Calais Hill jams
I've been over at Dominic's jamming on a couple of occasions since our serendiptious meeting.
Wednesday night I stopped by in the evening and we played a whole range of stuff - Cuban and other Latin-influenced sounds, reggae, some proper old blues, modal jamming. I was really impressed by his range of styles and influences.
The next evening I was there for a party (some of his friends having just finished drama degrees...I got to meet Jen who directed that Gertrude Stein piece, as well as another of the actors involved). Dom's friend Duncan, another highly versatile young guitarist, was also there and together they were playing an even wider range of styles. They have a shared love of Django Reinhardt, so we got into an extensive gypsy jazz thing, but also an Orchestre Baobab piece, some Leadbelly, more Cuban stuff, flamenco-y jams, "Cuanta la Mera", "Bella Ciao"...even (why not?) "Rocky Raccoon" with everyone singing along. I really needed an evening like that, and was on good form - one of those occasions where my fingers seemed to know exactly what to do, and I could just watch them, with a sort of detached amusement. Overall, a good blast of Manu Chao kind-of-vibe global resistance party music, bringing to mind scenes I've witenessed in Ghent (Sven's Son/Raï fusion band "Son Rai" playing at The Trefpunt) and Cork City (Toby, JohnJohn and a couple of Italians playing at The Yumi-Yuki Club as "Calle de Suenos".). And just a 5 minute bike ride from where I'm staying (or a walk through the woods and across a meadow)!
I recorded a some of all this (more on the Wednesday, only a tiny bit from the party) from which I've extracted a few excerpts:
Listen Here
Wednesday night I stopped by in the evening and we played a whole range of stuff - Cuban and other Latin-influenced sounds, reggae, some proper old blues, modal jamming. I was really impressed by his range of styles and influences.
The next evening I was there for a party (some of his friends having just finished drama degrees...I got to meet Jen who directed that Gertrude Stein piece, as well as another of the actors involved). Dom's friend Duncan, another highly versatile young guitarist, was also there and together they were playing an even wider range of styles. They have a shared love of Django Reinhardt, so we got into an extensive gypsy jazz thing, but also an Orchestre Baobab piece, some Leadbelly, more Cuban stuff, flamenco-y jams, "Cuanta la Mera", "Bella Ciao"...even (why not?) "Rocky Raccoon" with everyone singing along. I really needed an evening like that, and was on good form - one of those occasions where my fingers seemed to know exactly what to do, and I could just watch them, with a sort of detached amusement. Overall, a good blast of Manu Chao kind-of-vibe global resistance party music, bringing to mind scenes I've witenessed in Ghent (Sven's Son/Raï fusion band "Son Rai" playing at The Trefpunt) and Cork City (Toby, JohnJohn and a couple of Italians playing at The Yumi-Yuki Club as "Calle de Suenos".). And just a 5 minute bike ride from where I'm staying (or a walk through the woods and across a meadow)!
I recorded a some of all this (more on the Wednesday, only a tiny bit from the party) from which I've extracted a few excerpts:
posted by Matthew Watkins at 3:30 PM
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