New Rights, New Needs, New Rules

What makes a city a city?

“People still live here, in the neighbourhood, even if it’s harder to talk to each other. When I go out for a walk, it’s been two hours and I’ve already bumped into five people saying ‘hey, Alejandrito, how are you’”, Alex, 23, Aiora.

How do we, as social beings, live and coexist in our urban realms?

“When I go out, I’m constantly saying ‘hello’. Street life encourages familiarity, and it doesn’t matter that you’re not blood family”, Mª Ángeles, 67, Cabañal.

The force capable of transforming the definition of city from a conglomerate of opposites (privatised–collective, intimate–public, forbidden–accessible) to one continuous fabric, an indissociable kaleidoscope of experiences, are its inhabitants. How they feel, walk, talk, touch, love, hate the place. How they own it, …

“How do you become excited about something? You get involved. I’ve always tried to engage with any local actions and projects in my neighbourhood” Paco, 58, El Carme

… and how they govern it.

“We need less bureaucracy and less of this generational, old fear of raising our voices against the unjust. We need people to feel free and a more fluid Administration to respond to citizens’ action”, Carol, 47, Camins al Grau.

Exhausting the Land

“There are houses everywhere!” My friend’s face is glued to the car window, as we drive along the main road on the northern side of the island. I turn right. A secondary road strings the plots on the east-facing valley together. The ploughed parcels expose the bright sienna colour of the swirled soil. Perfect rows of leafless almond trees fill the land. It is early January, and some brave flowers are blooming on the empty branches, refreshing the dusty palette. 

“Bon dia!” She waves enthusiastically at an old man in electric blue overalls pruning the roadside vines. Their long, entangled branches are outgrowing the boundaries of the land, ferociously poking the tarmac as if to say: “Don’t you dare come any closer.”

Beyond them, the countryside in Ibiza is sprinkled with houses almost everywhere, sitting on small plots of land. Only one-third of the island’s total residents—151,827 in 2020—live in Ibiza town today. Yet whilst the phenomenon of tourism emphasised this landscape, it did not cause it. Before tourism kicked off in the 1960s, Ibicencos already lived scattered in the countryside.

Port of call

– I just don’t understand why there are so many of them.

The water is calm.

– Perhaps we were not aware of it when we were younger?

– No I think it’s not that. I think there are more arriving now.

– But this constant drip is not sustainable. I mean this is an island. There is no room.

Autumn started a couple weeks ago, but one would not tell. People strive to extend summer, blurry the boundaries of season change. And bright, blue days help the cause.

– But why? Why so many?

The sun shines proudly, and no wind is blowing during the hottest hour of the day. The shore melts within the water. The sand is soft, it appears warm.

– A friend of mine told me a couple of days ago that the idea that workers are needed here is spreading. So there’s a bigger avalanche of people fleeing their home countries, convinced that they will find a job here.

– Who said this?

– My friend Rosa.

– Is she the one who lived in Senegal?

– She does.

There’s a saying in the island’s native language to describe waters like today’s: “com una bassa d’oli”. It means “like an oil pond”. Waters so calm, so quiet, so static, that evoke the parsimony of heavier liquids, harder to move, harder to enrage. Waters like these succeed in fooling inexperienced seafarers and tourists equally; tricking sailors to believe the sea is, sometimes, a gentle beast.

Ode to Glasgow

Beauty

Can you handle so much beauty

 

The sky is calm. Grey and blue and purple and cyan and yellow and pink and

red

red

 

Red like the bricks that cover buildings’ walls. Occasional whites and black greys, crawling up into the sky, scrapping its belly and turning sunset into a tickling game. Clouds laugh in amusement and humans walk, occasionally lifting heads up to stare at the natural ceiling that burns.

Marco Mezquida’s 2017 pearls

Marco Mezquida is currently one of the most acclaimed jazz musicians in Spain and certainly considered worldwide a talent not to be missed. Born in Menorca 30 years ago, he has already earned a privileged position through his hard work and chameleonic character. Teacher, composer, soloist, companion, he is versatile and perfectionist, a firm defender of self-exploration and self-care in music. His humility comes as a blessing, a fresh breeze of air, as he smiles with a thousand thank you’s shining out of his eyes at every single show. 2017 leaves with Mezquida having starred in two of the most exciting jazz recordings in Spain – Conexión, with flamenco guitarist Chicuelo; and Ravel’s Dreams, with drummer Aleix Tobías and cellist Martín Meléndez.

 

Conexión (connection in Spanish), published by Taller de Músics, could have been a sea of unidentifiable hints of styles. However, against all odds this brave series of conversations between a jazzy piano and a proudly and roughly flamenco guitar, fantastically accompanied by Paco de Mode’s percussion, end up being “a song”.

This is in its most literary and dreamy definition.

A Rift in Decorum: Live at the Village Vanguard

Californian trumpeter and composer Ambrose Akinmusire released in 2017 his forth studio album, a live recording of an almost two-hour performance at the legendary Village Vanguard in New York. The great communication with his longtime quartet (Sam Harris/p; Harish Raghavan/b; and Justin Brown/dr), his risky compositions and an overwhelming performance put together an album that has been acclaimed as one of the best jazz recordings of the year.

 

He sounds painful and violent, then careful and quiet, moans in disgrace and possessed sneaks away, through the back door, no statement made, no discourse.

Fate.

Cubafonía

Daymé Arocena is currently one of the most well acclaimed expressions of contemporary Cuban music. After trying piano, violin or guitar, she understood her voice was her best attribute and thus she began a career as a singer that has brought her to work with Roberto Fonseca, Jane Bunnett and Gilles Peterson, as well as many others. After her debut with Nueva Era in 2015 (see Couleurs Jazz #11 on iPad) she returned in 2017 with a completely different beat: more mature and more herself. Accompained by pianist Jorge Luis Lagarza, bassist Rafael Aldama and drummer Ruly Herrera; she writes a true love letter to her homeland and beloved island: Cuba.

 

Her voice is a force of nature. As if it spoke some hidden language or as if it had a transcendental message to spread. She covers everyone with an aura of family, she smiles stretching her lips onto white and shiny teeth that reflect almost as much light as her eyes.

“I am ready to die”

“Look”, he said, “look among the garbage and the flowers”

“There are heroes in the seaweed”.

And then, beauty. And the question. One, two, three and eighty questions. He smiles. His eyes shine. He carries an infinite kindness. You can see it, there, on the tip of his eyelashes, on the corner of his mouth.

Wrinkles on his face. As if full of cracks.

Wrinkles like cracks.

One take of horror vacui

Things are about to happen.

There exists a strange energy in the air. Some kind of expectation. Some sort of breath retention. As if legends were awaiting. And awaited.

There is a drum set, an electric bass, a grand piano and a set of saxophones.

Dressed in red, he carries the three saxophones. His body is reflected on the surface of the black piano, dazzling. He is dressed in red. Throwing the light into the big concert hall. The Berliner Festspiele applauds, ravishing. Him, bright. That red… that red is making a statement. The passion red, the powerful red, red the colour of blood and the colour of fight and the colour of energy, of the hottest nucleus of the sun.

Jazz is red. And blue and grey and black and green.

But very red.

The sax with the Mona Lisa smile

Mette Henriette Martedatter Rølvåg was sitting in a concert in Oslo. Next to her, Manfred Eicher, founder of the German record Label ECM. They started chatting. Next thing on the timeline is Mette Henriette debuting with a double-CD album under ECM’s wing.

 The Norwegian saxophonist’s career has escalated quickly, and her debut album as a leader saxophonist sounds like nothing else around it. Elegant and soft, powerful within its delicacy, it shouts directly to the bowels and she succeeds in creating a personality that is reaffirmed by her live performances. During the third day of this years edition of the Jazzfest Berlin, Henriette shares stage with a whole new formation, presented in world premiere: Henrik Nørstebø on trombone, Lavik Larsen on trumpet, Johan Lindvall on piano, Andreas Rokseth on bandoneón, Odd Hannsidal and Karin Hellqvist on violins, Bendik Foss on viola, Gregor Riddell on cello, Per Zanussi on double bass and saw and Dag Erik Knedal Andersen on drums. On Thursday the 3^rd of November, at 8pm, after Julia Hülsmann’s Quartet, the light changes.

 

Ignitable, robust, powerful, raw, harsh, stripped, fresh, pointy, strong, hefty, delicate, intimate, talkative, legendary, magical, epic, ancestral, traditional, glacial, soft, meditative, controlled, curious, focused, carrying, invisible.

Invisible.

Yet it travels on the skin.