dan Aykroyd & Bill Murray's "Ex-Police" on the old SNL, continually busting folks for .... "cohabitation", and telling complainers to …. “Tell it to the ex-judge”.
FRIDAY's CHILD is named Pumpkin the Cat— a resident at the Board of Elections office in Athens, Ohio (and a favorite of nearby Ohio University students) — who has a benefactor that paid for his recent $400 dental surgery.
Pumpkin the Cat in OhioTHE OTHER NIGHT yours truly hosted the Top Comments diary — which updates some previous stories with some new developments: on the subjects of Marcel Marceau, plus the famed photographer O. Winston Link, recent developments of the prosecution in the UK of the police/stadium officials responsible for the 1989 “Hillsborough Disaster” in Sheffield … and the first meeting in 45 years of Dan Gable and Larry Owings: the two participants in what most observers believe to be the US amateur wrestling Match of the 20th Century.
xYou're not gonna take it anymore
— James Martin, SJ (@JamesMartinSJ) July 20, 2018RADIO NOTES — this coming Saturday, July 28 will be the final broadcast of the host of National Public Radio’s only syndicated sports show, Bill Littlefield— who is retiring after twenty-five years of hosting Only a Game, a non-traditional sports show covering all types of sports (yesterday, looking at the ever-increasing militarization of sporting events) — and a weekly discussion with Charlie Pierce. His replacement as host has not been announced yet — it may take place on-air.
BRAIN TEASER - try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC.
OLDER-YOUNGER BROTHERS? — two star athletes: a midfielder for Panama’s World Cup team, Gabriel Gómez and NBA guard Kyrie Irving.
Gabriel Gómez (born 1984) Kyrie Irving (born 1992)...... and finally, for a song of the week ...........................… a forgotten figure from the early 1960's blues scene in England was Graham Bond— whose own career (beginning in modern jazz and morphing into R&B/blues-rock) paralleled the musical trends of the era. The musicians he utilized became the face of rock music in Britain, while his own career (and life) went into a tailspin ... but who deserves some mention, nearly forty-five years after his death.
Born in suburban London in 1937, Graham Bond was an adopted child who became an alto saxophonist in the Goudie Charles Quintet in 1960, and then as part of the Don Rendell Quintet. These were modern jazz groups, unlike the trad jazz (i.e, Dixieland) bands then popular in Britain, in the pre-Beatles days. And Graham Bond was voted as Britain's "New Jazz Star" of 1961.
It was a former trad-jazz performer, trombonist Chris Barber who was to help spearhead the change-over in music towards blues and R&B - first, by sponsoring trans-Atlantic passage of such bluesmen as Big Bill Broonzy and Muddy Waters. Then he helped numerous musicians (such as Lonnie Donegan) garner exposure, further establishing Chris Barber as one of the founding fathers of what later became known as the "British Blues".
At that time, Graham Bond joined the band of someone else in that category: the Paris-born guitarist Alexis Korner - who had been a member of Chris Barber's band a few years back. Together with harmonica player Cyril Davies they ran the group Blues Incorporated - which had such members as drummer Charlie Watts (before he joined the Rolling Stones) and Long John Baldry — and was truly the first British blues band of note (from 1961-1966). When Cyril Davies quit over Korner's decision to add a more jazz-like element to the band, Graham Bond came in on alto saxophone.
In time, they had a rhythm section consisting of bassist Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker. The three jelled together, and by late 1962 they left to form the Graham Bond Quartet. Originally, they had future jazz-rock guitar hero John McLaughlin (Mahavishnu Orchestra) and played modern jazz - of which three 1963 tracks survive that were released on the excellent Solid Bond album of 1970.
But McLaughlin left, as the band were beginning to change their music from modern jazz (instrumental, with Jack Bruce on double bass) to blues/R&B - as the British music scene was changing in 1964 after the British Invasion began. First, veteran tenor saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith (with more of a jump blues background) replaced John McLaughlin. Then, Jack Bruce switched to electric bass and (having voice training at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music) began to sing some tunes.
More importantly: Graham Bond became only secondarily a saxophonist; using a Hammond B-3 and (strategically) changing the band's title to the Graham Bond ORGANisation - along with recording covers of tunes by Ray Charles, Chuck Willis, etc. in addition to the band's original blues/rock songs. Here is a publicity photo highlighting that change: (L-to-R: Dick Heckstall-Smith, Ginger Baker, Jack Bruce and Graham Bond).
Emphasis: “Blues” & “Organ-isation”And so Graham Bond - along with John Mayall - became the second wave bandleaders of the British blues. They performed at the burgeoning rock clubs of the day, with Graham's raggedy voice punctuating the band's power. The esteemed journalist/author Chris Welch wondered why the then 21 year-old Bruce wasn't singing more, writing that "Graham's idea of singing was to shout himself hoarse every night". But at 27, Graham was the older and more experienced musician and frontman.
The band had two releases in 1965 with (appropriately enough) The Sound of 65 and There's a Bond Between Us - both making a splash in the UK album charts. In addition, Graham was the first UK musician - and possibly the first rock musician anywhere - to use the new Mellotron - the forerunner to the synthesizer. But alas, the band was unable to garner hit singles - needed in Britain back in those days - even with a somewhat controversial cover of the song Tammy that Debbie Reynolds made famous.
Thus, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker left in 1966 to form the band Cream - with Graham recruiting a former Unilever accountant named Jon Hiseman to replace Baker on drums. They made some recordings but lost their record contract, at which time Hiseman and Heckstall-Smith went on to a stint in John Mayall's band before forming Colosseum - for several years, one of the most successful jazz-rock bands band on either side of the Atlantic.
Meanwhile, Graham moved to Los Angeles to begin anew: working with Dr. John and recording with session musicians such as Harvey Brooks and Harvey Mandel, ingratiating himself into the Topanga Canyon area and - as biographer Harry Shapiro noted - this should have been a productive time for someone as talented as Graham. Alas, his ego and substance abuse began to enlarge, and he returned to Britain in late 1969.
Upon his return, he met and married an American-born singer Diane Stewart, who shared another of Graham's growing interests: the occult (and Graham Bond eventually came to believe that as an adopted child he was the son of Aleister Crowley). At first, he began accepting sideman roles with his former young charges, post-Cream: on alto saxophone in Ginger Baker's Air Force (in 1970) and as a keyboard player in the Jack Bruce Band (in 1971) where Jack later said he was provoked into assaulting Graham with part of a sink in a Milan theater.
Then he formed his own band Holy Magick, noting his increasing fascination with the occult, but not without some good material (including a re-working of the classic blues Twelve Gates to the City by the Rev. Gary Davis). Yet by 1973 he had become divorced, a substance abuser and without a recording contract: spending some time in a hospital in 1973 after a nervous breakdown. In his excellent biography of Graham entitled The Mighty Shadow - author Harry Shapiro speculates that he may even have sexually abused his step-daughter.
Graham Bond committed suicide in May, 1974 by throwing himself in front of a London Underground train at the Finsbury Park station - at the age of only 36. He did leave a solid body of work, as well as his mentoring musicians such as Bruce, Baker and Jon Hiseman. Re-issues of both Sound of 65 and There's a Bond Between Us have been released, along with his two 1970's Magick albums.
In more recent years, the former Police bassist/singer Sting recorded a cover version of Graham Bond’s tune Springtime in the City— and just two years ago, the four-disc Graham Bond: Live at the BBC was released.
Finally, the late Deep Purple keyboard player Jon Lord stated, "Graham Bond ... taught me, hands on, most of what I know about the Hammond organ".
Graham Bond: mid-60’s …. ….. and in the early 1970’sOf all of his own compositions, his best-known song is one that Jon Hiseman's Colosseum made famous later on, Walking in the Park - that featured Graham's singing and swirling Hammond B-3. And below you can hear the version (from Solid Bond) with Dick Heckstall-Smith of tenor saxophone/Jon Hiseman on drums.
I'm walking in the park and my feet just can't keep still You said you loved me last night and I know you always will Oh, it's gonna be alright I'm gonna wait until I'll hold you 'til the end of time
Friends try to tell us what love is all about They don't really know but they said they'd help us out Oh, it's gonna be alright And I'm going to shout I'll love you 'til the end of time
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