March 7th – Funny how music makes your horizon…I mean how it
gets there not how it creates it; only God can make a horizon, unless you work
in theatre then anybody can do it. I've mentioned before about the fact that
having children who are as involved with music as I am allows me access to
bands, songs and albums that I’d never normally hear. Some good, some…well, some
not so good, but all their recommendations add
interest to my musical understandings and I often think that it’s as important
to know what you don’t like as much as what you do. Thing is, this level of
self-regard can get you into situations that are less than flattering…
I was in Prague about eight or ten
years ago, touring a show…if you’re ever there or ever go back again, make sure
you visit the main library and have a look at the sculpture in the lobby; it’ll
blow you away… so, in Prague on a day off and I’d looked at the library
sculpture, been blown away, looked at the clock with the things that whizz
round and the mechanical people that walk about the parapets around the clock
face and was wondering what to do next… ’Lunch’, I thought, ‘when all else
fails; lunch’. So I ambled down to the old bridge that crosses into the old
town… there’s a thing. That bridge. On any given evening as dusk falls the
space below each lamppost is taken up by musician/musicians who plug their
portable amps and keyboards into the power cables that run these lamps and away
they go! Excellent... So, anyway…sorry, so, lunch, I find a small German
restaurant…that reads wrong; I don’t mean an eating place for vertically
challenged Germans, I mean a small restaurant that served German food; the
owner may have been a small German but that’s beside the point. So, I go in
order and sit. Food is excellent, enjoying the surroundings and, if memory
serves, the attentions of the very, very beautiful...stunningly beautiful,
Czechoslovakian waitress who tended to my every need…well nearly…when, over
their sound system comes a track that really took my attention.
I listened for about three or four
minutes and was really impressed by the musicianship and the almost
chant/trance-like route the music followed. As you know (Jan 23rd) I like
Talvin Singh, not only because I think he does some amazing Tabla work and uses
a fusion of East/West musicality to excellent effect, but also for his ability
to create a vibe (see, ‘vibe’…don’t try and tell me I'm not down widda kidz) his
ability to create a vibe that I can meditate to (bloody old hippie). Well this
track they were playing gave the same vibe (is that too much vibe in one piece;
too cool? Fuckit, whatever…) anyhow, this track; when the waitress passed me
next, I stopped her (not such a big ask, considering) and in an effort to be
the musically knowledgeable person I am (and also wishing to cut a dash) I asked
what it was that was playing.
She looked at me, weighing up my age and
probable background in an instant (I think she mistook the dribble for
decrepitude). “Ali Farka Toure,” she said, “not someone you’d be familiar
with.”
I nodded, “Oh, yes. Him. Thought so.”
“You know of him?”
“Yes, yes. Just not familiar with
this song, that’s all.”
She gave me a look that held a level
of pity unsurpassed by anything other than a dejected walrus.
“I’m surprised,” she said in her
almost faultless English – with just a hint of husky foreignness hidden amongst
it. “It’s his most well known one; everyone knows this, and the album it comes
from…”
She began to leave.
I began to colour.
“Must be the sound system that
confused me,” I mumbled to her disappearing (but beautiful) back “…that or the
noise from the kitchen…”
So, short story long, that’s how I
was first introduced to ‘L’ Exode’ by Mr. Toure. You may think, with the
memories it would bring back, that I’d try to move on…not a bit of it. Started
to listen to his other stuff (wow) and read a little of his background (WOW)
and I've remained a firm convert ever since. He died age 67 in 2006, on this
day. Well, our acquaintance may only have been short, Mr. Toure, but your music
can still take me back in an instant to THAT restaurant by THAT bridge in THAT
country…with THAT waitress…
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