NIGEL AND I IN JANUARY
If you
were asked to fill in the blank in the sentence “Nigel Kennedy is a …………” what word would you choose ?
Yes, yes, all right, you guys ! V-E-R-Y very funny !
You may take a couple of minutes to giggle, okay ?
NOW………… let’s be serious about this….and I do mean
serious ! It really isn’t as easy as it may seem to come up with one word to
describe what Nigel is. The first word that sprang to mind was
‘violinist’……………well, it would be, wouldn’t it ? But somehow it doesn’t seem to
be enough……..it doesn’t encompass all that he is. For one thing, he’s also a
composer and for another, he’s a music director…………how about ‘musician,’ would
that do the trick ? The trouble is that if I consider the statement ‘Nigel
Kennedy is a musician,’ I feel that somehow I’ve lost the essence of Nigel.
Let’s try ‘virtuoso’……………well, that’s no help at all, it doesn’t cut it any
more than the other words did. The fact of the matter is, of course, that there
IS no one word to describe anybody, let alone Nigel, of all people. Everyone is
unique, and therefore enormously complicated.
John Clark, in his book The Money is the Gravy, discusses this very topic…………what
constitutes our individuality, what he calls our Core Self, and how we get in
touch with it. It has a bearing on what I’ve just been discussing because he
takes Nigel as one of his examples of someone who has succeeded in getting in
touch with his Core Self. Once you understand that, you begin to understand a
whole lot of other things about Nigel, things which people in general and
critics in particular tend to get spectacularly wrong. Here’s some of what Mr.
Clark says in his book:
‘Here is how the violinist Nigel Kennedy reclaimed his
individuality. Early on in his career, well before he had achieved fame and
fortune as a concert violinist, a chance came his way that any talented young
violinist would kill for: to play Elgar’s Violin Concerto at
‘ He dedicated himself to pleasing the maestro, who
held strong views on how the piece should be played. He wanted his audience to
think “This young man plays just like Menuhin”………….what higher praise could
there be ? And he succeeded. The critics said Kennedy’s performance was very
similar to Menuhin’s. But puzzlingly, they didn’t seem to regard this as a
virtue.’
Fortunately for us all, Nigel thought hard about this
and, as Mr. Clark says, ‘the penny dropped.’ It dawned upon him that it wasn’t
good enough simply to imitate Menuhin, great as Menuhin was. What he had to do was
reveal his own true self to his audience. Mr. Clark quotes Nigel, as follows:
‘It was time to tear down all those indoctrinated
values………..I had to face a really massive reclamation process to re-establish
my own individuality………..I now had to start asserting myself.’
In other words, Nigel had to get closer with his own Core Self again………..he had lost touch with it while he was learning from great teachers such as Menuhin. As Nigel himself says, he had to ‘journey back toward individuality.’
Hear where his journey back to individuality has lead him.......
(Courtesy welt.de)
So what, you may well ask, has brought all this on ? Well,
I’ve been reading an article ……………..you already had that figured out, hadn’t
you ?............... written by Axel Brüggerman in The German Times Online. Herr Brüggerman, who has clearly not read
Mr. Clark’s book, gets Nigel spectacularly wrong. He is quite happy to pin a
label on Nigel and doesn’t hesitate to label Nigel as ‘a punk.’ He then goes on to say that Nigel sometimes
seems ‘like an old hippie teacher who refuses to wear a tie and still believes
in those bygone ideals.’ Where to start ? Well, maybe by pointing out to Herr
Brüggerman that he really cannot have it both ways ! One cannot be both a punk
and an old hippie teacher at one and the same time, mate………….even Nigel,
versatile as he is, can’t manage that.
It’s true that both punks and hippies were
anti-establishment in their philosophies, but they are definitely not the same
thing. Both were non-conformist, but whereas common punk views included not
‘selling out,’ and a kind of nihilism, summed up by the title of the Sex
Pistols’ song “No Future,” and often expressed by the use of hard,
self-destructive, consciousness-obliterating substances like heroin and by the
mutilation of the body with razor blades, hippies on the other hand opposed
political and social orthodoxy and chose a gentle ideology that favoured peace,
love and personal freedom, summed up by the Beatles’ song “All You Need is
Love,” while psychedelic drugs were used to expand, not obliterate, one’s
consciousness. ( I might note here that if you write a blog, All You Need is Wikipedia ! )
So no, Herr Brüggerman, you can’t have it both ways. I
do grant you that Nigel’s haircut and his ………….shall we say casual
?.........style of clothing might make you think that he is a punk, but look
beyond appearances and you’ll come to think differently. I believe that ‘peace,
love and personal freedom’ might figure amongst Nigel’s ideals, but that in
itself doesn’t make him ‘an old hippie teacher’ and, incidentally, I’m rather
dismayed that you find these ideals to be ‘bygone.’ I would like to think that
rather a lot of us still cherish them !
There’s a great deal more I could say about Herr
Brüggerman’s misreading of Nigel, but I’ll confine myself to one thing. According
to him, Nigel has boxed himself in with his image, to the point where people no
longer want to play with him. (How Herr Brüggerman knows this is, to say the
least, not very clear ) The Berlin Philharmonic, for instance, prefer to invite
musicians like Lang Lang, who, says Herr Brüggerman, is not as great a musician
as Nigel is, but who is ‘the classical world’s flavour of the month.’ Well, if
that really is the case, then the Berlin Philharmonic don’t deserve to have
Nigel play with them………. ‘flavour of the month,’ for Heaven’s sake ! Nigel, he
goes on, ‘gives at least the outward impression of being content with
himself.’ This is despite the fact that
‘any self-respecting punk’ would secretly like to bring his projects into the
mainstream. It doesn’t seem to occur to Herr Brüggerman that the fact that
Nigel IS happy the way he is……………he quotes him as saying, ‘I am the way I am
and if the others don’t like it, then fuck ‘em!’…………….is all the proof one
should need that Nigel is simply NOT a punk, self-respecting or otherwise.
Nigel does not want to be part of what he calls ‘the spick and span world of
classical music,’ where glamour now counts for more than musicianship.
Enough already ! Have a happy New Year, Herr Brüggerman. Ich wünsche Ihnen Frieden, Liebe und persönliche Freiheit !
If you think he looks like a punk, you're not really looking.....
(Courtesy daylife.com)
Meanwhile, Geoffrey Norris, writing for The Daily Telegraph, has had a much
happier time selecting his ‘top ten most inspiring classical performances of
the past twelve months.’ He numbers them
from 1 to 10, but I’m not totally sure whether that is
NOW we can return to fun and games and play
‘Let’s-pin-a-label-on-Nigel’………..we could have a party and drink white wine and
fill the blank in ‘Nigel Kennedy is a……………’ and read them out and giggle and
drink more white wine and…………well, we could, couldn’t we ? My contribution is
‘Nigel Kennedy is a phenom,’ and if you don’t know what that is, it's because I'm living in the wrong country !
Be grateful that you recognize Nigel’s core self when
you see it !
Happy New
Year to everyone !
Check back
here in February.
ELSIE
NIGEL AND I IN DECEMBER
Run your eye over these quotations and tell me who they’re talking about !
‘He brings a revival of great music to the masses in a
bright,passionate and infinitely enjoyable way.'
‘He is getting people who otherwise might have only
listened to 3 minute pop songs to listen to all kinds of classical music…….he
is also inspiring a lot of kids to learn violin and be exposed to art music.
Can’t Hurt.’
All these quotations are from ABC in
Australia………..they have a web page entitled ‘ARTICULATE,’ where people can post
their opinions on what they have seen
and/or heard on ABC television and radio. In case you’re beginning to mutter
that they must have been written a long time ago, let me hasten to reassure you
that the date upon which they were posted was
1: André Rieux is a third-rate violinist who knows how
to put together some first-rate entertainment. [Beware the third-rate
violinist……….his power can be lethal !]
2. People should just enjoy the shows and stop trying
to pretend that he’s a great violinist.[But wouldn’t that take all the fun out
of it ? ]
3. Only people who can play better than he does have
any right to criticize his playing. [This raises an intricate metaphysical
question which none of us cares to discuss right now ! Right ?]
And that would have been that except that the name ‘
Kennedy’ leapt off the page and caught my attention. Someone named Tricia
Johnson posted this:
‘He is a third-rate violinist not to be compared to
Kennedy.’
I’d been wondering where Nigel was going to fit into all this and finally I found him…………guess where ? Right up there with the great violinists of our time, rubbing shoulders with Joshua Bell, Maxim Vengerov, Gil Shaham…………..Nigel, you’ve come a long way, baby, haven’t you ? But you’re where you belong. Or are you?
There's only one Nigel Kennedy.......
(Courtesy menuhingstaad.com)
Without in any way diminishing the accomplishments of
Bell, Vengerov, Shaham and others, I think it’s pretty plain to see that Nigel
is not just one of several great violinists…………..he’s one of a kind, unique. He
has done and continues to do everything that poor old André Rieu is credited
with doing to bring classical music ‘to the masses’ (yes, well, I don’t like
that phrase any more than you do, but it’s the one that was used in the
quotation !) while at the same time preserving the integrity of the music so
that those of us who think we know exactly how classical music should be played
are startled out of our complacency and fall about, clutching our hearts and
pleading for MORE ! There is only one
Nigel Kennedy !
Maybe that’s just as well. I for one don’t think I’ve
got either the emotional or the physical stamina to cope with more than one !
It’s been interesting this past while to read Nigel’s
tributes to other musicians who have recently left us. One of these was Vernon
Handley, who conducted the London Philharmonic in Nigel’s first recording of
the Elgar Violin Concerto back in 1984. Here’s Nigel in 2008, quoted in The Worcester News:
‘There is no other conductor from these times who has
contributed so much to British music and the British orchestral scene. As a
young violinist, Tod (Mr. Handley’s nickname) made an enormous impression on me
with his great intuition and understanding. He was the first conductor to
empathise with what I was searching for in Elgar’s music and was the first
musician to encourage me to play Elgar in my own way instead of copying masters
of the past………….Tod’s relationship with his fellow musicians was never
egocentric and he was always absolutely at the service and devotion of the
composer. This is a sad time for the music world.’
What makes this particularly poignant is that Vernon
Handley was supposed to conduct Nigel’s performance of the Elgar at the Proms
but had to withdraw because of illness, an illness that ultimately led to his
death.
Time to get out the CD again and listen to it somewhere
quiet and peaceful and give thanks for both the young Nigel Kennedy and Vernon
Handley.
Vernon Handley and Esbjorn Svensson.............in memoriam
(Courtesy gettyimages.com and aftonbladet.se)
Then there was Esbjorn Svensson. At the concerts with
the Nigel Kennedy Quintet in England last September Nigel prefaced their
playing of ‘The Hills of Saturn’ by explaining that in composing this piece he
was influenced by the untimely death of…………….well, I never did catch the name,
just a set of initials……….E.S.T and something about an accident. Well, ‘The
Hills of Saturn’ remains one of my favourite Kennedy compositions, so when I
got home, more than a little the worse for wear (!), I found time to look this
all up. Here’s the story then.
Esbjorn Svensson was a Swedish jazz pianist who formed
the Esbjorn Svensson Trio (E.S.T.) along with Magnus Ostrom and Dan Berglund. Ian Patterson, writing in All About Jazz, recalls the first time
he ever heard them play. It was in a municipal theatre in
He goes on:
‘The music that [the trio] conjured that evening
raised goose-pimples. The unmistakable Nordic roots (elegiac, melancholic and
folkloric) underlying a jazz syncopation twisted round a rock aesthetic, made
for a unique and powerful cocktail. At the epicentre was Esbjorn Svensson.
Technically muscular, his energized, cascading runs were as spectacular as a
Cresta sled run, and his contemplative playing somehow grand and blue as a
glacier.’
Then this:
‘The shocking news of the death of Swedish pianist
Esbjorn Svensson in a diving accident off
He was just forty four years old.
In this way, then, I understood, although in
retrospect, Nigel’s tribute to him and to his trio and now every time I listen
to ‘The Hills of Saturn’ both the music and Nigel’s vocal contribution make me
think of Esbjorn.
Two great musicians, one at the beginning of his career and one nearing the end of his…………………….how right it seems that it should be Nigel who pays homage to them both.
Peace and
joy at Christmas, everybody.
Talk to
you again in the New Year.
ELSIE
NIGEL AND I IN NOVEMBER
Do you know a two-year-old boy or girl, your own or somebody else’s with whom you’re in close contact ?
If you do, you might want to try what Jennifer Waits
does with her little girl, who, she says, is ‘a DJ in training.’ She calls her
DJ B, and takes her to record stores where she lets her pick out CDs which they
then listen to at home so that DJ B can ‘review’ them…………..or, in other words,
tell her mother what she thinks of them. And yes, this does have something to
do with Nigel, because on a recent excursion DJ B picked out Nigel’s Greatest Hits album. (I wonder why !) In
her blog, DJ B’s Library Tour,
Jennifer reports as follows :
‘As we turned the music on, she was very interested in
the CD booklet and kept pointing at pictures, asking “Is that him? Is that him
with paint on?”……………..When I asked her what the music sounded like, she said
“Cinderella………..like a princess.” I probed further, asking her what the music
was good for and she said “Cinderella.” I asked if it was dancing music and she
replied, “Yes. It’s Cinderella dancing music.” When I asked if it was sleeping
music, she also said “Yes. With Cinderella. Night night time.” From that point
on she kept referring to this album as “Cinderella music,” and she told me that
she liked it.’
Well, it makes a change from somewhat older music
critics complaining about cadenzas, doesn’t it ? If you do try this at home,
we’d all be fascinated to hear what results you get……………and it doesn’t have to
be the Greatest Hits album. It might
be thought-provoking to know what a two-year-old thinks of A Very Nice Album ! Just don’t let them listen to ‘Boo Booz
Blooze,’ though …………..for obvious reasons !
Emrys Baird is not a two-year-old …………..at least, I
don’t think he is……….he was at the concert at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire in
London, and I think I would have spotted a two-year-old if there had been one
there. I know I was pretty much out of it, but not, I think, to that extent !
He has written a review of the concert for Blues
and Soul Music Magazine and I wrote to them asking them for permission to
reprint his review on this website. Unfortunately, I haven’t had any reply to
my e-mail, I’m not sure why. Maybe they would quite like me to reprint it, but
the person designated to write and tell me that is presently enjoying the sun
and the sands in some heavenly resort somewhere and in the flurry of packing
and generally getting ready to go completely forgot about me and my request ?
Or they want to let me know that it would be over their dead body and they’re
currently engaged in trying to find a polite way of expressing the two words
they’d really like to say to me ? Or maybe they never check their e-mail ?
Well, who knows ?
ANYHOW…………what it means is that we’ll have to do what
we can with quotations.
Here’s how Mr. Baird starts off:
‘It takes a big personality to make the Shepherd’s
Bush Empire feel like a warm and intimate gig. This special magic (we’re back
to Cinderella again, aren’t we ?) is only achieved by a rare gift and this man
bears many gifts of the musical kind.’
.............a big personality............and a rare gift............
(Courtesy bluesandsoul.com)
Mr. Baird goes on to comment on the various pieces
that were played, as follows:
Where All Paths Meet: ‘Drawing us straight in with its
long pensive slow-burning intro…………Nigel could hardly be contained. Like Usain
Bolt (!) sprung from the traps he was off and running. With its lyrical head
swiftly dispatched, there followed darting, stabbing runs and a soaring
intensity that filled the air and set the benchmark for the remainder of the
evening.’
Donovan: ‘Donovan (who was the first to mix folk with
rock) saw NK ramp it up (after some cute Celtic plucking) to another level. Out
came the wailing
The Hills of Saturn: ‘[This piece] showcased the
wondrous bass clarinet, with each languid tone puncturing the near silence of
the brooding
What I particularly liked about this review is that it
gives full credit to the contributions of the other four members of the Nigel
Kennedy Quintet. Mr. Baird calls them ‘a fine band’ and comments, for example,
on ‘the rich warm timbre of the tenor sax [that’s Tomasz Grzegorski, of
course]’ and ‘the beautiful and virtuoso counter solos of pianist Piotr
Wylezol,’ which Mr. Baird says are ‘like pearls fallen from a broken necklace.’
He mentions ‘the ever propulsive Pawel Dobrowolski on drums’ and ‘Pawel’s
trusty bass sidekick, the deft Adam Kowalewski.’ And while we’re on the subject of ‘the other
four,’ we can bring in a comment from Polish
Culture Online:
‘The band …………is made up of some of Europe’s finest
exponents of jazz, from the ever-inventive rhythm section of drummer Pawel Dobrowolski and bassist Adam Kowalewski to the fluent soloing
of pianist Piotr Wylezol and the
muscular tenor sax of Tomasz Grzegorski.’
Some more magic…………I can actually spell the names of ‘the other four’ now ! I don’t have to look them up any longer. Proper ! The next step is to learn how to pronounce them correctly…………….but, you know, when I walked (uninvited) into their dressing room in Brighton to thank them for their part in the evening, I said that they had played ‘fantastika muzyka’ and asked them if that was Polish. They all smiled and told me that it was ‘near enough!’ I got a hug and kisses from all of them, I might add, so they must have known that my heart was in the right place, mustn’t they ? And no, I didn’t have sex with all or any of them, so if I caught my cold-turned-bronchitis from them, it must have been from the hugs and kisses !
Most of the quintet...........Pawel was there too, of course !
(Courtesy jazzlog.com)
When I wasn’t gazing down at the lights of the city
from Nigel’s suite at the Hyatt in
‘Yeah, I mean, I’ve got these amazing violins
(Violectra) made in
Dave told me that, in fact, his electric violins are
made of wood, and as far as the sound is concerned…………well, we can all testify
to the fact that the sound is amazing, can’t we ? One might almost say magical
? In fact, one might coin a phrase and start talking about ‘the Cinderella
effect’ when one is discussing Nigel’s music !
And oh, yes……………the
.....the skill of David Bruce Johnson and the magic of Nigel Kennedy.....
(Courtesy bbc.co.uk)
you can check them out for yourselves……………….on the 16th and 17th
of November the quintet will be playing at Muzyczna Owczarnia (click HERE) and on the 7th
December they’ll be at the Stodola in Warsaw (click HERE.) Piotr clearly thinks
that’s what’s going to happen, but you’re on your own with them……………I take no
responsibility whatsoever !
On which helpful note, I’ll leave you for now !
Cherish
the Cinderella effect !
I’ll be
back in December.
ELSIE
