The age of loneliness

George Monbiot has a column that you must read.

Admittedly, I could say that every week. And I strongly urge anyone to read every one of his Guardian columns. But this one strikes very close for me. He describes something that was a major (the major) factor in naming this blog Anachronicles. There are several ways in which I feel out of synch with my time, although I have already mentioned that I sometime question how much other times really were (or will be) different, and how much comes from biased perception.

But I have always reckoned that much of it is genuine. And it is confirmed by data, as he shows. He calls our epoch the Age of Loneliness, which is appropriate, although I reckon that it is also an age of individualism (and he does cover that too). This feeling must be magnified by living in the UK: it appears to be pretty much the capital of the lonely/individualistic world.

Maybe there is a kind of paradox that I should feel so strongly about that when I guess quite a few people over the years would have considered me some kind of loner –it’s true that I am not a natural herd follower and that I would often not feel like joining in some “group fun” that did not look like fun to me. But I know that I was feeling estranged from distinctly superficial interactions, not from interactions per se. Far from a total loner, I have come to realise that pretty much all of my aspirations are about human contacts. 

It’s true that I have too many times been hit by unbelievably individualistic, selfish and outrageous behaviour while myself acting as such a team-player that I was giving no more priority to my interests than to those of the person about to wrong me, which probably makes me even more sensitive to the defects of our age. But even ignoring those extreme events, individualism is everywhere. In the office, many people go straight to their desks without saying hello to anyone, and give every impression of avoiding eye contact all day long with anyone trying to maintain that modicum of civility; many people theorise that it’s completely fair play to defend your interest at all costs, even if it means maintaining the most iniquitous situation, and indeed express their expectation that anyone should and will do so; Tories famously theorised that there is no such thing as society.

Yet, and again Monbiot confirms my impressions with data, this simply creates misery. We would be much happier with much less, if only we remembered the skill of sharing it.

Stacey Kent

A year ago I missed her at Ronnie Scott’s. Not this time.

It was an unusual experience for me in a jazz concert in that I had pretty much heard all (or nearly so) the numbers. By the same artist. Not that I have her whole collection, but I do have her last couple of records and they were heavily drawn upon.

And it was also making a huge case for live music.

Not that studio recordings are inferior –far from it, indeed I would say that on balance they are clearly superior. And, OK, there were indeed several moments of unimpeachable bliss (many of which during instrumentals, although the undisputed star was the singer, Stacey), with all the players reaching a perfect balance, with a beautifully sensual sound. But there were also moments when it was clear that the possibility of repeated takes in a studio could help, such as when, singing Samba Saravah with a slightly faster tempo, Stacey (maybe also not so used to singing in French anymore, with her current Portuguese stream of inspiration) visibly struggled with the words.

My point is that, even during those fleeting moments, you would not in any way have wanted to be elsewhere, the experience was incredibly greater than listening to a recording. Numbers were introduced with every effort to communicating their significance, the band were visibly enjoying being there, and you knew you would not listen to these numbers in the same way back home.

As an aside, one number inadvertently made a clear display of why it is that there are genuine singers. I mean, you could think that it’s easy, they have a microphone so no volume problems, you could believe that if someone is very musical, singing should be the easy option (and indeed, many instruments are probably more technically demanding to play). Well, there was a number that was sung as a duet with her husband. Now, he is a phenomenal musician, writer of many of the songs the band plays, and you would like to make love to the sound of his saxophone. I am not saying that he is a bad singer –just that it was an unfair match. OK, the Waters of March probably works better for an agile, female voice anyway, but you had her just dancing effortlessly with the tune and he had to give a reply that could never approach it. Until it reached the instrumental, and he would blow you away.

I spent the concert waiting for her to sing in French. She would prolong the wait, with numbers exclusively in English and Portuguese. Then I recognised, at last, the opening chords to my favourite of her French language songs (ironically, it’s actually a Brasilian one, translated) –Samba Saravah. As she was saying her goodbyes after two verses and the waitress came asking for payment, I observed “there’s one more verse!” I needed not have worried, the band got back to playing and she sang it eventually, even adding a little da capo. And then an encore with The Ice Hotel. English got the last word after all.

Wherever you are, if she’s around, just go. You’ll remember it.

Now, if we could bring Cyrille Aimée to Ronnie Scott’s. 

With Esperanza Spalding as her bass, now that would be fun.