jazz changes

So here it is, late in terms of the new year, but still early in terms of the new decade,   the review of the NYE gigs at the Bernie Grant Arts Centre in Tottenham. The ones that I was involved in anyway. We were away in Germany for a day in between gigs,  and so I missed Yolanda Brown’s set again, and also that of Soweto Kinch, he of the golden alto and mercurial tongue. Although he did make a nice cameo appearance on New Years Eve on the tune AfroPean, a high tempo floor filler penned by Courtney Pine, based on rhythms for the African township of Soweto, as deftly nuanced by Black Star drummer Robert Fordjour and Dominican guitar maestro Cameron Pierre.  but more on that later.

The rest of the line up: Oscar Martinez joins his Cuban compatriot for the introductory set, and  his steady congas provide the true latin pulse as we play music From There to Here, the title of Omars debut album. People did not wait until Omar’s second appearance of the night – as a member of Courtney’s band – to mob him for CDs.

The usual suspects Maxine Gilmore, Sahan Satis and Steve Reece, sound engineers par excellence, struggled with another below par PA system. ( I had to do the gig without a monitor, but as usual my trusty Mark Bass 2×10 Traveller and Little Mark II was up to the task. Zoe Rahman finally made her appearance at the Bernie Grant Arts Centre, after being much feted by one the programme managers at its opening a little over two years ago, but found that the piano hasn’t arrived. And when it did turn up, it was far from the concert Steinway Robert Mitchell might now reasonbly expect – it was an upright piano that I think Chas and Dave would have reasonably turned their noses up at!

As the soundcheck overran, tempers got frayed and people started losing interest, it gave me cause to reflect on the reason why the event was staged in the first place; the commemoration of the 10^th year since the Rt Honourable Bernie Grant - MP for Tottenham, after whom the Arts centre is named – passed from the mortal plane. I wondered to myself, as I’m sure others did, what sort of a tribute was this for the first ever AfroPean head of a Local Authority in EUROPE, let alone the UK?

It turned out to be an excellent tribute. As the people of Tottenham have learned from Bernie’s example, it’s not about getting it all right; it’s about getting it going. And that’s not a wishy washy way of excusing a lack of prior preparation. It’s a way of saying that, like true Tottenhamites, Bernie was never held hostage to incompetence, apathy, neglect. He didn’t hang around waiting for people to make things perfect for him before deciding whether he should give his community 100% effort. He knew that detractors were waiting for him to give up, fall, or fade away. But Bernie could see the bigger picture, could roll his sleeves up, could get involved.

And that’s exactly what promoter Ray Hendricks and Centre Manager Juliet Alexander did in daring to arrange “Jazzmthology” the first of three nights of International AfroPean music from the likes of Yolanda Brown, Soweto Kinch Omar Puente and Courtney Pine CBE , which got the audiences dancing into the new decade, and celebrating the achievements through his “International Performing Arts Centre” as he had envisioned.

The Bernie Grant Arts Centre is in Tottenham.  Tottenham is in Haringey, the most multicultural borough in Europe; it’s a place of high migrant populations accompanied by low social expectations. Having lived here all my life, I understand that I’ve inherited the local tradition of living and working in defiance of those low expectations every day, in everything I do. Now I have heard – and continue to hear - all sorts of comments – some from people in low places, but perhaps more surprisingly from some people in high places – bemoaning white elephants and inherent (institutional) failures in the system, and berating that which can or can’t be done in North London because of the same.

When I hear these things, I can only smile, secure in the knowledge that if Bernie Grant - a single politician - had given up hope for North London after two years, the cultural landscape of Britain would look very different. If people like Bernie had hidden when things looked a little grey, it would have been that much harder for you to be sat here reading this now.  The free local IT courses and music education grants that Bernie pushed for would have been scrapped, or never introduced. Similarly,  without an African rebel like Bernie working back stage back in the day, would it have been possible to help incubate an exceptional North Londoner like Courtney Pine CBE? Without Bernie’s trieless campaigning for equality, would it have been possible for two-time MOBO award winner Yolanda Brown to also get fledgeling restaurant business and live venue off the ground? When the bean counters come, it’s difficult to precisely measure the benefit of preserving Grant’s vision , but without the support of people like him it’s all too easy to calculate the cost of a divided society.

As the clock counted down to the dawn of a(nother) new age, we counted his success in terms of the length and grace of the human conga, of all nations and hues, dancing around the band, singing South Africa’s blues.  I’ve noticed that every ten or so years, we look (back!) to Jazz to at least reflect on life’s problems, if not to try to solve them. It can definitely soothe the chakras, but sometimes the roots to change run a little deeper. Rest In Peace Bernie. You did not live to see it, but in the last ten years, things have gotten a little better for jazz musicians in North London any case. And the other artisans are starting to see the bigger picture.

Article by Taylor,

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 12th, 2010 at 9:26 pm and is filed under whats changing.... You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.