singing and dancing

Music to start the week:

Jesse Pie trio recorded at the Shaftesbury.

Jessie Pie vox, guitar

Emily Hannah cello, backing vocals
Danny Bryan percussion, backing vocals

Danno Sheehan production
Paul Soper lighting

This show was recorded on the 17th April, 2011, at The Shaftesbury Tavern, 534 Hornsey Road, London N19 3QN.

All songs written by Jessica Houghton (Jessie Pie) apart from "Yellow Moon", by The Neville Brothers, 1989. All cello arrangements by Emily Hannah.

Niebisch and Tree Harps

Here are Andreas Niebisch and Nigel Tree in the late 1980s, with Sioned Williams playing the harp:

In most of zone two London a sign saying 'Niebisch & Tree Harps' would mean that Niebisch and Tree had once made harps there, but had had to move out because of rent hikes. 

In the Hornsey Road microclimate this firm still works out of the Bavaria Workshops near Libertea and have  taken on Alexei Spencer-Tree (who'd already qualified as a cabinet-maker) as an apprentice.

I'd never realised how much musical instrument-making skills are handed down from person to person rather than through books. 

So it matters that Nigel Tree trained trained with Munson & Harbour, who trained with John Sebastian Morley, who trained with John George Morley, who worked for the great Sebastien Erard, who fled to London to escape the French revolution and held the first English patent for a harp. 

Sébastien Érard (wikicommons image)

I also hadn't realised how long harps can last. 

Andreas Niebisch died suddenly in 2011 and is very missed. 

 Imogen Barford opened the eulogies at his funeral by saying 'I am honoured to speak on behalf of the harpists, and to try to convey to all those who loved Andreas how important, how essential, he was to us, and what an enormous gap he leaves in our community. We want to say thank you to him for the harps he created and the harps he repaired with such care.' 

Those harps made, mended and regilded off the Hornsey Road will be played for hundreds of years.

For more, take a look at the excellent company website.

Merry Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanzaa, Holidays, and Happy New Year

I'm going to a land beyond North London* and The Hornsey Road is going on a break until the New Year.

If you're around for New Year's Eve you could go to the stompin' and swingin' dinner dance at Ajani's, or to the prayer party at St. Mark's.

They're both in the new scrolling calendar on the top right hand side of the homepage, which also includes a breastfeeding drop-in and a rock and roll bingo night.

If you want to advertise an event on or around the Hornsey Road then tell me in comments and I'll add it to the calendar unless it's illegal or I take against it.

Thank you all for reading,

DellaMirandola

* I've now got this going round my head. It's the opposite of seasonal but it's also a magnificent song to sing while cycling.

Lucena House

Lucena House are (or were, t'interweb isn't clear) a band.

It's also the block of 1950s flats on the Hornsey Road opposite Yale Terrace where they met.

Listen to them here.

Calvin Harris & Clothing

From this interview on Popjustice:

Popjustice: 'Hello Calvin. Where are you?'
Calvin Harris: 'I'm in my studio on [London cultural hotspot] Hornsey Road.'

I want a t-shirt with 'The Hornsey Road: London Cultural Hotspot' printed on it.

                           

Or, alternatively and as suggested by Hugh:

                         

See here for more on Hornsey Road studios.

Music on the Hornsey Road: Kylie & the London Sound Laboratory

Interesting things go on behind closed doors. This, for example:

Also, this: 

Nerina Pallot & Andy Chatterley have a studio complex just off the Hornsey Road - it's near the Factory Gym and opposite the Funky Junk audio shop. Inside it there's a room called the London Sound Laborary which is for hire and which is full of 'vintage recording gear and analogue synths'. 

They have a Wurlitzer piano there, half a dozen Pultec and Lang eqs, a rack of Neve,  Disa and Valley compressors, a Decca mastering equaliser, a Bluebird Cyclosonics panner and phaser, Gelf, Moog and Delta Lab phasey-flangey boxes, Mutron Bi Phase, Allotrope mic pre/eq and many many other things that are mysterious to me. 

And, for a short while, they had  Kylie of the tall dark and handsome boyfriends. I still find that hard to believe, but there you go: Absinthe Fairy on the Hornsey Road. 

Ajani's Grill Restaurant and Jazz

Ajani's owner, chef, designer and main waiter is Patrick. Patrick's a brave man. A Nigerian who loves Miles Davis as much as Fela Kuti he opened a restaurant in a tough year (2010) and on a stretch of the Hornsey Road with more boarded up shops than thriving ones. Instead of going for restaurant bland he painted it red, put jazz legend posters up and a piano in the corner until it looked, as someone online said, like 'a jazz place - dark walls covered in photos and jazz paraphernalia - with a New Orleans or Left Bank feel'.

For the first few months it seemed like he'd been too brave. Ajani looked welcoming, intriguing, romantic; and was empty or nearly empty night after night. But Patrick can cook. I mean really cook. I must stop ordering the bruschetta and ribs every time because I know there are many other tasty things on the menu, but they're so good that I struggle.

He slashed his prices, so the place went from pretty good value to amazingly good value and started getting rave reviews on stroudgreen.org and a hat tip from the Islington Gazette.

And he kept on going, getting more and more live jazz acts in, hosting an exhibition, organising a wine tasting, making running a restaurant look like the most rewarding job in the world. It looks like he's doing okay nowadays and long may that last.

289 Hornsey Road

N194HN

07533 658 641

0207 272 55 66

Open Monday to Friday: 5pm to 1am

Saturday: 12 noon to 1am

Sunday: bookings only.