Read into that what you will
Read into that what you will.” The song that followed, “Dialogue With The Devil” – almost old enough now to qualify as a Dead Sea Scroll – was a revelation. The state of his faith has been a topic of periodic conversation in recent times. Tonight, he had a surprise for the cognoscenti: “I haven’t played this for 20 years,” he says “It didn’t seem pertinent It seems pertinent now. So when a piece of simple verse/chorus genius such as “Pacing The Cage”, from the last album, gets an airing, it is all the more stunning – words and music that are crying out for coverage by an artist capable of chart success.These things, of course, never happen and so it will always be a great adventure for the perennial trickles of individuals to “discover” the well-kept secret of Bruce Cockburn.One senses that at 54, he is comfortable with the prospects of perpetually revered semi-obscurity. “Sometimes,” offers Bruce, “things don’t easily reduce to rhyming couplets.” Showcasing the new album, the achingly poignant “Isn’t That What Friends Are For?” and the crunching riff and joyous spirit of “When You Give It Away” were two cases in point. You had to be there.Recent songs have tended to feature spoken passages, where the novelistic beauty and mystery of his words and their cyclical, sometimes fragile, sometimes pile-driving, instrumental settings, create a richly compelling mindscape. And, as evidenced tonight at a venue purpose- built for the “listening audience”, he is not without a sense of fun, notably when seemingly 40 people all decide to visit the gents, stage left, at the same time.
A more poised, observational strain has entered his work, where personal politics, with that old sense of wonder resurrected, and a stoic view on the ills of the world can all share a table. The songs and albums that documented those adventures swung between the occasional razor-sharp polemic of “Call It Democracy” and po-faced rants that signalled the danger of Cockburn’s career imploding under the weight of portentousness.
With that as background, Cockburn’s more recent work on Rykodisc – the quite exceptional The Charity Of Night in 1996 and now Breakfast In New Orleans, Dinner In Timbuktu (out next month) – has found the artist accepting that he cannot do or change everything. As that movement mushroomed, Cockburn stepped sideways, going around the troublespots of the world, raging against corruption, famine, deforestation, Third-World debt, the problems of Native Americans and people with rocket- launchers, while wrestling with the certainties of his early work. Equally at home in old-school modernist settings or more chewy impro.. BRUCE COCKBURN: singer/ songwriter; Canadian; amazing guitarist; the man who single-handedly bussed in the languages of physics and cosmology and applied them with rare articulacy to the rough-hewn poesy of rock’n'roll, illustrating the achievements of God and garnering thus a word-of-mouth audience for life from the intellectuals of the nascent Charismatic movement. Arriving on the scene too late to benefit from the majors’ largesse, he has recorded for independents including Babel and Ah-Um, and his next album is on Provocateur, the label set up by soundtrack composer Colin Towns.
Her debut album released earlier this year perhaps suffered by only being available on mail order and by having to accommodate the second piano of classical soloist Joanna McGregor.Julian ArguellesTogether with his Paris-based drummer brother, Steve, saxophonist Julian combines technical virtuosity with good taste and an adventurous spirit. After a period in a Buddhist monastery, he has recently re-emerged with a brilliant new album, Next Time Round, for the independent Onion label.Nikki YeohLondon-based pianist and composer who began her professional career jamming with Pine, and who has since gone on to lead a trio and an occasional big band playing her own compositions. Signed and then dropped by Polygram, he now ploughs his own furrow and likes to confound expectations.Jason RebelloSparkling pianist whose Wayne Shorter-produced debut for RCA’s Novus label won lots of praise, although this didn’t stop him being dropped two albums later. Too clever by half for some, he nevertheless won the ultimate accolade of the Danish Jazzpar prize. A terrific sax player, he maintains a high profile through constant touring. Although he is now more or less dedicated to populist fusions with hip hop, reggae and dance music, there’s always a feature for the heavier stuff, which his big personality successfully carries the punters through.
Django BatesAn extravagantly gifted composer, keyboardist, tenor-horn player and bandleader (of the big bands Loose Tubes and Delightful Precipice, and the small group Human Chain), Bates is the loose cannon of British jazz, given to English eccentric stylings and post-modern parody.
