Sunday, 25 July 2010


Apparently, with an injury the best way to treat it is the RICE principle. Rest. Ice. Compression and Elevation (Oh. I thought the "C" stood for cycling).
Anyway. I've been using my sore rib as an excuse for plenty of Rest and Elevation. Which pretty much means lying around on the sofa - so no change there then from a normal weekend.
As for the "ice"? Well we don't have any so I'm having to make do by surrounding myself with some cool jazz.
Started with Dizzy Gillespie's soundtrack to the film The Cool World. This got me thinking about the use of jazz in movie soundtracks and led me to two other classics. Art Blakey and the jazz messengers "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" and the daddy of them all; Miles Davis "Ascenseur Pour L'echafaud" (Lift To The Scaffold). Both are soundtracks to French films, one made in the late 50's, one in 1960 and both really steeped in a distinctive European cool sound. They both absolutely drip in minimalism and elegance.
The Davis album is especially good. Completely improvised by the band standing in front of a screen it really does define "cool". Strange too that the film was released in 57 - the same year that Davis released the "Birth of the Cool" album. A good album, yes, but nowhere near as good as "The Lift.." In fact if I was asked I'd probably cite this as my favourite Miles Davis album.

The Blakey album is a good un as well and shows, to my mind, a slightly different side of Art, in that it isn't really his trademark high octane, hard driven bop. It too is a real European cool sound with Lee Morgan taking the lead on trumpet in a fashion that's a bit mellower than usual.

All three of these albums are just the ticket at the moment just the right sort of sound for loafing about and reading a bit of detective fiction.
Don't for one minute really think that jazz can ease my aches and pains... but at least it can take my mind off them for a little while.

1 comment:

allen mez said...

Half the time jazz eases my aches and pains, the rest of the time it's the source of my aches and pains. You picked three great albums though. Nice post.