Way back in 1993, armed with my first computer, printer , and box of floppy discs, (the tech’ was very primitive back in those days) , I took on the role of the newsletter editor for Aberdeen Jazz Society.

I was keen to write about music, rock or otherwise, I suppose you would call it musical journalism, but I didn’t know much about jazz, I was aware of some of the musicians, the American ones at least , through reading books by Jack Kerouac, and horror writer Peter Straub, had referenced jazz musicians in his work also. Prose writing was something in my game plan, but that would come later , meantime it was to be a steep learning curve, which I had set myself. However, I got there with the help of Aberdeen City Libraries for records and books, and buying cds and the odd record here and there, and was , I think, fluently writing jazz reviews in my leisure time. I came from a ‘rock background’, but it was all music, at the end of the day, wasn’t it? Jazz was played with different instruments ,and was structured in its own way, and it was related to blues also, which I had a huge enthusiasm for. In the few years I was involved with this, we promoted Martin Taylor, the famous Scots jazz guitarist, legendary saxophone player Peter King, who played on Charlie Watts’ jazz albums, Spike Robinson, an American sax player, who always put on a good show, and was a really nice bloke, and Herb Ellis, the celebrated Texan jazz guitarist who played in the band of pianist Oscar Peterson. As well as promoting gigs at the new Lemon Tree Arts Centre , I would included my own review of jazz or jazz related music I was playing at home, which were well received by the society’s members, so I was obviously doing something right.

Ginger Baker and Art Pepper were two of the first ones I wrote about. I knew Baker’s work with Cream, and Hawkwind, and was aware of his jazz background, so loved his album ‘Going Back Home’ , with bassist Charlie Haden and guitarist Bill Frisell , it had electric guitar on it which was a plus for starters! .

Bill Frisell was and is an incredible guitarist, and his work is very eclectic!

I also reviewed the ‘Best of Art Pepper’, which was great, Pepper was a Charlie Parker influenced sax player, who spent his life in thrall to heroin addiction, as is chronicled in his hard hitting memoir ‘A Straight Life’ co-written with his wife Laurie.

My favourite album I reviewed, and one I revisit every now and then was ‘Blue Light ‘Til Dawn’ by the jazz singer Cassandra Wilson. The music on this album is mostly cover versions, from the songbooks of Van Morrison (‘Tupelo Honey’), Joni Mitchell (‘Black Crow’), and Ann Peebles (‘I Can’t Stand the Rain’), all sung in Wilson’s languid jazzy phrasing, which really reminds me of the vocals of John Martyn or Joni Mitchell, not jazz per se, but ‘jazzy’. Her covers of delta bluesman Robert Johnson’s ‘Come On in My Kitchen’, and ‘Hellhound on my Trail’ are excellent, and thrilled me to bits when I heard this album for the first time. In 1993. I was very passionate about blues, especially the music of Robert Johnson, Howling Wolf, and John Lee Hooker, so it was great to hear a jazz artist covering these songs, but then of course, the line between blues and jazz can’t really be all that wide, can it?

She also covered the jazz standard ‘You Don’t Know What Love Is’, a melancholy mood piece, which to me is reminscent of Nick Drake’s ‘Fruit Tree’. On this track, Wilson is backed by minimal acoustic accompaniment from guitarist Brandon Ross, and violin from Charlie Burnham.

An album well worth a listen , along with ‘Traveling Miles’, and the 2015 Billie Holiday tribute album, ‘Coming Forth by Day’, which was produced by Nick Launay, Nick Cave’s producer, and ‘reimagines’ the songs of Billie Holiday in a modern context. It features a stunning take of ‘Good Morning Heartache’, which would not be out of place on the soundtrack to Peaky Blinders, and coincidently features The Bad Seeds Thomas Wydler and Martyn Casey,

I penned a poem about Cassandra Wilson’s voice many years later, inspired by her album ‘Traveling Miles’, a tribute to the music of Miles Davis.

Cassandra Wilson

Her dark voice

like velvet

curling

round cornet phrases

unfurling

in sepia-washed places

miles away.

Playlist:

Cassandra Wilson:

Blue Light ‘Til Dawn (Blue Note Records 1993)

Traveling Miles (Blue Note Records 1999)

Coming Forth by Day (Sony Music 2015)

Art Pepper: The Best of Art Pepper (Pacific Jazz 1993)

Ginger Baker Trio: Going Back Home (Atlantic Records 1994)