Hand held images of a performance by Ginger Baker's Jazz Confusion. The heavily African influenced music reflect Baker's familiarity with and love of that continent, it was a evening of world music on my doorstep.
It is a sad consequence of hand held image gathering that very occasionally somebody objects, the promoter, the artiste's management company or the venue itself.
This means that a degree of surrepticiousness is called for not to be asked to stop filming. This has happened to me once or twice in the past.
It didn't happen here, but taking an 11 minute film is rather more obvious for much longer than taking the occasional photo, hence some camera angles are hard to do or to maintain for any length of time.
So unlike some more privileged reportage, hand held history is strictly a consumer-eye view of popular culture, in a particular place at a particular time in history.... warts and all.
The band here comprises of Ginger Baker himself ex- Graham Bond Organisation, Blues Incorporated, Cream, Blind Faith, Air Force and Fela Kuti.....the man who was famously voted to be the least likely rock star to survive the 1960s. Here he was in 2013 aged 73 hitting drums for an hour and a half and still having the energy to take us back to Jazz roots in Africa.
With former James Brown hornman Pee Wee Ellis (tenor saxophone), the wonderful Alec Dankworth (acoustic and electric basses) and Ghanaian percussion master Abass Dodoo, Mr Baker provided 90 minutes of excellent entertainment a bit of which is captured here from me, deeply embedded in the audience.
As a matter of fact the bass player Alec Dankworth is the son of British Jazz giants Johnny Dankworth and Cleo Laine.
