This Is This

Age 10-15, 1982-1987

I left the US and moved to France, where my mother discovered Sasha Distel, Yves Montant and Nana Mouscouri. Not cool French singers, not the dramatic gitanes-smoking singers pouring it out from the depths of their soul like Jacques Brel, Edith Piaf or Serge Gainsbourg, but poor-quality dittifiers of the kind of songs that would be performed on Saturday night variety shows where people would clap along on the 1 and 3 beat instead of the 2 and 4. Like a granny claps, with each hand spending more time holding the other one instead of being in the air moving towards the next clap.

There were some good somewriters around then, Etienne Daho for decent pop, Francis Cabrel was a good folk-tinged guitarist with great heartfelt songs like Sarbacane and Animale, Laurent Voulzy wrote some good ballads like Belle Ile en Mer, Telephone were a bloody excellent rock band who did new wave/punk/pop/rock better than anyone I have ever heard. Listen to Ca C’est Vraiment Toi and try not to be blown away. If anyone was doing their stuff in English at the same time, they would be legendary by now.

As a ten year old, I didn’t have a record collection to speak of, so I discovered my dad’s records, which was a life-changing experience. Jazz. Bebop and freeform jazz. We had a live recording of Sonny Rollins playing Swing Low Sweet Chariot with a band that included bagpipes and it is incredible. One of his signature tunes is St. Thomas which will make you smile. Charlie Parker playing The Gipsy is still something that can stop me in my tracks, and Dizzy Gillespie playing with him on Caravan is something you can’t sit still to. All those guys, Ray Brown, Thelonius Monk, Buddy Rich, even big bands if they were hard enough - not Glen Miller, but the bold dissonance of Stan Kenton, the drive of Benny Goodman, the measured cool of Duke Ellington, the fiery arrangements of Count Basie.

I pretty much dispaired at the state of 1980’s pop, and while all the cool kids were listening to Echo and the Bunnymen and The Smiths (which I still don’t get, by the way) I was sneaking off with my dad to the Nice Jazz Festival, making bootleg recordings of people like Miles Davis (1980’s fusion-era You’re Under Arrest and Bitches Brew), Lionel Hampton (a legend in France, who’s Flying Home sounds like hope), Dave Brubeck (Take Five), Woody Herman, Keith Jarret, Herbie Hancock and Art Blakey.

These old and dead guys were my heroes, and not only was the festival so informal that I got to walk among them, I actually got to meet a few of them. Not only did I talk to Dizzy Gillespie over lunch - my lunch, not his; I was eating while HE spoke to ME - but he recognised me the next day. One minute I’m a face in the crowd, and the next Dizzy Gillespie is calling out to me: “Cliff! Cliff! My man the Cliff. How you doing?”

I never did get much into pop, but somewhere in the mid-to-late-80’s I discovered rock like Ace Freehley (but strangely not Kiss), ACDC, Quiet Riot and Led Zepplin. The Police rocked my world and still do. Duran Duran were cool because I liked harmonies in pop. Men at Work wrote some good songs - the Cargo album with It’s a Mistake and No Sign of Yesterday is great. They were overshadowed by their big hit Down Under, which hung over them. Overkill is another good song. Frontman Colin Hay continues to write stunning songs and deserves more attention.

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