etnobofin

Noisy Boys @ Fest’Napuan – Port Vila, October 2004

I don’t think that anyone in the cyber-realm will have fretted much about my lack of posts over the last week. I was out of the country for four days undergoing a dose of altered reality in Vanuatu, and since I’ve been back, the duty to blog has seemed completely unnecessary.

One probably needs to be kind of angry and uptight to blog, and since I’ve been back, the shock of new perspectives has left etnobofin temporarily wordless. The experience of living, if ever so briefly, in a village where there are no telephones, no computers, no cell coverage and everyone grows their own food, has been a bracing reminder of what is in fact important in life. I’m missing the happy, generous kids, the wild chickens, the wild pigs, the fly-blown dogs, the smell of the offal pit next to the village cookhouse, the people.

Standing in the shadow of the mind-explosion that comes with exposure to a new culture, writing a blog entry seems insignificant.

I was planning to post some photos, but they will have to wait until I can get some time on the office scanner…I also got some great minidisc recordings from around the village – the crickets and night birds, the village kids singing church songs in their local dialect, a preacher calling down the wrath of God on adulterers and practioners of witchcraft in pidgin….

Wordless.

You can also watch Jon Stewart’s rather hilarious demolition job on CNN’s Crossfire here.

The Guardian decides to get its readers to email registered voters in Clark County, Ohio, telling them how to vote and how the result of the US presidential election will have enormous ramifications for the rest of the world. Oh dear, I have heard of few concepts that were more ill-conceived and ever so slightly meddling.



Anyway, if the whole project was just an exercise in provocation, the entertainment value of the replies from Americans was well worth the effort!

Port Vila Presse

Saturday, October 2, 2004

Port Vila is about to be given another shake down during the coming 4 days [Fest'Napuan]festival and the committee is also gearing to make sure it is worth all the dimes spent. It will be the biggest, most diverse music festival ever with bands from Australia, New Zealand, PNG, Solomon Islands, New Caledonia and Fiji. Local bands from Tanna, Malekula, Pentecost and Santo will also feature at Saralana. And the music is just as diverse with Reggae, Kaneka, Zouk, Rock, Contemporary, Jazz and Blues also on the menu.

Most of the band has already flown out, and the last of us fly on Thursday. YEAH!

George W. Bush’s reintroduction of steel tariffs forms a key plank of his appeal to working class Americans. The European Union seems reluctant to undo the complex web of subsidies that some believe is required to keep their agricultural sector afloat.



And here in little o’l NZ it’s been 20 years since the abolition of agricultural subsidies and we seem to be doing OK.

Publicaddress.net has started a new fortnightly series entitled “Great New Zealand Argument”. First item off the blocks is the text of David Lange’s 1985 Oxford Union debate speech on nuclear armament.

GNZA sounds like a great idea, and it’ll be interesting to watch the project develop. You can link to it here:

I feel heartily sorry for all those who missed the Actis Dato Quartet at the Odeon last night. A great time was had by all, and those enjoying themselves the most seemed to be the charismatic members of the Quartet themselves, who filled the room with an enormous, rich sound that belied their ‘sparse’ lineup of two reeds, bass and drums. Several times the band launched themselves physically into the audience to coax dancing, mock fear and tears of mirth from all corners of the Odeon. Not even the bar staff were spared. The mouthpiece conversations (arguments?) between Dato and Chris Mason-Battley were a particular highlight…

This clowning could have easily been seen as pure gimickry if it wasn’t immediately apparent that these four Italians are masters of their chosen art – Carlo Actis Dato himself has twice been named the best Baritone Saxophone player in the world by the Downbeat Magazine Readers’ Poll (in 2001 and 2002). In addition, there a few names to conjure with in the list of Dato et al’s previous collaborators – Steve Lacy, Cecil Taylor, Tony Oxley… Given the gravitas sometimes associated with the European Free Jazz scene, the overt humour throughout their two sets seemed almost subversive.

Carlo Actis Dato (Paul Toogood Photograpy)

One thing that is often sadly lacking in the New Zealand scene is Dato’s brand of unselfconcious joy in the process making of music. As Dato tried in vain to “restart” his saxophone, kicking the accelator motorbike style, before miming an “oil change”, you realised that here was a band for whom music is not just the production of sound – it is also theatre, surrealism, comedy, dance, yelling and simply, fun.

Able early evening support was provided by local combustible ensemble Thierry, who proved once again that space, texture and intelligence is possible within the framework of group improvisation.

Rarely is virtuosity allied with such overt enthusiasm for the communal ritual of making music. Dato and his bands have appeared at festivals all around the world – Japan, Finland, Italy, Argentina, England, Lithuania, France, the United States. Here they were prancing around our little Odeon in Mount Eden like they owned the place. And for one memorable Wednesday night they did. Wow.

Image: DiscoverBlackHeritage

Interviewer: “What do expect is in store for the future of jazz guitar?”

Yogi: “I’m thinkin’ there’ll be a group of guys who’ve never met talkin’ about it all the time.”

Interviewer: Can you explain jazz?

Yogi: I can’t, but I will. 90% of all jazz is half improvisation. The other half is the part people play while others are playing something they never played with anyone who played that part. So if you play the wrong part, it’s right. If you play the right part, it might be right if you play it wrong enough. But if you play it too right, it’s wrong.

Interviewer: I don’t understand.

Yogi: Anyone who understands jazz knows that you can’t understand it. It’s too complicated. That’s what’s so simple about it.

Interviewer: Do you understand it?

Yogi: No. That’s why I can explain it. If I understood it, I wouldn’t know anything about it.

Interviewer: Are there any great jazz player alive today?

Yogi: No. All the great jazz players alive today are dead. Except for the ones that are still alive. But so many of them are dead, that the ones that are still alive are dying to be like the ones that are dead. Some would kill for it.

Interviewer: What is syncopation?

Yogi: That’s when the note that you should hear now happens either before or after you hear it. In jazz, you don’t hear notes when they happen because that would be some other type of music. Other types of music can be jazz, but only if they’re the same as something different from those other kinds.

Interviewer: Now I really don’t understand.

Yogi: I haven’t taught you enough for you to not understand jazz that well.

(Source Unknown – thanks to Bruce for sending this via email)

Woah, what’s going on here? Parts of Iraq’s nuclear programme are vanishing into the desert. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said in a letter to the UN Security Council that high-precision “dual-use” items including milling machines and electron beam welders appear to have disappeared, as has material such as high-strength aluminium. I thought that there were currently 100,000 foreign troops in that country. At least some of them must be trying to prevent potential WMD material from falling into terrorist hands.

What’s more, the is not being allowed free access to Iraqi nuclear sites by US forces and the US-backed Iraqi government. As Hans Blix points out, inspectors need the right to be on the ground to monitor the situation. But as it currently stands, the IAEA is tying to monitor the remnants of Iraq‘s nuclear technology from satellite images. It’s a bit like babysitting through a telescope from the other side of town.