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Ivo Neame is one of the very best jazz pianists on the UK scene
That Neame is one of the most interesting jazz pianists of his generation may be clear. That he is getting better and better is too. The 10 years of almost constant being on the road with bands has given him a prominent role in the front line of British jazz.
The track has been played on the J to Z show on BBC Radio 3 and has received airplay around Europe. A live gig from the Bristol Jazz Festival in April 2018 was broadcast on Radio 3 too, featuring both of these pieces.
I set a poem of the same name by Roger McGough to music, using the rhythm of the poetry as an inspiration for the melody.
Vegetarians are cruel, unthinking people.
Everybody knows that a carrot screams when grated.
That a peach bleeds when torn apart.
Do you believe an orange insensitive
to thumbs gouging out its flesh?
That tomatoes spill their brains painlessly?
Potatoes, skinned alive and boiled,
the soil’s little lobsters.
Don’t tell me it doesn’t hurt
when peas are ripped from the scrotum,
the hide flayed off sprouts,
cabbage shredded, onions beheaded.
Throw in the trowel
and lay down the hoe.
Mow no more
Let my people go!
Roger McGough
As a band we performed this piece on tours throughout the UK, the Netherlands and Germany, performing in venues such as:
King’s Place, London, UK
Paradox, Tilburg, NL
Lutherkirche, Duisburg, DE
A-Trane Jazz Club, Berlin, DE
The piece is based on a 7 over 4 structure – it incorporates elements of free improv and I overdubbed different synths and keyboards such as Mellotron, Hammond organ and Nord Lead after we recorded it.
The concept of Moksha comes from Indian philosophy and I read about it in a book called Island by Aldous Huxley. It essentially means freedom and self-knowledge although that is a simplification of the term.
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