twilightdawning

A writer's thoughts – mainly about music, sport and theatre. Shakespeare, Bob Dylan, live shows, New York Yankees

Straight Ahead!

Posted on August 5, 2016 by twilightdawning

What: Bob James Quartet

When: 1-3 August 2016

Where: Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, London

“pop jazz”

“smooth jazz”

Whenever you hear mention of Bob James one of the above will inevitably be mentioned. But when you come to see a Bob James show like this series of dates at Ronnie Scott’s, there is little in sight or sound that would fit that description. Sure, Mr James is keen to come up with carefully arranged material but that was never a crime and the solos and improvisation are as adventurous if not as radical as much you will hear in modern jazz. So why does Mr James have such a rough ride from some reviewers who have filed him under “bland” forty years ago and left him there?

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The New York Yankees – The Pitchers in June (2016)

Posted on July 19, 2016 by twilightdawning

In June, some of the pitchers that the Yankees felt they could rely upon started to creak. Meanwhile, some of those who looked like they weren’t going to perform began to improve. Rollercoaster. The team ERA during June increased from 3.75 in May to just below 5. No point in your batters improving if this is going to happen!

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Ahead …by some distance

Posted on July 7, 2016 by twilightdawning

Who: Steps Ahead

What: Reunion tour 2016

When: July 4th, 2016

Where: Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, London

Hey, kill me, but I’m one of those irritating fools that likes to take a few photos at a concert but one of the downsides of Ronnie Scott’s is that they have an absolutely no snapshots rule. Now I wouldn’t want to be snapping away on a smart phone or with something that flashes in the artists’ eyes but a few memories enhances the experience for me.

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The New York Yankees – The Batters in June (2016)

Posted on July 6, 2016 by twilightdawning

The Yankees bats finally began to break out in June but their win/loss record on the month wasn’t much different from how it had been in May. We’ll see to what degree the pitchers were responsible for that in our next article. In the meantime let’s survey the batters and see who was responsible for a month that saw them surge to a .278 BA on the month against May’s .232 and .424 SLG against the previous month’s .385.

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New York Yankees (June 2016 Update)- Just passing through…

Posted on June 29, 2016 by twilightdawning

There has been an extensive list of players who have passed through the New York Yankees’ pinstripes between April and the 24th of June. In this article, I am going to survey the players who have spent at least 1 day on the roster for the Bronx Bombers but are no longer on the 25 on that date in June.

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Like A River That Don’t Know Where It’s Flowing

Posted on June 21, 2016 by twilightdawning

Who: Bruce Springsteen & the E-Street Band

What: The River Tour 2016

Where: Wembley Stadium, London

When: 5th June 2016

My track record with the music of Bruce Springsteen has been a little chequered. I discovered his music early in his career and love the first four albums – “Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.”, “The Wild, The Innocent and the E-Street Shuffle”, “Born to Run” and “Darkness on the Edge of the Town”. “The River” was an interesting album. Bruce felt it needed to be a double record. Listening to it in Yorkshire in England, I always felt it would have been better as a single album. Loved “Point Blank” but couldn’t get excited about what Mr Springsteen refers to as his “bar-room songs” especially pieces of fluff like “Crush on You”. But there was some real meat in there and I remember listening to that album a lot.

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The New York Yankees – The Pitchers in May (2016)

Posted on June 4, 2016 by twilightdawning

So if the batters were worse than terrible, it must have been the pitching staff who picked up some of the slack and gave the team a chance in the May games – leading to the Yankees achieving that surprising 16-13 record on the month.

12 of those 16 wins came from the starting staff so we’ll be considering them first.

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The New York Yankees – The Batters in May (2016)

Posted on June 3, 2016 by twilightdawning

A few months ago I talked in this column about two perils that the Yankees faced in the 2016 season. The first possibility was that the senior players would prove to be well past their sell-by date and would under-perform. The second possibility was that although those senior players would perform, they would be laboured by injury. In reality, I overlooked the third possibility – that they would under-perform AND carry injuries.

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Thou basest thing, avoid! hence, from my sight!

Posted on June 1, 2016 by twilightdawning

What: Cymbeline by William Shakespeare

Who: Royal Shakespeare Company

Where: Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon

When: May 26th 2016

Mmm… first of all you’re asked to delay your night at a Shakespeare play then your hotel manager tells you that the play has had somewhat “mixed reviews”. Then you hear the story of how the first night’s audience were given a refund because the play was running well behind in its mad dash to be ready for press night. As you take your seat in the theatre perhaps you’re right in not having too high an expectation of the night’s proceedings.

On the way in you had handed over your £4 for the programme. Back in the day, the programmes were fully of scholarly essays about the play itself. These days, it has become customary for the programme to be full of pieces about the themes that the director and producer have decided to emphasise in this performance. There is an essay about the European Union and the danger of Britain breaking away from it. There is an interview with the director about the gender changes in the Dramatis Personae.

At least you know what’s coming. The married couple next to us who didn’t buy a programme (having paid £110 for a pair of tickets) left at the interval mumbling that “it wasn’t worth watching”.

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The New York Yankees – The Pitchers in April (2016)

Posted on May 16, 2016 by twilightdawning

Whilst the batters showed few highlights in April, you could almost divide the pitchers into two groups…those who were starters (bad) and those who were relievers (good). As we shall see, there were some exceptions but not many!

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