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Saturday, 13 August 2005
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A few weeks ago I caught up with
Paul Godwin, a guitarist I first met at Uni when I was studying jazz in
the 80s, who now lives in New York. He was much younger than I was and
he knew his shit.
I lost contact with him when I left Uni to get work around that time,
but I met up with him some years later, when the DW Waldorf Swing
Orchestra, the 13 piece band I played in, started using Chris Ferguson
as our sound man. Chris used Paul as assistant. I was impressed with
their work and hired them for the acoustic trio Hat Trick that I was
with later.
I had played with tenor sax player, Dick Dawson,who was much older than
us, but whom Paul and I had met at the same time, every week for ages,
nutting out musical problems together, and after some years Paul
decided to join us, and then Chris joined us on drums, and sometimes on
vocals. We worked hard and learned lots.
We were very pleased to have played with Dick within days of his dying.
After Dick's death, the three of us continued, although the whole thing took on a different flavour and attitude.
Then one day Paul announced that he was moving to New York. So that was that.
Then, a few weeks ago, Paul returned to Australia briefly and met us at Chris's son
Dylan's CD launch at the Jade Monkey. Dylan has this very interesting
act in which he plays bass and sings. I heard his early experimentation
and demos, and was dubious, but this show was excellent.
I've adopted a policy lately, in which I try to put together people I
know from one area of my life with people I know from another area.
It came as a shock to me, that, even though Paul knew of Ralph and had
heard him play, he had never met him, and had certainly never played
with him. I was determined to get them together.
I got Paul to come to a Friday night session at the Bacchus where
Ralph was playing with the Healers. Paul enjoyed Sav's
playing, but
loved Ralph's. I introduced them and they got on like a house on fire.
They talked jazz and music and all the stuff we think is important. We
then returned on Sunday night to hear Ralph play in a different band,
much better, I have to say, than the Healers. How could you go wrong with Jack Mahalis on bass, and James Meston on guitar and singing? Not to mention Ralph!
I tried to organise for Paul to attend one of the free improv blows
that Ralph, Peter Thurmer and I had been having, but Paul was
unavailable. Bummer.
But then it occurred to me that Paul, Chris, and I had already
organised a rehearsal for Dylan's farewell, before he left for Germany.
Maybe Ralph could do that, or even play at the party?
Well, that's what happened, but in the event Steve Todd played drums
rather than Chris, who sang. But even then for what was supposed to be
our last tune, When Sunny Gets Blue, Steve made his son Ben play.
Ben did a subtle, but essentially workmanlike job on the ballad.
For encore we called Donna Lee. This is a fast hard, bop tune. Ben was excellent. He was in his element!
Days later, Ralph asked how old Ben was; he was very impressed.
He's 16. Was offered a gig with Cirque du Soleil; in fact he got the job, until they realised how young he was.
One of the consequences of my hooking Ralph up with Paul, is that, of
course, Ralph has now been offered free accommodation in New York. He
will definitely take this up!
11:59:41 PM 
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Monks run short of 'world's best' beer.
Monks at a Belgian abbey have run out of their famous beer after it was voted the best in the world.
In the middle ages, German and
Belgian monks had an allowance of a gallon of beer a day. That's quite
a bit. They would have been on a buzz most of the time. On the other
hand, it meant that they hardly ever had to drink water. This saved
them from many prevalent, fatal diseases. So they were able to fulfil
their role as the guardians of civilisation throughout the dark ages.
[ABC News: Offbeat (with Mpeg1)]
7:47:12 PM
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Castro celebrates 79th birthday.
Cuban President Fidel Castro - the world's longest serving political leader - is celebrating his 79th birthday today.
Had a cat named Fidel once; his
companion was called Che. Che was killed by a car, and Fidel proved to
have very little "fidelity".
He kept running away, until one day he didn't come back.
[ABC News: Breaking Stories]
6:04:31 PM
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© Copyright 2005 Peter Nixon.
Last update: 27/9/05; 9:54:14 PM.
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Image shot by Donald Weber, from the series