Big Jay McNeely - Rapping on Rock!

Gone, gone, gone!

Who else knows how to rock like Big Jay McNeely?

 

If you've never heard him, go to his website, www.bigjaymcneely.net

Big Jay was born in Watts, California, in 1927.

The legendary honking saxophonist is still the greatest rock 'n' roll showman in the world.

Do you want to hear him rapping about his music and the origins of rock 'n' roll in the USA?

Listen to Big Jim Potts rapping with Big Jay McNeely back in December 1997 (YouTube).

NB Photo credits unknown 

Theresa Nicholas, Corfu Artist and Writer

Theresa Nicholas first came to Corfu in 1961. If Corfu has an observer of its folklore and old customs equivalent to Dorset's Thomas Hardy, then Theresa Nicholas surely qualifies. In her art she has recorded Corfiot life as she knew it from the early days, as it used to be lived: old olive-presses, village life, women with donkeys and mules, wine cellars, buildings and architectural features, churches and belfries, chimneys, costumes and interesting characters, all sorts of fascinating old images, man-made and natural, captured before they (largely) disappeared. Theresa has followed her eye and in consequence has witnessed aspects of life in Corfu that few foreigners have been privileged to see. She started illustrating Corfu scenes soon after she arrived, but much of her work was commercial. 'I churned them out for tourists' she admits. But they gave her a means of survival until 1980, when she started doing more serious work, experimenting with mixed media compositions, as well as linocuts, monoprints, etchings and oil-paintings. She has exhibited in Corfu in 1996, 2002, and 2004 (and 2009-Ed.). Women in Metzova Church, by Theresa Nicholas (Mandouki 1963, Photo by Theresa Nicholas) Theresa has been a great walker in her day. She tells that in the early days peasants were amazed at the sight of foreigners walking: 'Me ta podhia? Dhen echis aftokinito?' (You're going on foot? Don't you have a car?) Her home and small studio near Kanoni is a true artist's garret, and it is fascinating to see her precious works, which she is reluctant to sell, hanging from every wall. We are now lucky that we can buy copies of her sketches. Corfu does not know what an artist it has in its midst. This article appeared in The Corfiot in June 2006, and was reprinted as the introduction to Corfu Sketches.

The Beats are Back (2)

For an entertaining and witty animated version of Ginsberg's "Howl", go to Ginsberg 

For an excerpt  from "On the Road", listen to Jack Kerouac  and  go here for Jack reading from The Beat Generation 

For a recent Ferlinghetti poem, "Pity the Nation", try Ferlinghetti

The last word on the Beats has been with the women associated with some of  them. I've had a chance to talk to Carolyn Cassady and Ann Charters. They put things in perspective!

Postscript:

The Beats are on the road again
High on jazz and blues
Climbing up the mountains
With nothing more to lose

The Beats are Back! Some books that made a difference.

 

Want to see Ginsberg and Dylan together?

Harry Wedge (H J Wedge), Wiradjuri Artist, "You don't know nothing about us"

Harry Wedge, of the Wiradjuri nation, is one of the most popular and challenging contemporary Aboriginal artists (or he was when I was living in Australia).

This painting, one of a pair I purchased at the Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Cooperative, focuses on Aboriginal culture and creativity; the other one explored some of the negative perceptions that exist in Australia concerning aspects of the Aboriginal lifestyle. "You don't know nothing about us" is the title of the two paintings.

There's an interesting blog posting on Harry's work.

There is also an excellent book about Harry Wedge: "Wiradjuri Spirit Man", with an introduction by Brenda Croft and an essay by Judith Ryan (Craftsman House).

Update, 2013

Franchesca Cubillo gave me the sad news in London in September 2013 that Harry Wedge died in 2012.

Harry Wedge remembered

Photo: Harry Wedge with Cedric Talbot

The Art Life

 H J Wedge (Art Gallery of NSW)

"Captain Cook Con Man" (pdf see page 48)

Mithinari Gurruwiwi (1929-1976)

Have you ever been to Arnhem Land ?

I can't tell an ancestral file snake

From a Rainbow Serpent or sacred olive python.

Is that bäpi or the wititj totem ?

I've never been to Garrimala

In Galpu Country, to which this bark

Alludes, according to my catalogue.

Can anyone enlighten me? Howard Morphy, in his excellent "Aboriginal Art" (Phaidon), writes of Mithinari Gurruwiwi's characteristic development of  "themes from Galpu clan mythology", and of how the artist "expresses them in an individualistic way with great fluency and boldness of design. His works exemplify certain features of Eastern Arnhem Land that resonated strongly with modernist aesthetics- the boldness of the geometric shapes, the balance and vbrancy of the colours".

Judith Ryan's "Spirit in Land, Bark Paintings from Arnhem Land" (National Gallery of Victoria) devotes two full pages to bark paintings of Mithinari, including a very similar work, "Ancestral File Snake". (1964) . In her note on the artist and the painting (p. 109), she writes that Mithinari Gurruwiwi was of the Galpu clan, Dhuwa moiety, Yirrkala, north-eastern Arnhem Land. "The snake...comes out of the water to greet wolma, the pre-wet thunder clouds. Like the wititj python, the file snake makes rain by spitting into the sky."

I must be missing Australia, probably as a result of seeing Australian friends in the last few days.

We talked a lot about Aboriginal art, about Queenie McKenzie, Rover Thomas, and about Sidney Nolan, Garry Shead and other admired Australian painters.

The outback calls! So do Sydney Harbour and the Eastern Suburbs!