Even in the dark and without his lipstick-pink pashmina, I recognised choreographer Mark Morris standing chatting with two friends outside Sadler’s Wells Theatre an hour before his show last night. It wasn’t like bumping into Diaghilev: Morris was dressed in old corduroys and a shapeless black t-shirt. I thought it might be his “please don’t recognise […]

No dancer myself, I nevertheless love to watch good dancers, especially if they are musical. That may seem an odd qualification to make about dancers, but it often seems to me that the rhythm of the music and the steps of the dance are on parallel tracks. Because my dad was a keen amateur ballroom […]

When I was in the Highlands recently I had the pleasure of meeting the eminent Scots musicologist Dr John Purser, who has been presenting a long-running series of radio programmes on the history of Scots music – much of which has come as a surprise to today’s radio audience. John and his wife Barbara treated us […]

Bob has been writing about Art Tatum, the great American jazz pianist of the 1930s and 40s. Bob managed to find some transcriptions of Tatum’s piano solos in the library, and has been listening to Tatum’s recordings of those very pieces, comparing the recording with the transcription. I listened too because I’ve long been a fan […]

Eat your heart out, pointlessly thin people, for this is a photo of the birthday cake Bob made for me yesterday. Two layers of chewy hazelnut meringue filled with double cream and fresh raspberries. A thing of beauty and a joy forever!