early 2017 busyness

General musical notes from the early part of 2017 in Canterbury:

January 2nd we kicked off the new year with a low-key woodland session with Yiannis and Greek friends — more rebetika, etc.. I joined briefly on saz when Laura started up on a long, lazy "Summertime" and something Cuban Roberto played just before leaving.

January 16th had a little saz and mandolin jam with Jules at Laszlo's birthday get-together. Went along to the Bramleys the next day for the blues jam, didn't get a chance to join in, but heard Jules and Josh play together for the first time in months (Josh had been off travelling in Southeast Asia). There were some Tom Waits songs involved, I'm sure (and someone else played his "Heartattack and Vine" that night.

Free Range on the 19th involved a Victorian "Magic Lantern" show (operated Jeremy and Carolyn Brooker) with Aleks Kolkowski on Stroh violin and gramaphonick mashup while Sam played weird/interesting piano which was perfect for the occasion. This was a very busy one (about thirty members of a local bridge club with a fondness for Victoriana came along, not yer usual Free Range crowd), so I couldn't quite see what was going on.

There was a lunchtime gig up at the Colyer-Fergusson Hall on the UKC campus called "Cellular Dynamics" on Feb 1st (two pianists playing Philip Glass and Gavin Bryars with projections of evocative photography from bioscience lab environments). Juliet and Kirstie came along for that, then we all went and checked out a new formalist art exhibition at the Jarman Building followed by a woodland Imbolc walk.

Free Range the next day involved the "Montrose Composers Club" (which includes Aidan from Arlet, Phil from Cocos Lovers, their friend Matt Brown and some Folkestone composers). Phil Holmes played some saxophone, the Leon String Quartet intepreted some pieces, there was some psaltry-and-voice, some aleatoric stuff... I wish I hadn't been quite so sleepy on that occasion.