The Gravity Band with Fred Frith
Photo Peter Gannushkin. 08.06.2014 - (54 minutes)
The origin of this group was in "Gravity", the second solo album by guitarist Fred Frith appeared in 1980 at the time, "Gravity" was described as "avant-garde dance music." Even today it is considered a milestone in the work of Fred Frith. Some musicians around San Francisco where the artist teaches at Mills College convinced him to revive this legendary album. The Gravity Band interprets the pieces integrally, completed with some pieces of this time. Played for the first time live, these compositions find a new life. Close to the original recordings, they are adorned with new arrangements and open some new spaces for improvisation. Gravity Band musicians belong to the cream of the crop of West Coast jazz. Included among them the great guitarist Ava Mendoza.
Digging
by Seamus Heaney
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pin rest; snug as a gun.
Under my window, a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down
Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.
The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked,
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.
By God, the old man could handle a spade.
Just like his old man.
My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.
The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.
