I went to see Karen performing as part of a celebration called “Where’s the Art?” for an organisation known as CARU (Contemporary Arts Research Unit.) I didn’t intend to draw her as the largest person on the page, honestly.
Not just another jazz gig, but Karen’s first proper Jazz Gig at the Half Moon pub in Oxford last night. If you weren’t hip enough to be there, I’m sorry. Peel me a grape, as Dave Frishberg wrote. The gold glittery shoes had to be seen to be believed. Thanks to Trish Elphinstone, Martin Pickett, Tim Richardson and Ng Shu-Ting Esther for helping Karen to make the occasion so musical.
One for the word-play category…
Two posts in one weekend! We were present at a short (free) concert by Nostos, the choir of the Oxford University Greek Society in the basement of Blackwells bookshop, amongst the philosophies of mind and science. I had a go at sketching the whole choir, but I missed the musical director (she never stopped moving) and the choir kept shuffling, so it was hard to tell who else I missed. After the music we ate pastries on a bench in the sunshine, and then took a cruise along the river to Iffley lock.
Another evening of music, this time the Jazz Jam at Oxford Jazz Kitchen. It was very crowded, so from the back I had a restricted view and had to make up quite a lot to fill the scene. It’s still fairly accurate, I reckon. Karen got up and performed the saucy “Kitchen Man” to an enthusiastically fast drum-beat, but managed to keep her cool and stay in the groove.
Great performance by Pete Oxley and Nick Meier last night at the Albion Beatnik Bookstore. I prepped my coloured pencils and riffed along with the fluid melodies and oh so tight rapport. I managed to include references to almost every title played, except for Vera Cruz (because I didn’t know what to draw).
So there I was, pulling New Year crackers at our office party, when out fell a tiny notebook, no bigger than my thumb*. After a little while I noticed it was full of dancing hippos. I spent the rest of the evening on the dance floor with Karen, trying to emulate the funky, cool moves of this smooth dancer. Karen laughed a lot, so I reckon I must have succeeded.
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* casual hyperbole, under section IV of the Artistic Licensing Act 2008. True figure** is 60 (+/-1) x 40 (+/- 1) mm^2.
** for the notebook. The thumb is smaller.
Happy Birthday mum for the 14th!
Here’s a little cartoon I drew for an audio hardware competition. Karen drew the basis of the organ console section some years ago. I adapted it for this purpose, and added the performer and the amp in the foreground. Wish us luck!
We went to an excellent talk yesterday at the Albion Beatnik Bookshop, by Jeremy Renals on the sub-genres of jazz. Most of the people in my sketch are jazzers, but a couple crept in from book-covers I could see in the shop.