WORDS (ALMOST) FAIL ME

From today's Scotsman:-
"SIR Cliff Richard is moving into jazz with an album of swing covers,
it was announced yesterday.
The singer will release Bold As Brass, to mark his 70th birthday later
this year. Sir Cliff – has covered tracks such as They Can't Take That
Away From Me, Let's Fall In Love and I've Got You Under My Skin."

Two words. Jesus. Wept.

LASSWADE

A beautiful day yesterday for the Lasswade 10 mile race. It was dry, the sun was out, little to no wind and, while it was chilly, it wasn’t as cold as it’s been of late.

Got to the registration in loads of time, picked up our numbers, had a little natter with some folk, went for a wee warm up then made our way to the start where we met up with the other Dunbar runners.

Just over 300 runners, but it seemed like a lot more, and the start of this race can be a bit of a scramble. The Lasswade 10 is “undulating”. It’s very “undulating” and any attempt to get steady split times is doomed to failure.

Because I’ve done it a few times already I’m relatively confident about remembering where most of the hills are, how much energy to try and reserve for them and where to try and make up the time.

I knew that the climb out of “The Glen” is quite tough (between miles 2-3) so I tried to just blast down the hill into the Glen as fast as I could. Might as well try and take advantage of an easy mile. This gave me my fastest mile of the race (5:21) which I know under normal circumstances is way to fast for me and I could never sustain that speed for any length of time.

Found myself, not so much in a group, but running in a small strung out line of about 4 runners that included Wull Hynd of Moorfoot, a chap from Carnethy, me and a runner in a white “non-club” vest. Mr Hynd remained at the front of this line for most of the race while the rest of us jockeyed for position. I actually find the two miles or so after the bridge at Auchendinny and up through Auchendinny mains towards Rosslynlee the worst and the pace really slowed down there.

Once over that though we all seemed to pick up, but some more than others and the Carnethy runner started to pull away in the last couple of miles and just passed Wull. By about 8.5 miles though it was clear to me that I wasn’t about to make the jump and close the gap between us, but I still had the feeling I could get a fairly good time.

Just gritted the teeth and dug in, crossing the line in 59:43 which, according to the results, made me 17^th overall and 3^rd vet. So.. all in all, quite chuffed with that (new 10 mile PB).

However, that’s six weeks and six races and I’m starting to feel it a bit. Got the Inverness half next weekend (so that’ll be 7 in 7), so I’m going to try and have a bit of an easier week.

FUNK ME. IT WAS QUITE GOOD...

It's not very often I'm wary about going to a jazz gig, but I was certainly wary on Friday when we went off to see the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra with special guest John Scofield play "Loud Jazz & Electric Miles".

The reason for my wariness? Well. There's many different Miles Davis's out there and I like them all ..... except his electric period. Bitches Brew? On The Street Corner?...utter guff.

As it was, and I should have known a lot better, it was good. It was very, very good.

The SNJO had, with guest arrangers and under the usual steady hand of Tommy Smith, taken some electric Miles and rearranged them wonderfully for Big Band. And, with the exception of a couple of splendid sax solos from Mr Smith himself, Paul Towndrow and Konrad Wiszniewski, the night was more or less a spectacular showcase for Scofield.

Indeed the title "Loud Jazz and Electric Miles" was, in retrospect , more a nod towards the career of Scofield rather than a tribute to later Miles.

There were a couple of numbers made famous by Miles, that were actually written by Marcus Miller (Splatch and Tutu) but the majority of the numbers were either by Scofield or others.

All a bit "Funky" to be honest. I don't mind a bit of Funk, and I enjoyed most of the two and a bit hour gig, but I couldn't listen to it all the time (a tad "samey").

What was amazing was to see Scofield, with one guitar and one small amp, play so expressively with little "technical add ons". He strummed, he plucked, he slapped, he even used a slide at one point, but I wasn't aware of any loops or effect pedals being used.

I've seen some "pop" concerts where infinitely less talented guitarists strut about the stage with different guitars for different songs, have more pedals in front of them than a millipede could cope with, have a dedicated "guitar roadie" to pander to their every whim .... and they still sound crap.

Added bonus of the evening? Well. It had to be the fact that they were selling the SNJO's latest disc "Torah". According to Amazon it isn't "officially" released until the end of April. More about that later.

FAT CAT DIGS BOP

Yesterday, as well as popping "up the toon" to get new shoes, I also took advantage of the nice weather to exercise my little pal the "inner jazz fiend" and have a little tour of some of Edinburghs better second hand CD establishments and a few of the more refined "charidee" shops.

Neither he nor I came away disappointed. An excellent afternoons haul that included a few tried and trusted "safe bets", one I've been after for a long time and an excellent "new" discovery (i.e. "new" to me).

The "safe bets"? Well, first of an early piece by Wynton Marsalis "Black Codes (From The Underground)". I've a sh*t load of stuff by Wynton and like damn near all of it ("Blood On The Fields" his "jazz opera" was bloody awful though i.m.h.o). This is just great mainstream jazz by a quintet that includes brother Branford on sax.

Next up Ahmad Jamal live at The Olympia. His 70th birthday concert. Here his trio is joined by fellow "oldie" George Coleman on sax on five extended covers and one original. Crystal clear beautiful piano.

Not a completely "safe" bet but Terence Blanchard's "Wandering Moon" is a great trumpet led ensemble piece that, again includes, the great Branford Marsalis and also Dave Holland on bass (who even gets his own solo track). This predates his album "A Tale Of God's Will" by 7 years or so, but has many of the same qualities - mournful, plaintive, bluesy, ballads.

The one I've been after? Well, anything by Red Rodney to be honest. Bebop trumpet player who played with Charlie Parker for about 18 months starting in 1949. Being a red haired white guy made it a bit difficult when Parker booked the band into venues in the deep south that did not allow mixed race acts. The answer? Parker advertised Rodney as "Albino Red" claiming he was an African American who had lost his natural pigmentation! This episode is portrayed in the film Bird. However, the film, while mentioning Rodneys drug problems, ends with the viewer under the assumption that he spent the rest of his days "clean" and as an ideal citizen. In reality he was in and out of prison on drugs and fraud charges right through the sixties and into the seventies. This album was recorded in 1976 (think he remained free from then).
Unlike a lot of his peers and contemporaries who moved away and beyond bebop he seems to have lived with the belief that "if it ain't broke don't fix it". This is pure bebop from one of the guys who was there, if not at the beginning, then very early on. There is one track Yard's Pad that's a theme based on Parkers Yardbird Suite. Listened to this a few times already. I love it.... So, by the way, does my neighbours cat Fatso who sat stock-still on our back wall this morning for about 40 minutes while it was playing, just looking up towards the window where the music was coming from and only got up and walked away when I changed the CD!

The "new find"? Well. I picked up a CD in Oxfam for £1.99 "Triple Exposure" by pianist Mark Edwards. I noticed from the sleeve, that there were cover versions of tunes by Horace Silver, Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis. I thought it would be pretty standard piano, bass and drum trio. Far from it. This is exceedingly well executed and edgy.

Edwards is joined by Mick Hutton on bass and Bryan Spring on drums and when you read on the sleeve notes who they've, individualy, played with it reads like a who's who of jazz over 40 years - Tubby Hayes, Humph, Stan Tracey, Frank Ricotti, John Taylor and John Surman!
Can't find any more by this trio on the internet - but I do notice that drummer Spring is joined by Edwards on his own trio offering, so I'll keep an eye out for that (sadly they are not joined by Hutton).

I get the impression that these guys are like Über-session musicians with work on hundreds of albums - but never (or seldom) as leaders in their own right and this particular CD was a sort of foray into the limelight. And it works! More!!!

NEW SHOES

For a while now I've been getting a bit of a "twinge" in my right knee. But only when I'm wearing my ASICS - not when I'm wearing my trail shoes or cross country "studs".

Obviously you don't need to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce that there's a fair chance that the ASICS are the problem.

Now, I'm NOT saying ASICS are bad shoes - far from it I've been very happy running in them for a few years. I just think that my "style" has changed of late and the particular model I was wearing was no longer suitable.

Anyway. Off I tootled yesterday to Footworks up by Bruntsfield in Edinburgh for a wee bit of gait analysis and a try at a few different types of shoe.

I was right my gait has changed. I can't remember all the technical jargon that Colin who helped me came out with, but the overall prognosis appears to be that while I still have a tendency to over pronate (as do most runners), I also have a slight amount of "gangliness" that results in a floppity-flappity motion to the foot.

Now, on top of this, the news is that my "gangliness" is asymmetrical (my right foot is a tad ganglier than my left).

Oh deary me. How to solve this? I need a shoe that offers a bit more support. So, after trying on loads of shoes (Mizuno's, Nike's, Brooks, Saucenys, and other models of ASICS) and looking at my over pronating gangly legs in the camera as I ran on the treadmill it was finally decided that the Brooks Adrenaline GS10 fitted the bill (thankfully they also fitted my feet). Colin, very kindly even threw in a free pair of socks and a free Brooks tech tee-shirt.

Only had one run in them so far - last night with the club, but they seemed to work quite well. And more importantly my knee was twinge free.

If only I had neutral feet - I could get a pair of Billy's pimped up Primark shoes! (But would you get a free tee-shirt?)

PEEBLES

Well. That's that for the best part of another year (well, 9 months or so).

Cross country is over!! Hurrah!

Actually, I enjoyed the last one more than I thought I would and I felt quite strong during the run.

A damp, cold day with just a bit of snow falling gave the run in Peebles a real winter feel to it. Luckily the snow wasn't as bad as the snow we passed through on the way to the race

Quite a "technical" course that seemed to have a bit of everything in it. Starts off with a circuit of the park before shooting off along a narrow woodland path that takes in some pretty hairy little climbs over tree roots and slippery rocks, before heading through a pleasant valley, up and over an old railway viaduct, back into some woodland and then a horrible climb before a nice long descent through more woods and finishing off by the side of the Tweed. So - twisty, slippy, hilly, muddy and bumpy.

My time (26:27) was only slightly quicker than the last time I did that race, though since the route has been changed slightly it's difficult to tell if that's an improvement.

Had to hang about after the race for the prize giving. Nice to get a chance to talk to folk and the race organisers had laid on refreshments, including scones the size of a babies head, but it did start to drag on a bit.

ALL WEATHERS

Dunbar Running Club is lucky in as much as we have a running track. Indeed it’s a fairly unique track. Not for us the conventional 400m – no sir. We prefer to train on a 410m track!

Now, it would be easy to say that this is a simple mistake by the grounds man (or whoever occasionally sees fit to mark out the track), but I prefer to see it as a “cunning plan”. The plan being; if you train regularly and hard doing multiples of 410 then in theory you should get good times when you actually race at multiples of 400!! It’s a more simplified form of the theory that if you want to run a good half marathon ….. train for a marathon!

Sadly, this unique track is not an “all weather” track. It still sits there, obviously, in all weathers. It’s just that in really bad weather – you cant run on it – it gets all squishy.

We had bad weather last night. So the trusty track got a night off.

But while Dunbar might not have an all weather track it does boast some “all weather runners” and we headed off to do a few 1400m circuits round some of the local pavements. Now. I’ve never actually trained specifically round 1400m before so I wasn’t quite sure how to pace myself and therefore opted for the tried and tested method of “pelting it”. Eyeballs out, lungs lodged firmly in the throat type “run like you stole something”.

Must have done me good, because my legs hurt like hell this morning L