My brief post at the time of friend and philosopher Bob Hargrave’s death in 2012 is currently being viewed at the rate of 5,400 views per annum. Not hits. Real views.
That – in a very real sense – is remarkable.
A wave to all who loved him.
Bob Hargrave, 2011
photo – Dominic Minghella
From teacher: “Dear parents, a Xmas gift sounds lovely, but perhaps you’d like to take me off the email distribution list while you decide?”
There is a danger of blogging either in anger or grief: politics or the dearly beloved dead. It’s the nature of things, if we aren’t careful.
So here, by way of antidote, is something to celebrate. If you don’t have it (and I bet you don’t) then your record collection is incomplete.
I love this set of improvised concerts (Munchen and Bregenz) by Keith Jarrett so much. It is Jarrett at his liberated, exuberant, joyous – but tuneful – best. Better even than the world’s best-selling solo piano album, the Koln Concert. This will have you singing, gleefully banging your fist on the nearest impromptu drum, smiling, dreaming, crying, thinking. When you know it well you will be able to relax into it and let it transport you, let it free up your mind and allow you to decide where to direct your focus. It is therapy in a pair of thirty-year-old Austro-German gigs.
I had the triple vinyl album in 1983 or so but somehow it ended up in my brother’s collection. It’s the nature of things, if we aren’t careful.
I made do with a cassette copy, and then when CDs emerged, I patiently waited for ECM to release it in scratch- and hiss-free glory. After an age, a single CD only came out. Infuriating. More than half the music missing. I waited for the full version. Nada. I even wrote to Manfred Eicher at ECM begging for a release – by now the vinyl was long out of print.
Finally, just a year ago, ECM released the full set on CD and digital download. You can even get it in ‘high definition’ from HDtracks.com and others.
Run, run to your computer and order it. The world is not all bad or sad.
Today we celebrate the 93rd birthday of our fantastic Dad, Edward.
This funny, clever, fit, dapper, cheeky, amazing man is a genuine inspiration.
A friend of mine, who met him in the 1980s, used to call him Fast Eddie. And if you’ve recently been for a walk with him down to the front at Ryde, or played “Minghella Rummy (TM)” with him, or in any way engaged his agile mind, you’ll know that that moniker could still apply.
He’s seen a lot of life. And a lot of tragedy. And he’s still smiling.
Forgive me my bias, but Dads don’t get better than this.