Rowley Gallery Blog
Over the Pyrenees a week before Easter, en route to Barcelona, the spectacular view a heartbreaking reminder of the suicidal plane crash five days earlier. A flight from Barcelona to Düsseldorf had fallen from the sky onto similar mountains near Barcelonnette in the French Alps. It was impossible not to think of it, to imagine its kamikaze descent, to remember its helpless victims. Continue reading “Flying To Barcelona”
I’m a bit late catching up with this, it’s been around since 2012 so how did I miss it? It’s fantastic life-affirming communal music that puts a smile smack-dab on your face. Mucca Pazza (Italian for Mad Cow) are a 30 piece band from Chicago – part street theatre, part circus mayhem, part good time party punk. The video by Jim Newberry is spectacular, the music is a joyful noise, perfect birthday music, just right for today. So why’s it not called Boss Aries? No worries, I’m dancing anyway.
Mucca Pazza / Jim Newberry / All Songs Considered
Dear Chris, I have just designed the new EP cover for Cosmo Sheldrake. I thought you might be interested in including it in Frames of Reference. Thank you. All the very best, Bea. Continue reading “Pelicans We”
Cellist Ernst Reijseger in the studio with painter Simon Kramer. One draws and the other plays, each responding to what he sees and hears. The video speaks for itself. It’s a fascinating dialogue.
Frazey Ford, of The Be Good Tanyas, here recording with Al Green’s backing band at Royal Studios in Memphis. Such a regal sound and such an addictive song.
Rev. Green and Lyle workin’ out on one the best songs Willie Nelson ever dreamed up and the back up band was righteously majestic, close to perfection that we humans can possibly hope to achieve!
I agree. Wholeheartedly. Hallelujah!
Taraf de Haïdouks are celebrating their 25th anniversary with a new album, Of Lovers, Gamblers and Parachute Skirts, released by Crammed Discs. They’re playing soon at Union Chapel, but it looks like I’ll miss the concert, so in compensation here’s a little video for a song off the album. I first saw them perform at the Royal Festival Hall in 1998 when they shared the stage with Kronos Quartet and made ecstatic music together. I’ve been a fan ever since. Yehudi Menuhin and Pina Bausch were also fans, as are Johnny Depp and Terry Gilliam. They’ve been called “the best Gypsy band in the world”. Yet despite all the international acclaim they still live in their home village of Clejani in Romania.
This little oil painting, titled Passing By and roughly the size of a small paperback, is one of sixteen that Robert Newton was commissioned to paint at the end of last year. We’ve just finished framing them. They’re set in simple white trays to protect and contain their overflowing edges and, so that they don’t disappear without trace, they’re saved here in Frames Of Reference. Continue reading “16 Newtons”
A short trailer for a new piece by Gandini Juggling, to be premiered in the Linbury Studio Theatre at the Royal Opera House on 13th, 14th, 15th January – 4 x 4: Ephemeral Architectures features jugglers and dancers performing together with live musicians in a work constructed from grids and patterns and mathematics. See more here – Gandini Juggling, and for an earlier piece see – Smashed.
Providence: Michael Moore, alto saxophone; Ernst Reijseger, cello; Han Bennink, drums
If we’d had a bit more time I would’ve liked to visit Clusone (the città dipinta – the painted town), just 35 km northeast of Bergamo, to see its medieval frescoes and its backwards clock. It’s also home to an annual international jazz festival, where the Clusone Trio got their name. They first performed a one-off concert here in the 1980s, which worked so well they became a regular group, famous for their quirky, often humorous improvisations – with spiritual leader Han Bennink percussively playing the god Dionysus to Moore’s Pan and Reijseger’s Abelard – Thom Jurek.