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R.I.P. Plas Johnson (1931-2026)

Posted in Biographical, Film, Jazz, R.I.P. with tags , , , , on July 23, 2026 by telescoper

I first heard news of the death of tenor saxophonist Plas Johnson (left) a couple of days ago, and since then there have been numerous tributes including this one in the Irish Times. Almost without fail the obituaries introduce him as the man who played the saxophone part of the Pink Panther theme written by Henry Mancini. In fact, years ago, I won a tiebreak for my team in a pub quiz by knowing the name of the person who played that tune.

Even very good musicians struggled to make a decent living from jazz after the arrival of rock-and-roll as a popular musical phenomenon in the 1950s. Like many jazz performers, Johnson addressed this issue by moving to Los Angeles, where he found work as a session musician working to support such artists as Frank Sinatra and Marvin Gaye, or on film and TV music. Henry Mancini noticed Plas Johnson’s quality and it inspired him to write the Pink Panther film specifically for him. Most of these performances went uncredited, which is why his name isn’t more widely known despite him being a very fine saxophonist. Nonetheless, having the financial security of being much sought after session musician, Plas Johnson was able to continue to pursue his love of jazz. He made some fine albums as leader (I have Positively on vinyl). He also moonlighted as Johnny Beecher to evade contractual issues.

The reason I knew of Plas Johnson as a jazz musician before I found out he was the Pink Panther guy. That’s because I used to listen to Humphrey Lyttelton’s radio programme The Best of Jazz on Radio 2 on Monday evenings from 9pm when I was at school and Plas Johnson came up a few times, including on the track I’ve included below from one of the famous Hanna-Fontana sessions at the Concord Jazz Festival. The recording was made in 1975 but the record wasn’t available in the UK until a couple of years later. I used to tape Humph’s radio shows but no longer have any of the cassettes so I had to spend much of my spare time the last couple of days trying to find the track Humph played. This is it! It features Plas Johnson (ts), clearly enjoying himself in the company of Bill Berry (tpt), Carl Fontana (tb), Herb Ellis (g), Dave McKenna (p), Herb Mickman (b) and Jake Hanna (d). Not a bad line-up!

R.I.P. Plas Johnson (1931-2026), so much more than the Pink Panther guy!

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Jeux d’eau

Posted in Maynooth, Music with tags , , , , , on July 16, 2026 by telescoper

So a six-week hosepipe ban (covering all non-essential use of water) has just started in an area including Maynooth:

(I’m a little surprised that we haven’t been served with an official written notice about this but I’ll observe it anyway.)

Since we won’t be able to play with real water for a while, how about the next best thing in the form of this wonderful performance of Maurice Ravel‘s beautiful Jeux d’eau by Martha Argerich? This is the only version of this piece I have on CD, and I’d be happy to receive other suggestions through the comments box, but I think it must be hard to beat for the sheer fluidity of the playing.

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Whistler at Tate Britain

Posted in Art, Jazz with tags , , , , , on July 5, 2026 by telescoper

Back to the hotel for a short siesta after spending most of the day at Tate Britain, where there is a special exhibition of works by and about James McNeill Whistler. The main collection at Tate Britain is free, but the Whistler exhibition costs £24 to see. It’s well worth it though.

The first picture shows Whistler’s famous portrait of his mother, who seems to be holding court. My favourite pieces, however, the Nocturnes, two of which I have mentioned on this blog before. There are three shown below, but photographs don’t do them justice at all. The appearance of the paint when seen close up is quite remarkable, a sort of translucent quality to it even when the picture is very dark. Whistler was one of the first artists to really master painting in the dark without using moonlight or other obvious illumination.

The last of these is particularly interesting to me. When the great American songwriter Billy Strayhorn saw the beautifully evocative painting (above) of one of the bridges over the River Thames, it inspired him to write an equally evocative song to be performed by his longstanding musical collaborator and friend Duke Ellington. The song was written in 1941, but it was only years later that he realized that he had named it after the wrong bridge. The painting was of Battersea Bridge; but he had named the song  Chelsea Bridge, a much less romantic location. Chelsea Bridge is an intriguing tune, based on minor sixth chords voiced via their third inversions, it sounds almost atonal but very evocative, just like the painting.

In one of the video segments played during the exhibition we hear the actor Anton Lesser quoting Whistler with words the effect that he saw colours like notes on a keyboard; he started naming his paintings after musical works, e.g. “Symphony in White” before he got to his masterpieces, the Nocturnes.

I wrote about another of the Nocturnes here. Nocturne in Black and Gold, in the same series as the third picture above, is famous for having been at the centre of a libel case. The influential art critic John Ruskin hated it and accused Whistler of “flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face”. Whistler sued for damages (though he couldn’t really afford to). He won the case against Ruskin, but the outcome was financially disastrous for him because he was awarded only one farthing in damages and was bankrupted.

Tate Britain has an extensive permanent collection of primarily English art from about 1600 onwards, not least a huge collection of works by J.M.W. Turner. It’s fascinating to see so many of these together, charting this extraordinary artist’s evolution from brilliant if conventional upstart to pioneering impressionist. Along the way Turner’s interest in conventional themes began to wane in favour of the interplay between sea and clouds, to the extent that his works began to look like abstracts. There is in my mind a strong influence on Whistler. This one, ostensibly a seascape with a distant shore, reminds me of Rothko.

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Heat Wave – Martha and The Vandellas

Posted in Music with tags , on June 26, 2026 by telescoper

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My Bucket’s Got a Hole in It

Posted in Biographical, Jazz, Maynooth with tags , , , , on June 14, 2026 by telescoper

“Only connect” is EM Forster’s best known adage about writing, though he didn’t mean it in the context of a “shitty WordPress blog”. Nevertheless I do find it fun sometimes to connect disparate things, so here goes.

I was doing a turn in the garden this afternoon when I noticed that an old bucket left here by the previous occupant had corroded enough to develop a hole:

This reminded me of the old song My Bucket’s Got a Hole in It and especially this very enjoyable version of it by Humphrey Lyttelton’s 1954 seven-piece live at the Conway Hall in London.

It’s hard to believe that it’s 18 years since Humph passed away, but it’s great to hear his voice again in the introduction to the track which ends the A side of the album Humph at the Conway. The cartoon on the cover is by him too. The record features Humph on trumpet, the clarinet by Wally Fawkes (who plays the first clarinet solo) and Bruce Turner on alto sax who switches to clarinet for the second solo but plays sax in the ensembles which sound absolutely terrific as a result. Many “trad” jazz fans took against Humph for including a saxophonist in his band, but Bruce Turner was a great musician and added a new dimension. The other members of the band were Johnny Parker (piano), Micky Ashman (bass), Freddy Legon (banjo) and George Hopkinson (drums).

So that’s one connection. Another is that yesterday saw the announcement of the King’s Birthday Honours in the UK, which was not covered widely here in in Ireland, but which independently reminded me that Humphrey Lyttelton turned down a knighthood on principle back in 1995. Good for him!

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INO Norma at the National Opera House

Posted in Opera with tags , , , , , , , , on June 4, 2026 by telescoper

I had seen the by Vincenzo Bellini‘s opera Norma twice (before yesterday evening) but both times were before I starting blogging so I was very pleased to see that Irish National Opera were doing a new production this year. It had a run at the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin, but I took the chance to see it National Opera House in Wexford. The first time I went there was last year and was to see a very different opera, although that one and Norma are both generally categorized by the term bel canto. I was so excited by the prospect of seeing this production that I made myself a Bellini on Saturday, only to discover that the cocktail is named after a different Bellini…

Norma is not performed all that often, largely because it is difficult to find a singer capable of doing justice to the title role which is acknowledged as being one of the most vocally demanding roles in all opera. It is a role that the great Maria Callas made her own in the 1950s which places the additional burden on the the singer of stepping out of the shadow of such a legend. I was delighted that in Salome Jicia INO found an artist who could meet the challenges of the part. She was stunning.

I think the part of Norma is difficult not only because of the vocal range of the part, from the lyrical beauty of the famous aria Casta Diva to the agility needed to perform the coloratura passages, but also for the sheer stamina required. There really is a lot of singing for her to do in this opera! Jicia took it in her stride. Bellini rarely gets the orchestra to double the vocal line, so the voice of the singer is very exposed. At times it’s like watching acrobatics knowing that there’s no safety net!

Anyway, to the plot.

Norma is a tragedia lirica in two Acts, set in ancient Gaul which is under occupation by the Romans. The eponymous Norma is the high priestess of the native Druids. She is also a complex chartacter, not least because she is in a relationship with a high-ranking Roman, Pollione, with whom she has had two kids. It turns out that Pollione is tiring of Norma and has turned his attention to her friend Adalgisa, who does not know about Pollione’s involvement with Norma.

The Opera begins with the heavily armed Gauls, led by Norma’s father Oroveso, planning to rise up against the Roman occupiers. But only Norma can sanction an armed rebellion and she says no. The aria Casta Diva expresses Norma’s desire for peace, but this is not just because she feels the Romans have greater military strength and would crush the rising, but because of her thing with Pollione. Over the course of the Opera we find out about Pollione’s infatuation with Adalgisa and their planned elopement to Rome which sends Norma into such a rage she threatens to kill her own children. Eventually Norma decides to change her mind about the uprising and calls for it to go ahead. Protocol requires a human sacrifice to initiate such a move, so the question is who is for the chop? Will it be Pollione, or Adalgisa? Norma surprises the assembled Gauls by confessing her sacreligious relationship with Pollione and declaring herself to be the sacrifice. Pollione is overcome by remorse at what he has done, and decides to join Norma in death.

Well, what did you expect in an Opera, a happy ending?

This production eschews the Normal (geddit?) setting of forest groves and scared shrines and places it in a sort of modern post-apocalyptic dystopia. The stage is dominated by barricades apparently hastily constructed from broken furniture and scrap metal. Lighting is sombre and claustrophobic. This jars with Bellini’s music when it evokes pastoral beauty – the music is too light and pretty for such a gloomy setting.

Gone are the swords, spears and druidic robes and in come AK-47s, pistols and somewhat scruffy modern-looking outfits. Even Norma’s dress is nothing fancy. The Gauls look like a ramshackle but heavily armed paramilitary group and are indistinguishable in costume from the Romans, except that the latter have special haircuts – mohawks died bright red on top. I found this a bit confusing and felt that it negated the theme of “occupiers versus occupied” which runs throughout the piece. This choice is probably intended to show the struggle as one between two rival groups in a polarized community. In the hands of the chorus the guns create a very menacing backgroup to several scenes, and of course the ending ends not by ritual burning, as in the original, but by firing squad.

The musical pyrotechnics do pose challenges for the staging, however, because an opera is not just a concert. It doesn’t work as music drama if the singers are just standing there belting out tunes. They also need to employ gestures and facial expressions to match the emotions expressed by the score and it can’t be too static. In this production the set is rather simple, and when I first saw it I assumed that it would be moved around a lot to create different locations, but that was only done to a limited extent. To compensate for the inflexible scenery, the chorus often provides a moving backdrop to the action. In the hands of the chorus the proliferation of guns create a very menacing backgroup to several scenes, and of course the ending ends not by ritual burning, as in the original, but by firing squad. The chorus was used very imaginatively, I’d say, not only to make up the numbers on stage, but also in their singing. I liked the idea of the chorus being split for some passages, leading one’s attention around the stage as the different groups gave voice.

I already mentioned Salome Jicia, but the other principals were also very good. Mario Chang (tenor) was a fine Pollione, William Guanbo Su a towering Oroveso with a rich bass and Siobhan Stagge as Adalgisa sang and acted beautifully. Despite some reservations about the staging, I thought this was a hugely enjoyable performance. Bellini has his critics, but I think the last part of Act II, the principals and chorus singing their hearts out to wonderful music, as the drama moves inexorably to its tragic conclusion, is one of the most intensely moving experiences in the entire operatic repertoire.

P.S. If you have 20 minutes to spare, listen to the Act II finale as performed by Callas here.

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Britten & Mahler at the National Concert Hall

Posted in Music with tags , , , , , , on May 30, 2026 by telescoper

Having finished my exam marking the previous day and with a Bank Holiday weekend ahead, I had a spring in my step as I walked through a sunny Dublin yesterday evening for the season finale of concerts by National Symphony Orchestra Ireland of 2026. The guest conductor for the evening was Jonas Alber. As usual for the closing concert of the season there was a very full house. There were only two items on the menu, but it was a substantial feast, so much so that I only just made it back to Pearse after the concert for the train home!

The first piece was new to me – the Violin Concerto by Benjamin Britten. This was written in 1939 just after Britten moved to the United States. It’s an unusual piece that reminded me very much of Prokofiev, especially the second movement which is a very long scherzo. The third movement involves a Passacaglia (thematic variations played over a repeated bass pattern), rather reminiscent that deployed in the Opera Peter Grimes. Overall its atmosphere is tonally ambiguous, brooding and restless, with uneasy introspection sometimes giving way to sudden outbursts. It’s an absorbing piece which places strong demands on the soloist. Latvian violist Baiba Skride played superbly throughout, taking the feverishly virtuosic cadenzas in her stride.

After the wine break, much needed because of the warm weather we had Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. This work is best known for the 4th movement Adagietto but I’ve always felt that section fits rather uncomfortably with the rest of the composition. That’s not to say that I dislike the Adagietto, which I think is one of the most beautiful movements in all music, and regularly makes me shed a tear. I just think it’s a bit of a detour from the rest of the work. I suppose one should think of it as a sort of intermezzo, a restful interlude before the journey reaches its climax in the 5th movement Rondo which was played with electrifying passion last night.

Mahler’s Fifth Symphony veers across a vast emotional landscape. The conductor Bruno Walter described it as “passionate, wild, pathetic, buoyant, solemn, tender, full of the sentiments of which the human heat is capable, but still ‘only’ music”. Although by no means an atonal work, there isn’t really a clear tonal signature: at least five different keys are used and there are passages in which the key is ambiguous.

The first movement begins with a funeral march, introduced with a solo trumpet statement like a fanfare, followed by lyrical passages from the strings. The second movement is extremely tempestuous, contrasting moods of melancholy and frenzy, with the trumpet theme from the first movement returning. The third movement, a long Scherzo, is unexpectedly playful, with two thematic forms bouncing off each other. Then there’s the soulful longing of the Adagietto, beautifully played last night to a rapt audience and the joyful finale in an unambiguously major key. The Fifth is by no means Mahler’s longest symphonic work but it still lasts well over an hour. So gripping was the performance, however, that I didn’t look at my watch once.

This was a superb concert, with the large orchestral forces marshalled superbly by Jonas Alber. I have to mention the brass section and especially the trumpet of Darren Moore, who was brilliant.

That may be the last concert of the 25/6 season, but the brochure for thr 26/7 season arrived through my letterbox on Friday morning.

There will be other music at the NCH over the summer, but the first of the regular series of Friday concerts will be on September 11th, when it will be Mahler again. Appropriately enough it will be a performance of his Symphony No. 2 “Resurrection”…

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R.I.P. Sonny Rollins (1930-2026)

Posted in Jazz, R.I.P. with tags , , , , , , , , on May 26, 2026 by telescoper

I woke this morning to the sad news that the great tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins passed away yesterday at the age of 95. He was one of the most influential and creative musicians of his time and there are many justifiably glowing obituaries of him. I can’t add much that hasn’t already been said by them, other than say that I consider myself deeply privileged to have been able see and hear Sonny Rollins play live, not once but twice, during the 1980s. The first was in the relatively intimate surroundings of Ronnie Scott’s club in London and the second in the Royal Festival Hall. On both occasions he was fantastic. Sonny Rollins was one of those musicians who made me think when I watched him that if you took the instrument out of his mouth it would somehow carry on playing on its own. At Ronnie Scott’s club he opened one set by starting to play in the band room, walking out through the audience onto the stage still playing and then about an hour later walked off back the way he came, still playing. The tune was Thelonious Monk’s 52nd Street Theme. He ended his set at the Festival Hall with an unstoppable version of Don’t Stop The Carnival that had everyone leaping about in the aisles. There was so much music in him it just had to come out. Was he playing the music or was it playing him?

Sonny Rollins began playing professionally when he was a teenager in the late 1940s but came to the attention of the jazz world in earnest when he teamed up with Miles Davis for a 1954 recording session that led to a record called Miles Davis with Sonny Rollins. (Coincidentally, today would have been Miles Davis’s 100th birthday). That record, originally issued on a 10″ LP, showcased Rollins’s big muscular sound on tenor sax, but also consisted of four tracks, three of which were compositions by Sonny Rollins, including a now-standard Oleo. That record was really Sonny’s breakthrough and he went on to record dozens of superb albums both as leader: A Night at the Village Vanguard, Saxophone Colossus, Newk’s Time, and Way Out West, to name just four. He also made many records as a side man, including the must-have album, Brilliant Corners with Thelonious Monk.

Having established himself as a major artist, Rollins suddenly took a three-year break from playing between 1959 to 1961 to develop his technique. Lacking space to practice in his apartment, he did so every day on the Williamsburg Bridge. When he returned to a recording studio in early 1962, the result was another classic album, The Bridge.

(Left: Sonny Rollins c. 1960)

Having established himself as a major artist, Rollins suddenly took a three-year break from playing between 1959 to 1961 to develop his technique. Lacking space to practice in his apartment, he did so every day on the Williamsburg Bridge. When he returned to a recording studio in early 1962, the result was another classic album, The Bridge.

In all he made over 60 albums, of which I have about a dozen. I’ll be listening to them a lot over the next few days and may post a few further items about them in due course.One thing I always liked about Sonny Rollins was his tendency to take a shine to very unexpected tunes and turn them into something magical. Off the top of my head I can think of The Surrey with the Fringe on Top, How are Things in Glocca Morra? and I’m an Old Cowhand.

It’s impossible to pick a single track than can do justice to Sonny Rollins so I’m just going to include a couple here. The first is the very first track I ever heard by him, on a Blue Note sampler album. It’s a Miles Davis tune called Tune Up and it’s from the 1957 Blue Note album Newk’s Time with Wynton Kelly (piano), Doug Watkins (bass), and Philly Joe Jones (drums). Perhaps listening to the energy and invention of his playing, delivered with that characteristically leathery tone then you’ will understand why I fell instantly in love with his music and wanted to hear more.

The second is one of my favourite records of all time. It’s called Hold’ Em Joe and it was recorded in 1965 with Ray Bryant (piano), Walter Booker (bass) and the fabulous Mickey Roker on drums:

As a sad footnote on this sad occasion, the passing of Sonny Rollins means that not one of the great musicians in this famous photograph A Great Day in Harlem, taken on August 12th 1958, is still with us:

Rest in Peace Sonny Rollins (1930-1954), Saxophone Colossus indeed.

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Saariaho, Beethoven & Sibelius at the National Concert Hall

Posted in Music with tags , , , , , , , on May 16, 2026 by telescoper

And so it came to pass that yesterday evening I took the train into Dublin and back to see what, for me, will be the penultimate concert by National Symphony Orchestra Ireland at the National Concert Hall. The conductor for this occasion was Colombian born Lina Gonzalez-Granados. There was a good crowd at the NCH, although it wasn’t quite full.

By way of a starter we heard Ciel d’hiver by Kaija Saariaho, a Finnish composer who spent her later life living in Paris; she passed away in 2023. This piece is an intriguing evocation of the winter sky, with dense blocks of harmonies suggesting the broad expanse of the heavens punctuated by drifting clusters of fragmented patterns until it reaches the zenith expressed by an intense climax before fading away again. This piece was new to me – it was in fact the Irish premier – and I enjoyed it greatly. I like it when there are unfamiliar items on the menu!

The rest of the first half of the concert consisted of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 (in C) with soloist John O’Conor. This was first published in 1795 (but revised around 1800). It actually Beethoven’s third go at writing a piano concerto but was published first. His first attempt was written when he was a teenager and was never published. What we now know as the Piano Concerto No. 2 was written around 1788 but not published until 1801. I hope this clarifies the situation.

The Piano Concrto No. 1 consists of three movements, an expansive slow movement (marked Largo) sandwiched between two sprightly up-tempo movements, marked Allegro con brio and Rondo-Allegro Scherzando, respectively. It’s very obviously influenced by Mozart, but Beethoven’s own voice is very clear too. I think the first part of the last movement, full of energy and wit, is the best part of this work and O’Conor played it with genuine sparkle. His performance was very well received, and he rounded it off with a very familiar charming encore, also by Beethoven, his Für Elise, which O’Conor played for his two granddaughters who were both in the audience last night.

Ludwig van Beethoven washimself by all accounts an extraordinary pianist and I couldn’t help wondering during the interval what he would have sounded like playing his own piano concertos.

After the wine break we returned to hear the Symphony No. 2 in D Major by Jean Sibelius. This piece was written about a century later than the Beethoven Piano Concerto and its sound world is very different, although it does share an overall mood of hope and defiance that you will find in many works by Beethoven. It’s probably this aspect of the work that led to it being co-opted by the Finnish nationalist movement although I don’t think it was written for that purpose.

I had been looking forward to this for quite a while as I had never heard this work performed in a live concert before. Hearing it last night was a revelation, especially because the momentum of the piece was much better controlled than on some recordings I’ve heard. It’s a large piece, in four movements, lasting about 45 minutes altogether. The first movement starts with hesitant figures repeated a number of times by different sections of the orchstra. The second movement is slow and rather mournful in tone but full of great melodic ideas. It is marked Tempo andante, ma rubato and I think how to handle the rubato (deviating from strict tempo) is what some conductors might struggle with: I think it’s supposed to flow naturally, but not wallow or become too turbulent. The third movement starts in a hurry and moves directly into the thrilling Finale. The last movement is full of blazing statements of triumph, as would accompany a hero reaching the end of a perilous journey.

The balance and contrast between the different sections of the orchestra was very well done. I especially enjoyed the playing of the brass instruments which was vigorous but superbly controlled. Hats off to NSOI and to Lina Gonzalez-Granados for the performance. I found myself humming pieces of the Sibelius to myself as I walked back to Pearse station for the train back to Maynooth.

P.S. I must get a better recording of the Symphony No. 2 by Jean Sibelius for my collection – does anyone out there have any suggestions?

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Joy Spring – Clifford Brown & Max Roach

Posted in Jazz with tags , , , , , , on May 13, 2026 by telescoper

This tune popped into my head when I was walking home this evening so after dinner I listened to my CD of the terrific 1954 album Clifford Brown & Max Roach, on which it first appeared. Trumpeter Clifford Brown wrote the tune Joy Spring when he was just 23 for his wife Larue and it became a jazz standard. This first version features a quintet jointly led by Brown and Max Roach on drums, together with hugely underrated tenor saxophonist Harold Land, Richie Powell on piano (younger brother of Bud Powell, whose influence you can hear in his playing) and George Morrow on bass. The whole album is great, but I think the standout tracks are this version of Joy Spring and their version of Duke Jordan’s tune Jordu. Brown’s solo on Joy Spring demonstrates his beautifully crisp articulation and his superb capacity for sustained melodic invention, moving into and out of double-time. He only plays two choruses, but packs so much into them. Enjoy!

Despite it’s happy feel, this track will always be tinged with tragedy. Less than two years after this session both Clifford Brown and Richie Powell were killed in a car crash: Brown was 25 and Powell 24.

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