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Can you tell the state of a nation by the quality of its bookshops? My question is prompted by a recent visit to France where, once again, I was astounded by the range and quality of books on display in the country's bookshops. It wasn't just in the university city of Nantes, it was also in provincial towns such as La Roche sur Yon where the independent Mediastore carried a range of books and music that not only put to shame Britain's retailers but also proved irresistible. So from a major display of books commemorating 1968 I splurged on Les années 68 which provides a world view on that extraordinary year.
An equally impressive music range yielded, among other CDs, Taksim Trio, a new release from the Turkish label Doublemoon which has featured here before. The trio of Hüsnü Senlendirici on clarinet, Ismail Tunçbilek on baglama and Aytaç Dogan on quanun dance between traditional, arabesque, jazz and classical styles in an album that is categorised as world music but which is really quintessentially Turkish. The 'taksims' of the title refer to the improvisations on the album, but Taksim Square is also the public space in Istanbul where private political frustrations become public demonstrations. Taksim Square features on the album sleeve above and also in my photo below of a political demonstration, which I took when I visited Istanbul last year.
Sadly, the political climate in Turkey is once again volatile following this week's arrest of two retired army generals as part of an investigation into a series of high profile killings. The plot also, allegedly, included a plan to murder the Nobel Prize-winning novelist Orhan Pamuk who controversially stepped out-of-line by writing about the 1915 ethnic cleansing of Armenians. Which seems to confirm that books, if not bookshops, are a good measure of the state of a nation.
More French passion for books here, possibly the best record store in the world here and lots of Turkish resources here.
Taksim Square photo (c) On An Overgrown Path 2008. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
1968 was a year of upheaval. It was the year of sex and drugs and rock and roll and saw the assasination of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, the accidental death of Trappist monk and social activist Thomas Merton, the Tet offensive in Vietnam, the rise of the anti-war movement, the student rebellion that paralysed France, and the growth of the civil rights and women's movements. Stockhausen composed Stimmung, Hair opened on Broadway, the Beatles released their White Album and a Lindsay Anderson film put an African version of the Latin Mass at the top of the UK charts. Finally, as a reminder that history rarely repeats itself, but its echoes never go away, in October 1968 Tommie Smith and John Carlos made their controversial protest in support of the Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR) on the podium at the Mexico Olympics.
While society was in upheaval elsewhere Dom Charles was completing the remarkable work of art seen above in the Abbey church of the Benedictine community at Buckfast in a peaceful Devon valley. The huge east window (judge the size by the altar visible in lower foreground of my photo) is in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel at Buckfast Abbey. It uses the technique known as dalles-de-verre in which ‘tiles’ of coloured glass are chipped to shaped and laid mosaic-fashion in a matrix of resin. The window was made by the monks in the Abbey's workshop, and since its completion in 1968 windows have been made by the Brothers for more than 150 other churches using the same technique. One of the most recent commissions has been a window commemorating the New York firefighters who died in 9/11.
We had travelled to Buckfast to hear a concert of choral works by the unsung master Philippe de Monte. The music of this 16th century Flemish composer is very rarely performed today (although it is recorded), which is surprising as he wrote 1,073 secular and 144 spiritual madrigals, 45 chansons, 319 motets and 38 mass settings - eat your heart out Leif Segerstam! The intelligently planned and beautifully delivered concert was given in the Abbey church (Lady Chapel seen in my photo below) by the vocal ensemble Voces directed by Martyn Warren. There may still be many voices to a part in choirs in Devon and the men may still wear suits, ties and white shirts, but in other ways they are right up there with Radiohead. Here is an extract from the free programme book which included texts:
Concerts are normally free, allowing you to make your own decision about the contribution you make to the retiring collection. After expenses this will be split equally between the Abbey and the Voce music fund. Neither singers nor conductor take a fee. As a rough guide, a ticket for a concert like this would normally cost you at least £8, and we hope you will give generously with your money as the performers have given of their time in preparing and performing.
Masses of early music on iPods here.
My wife and I stayed in one of the Buckfast Communities splendid retreat houses on the edge of the monastic domain - recommended. Photos (c) On An Overgrown Path 2008. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
'The global forest fire of revolution in 1968 needed no internet - if anything, it was the antithesis of the sedentary, logged-in, blogged-out world of today's deactivated youth. It was a time of direct communication, between countries and within them, so that throughout the Mexican summer mimeographs worked all night to produce 'wall newspapers' telling of prisoners, police brutality, and proposed further agitation. Slogans were spray-painted on buses, handbills thrown from tower blocks and leaflets placed inside brown bags alongside bread sold by bakeries' - Ed Vulliamy writes in today's Observer in one of a series of excellent articles about the year that rocked the world - 1968.
Related logged-in and blogged-out resources here include:
* Notes of a college revolutionary
* Why aren't we marching in the streets?
* They were demanding jazz and rock and roll
* Karlheinz Sockhausen - part of a dream
* The year is '72
* Oscar Peterson or Karlheinz Stockhausen?
* Music can help change the world
* Music acid and the collapse of Communism * I am a camera - St Tropez 1967
Header image is the London cast album of Hair, which opened, of course, in New York and London in 1968. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Sweden is famous for its jazz. Most recently the home grown Esbjorn Svensson Trio has become a worldwide success. Yet the best selling jazz record in Sweden was made by an artist virtually unknown outside Scandinavia, and whose records are very difficult to get hold of.
The artist is pianist Jan Johansson (photo above). The recording is Jazz på svenska (Jazz in Swedish), and it has sold more than a quarter of a million copies. Johansson was born in 1931, and met saxophonist Stan Getz while at university. He abandoned his studies to play jazz fulltime, and worked with many American jazz greats, becoming the first European ever to be invited to join "Jazz at the Philharmonic." 
The years 1961 to 1968 produced a string of classic albums. These included Jazz på svenska and Jazz på Ryska (Jazz in Russia) which are available together on a single CD titled Folkvisor. Jazz in Sweden comprises variations on sixteen Swedish folk songs with George Riedel playing bass. Also worth exploring is Musik genom Fyra Sekler (Music from the Past Centuries) which is another exploration of traditional Swedish melodies using larger forces. There were also two excellent trio sets, 8 Bittar and Innertrio, which again have been issued as a single CD.
In November 1968 Jan Johansson was killed in a car crash on his way to a church concert in a church concert in Jönköping, Sweden. He was just 37.
For reasons which are very difficult to understand Jan Johansson has remained relatively unknown outside Sweden. His son, Anders Johansson, runs Heptagon Records which does an invaluable job of keeping his recordings available. But they are still surprisingly difficult to find. I bought mine from the oddly named, but very efficient CD Baby who are based in Portland, Oregon.
Here to give you a taste of what the rest of the world has been missing are eight minutes of Jan Johansson courtesy of the Heptagon Records web site:
Folkvisor (Two samples 2' 08" & 1' 41"): - 
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Musik genom Fyra Sekler (3' o"): -
8 Bittar and Innertrio (1' 52"): -
If you enjoyed this post take An Overgrown Path to Fairytales - an album beyond words
