In Heaven

I've been pretty busy the last couple of days preparing for work resuming next Monday. But I've tried to make time for a bit of listening and reading to break things up. I made a particularly good choice in opting to watch a DVD featuring the Richard Thompson Band Live at Celtic Connections. It features a great line-up with the great man with lots of material from Dream Attic (the album featuring the same band, with new songs but recorded live.) It took me a little while to get into the songs, but now I'd rate the album as one of my favourites from RT, which is really saying something.

But it was a stellar performance on the DVD of Al Bowlly's In Heaven that really knocked my socks off, creating a sense of something suspiciously close to transcendence, giving the day the balance needed when you're ploughing ahead with necessary stuff. I love the song anyway, a brilliant evocation of the world of a dosser who was formerly a soldier, remembering his moments of youthful glory on the dance floor with the jazz band playing, taking him for a few moments away from the horror of his life. But the band just took the song to another place, with each soloing to perfection in the outro.

Pete Zorn's work on saxophone on the song especially struck me as tactfully gorgeous. Which made me even more aware of how incredibly multi-talented he is - playing guitars, flute, mandolin, as well as sax, and providing the more complex vocal harmonies on key songs, like Wall of Death. Which made me more sadly aware that he's passed away since the concert was recorded. So strange since he's so alive on the disk.

I wonder how the guys in the band felt about creating the music they did. Did they know they were giving us a glimpse of heaven? I hope so.