alisonboston.com

Updated: October 31,scroll down past the pics
Barcelona lights up its waterfront at night…

While on the walking street Las Ramblas, the living statues create a unique theatre…

More pics to come…
…I have just completed the first two legs of the Barcelona triathlon: Accomodation, Work, Residency
The Accomodation and Work were done in reverse order: work then accomodation. […]

Tumi and the Volume delivered a jazz-punk-hip hop fusion that had the Victoria audience hopping on the Bayou Barge at ICA Folkfest. Even the security guards couldn’t stand still. Cute website (cute? hip hop? Yeah really - check it out.) The Volume
Okay, so I have to learn how to […]

Yup, it’s true. I’m back in Canada.
In keeping with this site’s focus on my daily cultural activities, I feel some sort of comment is in order.
Yesterday I took my 88-year-old father for a stroll in his wheelchair through downtown Victoria. A few observations I made (besides how very odd it feels to […]

I don’t have much writer in me these days even though I’ve been out and about and have things to write about. In fact, I have a CD that was given to me over a month ago that I haven’t written about. Not because I don’t like it; on the contrary - I love […]

…that’s the name of the compilation CD I am on. My first CD. Now I have to join one of those songwriter’s associations so I can get my 50% of 1/13th of proceeds (after all the admin type people have taken their bite) from the sale of the CD. I need a manager […]

Highlights of the evening for me were delivered by Donarier when he played a frenzied solo on his bass clarinet, and by Blondiau when he closed the concert with a number that started with him playing a solo on flugel horn and trumpet, played simultaneously - one horn on either side of his mouth.

I finally got to hear the Váczi Dániel Trio. last Thursday on the a38 concert boat. Playing together since 2001, the trio serves up the meandering compositions of alto and soprano saxophonist Dániel Váczi. Balázs Horváth on double bass, and Zsolt Sárvári Kovács plays drums, adding colro with a few percussion instruments. […]

The more I hear - and see - of Erzsi Kiss the more admiration and respect I have for her as an artist. This is a big step for one who did not like her the first time I heard her. That was during Budapest’s French festival along the banks of the […]

I went to hear Steve Coleman at Trafo last Wednesday (Nov. 30th). With the warm up act it was almost four hours long! For this European tour, Steve has invited four Hungarian musicians to join him on stage: Zoltan Lantos (violin), Mihaly Borbely (reeds), Miklos Lucacs (cimbolom) and Gabor Winand (vocals).
We […]

In the two years I’ve sat in concerts here in Budapest I’ve heard a lot of technically sound musicians.
Sometimes when I listen to musicians I know they’re connected to the creative center of the universe and when they play, they just open their third eye and go for it. Richard Bona is one […]

listening to the program reminds me of the live show I saw last evening on the Columbus Jazz Boat. Andre Ochodlo and the Jazzish Quintet from Sopot, Poland are nothing like these ‘out there’ musicians. They come from extreme opposites of the musical spectrum. Where Kevin Blechdom (who is really a woman) performs with an outrageously raw energy, accompanied by music that challenges the boundaries of what is music, Andre Ochodlo and his quintet sing and play with absolute precision.

One of my favorite spots in Budapest is Nyitott Műhely on Ráth György ut in Buda (just off Alkotas near the Deli railway station).. Since I moved from the first to the eighth district, I don’t get there as often as I’d like to - but I do try to get there at least […]

The big surprise of this evening’s BOF concert on the a38 boat was bass player, Darren Taylor. Not an easy task to stand out in a talent-packed, star-studded band, backing up none other than Britain’s energetic saxophone sensation Courtney Pine, but Darren caught my ears with a steady rhythm that thrummed along keeping pace […]

Zoltan Lantos’s Mirrorworld played last night on the Columbus Jazz Boat as part of BOF.
I wrote pages and pages (12 and half) in my note book (19.5X14cm). It really needs editing, but here are my first few words, written during the first few minutes of the concert:
“…it’s a stream of notes
swinging from trees
jumping […]

I talked with guitarist-composer Gábor Brezovcsik and drummer András Mohay after Plastic Septet’s concert at Millenaris tonight and I basically said everything to them…
It goes like this:
I wrote two short narratives listening to Plastic Septet tonight. One is a crime story, the other is about a lonely motel. I’ve never […]

Here’s a few lines from The Perfect Place written by Ann, sung to the music of Baron’s Sunshower:

“…once he said
‘trust me,
see the perfect place for butterflies’,
and in his arms I travelled far,
the heat was real and wonderful.”

Went to Joe Zawinul’s Birdland in Vienna last evening, and I was delighted. Joe and his band The Syndicate were playing. I was entranced from start to finish. A truly international group of musicians, the concert fused Zawinul’s music with the traditional native sounds of the individual players.
All the […]

Moving slowly, yet with determination, Paul Bley came on stage last night at the Festival Theater after a prolonged 45 minute intermission following the performance of his peer, Szabados György.
A long intermission was needed after the intensity of Szabados, who had played an abstract hour-long concert, that culminated with a comical vocal dialogue […]

But my mind wanders back to the thoughtful music of the Oláh-Bacsó-Boisseau Trio and I hanker to hear it again. Their second piece of the evening, an improvisation called Hungarian Sketches conjures deep, mysterious images

Even with the asphyxiating smoke-filled air and the hopelessly inadequate technical - both Kárpáti Dodi’s trumpet and Vázsonyi János sax blowing simultaneously through one microphone, amped through a very unflattering speaker - I was hooked by the sound and had to tear myself away to continue to the next concert.

Not only did he wow me with that one song thrown in at the end of the concert he played with the Csik Gustztáv Trio, but he also tickled my ribs with what he told me is called ‘The Bobby Durham Special’, a tricky little cymbol technique he learned watching Philly Joe Jones (who he told me practiced in his kitchen when he was nine years old) and Max Roach.

The evening finished with the ‘out of tune’ Steinway being wheeled into centre stage and Szakcsi joining van’t Hof to play a duet - van’t Hof on one piano and Szaksci on the ‘out of tune’ Steinway.

Another of my favorite BBC programs. I’ve heard some great, and rare live sessions on this program - including bassist Henry Grimes.
Check the Jazz on 3 link under the music sidebar to go straight to the BBC Jazz on 3 homepage where you can open the ‘listen again’ radio player.
Listen again […]