Ch:1 - Estelle Kokot Previews The Sound Of You On Monday 30th December 2013!

Photo by Richard Kaby

The year is almost on it's back but there's time to do one more gig! Hope you've all had a wonderful festive season and that you're now in the mood to shake off some Xmas tinsel!

Join me on Monday the 30th of December at The Vortex Jazz Club where I will be previewing songs from the ICOJA Songbook.

Included in tonight's performance will be a selection of my own originals and arrangements of my favourite standards, as well as all the wonderful songs I have been learning, written by Chico Freeman and Jan Pulsford.

To book for the show go here http://www.wegottickets.com

An excellent arranger of her own and other peoples’ material. If you want to hear a genuine innovator with a creative twist on Jazz vocals include Estelle Kokot The Guardian

Find out where she’s performing next and catch a plane Jazzeye, South Africa

Her rendition of Monk’s classic 'Round Midnight' was something else to hear, an incredible and masterful improvisation of the piece like I’ve never heard before. I was completely blown away All Jazz Radio, South Africa

Regulars at the Vortex will no doubt be familiar with the compellingly dramatic live work of Estelle Kokot Chris Parker, UK

With considerable wit and intelligence, Kokot ousts the singer and colonises the songs Business Day, South Africa

Kokot is an original storyteller Don Albert, South Africa

The Sound of You … Interlude

Jan looks back and forth ...

16 chapters later - Book 1 finished! Time to consolidate the blog posts into a readable on line format whilst we prepare Book 2 and launch the Pledge Music Campaign.

Thanks for coming on this journey with us.

We look forward to sharing the next step of the adventure in a few weeks with Book 2 - The Alchemy.
See you then!

Chapter 16: Plenty left to do - taciturn (part 3)

Jan considers what lied behind the veil and what lies ahead ... 

Talking about budgets, percentages, royalties, session fees, contracts - the business of music -  is like going behind the veil and giving away the secrets of a magician.

We really don't want to know - we prefer the illusion of reality.

I used to run an indie label funded by dreams. When the internet became available in 1993 I could see the potential for musicians using the world wide web. These were exciting heady days. It was like being part of a pioneering club of explorers. Hard to believe twenty years later, isn't it?

My label was called 'Collecting Dust'. Back then the only way to get your music  "out there' was on a CD or cassette via a record label and distributor, promoted via radio, TV and live gigs. There was no Bandcamp, CD baby or Soundcloud, in fact the mp3 format was still in its infancy. If you didn't get a company to place your album in the 'bricks and mortar' stores it was relegated to sitting on a shelf somewhere 'collecting dust'.

In my circle of music making outsiders, the major labels/publishers were seen as 'bad' and independent was 'good'. It was very much an 'us and them' situation. Today being a lot older and a little wiser, you will often hear me say "If you want the corporate money be prepared to play by the corporate rules". Based on years of observation I would say most financially successful artists are shrewd business people too. There is little room for altruism in the corporate or indie world unless you're prepared to go broke.

With my usual unbridled enthusiasm mixed with large dose of naivety, I threw myself headlong into the on line music business abyss.

Dreamers provide the thoughts, strategists and business minds turn them into reality.

Music was my religion and the congregation was loud and enthusiastic whilst I watched the collection plate became increasingly empty.

Looking back I realise I didn't have much of a clue!

I continued living in my utopian music bubble at English Valley Tennessee, recording and distributing artists I really believed in until the bubble finally burst. The reality is dreams don't sell albums.

Dreams make music.  Money records music. Promotion sells music.

The business model Collecting Dust embraced, where the artist is part of the whole package, was not fully understood by many artists back then. Today it's a much more transparent world and people starting off in music don't have the baggage of the old way of doing things to contend with. No one makes you a star - you're either one or you're not. There isn't much of a smokescreen anymore. You Tube, iTunes, Spotify, Facebook, Twitter et al are the norm. Us old timers have had to become as creative about making a living as we are about creating our music. It's a different playing field than 20 years ago!

Looking forward I can see the success of Collecting Dust as being that, out of all the albums released, one made some declarable money and the trickle of sales from the downloads of Delcimore is still paying off the unrecouped recording budget. (Ironically the other thousands of CDs sat collecting dust for years in a storage room until they got hauled off to the dump.)

And why do I consider that a success? Because here I am still embracing the new, still believing in good music and still finding new ways of releasing it to the world.

The past is a well trodden path to the future . . .

And next week another adventure begins as we explore releasing music via 'Crowd Sourcing' - Estelle, Chico and I become alchemists as we take "The Sound of You" to Pledge Music and turn our music into gold . . .

I hope you will join me on yet another adventure . . . there's plenty left to do!

Chico…

Something Jan wrote caught my eye "Dreams make music, money records music and promotion sells music - profound!!! The quandary of the ages exists in this statement. Art vs business vs art vs business; will it ever resolve itself? Music is so subjective, it's meaning to each of us is so unique, its' presence is so ubiquitous, its' effect is so penetratingly profound that to categorize or in essence entrap its' spirit is akin to imprisonment of ones deepest self and expression. 

When I awake each day I am thankful for the opportunity to continue my search for the truth of my self-expression and to make an offering to the world of my findings. Each day I realize that in the humility of knowing how much one doesn't know is a gift that keeps giving. To keep learning, trying, succeeding and never giving up, that failing to prepare is preparing to fail. Abraham Lincoln said, "It's not the years in your life that counts, but the life of your years". 

Jan Pulsford said, "The past is a well trodden path to the future…" How true this is and one can truly be sure that as long as we are here there will always be "Plenty left to do"; let's do this part of it together.


Estelle ponders plenty and exhales...

Early morning light North London

It's been a productive few days, immersed in the music where I love to be most. You can't force it. Well...I can't force it and there's always something going on to distract and disturb. If it isn't the road being dug up in the street outside, it's the traffic on that same street or the news you don't want to hear. The hours in one day, they wait for no-one.

I love space and there is one day in my week when I experience the space of sky, high up in North London, while walking to my destination. It doesn't matter if it's raining or clear, I inhale that space and exhale my noise.

Just like this project, there are times when space is required so not only we three can exhale, but the music can breathe too.

The year is almost on it's back and I still feel like I am shifting gears. It takes a good long browse through the calendar to realise exactly how much has been achieved, but there's lots more to do and November is always my preamble to 'taking stock of it all'. I keep having to remind myself that anything that's going to be worthwhile and has a lasting impact is going to take time to get right.

You can't rush it and it's taken me some time to learn these songs. There have been plenty of interruptions  and breaks, like 'daily life' for one. Then there's the three months in South Africa reconnecting intensely with my musical roots. There's the keeping of the wolves from moving in too close and more, much more.

The other things that happen in life serve a vital purpose in the making of the music. It could be something someone says or something heard or seen that inspires and contributes to the learning process. All these things are there to draw upon when needed.

The songs are slowly becoming a part of my daily existence and absorbing the essence doesn't happen overnight. Growing into each one takes time and they are now a bit like rowdy teenagers exploring new territory and pushing the boundaries.

Swirling

It's that mix of sort of knowing who you are but not being quite sure what direction needs to be taken because the possibilities are endless. They need to explore all the avenues, including a few detours and crossroads while they're at it. Heads will be bumped and a dead end will mean turning back and choosing another option. I don't want the possibilities to become saturated though, as there always needs to be scope for spontaneity and the unexpected.

This creative process of discovery is the adventure I live for and once the songs have become part of every muscle and fibre, they will be all grown up and brave enough to let go of preconceived notions and go that extra mile. 

They are beginning to discover me, these songs. It could be one note played or not. It could be where I take a breath or where I don't, that unlocks the door to my story.

I like to think of it as an open road. One long straight stretch of tarmac and a solid convertible that isn't going to have to overtake any trucks or spend too much time making pit stops! When I reach my destination, I might need to take a long hot bath to get rid of the dust and the grime that's gathered and settled, but this is when I will be ready to share my journey with you.

Shadow and Sand by Richard Oakland

You're like the girl who left her shadow in the drawer, but when she went to get it, it wasn't there... Wayne Shorter.

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."