Musicians: Nat Keen (guitar, vocals) Pete Wareham (sax)
Saxophonist Pete Wareham joined me today, we had a nice long catch up on the walk down to Bridgeside Lodge from Angel station, he was surprised that instead of walking via the lovely canal, I’d taken an alternative route down Camden Passage with its old cobbled streets and overpriced coffee shops. I wasn’t really sure why I always walked that way, turns out a quick look on google maps reveals that I’ve been losing three minutes every time I take this strange indirect route.
Anyway, I digress, those extra minutes gave us a chance to catch up, to chat about his garden decking project, the towns around Granada and the progress of Bridgeside Lodge’s resident songsmith Big Joe.
Pete seemed excited hearing about Joe’s improving mobility and the idea of facilitating a songwriting session that could emphasise his desire to move his body more. So that’s where we started our day, well not quite. Sat near the entrance to the building we found a very elegant looking Ms JC, apparently about to leave for the day, she appeared to be a little distressed or in some discomfort and when I offered our musical services, she felt that she wouldn’t be in the right frame of mind to enjoy it, this all changed when I mentioned that we were incredibly lucky to have an expert saxophone player in the building. In came Pete who had been dropping off his case in the other room, his Sax, although apparently quite new, looked as if it might have been knocking about in the 1940’s in the days of Lester Young and JC’s youth. She was instantly enamoured with the shiny thing and began to recount compelling and vivid tales of her younger years, dressing up and heading down to the Palladium to catch all of the big American Big Bands and crooners. Pete and I lapped up these tales and the three of us shared in our admiration for this great period in music. After we played some of JC’s favourite ballads she said ‘I’m not in a rush to go out anymore, I think I’ll stay and listen to you two’
Joe was pleased to see us, he’s very much a part of the Spitz family and knows each of us by name, always asking after us and welcoming us into his room with warm enthusiasm. Once settled, we got straight into creative work on his new song idea and it felt great to be able to spark our ideas off a new pair of ears (Pete’s). We worked through some lyrical ideas and Pete orchestrated a new bridge section taking his cue from Joe’s word suggestion ‘Revived’
‘Every time I move my body, I feel revived
When I see the moving people, I feel alive’
After a little while we were joined by Alice Zawadzki who co-incidentally had been on the other side of the building and had heard the sounds and followed them all the way to the source. The four of us then played through Joe’s other songs before I headed off to see P.
P had visitors today, old friends from New Zealand and luckily for me they loved singing, needing no encouragement from me to join in with any song that I was singing. The first half of the session took on the atmosphere of a family gathering, informally singing through songs together and chatting about shared memories. P appeared to feel comfortable and content surrounded by such familiarity, who wouldn’t?
