Passing Time

Each year I write about the books I’ve read, and the films and TV I’ve watched. Obviously I hope to entertain others when I do this, but it’s also to remind myself, to ensure that I’m not just consuming and forgetting, but thinking about them, analysing how (if) they work, as well as my own response to them. It’s very nerdy, I know, but that’s who I am.

But I don’t do the same for the music I’ve listened to through the year. I often at least list the live gigs I’ve been to, whether that be Tramlines festival or Opera North, but I don’t write about music. Part of that is that I’ve spent many years as a student writing about books and films – I kind of know how to approach that. When I try to write about music, I find I’m only really writing about my response to it (it made me feel joyful/weepy/like dancing/at peace…) rather than analysing the music itself, and that’s fine, because music defies being pinned down by words.

But music is a huge part of my life. And it was a huge part of my life with Martyn, and that’s perhaps why I am thinking about it more now that I’m without him.

It was taken for granted that one or two nights a week would be devoted to just listening to – ‘background music’ was an oxymoron to him – and talking about the music (other conversational avenues were discouraged, other than for emergency purposes). And those music nights took a particular form. With a vast CD collection to choose from, we had to find a way of listening not just to the usual suspects but to the more obscure artists, or at least the more obscure albums by more familiar artists. Not only that, but it meant that we could swerve from one century, one continent, one genre to another, never get stuck in one particular groove.

So the random music generator came into being. Dice were rolled to determine which column, which shelf in that column, and which album on that shelf would be played. Some leeway was permitted, if the selected CD had been played very recently, for example, but otherwise it was a given that we would play whatever was chosen. There were also occasions on which other mechanisms for choice were allowed, such as the recent death of a musician, in which case the choice would be from within her/his oeuvre, but favouring the more obscure rather than the best known work. It was a serious business.

And there was another wrinkle too. He was the wielder of the dice, and therefore obviously knew what it was we were about to hear. I didn’t, and so I was invited to guess (what, or at least who). This ranged from easy peasy to absolutely impossible, and getting it wrong risked a raised eyebrow of disdain. But it made me listen, more intently than I would have done otherwise, and think about what I was hearing, and that was the point really, not one-upmanship, given that he already knew the answer, but listening as a serious business, as the main business of the evening rather than as a background to doing other things.

When he died, I realised straight away that music nights were going to need a major rethink. First of all, the whole idea of sitting on my own and listening to music that intently seemed impossible, so laden with memories and with the awareness of that huge loss, that I couldn’t see how I would be able to face it. And when I did venture to put CDs on, I initially headed for the known rather than the obscure, the comfort of familiar voices and riffs.

My first musical project after he died was to choose the music for the funeral. It was clear to us from the start that the ceremony would be more music than words, because it was about him. And which music – that felt like a huge responsibility. How could I risk choosing something that would merit a raised eyebrow of disdain? But we came up with a list – and booked a double slot at the crem to allow enough time for all of the tracks, as well as the two poems, and the eulogies that each of the three of us had written.

• Philip Glass – Warszawa (3rd movement, Low Symphony)
• The Beach Boys – Our Prayer
• Stan Tracey Orchestra – Come Sunday (Ellington composition, instrumental version)
• Gerry Mulligan Quartet with Chet Baker – My Funny Valentine (instrumental version)
• Miles Davis – Florence sur les Champs-Elysée
• The Beatles – In My Life
• Jimi Hendrix – Pali Gap

And then there was the playlist for the wake. We ended up with about 13 hours of music, according to Spotify. Played on random, it bounces around across the decades, the continents and the genres (OK, there are no symphonies, concerti or string quartets in there). Putting it together was a labour of love. Tracks weren’t selected for poignancy or solemnity, rather the whole thing was a celebration of the music that we’d shared, that we both loved. Listening to it now, there are tracks I’d entirely forgotten that we’d included, and tracks that seem to come up every time. There are tracks that he loved more than I did, and vice versa. In other words, it is a true reflection of our musical lives together. And every now and again I am overwhelmed by the sadness that we’re not listening together, not any more.

I’ve had weeks since then when I listened to no music at all – something that would have been unthinkable before. But I knew that I needed to find it a place in my new life, and I have done. I’ve been to concerts on my own or with friends or family, I’ve been to Tramlines festival twice. Those have been comparatively easy. Once I’m there, sitting (or standing) and listening intently is the only option, whereas at home it’s too easy to persuade myself that I’m not really in the mood and reach for the TV remote instead.

But I had to have music nights again.

I found the dice, and I use those sometimes to narrow my search – when you have a whole dining room wall of CDs, it can be too daunting to try to pick something, so letting the random music generator do its work takes some of the pressure off, and elicits some surprises, albums I didn’t know we had, that I can’t be sure I ever listened to before, as well as things I know and just hadn’t listened to in years. I listen on Saturday afternoons to Radio 3, where there’s a run of programmes that deliver an eclectic range of music (This Classical Life, Inside Music, Sound of Cinema, Music Planet and J to Z) and on Sunday afternoon to Jazz Record Requests, and often these programmes suggest where my music night might go. There are other prompts – often something during the week reminds me of an artist or an album and so I start to make a little pile of CDs, to make it easy to get started and not to cop out.

The thing is, there isn’t any music that has nothing to do with him, and with our life together. Right from the start music was a vital connection between us. I remember going round to his house, with a few other people including my then boyfriend, and Martyn playing Bowie songs on the guitar. I think it was all settled in that moment, really. We introduced each other to the music that each of us loved – he played me Hendrix, ELP and Crimson, I brought him Motown, Osibisa and Simon & Garfunkel. We were each open to the other’s music, then and always. Actually, he was open to all music, then and always (although he never did quite come to terms with opera – the music is great, he’d say, if they’d just stop the warbling). Together, over the years, we explored jazz in its many forms, world music from literally the world, the whole gamut of pop, rock, soul, indie, blues, R&B, prog, folk-rock, jazz rock, post-rock, rap, country & western, the classical repertoire from Tallis through to Caroline Shaw…

So music will always be about me and him, even if I’m listening to things he never got to hear. I’ll always be having a conversation in my head with him when I’m listening, when there’s a bit I particularly like or that I think he’d particularly like, when I’m not sure I’m really getting it; whatever I’m thinking and feeling about the music is a conversation with him.

He listened differently to me, primarily because he was a musician. He could get music out of any musical instrument and he couldn’t see a musical instrument without wanting to play it. He never ‘learned properly’ as his mum (a piano teacher) always put it, but he could improvise on any fragment of a tune, which she couldn’t (his dad could though – he used to sit at the piano and vamp away a la Charlie Kunz). He was in two bands (on guitar or keyboards), Red Shift (with Paul and Chris), and the Conduits (with Jonathan (Yozzer), Tim, Jon, Dan and Lenny, and various guest musicians). There were a few gigs (at one of which I got to utter the immortal words, ‘I’m with the band’) but a lot more jam sessions, which suited Martyn well. Like his idol, Hendrix, he would jam with anyone who was willing to go where the music took them, seeking not perfection but the exhilaration of making something new. He recorded every one of those jam sessions, and would get home, and listen to the recordings, and transfer them from mini-disc to CD, for posterity (his brother Adrian is curating the very considerable library of recordings that he left behind). I haven’t yet played any of the recordings – I’m not ready to hear him, not just yet.

Martyn never really understood why I was content to be a music listener and not a music maker – I tried, but strumming chords on the guitar was, for me, a glum business and I could only follow what I was told to do, I could never launch myself into a jam. But though we listened differently, we always listened together.

Listening to music without him is a hazardous business – sometimes it’s too much. In all the exhilaration of discovering new music, the pleasure of hearing familiar music, I can be ambushed by sadness.

But if the alternative is to treat music as a background, to deny it its place at the heart of my life, to deny myself that exhilaration and delight, then I’ll settle for being ambushed. I don’t go in a lot for saying ‘it’s what he would have wanted’ – all too often that’s a way of quietening one’s unease about decisions that now have to be taken alone – but in this case, there’s no doubt. He would not wish for me in any circumstances a life without music, the thought would appal him. And for me, it would mean losing him in a most profound way.

When I told a friend how I was feeling about listening to music alone, he pointed out that since long before Martyn died, I have tweeted (as we used to call it) and posted on Facebook about our evenings’ listening. And how very often, someone out there connects with what I’ve posted, and enthuses with me, or suggests other things I might enjoy. So perhaps I’m not alone, not quite, after all.

2023 music nights, at home, 99% CD with the occasional foray on to Spotify, accompanied only by a glass or several of red wine (and random strangers via social media), brought me:

Arooj Aftab, Arnie Somogyi’s Ambulance, Daymé Arocena, Bacharach, Bagadou (French bagpipes), The Band, Bartok, The Beatles, Beats & Pieces, Jeff Beck, Tony Bennett, Art Blakey, Carla Bley, Bloc Party, David Bowie, Jean de Cambefort, Charpentier, Carmen Consoli, Corelli, David Crosby, Miles Davis, Depeche Mode, Egg, Duke Ellington, Ensemble Instrumental National du Mali, Espen Eriksen Trio, Bill Evans, Graham Fitkin, Ella Fitzgerald, Flobots, Marvin Gaye, Genesis, Gentle Giant, Ghanaian highlife, Philip Glass, Charlie Haden, Herbie Hancock, Handel, Richard Hawley, Jimi Hendrix, Henry Cow, Indigo Girls, Isley Brothers, Jacszuk Fripp & Collins, Laura Karpman, Georgi Kurtag, Ant Law & Alex Hitchcock, Charles Lloyd, Yvonne Lyon, Kirsty MacColl, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Massive Attack, Curtis Mayfield, Joni Mitchell, various Mojo CDs, Monteverdi, Motown, Sinead O’Connor, Pixies, Pogues, Prefab Sprout, Projekt X, Queens of the Stone Age, Rachmaninov, Zoe Rahman, Red Rum Club, Max Richter, Sonny Rollins, SBB, Ryuchi Sakamoto, Scenes in the City, Self Esteem, Shakti, Sharp Little Bones, Caroline Shaw, Andy Sheppard, Wayne Shorter, Shostakovich, Sibelius, Smiths, Songhoy Blues, Stax, Steeleye Span, Sugababes, James Taylor, Teenage Fanclub, Telemann, Television, Temptations, Jake Thackray, Tinariwen, Tina Turner, Erkki-Sven Tuur, Unthanks, Velvet Underground, Vivaldi, Weather Report, White Stripes, Wings, YMO, Zutons

2023 gigs, some solo, most with family/friends (Arthur, Adi, Janie, Aid & Ruth, Jennie & Michael, Sam & Jen):

A highlight of Sheffield’s classical music year is the Chamber Music Festival (Crucible Playhouse), this year boldly curated by Kathy Stott. Featuring Ensemble 360 + Tine Thing Helseth (trumpet), Ruth Wall (harp), Amy Dickson (sax), with a fantastic programme of familiar and totally unfamiliar music. The concerts I attended featured: Barber, Boulanger, Coleridge-Taylor, Dvorak, De Falla, Fitkin, Francaix, Glass, Jacobsen & Aghaei, Martinu, Menotti, Meredith, Milhaud, Rachmaninov, Rodney Bennett, Saint Saens, Schubert, Schulhoff, Scott, Wall, and Weill

Music in the Round (Upper Chapel) – Ligeti, Dorati, Lutoslawski and Farkas

Sheffield Jazz (Crookes Social Club) – Beats & Pieces, Ant Law & Alex Hitchcock, Clark Tracy Quintet, Anthropology Band, Ivo Neame’s Dodeka

Platform4 Music (Arts Tower) – a few years back we went to a performance of Terry Riley’s In C, using the Arts Tower’s Paternoster lifts. For this gig, the same group used the Arts Tower space, and the lifts again, to create interweaving lines of music, receding and approaching, clashing and harmonising.

Self Esteem (O2) – one hell of a gig! I’d seen them/her before at Tramlines 2022, and was blown away (I’d also seen her a few years earlier as part of Slow Club, also at Tramlines). Outstanding.

Under the Stars (Yellow Arch) – I’m a trustee of Under the Stars, a charity that works with adults with learning disabilities through music and drama. This was a gig from one of the music groups and it was loud and joyous. We also had a slot at Tramlines (see below), as in previous years.

Tramlines (Hillsborough Park, which was muddy by the time we all arrived on Friday afternoon, and a complete swamp by the time we called it a day on Sunday pm, but it was grand, and we’ve already bought our tickets for next year). We saw: Bloc Party, Blossoms, Blu3, Alice Ede, Everly Pregnant Brothers, Safii Kaii, Mary Wallopers, Kate Nash, Pale Waves, Red Rum Club, Sea Girls, Sugababes, Under the Stars, Zutons

Jacqui Dankworth & the Carducci String Quartet (Howard Assembly Rooms) – a lovely gig to accompany Sonia Boyce’s exhibition, Feeling Her Way.

Fiona Bevan & Adam Beattie (Café #9) – a tiny, perfect venue and a perfect gig from this duo, vocal harmonies, double bass, piano and guitar

Hailu Ni Trio (Café #9) – Chinese soprano Hailu Ni accompanied by piano and violin, performing Tosti, Puccini, Chopin, Ponce, Tchaikovsky, Schubert, Strauss, Mancini, Lewis Capaldi, Christina Perri & Ryuichi Sakamoto.

Tom Townsend & Friends (Café #9) playing the songs of James Taylor and, by extension, Carole King and Joni Mitchell (‘River’). Gorgeous songs. I may have had a little cry when he sang ‘You’ve Got a Friend’.

Red Rum Club (Leadmill) – we’d seen them at Tramlines and knew we were in for a great night – huge energy, great tunes, and a trumpeter, what more could one ask?

Unthanks in Winter (Octagon) – fragments of familiar carols merging into Unthanks compositions or much older, less familiar carols, dream-like, as if you’re slipping in and out of your own time.

Here’s to 2024, to many more gigs, and many more music nights. Thanks, always, to Martyn, without whom there is so much music I would never have heard, and who helped me to really, really listen.