Went to the October 31st edition of Jazz in the Round at the excellent Cockpit theater in Maida Vale - this session offered
Mackwood - a trio (did not get guitar/bass players names, but very very fine chord/ensemble work with the lead drummer) - some of other work here but apparently, this line up has a recording out very soon - watch that space - a bit holdsworth, but restrained and more melodic, and clever rhythms
Million square - a sax/electronica duo - very fine - more here of theirs - some neat hybrid analog/digital loop/sample tricks - all to good purpose!
Loz Speyer's Time Zone - i couldn't stay for the whole set, but got up to Mood Swings, which was great - they have a really crazily good cuba feel - loose but very tight under the hood with fun melodies and constantly shifting arrangements.
Loz also told two stories about songs he'd written travelling to&fro between UK and Cuba -
one brief explanation of a song "lo que no te mata: (the thing that doesn't kill you), which, apparently in Cuba, ends with "te engorda (makes you fat, as opposed to the english "makes you stronger")....:)
the second was about the origin of the Mood Swings song, which was that he was staying with a friend in Cuba who'd been laid off from working on repairing lifts- apparently, they'd run out of older other lifts to cannibalise for parts - most older stuff in Cuba is made out of pieces scavanged from french, latin american, US and (of course) russian parts to keep it going - he explained that that was how he wrote the song...
Weird anecdote of my own - in the 1970s, my mother, who was a concert pianist but also taught at the Royal Academy of Music ran an improv event based on the story/themes Tempest at the Cockpit - i came along to help with sound and tech in general - i recall messing with a sax player who had the first copycat (wem?) loop box i'd ever played with - an echo through time and space! no sprites/troubled spirits of the air visited however, just light rain.
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