Chapter 15: Nowhere to go but up - taciturn (part 2)




Chico is remembering…

"I've been looking forward to this post. "Nowhere To Go But Up"! As the saying goes, "when you've hit rock bottom, there's nowhere to go but up". My father used to say: "in every life a little rain must fall". As we all know this is life and problems abound, they come and they go, they come in bunches, they come intermittently, they come after long and short hiatuses, but they always come. This is about never giving up, when you fall you get back on the horse. All of these cliche's are apropos and life telling. 

I always like to think that we should always see it as nowhere to go but up, even when it's clear that the direction to the bottom is still a choice, and that is the key, it's still a choice. Which choice do you choose to make?







Jan goes Close to the Pledge

The three of us met last year in London.
It was the first time we had been together in one place.
The picture of the Shard was taken from the train on the way from Gatwick airport to meet Estelle.
Chico and I looked up and knew this was another new beginning. From New York to London, Nashville to Greece, we were on our way with 'Nowhere to go but up … '

A year later we've planned an album, written the charts, finished and tweaked the songs, met many times to hash out arrangements, logistics of lineup, studio, promotion, budgets, etc. Estelle has learned the album - an enormous task to make 16 songs feel and sound as if they were her own - and now we are ready to take the collection of songs into the studio and record.

It is a recipe for success like chilli and cream (with beans of course) - the ying and yang of a musical mix where discordancy pushes and pulls to make the most beautiful harmony. The raised 7th longingly stretches up to reach the tonic - it is that perfect cadence with an occasional interruption to lead us off into related minor places where we see and hear things from another point of view.

Nowhere to go but up …

The three of us are friends and musical lovers.

My life is full of jugglers, conjurers, magicians and sky scraping climbers.


 Estelle is warming up...

Photo by Richard Kaby
What does it mean to win and how do we define a new beginning? Endings are beginnings too.

The so called 'Big Ones' can be dramatic, making you feel ecstatic or leaving you traumatized, forcing massive change and a major shift in your perception.

Birth and death, divorce and marriage, leaving an old job, starting a new career, moving or buying a home or going to live in another country... maybe a different continent or an island while you're at it.

I've experienced all of the above except for the one I've been told about and the one I've dreamt of. There's that final bow too. We'll all have to take it, whether we want to or not. 

There's war and peace and the so called 'Act of God'. The news is full of it every day and if you want to know every detail, sign a petition or empathise with the global collective, that's your choice.

Don't cover up your wounds with bandages, they need air to breathe and heal properly! Wear those scars with pride! If you hold back on the plasters and the placebos you're winning!

Autumn leaves October 2013
It's autumn and the nights are growing longer. I can feel the chill starting to seep through the windowpanes and I know that it won't be long before I give in and turn on the heating...but even with the prospect of sub zero looming, springtime daffodils and tulips are already greeting me with green tips emerging from the soil.

One thing that doesn't always feel like it's a gift at the end of October is the clock giving you some bonus snooze time. Despite the irresistible urge to pull the duvet over your head, cuddle up and snuggle down, an extra hour being added
to the dream-clock is just plain tampering with time! It takes me a good week at least to adjust to my new regime. The lack of evening light, feeling hungrier an hour earlier and weary for no reason before bedtime all come with a clock change.

I love the Northern hemisphere fall but... there is something about an English winter that never fails to wallop my sunny South African spirit sideways!

Lauren Carter's Halloween Town. Photo by Lyn Champion
It's not all doom and gloom though!

The end of October spells a hollowed out pumpkin and a bonfire. Friends who are my family in London gather round for a hot meal and a good heart to heart. This is when the simple things in life bring the most pleasure.

That first cup of good coffee in the garden on a clear and bright winter's morning. I count the drops of frost falling from a blade of grass as I take another sip.
Lampshade turned Candlehouse

Watching the breeze lifting the fallen leaves under an oak tree and lighting candles, quietly contemplating. Rituals without the dogma is what I enjoy.

Just like one season melting into another, how and when these new beginnings start and where they end is not always clear. It's the doing and who you're doing it with that counts and being a part of this creative collective means there's nowhere to go but up!

Chapter 14: Your half of the moon - finding the singer (part 2)




Estelle puts together two halves...


Photo taken by Richard Kaby
Your Half Of The Moon Poem by Max Hillman - Music by Estelle Kokot

There are three
I have counted the seas
Between us
Days
Are a disease
You are gone
And when we're alone
Only half of the moon
Sees us
I will be waiting
I will be here
In your half of the moon


Me
I'm overseas
I'm coming home to be with you
Days
Are the climbing dunes
You wait
And while you're waiting
Only half of the moon
Lights me
I will be coming
I will come
To your half of the moon
                                    

Click here to listen to Your Half Of The Moon


My daytime moon with dove on roof in South Africa
In London my moon has a face, in South Africa, my moon seems upside down.

I met Max Hillman on Myspace. The English poet has inspired many musicians from a variety of genres to compose music for his poetry and he has been equally inspired to write words for many musicians. 


Our own mutual appreciation of each other's work sparked the inspiration that became Your Half Of The Moon. Max wrote the poem and I composed the music.
 

The magic of this poem had a profound effect on me. It reminded me of someone I once knew, twenty years ago. Twenty years later, soon after I composed the music for Your Half Of The Moon, that very same person reappeared in my life.



My night-time moon between trees in South Africa
Being nominated for a South African Musician's Award (SAMA) in the Best Vocal Jazz Category in 2007, saw me back in the Southern Hemisphere, connecting with my past and planning for the future.

Sometimes it doesn't work out the way you wanted it to, or expected it to. 
Sometimes it's better that it didn't! Sometimes we love and then we leave, kicking and screaming, or quietly with no tears.
 

My journey has been rough at times, but all those sharp edges have made the good times more fulfilling...and just like Max's poem, I still have many cycles to complete before the circle brings me home.


Chico Freeman and Jan Pulsford
I have been very busy working on the Pulsford/Freeman Songbook, and like Max Hillman's poems, the collaborations of these two talented musicians have inspired me to dig as deep as I can go.

Jan, Chico and I, with three seas between us before we met, are now working together as a team on The Sound Of You.
After lots of planning, we are moving ever closer to launching our project on Pledge Music.
 

Our quest is not only to raise funds to record an album, there will be E-Books, Songbooks and more! Besides all the other packages on offer, there will be an opportunity for you to pledge a day in the studio with us. Or... maybe you would like to invite me and my band round to your place, so we can give you a private concert? Watch this space, Pledge is coming soon!


   
Chico remarks...

It's interesting that until you find whatever you might be looking for you feel a void, the feeling that something is missing is ever present. When you do find the right thing whether it be a person, place or thing, you can feel the void fill, that hole covered, that sense of completion that comes only with that feeling of satisfaction. Until then "you wait, and while you're waiting only half of the moon lights you"

It is this way with music. It is this way with any kind of team, in sports, music, couples, friends, any circumstance where people make a connection of mutual functionality. The great bands of the 20th century like the famous John Coltrane Quartet, The Modern Jazz Quartet, Herbie Hancock's Mwandishi Band, many of Miles Davis' Quintets, Earth, Wind and Fire, Queen; in sports like the championship Chicago Bulls with Michael Jordan, the Boston Celtics with Bill Russel, the San Francisco 49ers with Joe Montana, the New York Yankees with Reggie Jackson. They only won/win when that right mix of participants came/come together like a great recipe that titilates the palate. Sometimes it's only one missing ingredient that makes the difference as in the way the Chicago Bulls won six (6) championships when Scotty Pippen was added to the mix with Michael Jordan. This premise is infrangible and has been shown time after time to be the making of success and longevity.

They are great love stories of a huge variety but love stories nonetheless. Finding the one, the missing ingredient, the missing herb and spice is something we all want and we all wait for, we are fortunate for those times in our life when the stars align and all is right with the world. It is these times that we remember most and are most grateful for, these moments that light our life and show us where the tunnel may lead.

These photos are moments of reflection during some of those experiences:







Photos by Marcel Meier and Chico Freeman


Jan visits another side of the MooN ... 

"WeLCoMe To THe aMBieNT MuSiC WORLD of JaNa KYoMooN
Captured Moments of Time with keyboards, loops and computers
generated live from the computer studio in the UK
of electronic composer/producer JaN PuLSFoRD 
who performs as the virtual artist JaNa KYoMooN
in ViRTuaL WoRLDS and beyond.
simulcasting on Radio JaNa
http://janakyomoon.com/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/janakyomoon/
http://janakyomoon.bandcamp.com/"

... so says the website - You see I perform in virtual worlds using the avatar JaNa KYoMooN.
Why virtual worlds?
I am often asked this by people with their head cocked to one side in a quizzical mixture of fascination and confusion.
It's a space I found in 2006 whilst exploring ways and means of playing music in the brave new digital age that became open to all in 1993 when the world wide web became part of the public domain. Ah Berner's Lee what adventures you unleashed!
I travelled far and wide and one day discovered the virtual world of Second Life.

I now explore other virtual environments when my broadband allows. Some people wander through Facebook and TV whilst I explore the land that lies behind the monitors in search of art and inspiration. Performing in these alternate worlds is like playing to an attentive cafe on line. It's an intimate experience and allows me to share new music and try different ideas whilst mixing new technology in an immersive environment.

Why JaNa KYoMooN?
I had to choose from a list of surnames for my avatar ...
KyoMoon jumped out  - well anything to do with the moon is going to get my attention!
Kyo - thoughts of Kyoto and Japan
I could use any first name so decided on JaNa
My Dad uses to call me Jane when I was little so I thought JaNa - with  a long and short "a" would be a nice name to finally make my own.
Oh and as far as the Capitilization of nouns - that is just something I came up with as an interesting look and a way to keep my interest whilst typing.
You see I need to have my interest fed in all walks of life … I need a lot of stimulation!
The thought of a virtual musical life intrigued me and made me investigate the possibilities further … and so I became a virtual music artist with a way to play my music and reach people all over the world in ways I never dreamed of.

There are several really good interviews on line about my adventures and reasons for being part of this experience which is in no way anymore of a 'game' than real life!
So I won't bother repeating myself - I'll post the links
Enjoy reading and maybe I'll see you - all be it virtually - very soon!

http://www.creativeshed.com/2009/10/interview-jana-kyomoon-second-life-musician/

http://youtu.be/Q9WStYOa4dw

http://magasinmillimina.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/millis-music-magazine-with-jana-kyomoon.html

"In the universe, there are things that are known, and things that are unknown, and in between, there are doors." - William Blake

... and I have been through quite a few in my search for 'The Sound of You' ...






Chapter 13: Last full moon - Can't stop the music (Part 2)

Jan waxes and wanes ... 

Goshen Fields Tennessee
I used to drive the long way back from the store to go through the fields. Most had been paved over but not these ones, brown and red top soil with crops that changed the colour of the landscape every year. Now I walk back from the shops but in Tennessee USA you didn't walk you drove a truck. Mine was red.

Blaxhall, Suffolk
Living in Suffolk I am often reminded of those rural ploughed fields of Tennessee. It was there that I saw my first red moon, watched eclipses of the moon, walked around in the blue moonlight with indigo shadows and fireflies dancing in a surreal frozen lunar landscape.

The moon rising behind the oak tree became the logo of English Valley Music.

I became aware of her power and place in time and space.The beauty of her reflections mirrored in women's cycles. The constancy of her appearance every month.

Driving back one Saturday night I saw the full moon hanging over the fields and realised this was the last full moon of summer and everything was about to change again and so the story of the song written with Chico unfolded. The celebration of the harvest and the coming autumn, the end of the old and the beginning of the new mixed with the pagan earthiness of dancing under the last full moon of summer.

And as the love affair ended we celebrated the life of a love that never dies - it just gets buried, sprinkling seeds that wait for the sun to replenish, renew and make it grow again. A lot can happen in 13 moons.

Likewise in 13 chapters - the Sound of You continues ...






Estelle hears voices...
The Eclipse of 9th January 2001 in Sterkfontein when the moon turned to mud stays with me. Transformed rust.

Today the sun was too bright and there was sticky expectation in the hot east coast breeze from KwaZulu Natal. Now in the silence as the last phase shrouds, the wind is holding its breath.

The Vlei and the reflection of the earth's shadow down below shifts an inky blank ocean circling slow motion three dimensional over the pale valley.

They are two, crowded round an oil lamp and the dull glow is coming from behind a thorny Acacia tree to my right. No shadows. Speech bullets taking aim. Dialect, tone, inflection.

What now? I know I heard them. I know I saw them. Was I tapping into a source that has always been there since before it happened?

The next day I go climbing. Stretching my arms out and exhaling, staring and squinting at the peaks where the noonday sky drips hot blue onto steaming rock - the lamp is lying under a Protea tree.






Chico says...

Well, I've been doing a lot of traveling and this time it was very hard for me to meet our Wednesday deadline because I was playing in a place in Germany where I did not have access to the internet. One might think that this is unusual in this day and time but there are still pockets out there where technology has not fully been infused in daily life. The wonderful thing is that we had an incredible concert in this small place, we filled the hall and brought music to people who were extremely appreciative and receptive. After the concert we had a meal that was one of the great culinary experiences in my life.

On the one hand I stressed at the feeling of helplessness of not being able to meet my responsibility of posting on time this week and letting my partners down, on the other hand I found myself feeling as if I had gone back in time to where these things were just not a concern, the most imminent concern of those around me was the soundcheck, the concert and to make great music. Fortunately the concert was of the highest level and that in the midst of all of this I came to realize our topic for this week:  "Can't Stop The Music,"  things may be delayed but they will continue. 

Well, here I am, late but enthusiastic with a thought: "You don't always get what you want when you want it but when it comes it's always right on time."