Sonny Simmons in the UK

Haven't been posting on this blog as much as I'd like to recently: been busy with the workload of a university term, and my attempt to start a jazz magazine, which take up a lot of my writing energies!

However, here's a short video I made from footage I shot earlier this evening, at a rare UK gig by Sonny Simmons, playing with the Tight Meat group. Billed as a collaboration between the old and the new, and described on the programme as "punk-primitive post-noise" (whatever that means! not a lot, I suspect), what it boils down to is very loud, very intense free jazz. A bit one-track, very unsubtle, not allowing Simmons' more lyrical side to come through - all valid criticisms, but, for sheer visceral impact, there's not much that beats standing in a room having your ears blasted from your skull by the sound of howling, roaring saxophones and plucking, grinding, booming bass and drums.



In the meantime, check out my new site, on which I'm going to be posting new and archived MP3s of my shows on Cambridge Student Radio. This term, there have been programmes on subjects diverse as Archie Shepp, the meeting of Jazz and Classical music, and a brief history of electronic music.

The address is http://fatgut.multiply.com