OCCUPIED COUNTRY

The Way Up

"...everything is getting shorter, smaller, less ambitious, less detailed and less nuanced, and how the world is crumbling in its aesthetic ambitions.

"His answer: a CD that comprises one piece of music that lasts 68 minutes and 25 seconds. It's one of those noble, futile gestures that makes you want to ring and thank him personally."

Thus writes Stuart Nicholson in yesterday's Observer Music Monthly in his review of jazzman Pat Metheny's new album. I was excited as I had it on pre-order from you-know-who.

It arrived fresh from Amazon.co.uk this morning - the day of its European release - and, guess what? Yup I really do want to ring and thank him personally. Thanks Pat for reminding me that the American stereotypes we have become so used to seeing and hearing on our British TV screens are just that: stereotypes. One-dimensional purveyors of soundbites and mediocrity. God-bothering twats who have evidentially never read Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Or, if they did then they didn't make the connection'.

But today listening to this complex, uplifting, not-everyone's-cup-of-tea music as I surfed the net worked my balls off delighting customers, I was reminded by Mr Metheny that Dubya may have got the highest vote of any US President, but John Kerry got the second highest. I was reminded that for every Rumsfeld and Rice there's a Steve Earle, a Paul Simon, a Bruce Springsteen. I was reminded of the diversity, the multiplicity and the dynamism of the World's only remaining superpower and it cheered me. Dumbing up!

I'm on my fourth listen now and it's beginning to grab my very innards. That vital cavity that knaws deep within waiting to be filled and tamped by the creative endeavors of whoever fits the bill. It's going to be one of those that will be with me for a long time to come. Sure it'll be pushed to the back of the CD pile on occasion - weeks, months, maybe even years - but it'll be back. Serendipitously re-discovered some miserable November afternoon as the light fades and the annual pyrotechnics begin. Bliss.

Jazz is THE American art form. They gave it to the world. This wonderful, thought-provoking expressionistic, impressionistic, bombastic, eloquent, intelligent music comes from the same small towns, ranches and big cities as the uptight, screwed-down, holy-rolling 'thou-shalt-nots' who seem to represent America wherever you look - from the White House to radio phone in. This country may have given us J Edgar Hoover, but it also gave us Louis Armstrong, Artie Shaw and Duke Eliington. I like to think it's because of the 'uptight, screwed-down, holy-rolling 'thou-shalt-nots'' that Louis, Artie and the Duke were necessary. Necessary for the normal millions who mistrusted God and all his works in the first place.

Hallelullah!

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Today Eldest hit 31 years of age and I'm beginning to feel not far from my pension. Scary!