Jazz belongs in cellars. Heading down a few steps and into a small, smoky bar with no windows – that’s its natural environment.
Last night Cal and I went to Henry’s Jazz Cellar, one of Edinburgh’s long-standing jazz venues, and checked out a group called Les Ecossais. They were all music student age, and their look was somewhere between Boyzone and the skatepunks doing grinds in Bristo Square. It was nice to not be the youngest in a jazz venue – there were a lot of young folk there, diluting the old Jazzheads.
They got props from the crowd, too, and deserved it. Their stuff was pretty fresh. Mostly new compositions by themselves, with some by other folk I’ve never heard of (unsurprising given how closely I follow jazz, i.e. not even a little). It was a pretty cool set, and a good evening out. Must go again.
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What the hell is going on in New Zealand? I’m hearing crazy stories second hand, and the stuff I see in the news is crazy enough. Like, Brash making a speech in Napier today that was only a few steps removed from the British National Party cultural purity line? This can’t be true, can it? Like, a Maori woman declaring a train after the hikoi ‘for Maori only’ and forcing non-Maori off? Urban myth, surely? Like, a Maori person getting verbally abused in a corner store while buying milk? This one, sadly, is true.
It seems like New Zealand is turning into a different country while I am away from it. And it seems the new country is much nastier than the old one.
I hate to see the politics of fear played out so strongly in Aotearoa. It makes me ill.
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Excellent piece on reading the Iraq prison stuff, at Teresa Neilsen Hayden’s divine Making Light. Very much worth checking out.
7 thoughts on “Jazz Cellar”
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The verbal abuse one is true except for the ‘woman’ part. For the record.
Not that it makes any difference, of course.
Corrected anyway 🙂
i saw a fraction of news article showing Brash give a speech to a national party chapter meeting. The guts of the soundbite seemed to be him claiming that biculturalism was going too far, was being forced down people’s throats, and was “simply madness.”
other reports from here and there seem to indicate he has promised america the anti nuke policy is toast in exchange for the trade deal his faith requires and belatedly realised this won’t fly with the public.
ooh, and i just read this gem on teletext. Simon Power, National’s defence spokesdude, just gave a speech saying National will without reservation support our close allies America, Britain and Australia in a military capacity whereever and whenever called upon.
The day after the hikoi the DomPost printed a story…a tearful teenage white schoolgirl was afraid after a train heading North was declared “Maori only”. She was intimidated enough to not try to catch the train, but went to her Dad’s office to get a ride home with him.
Not sure if it’s true, but it was certainly printed in the DomPost.
The media in NZ can be accused of whipping up tons of sensationalism when covering the hikoi. Jenni’s article got as far as me without having to read anything. It is the ‘memorable’ story of the hikoi in the capital, that and was it Tama Iti spitting. Anyway both these stories got far more coverage than they should have in the media. When you bump into lots of people who actually passed the hikoi (without necessarily joining in or supporting etc.) and all their reports say that *everyone* was friendly and accommodating, I doubt that those two reported incidences are truly reflective of the mood and behaviour. And therefore should NOT run with the other coverage.
Yes I don’t like spitting, and hell yes I would hate to be intimidated off public transport. I feel for her, but I don’t want coverage of these stories to be run sensationally and in doing so outweigh more positive and educational reporting.
Bleh!