The Terpsichorean muse

Not a lot of people may want to know this but Terpsichore is the muse of dance and music and gets a mention in the Monty Python cheese shop, with the customer praising the eccentric dancers in said shop! But quite a lot of people MAY want to know that with a thaw in lockdown which we fervently hope won't freeze over with the forthcoming winter, musicians are out in the streets again.

Back in the spring I spotted a young lady with guitar outside Holborn tube station playing a tune by Erykah Badu called "On and on".. Badu is a wonderful "nu-soul" singer who started in the late 1990s with an intriguing fusion of soul, funk and jazz and is influenced by Billie Holiday. Need I say more? Singer no. 2 beings us 20 years forward and is an aspiring Adele.

From then on, if we can't travel the world, at least we can hear its sounds. The male trio plays the sounds of Morocco which mix Arabic melodies with the percussive beats south of the Sahara. And from outside the Royal Festival Hall come the even more insistent beats of an Brazilian "bloco"---with Nelson Mandela looking on.

Finally on home ground to Cleaver Square, we are treated to kletzmer sounds, which survived the Holocaust to reach western Europe and beyond. The pentatonic scale may not be all that familiar but anyone who knows "If I were a rich man" from Fiddler on the Roof will get the idea......Read more