The Classical

When you fall in love with an Impressionist painting, you do not have to respect it. You see the primitive olive trees of Matisse or else the straw chairs of Van Gogh, and respect is only an afterthought. Because first - there is love. You do not really have to think about the time and the sheer effort that Ingres put into his meticulous gowns of pure silk. And then, later, you delve deeper and in some dusty gallery you see the early drawings of Van Gogh and Matisse, and realise they could paint your classical still life as well as any Flem from the 16th century.

Now, suddenly, there is respect, and you may try to find some use for it.

Speaking of music, free jazz is very similar to an Impressionist painting. Albums like Coltrane's Ascension or Coleman's Science Fiction attack your senses the way Gauguin did (the latter was once called a 'virgin with savage instincts'). But then again, you will never forget that Ascension was released just one year after A Love Supreme, and Coltrane's free jazz was an experiment, a discovery. 

Ornette Coleman's story, however, is quite different, and a fascinating interview with Charles Mingus from some old issue of the New Yorker magazine featured this intriguing story. Once, during some jazz festival in the 60s, Mingus and friends pushed Coleman into the corner, gave him the saxophone and instructed him to play "Willow Weep For Me" and to play it straight. Classically. The punch line of the story was that Coleman couldn't. Not without a free interpretation, not without putting a spin on it. 

Having first read that story, I was forced to ask myself if it in any way diminished my love for the man who recorded The Shape Of Jazz To Come. And the truth is, it did not, because in art as well as every day of the week - love trumps respect.

Book review: NO GOOD DEED by John Niven

If Twitter were to die tomorrow, I wouldn't mind. In fact, I would only have one regret, and that is not being able to open John Niven's account once in a while and see his eloquent (I'm using the word loosely) commentary during Wimbledon as well as his gallant (again, loosely) tweets about Trump. Get bent, too. Interestingly, he did actually disappear from Twitter a short while ago (something to do with the Scottish language, I presume) to then rise again, very much unlike Phoenix, from the abusive ashes of social network.

Having said that, this side of his personality would not nearly be able to account for my love for John Niven the writer. Ever since the dizzying riot that was Kill Your Friends (the film was not good - sorry, John), which is one of those books you are bound to finish sooner rather than later, I've always checked letter 'N' in whatever bookstore I have visited. Admittedly, it has not been a perfect record for me. The Amateurs, for instance, never quite clicked, but I'm willing to blame it on golf. However, The Sunshine Cruise Company was gripping to the point where you could spend the whole day on the beautiful beach without ever stepping into the water. Two years prior to that, Straight White Male was a masterpiece that made me laugh and cry in equal measure. For me, still, his greatest achievement. 

John Niven is masterful at designing the sort of plot you have always (secretly or not) wished to explore. His dialogues are visual and fast-paced. His language is no-nonsense but a certain turn of the phrase will send you into fits. Speaking of which - not this time.

Somehow (and that's a big 'somehow' in this particular case), humour does not seem to be John Niven's primary concern here. Of course, there are pages that will test your limits (that diet description, for example), but overall No Good Deed is only deceptively a light read. The book it reminded me of (which is not accidental - there are obvious allusions) is Martin Amis's infamous The Information, a novel I'm very much fond of, not least because it features some of the best opening lines in postmodern literature. Both books deal with competitive friendships, and make you think of those famous words from a Morrissey song title. "We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful".

The plot is irreproachable. One day, a prominent restaurant critic, happily married with three beautiful children, walks through the streets of London thinking of his forthcoming review when he encounters a homeless man who happens to be his old college friend he used to envy. Willing to help, he invites him to his place, and it pretty much flies from there... Like I say, the plot is blistering, with just the kind of juxtaposition to keep you up during the night. And John Niven does not disappoint, not with that usual blend of heartbreak and violence. 

Having read this book a while ago now, over a couple of days in Italy, I can't stop thinking about the ending and how Niven chose to go for the inevitable rather than wilfully beautiful. But then he found beauty in the inevitable, which, come to think of it, could be the whole point of art. 

travelling notes (lxvi)

Slowly but surely I'm falling in love with long white walls in the galleries of modern art.

Album of the Month: BACK ROADS AND ABANDONED MOTELS by The Jayhawks

I could be going soft with age, but I'm not. I have always rated Gary Louris as a songwriter, ever since I came across Weird Tales by the now defunct Golden Smog. A record of many highs (not least "Please Tell My Brother", which could well be Jeff Tweedy's best song), it featured Gary Louris's magnificent "Until You Came Along". One of those songs you physically cannot resist. But then again... "Waiting For The Sun". "The Man Who Loved Life". "Listen Joe". The man is a great American songwriter, and I still remember that gushing review of Mockingbird Time I once wrote for some Oxford music magazine urging the world to pay attention.  

These days, I pretty much stand by what I said back then. Mockingbird Time is an underrated late-period classic that revealed the full range of The Jayhawks' music. Later, the absence of Mark Olson was felt rather acutely on the middling Paging Mr. Proust (having said that, I do not believe that The Jayhawks' world revolves around Olson, and Sound of Lies is one of their finest albums), and so I approached this latest LP with no particular expectations. 

Especially since Back Roads and Abandoned Motels is mostly made up of songs Louris had previously composed with other artists (Jakob Dylan, Carrie Rodriguez) and that had previously appeared in films and on records by Dixie Chicks. But Louris has a point when he says it was easy to record these songs since they felt like they belonged to The Jayhawks anyway. And now, whether you hear them sung by drummer Tim O'Reagan or keyboard player Karen Grotberg, they sound fresh. 

Me, I still prefer them to be sung by Gary Louris even if I know what he meant in a recent interview where he said Tim is technically a better singer. But I never cared for technicality, and Louris's voice with that subtle vibration at its core, tugs at my heartstrings with such effortless style. Biggest highlights on this LP include the well-known classic "Everybody Knows", the cold, beautiful "Gonna Be A Darkness" (the imagery is as simple as it is hard-hitting) and, most importantly, the two new songs by Louris that round off this album. Both "Carry You To Safety" and "Leaving Detroit" are well-honed ballads that belong on your imaginary Jayhawks compilation.

And all around, it's gorgeous melodies and everything that made 'alt country' such a worthwhile genre in the first place. At this point, Back Roads and Abandoned Motels is also a timely reminder that be it the slightly tighter The Jayhawks or the slightly looser Golden Smog - Gary Louris is a classic songwriter. Even if this album will go very quietly, too quietly, into the night... And speaking of Golden Smog, I've just listened to "Please Tell My Brother" for the first time in years, and all too predictably - it made me cry. Which means that maybe I am going soft with age. 

Nick Cave in Lucca, 2018

In a way, it's somewhat disheartening to go to a Nick Cave concert. The moment the dramatic, black suited figure appears on stage, stylish and spindly, you know that nothing will come close to that experience. I have seen Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space played live and I have seen The North Sea Scrolls in the beautiful setting of an Anglican church and I have seen Michael Gira going off in a cowboy hat. None of it blows you away quite like an unholy, 10-minute version of "Stagger Lee". 

The Bad Seeds' recent performance in Lucca was not my first experience of seeing Cave live. There was one concert in Moscow a few years back and it was a much more stripped down affair with four musicians, little guitar and Push The Sky Away played in its entirety. There was Warren Ellis having a fit during "From Her To Eternity". There was a rare performance of "West Country Girl". There was a huge Russian crowd begging Cave for "Foi Na Cruz" (which he refused to do) and then totally losing it during "Higgs Boson Blues". It was wonderful, and I knew I would be back for more. 

Nick Cave gives you everything you could possibly need from a live concert, and then he builds something on top of that. Something like a rare b-side with Ellis playing the flute or the world's most intense performance of "Tupelo". 

And it was no different in Lucca. With Skeleton Tree spread all over the generous setlist (19 songs over two and a half hours), he did "Loverman" and he did "Shoot Me Down" and he even was kind enough to do "Deanna" at the request of someone in the front row. And then there was all that crowd-bullying that climaxed during "The Weeping Song" when he actually got physically involved. Cave knows he is playing Jesus with the audience, and the brilliant reference to the Bible (him throwing water into the crowd and then promising fish) was very well-judged. 

The whole of the band (seven people, no less) was having a great time, and that is something you can hardly misread. When Cave says he loves his audience, you know he does. When he sings 'I'm transforming, I'm vibrating...', you know he is. He knows, too, what it means to play "Do You Love Me?" at the beginning and "Rings Of Saturn" at the end. He knows exactly what he is good at. And that is many things, not least saying at one point how handsome he thinks he is. Really, what a man.

Why go anywhere else if you can go to Italy? Why go to any other live show if you can see Nick Cave? In Lucca, on the 17th of July, at around midnight, you almost believed these questions as, grateful and exhausted, you leapt to your feet during the encore. 'Because this is the moment. This is what we do. And this is what we are'.

travelling notes (lxv)

I love the trams and I love the Last Supper. Still, for all its expansive designs, Milan has got to be the least inspired destination of your Italian holiday. 

travelling notes (lxiv)

Florence is the world's first city where I saw a conductor in shorts, and yet in no way was he at odds with the breathtaking setting of the Uffizi Gallery.