posted by Vale Written by Horace Silver for his father (shown on the Album cover), this was played at Humphrey Littleton’s memorial concert in 2010.

Posted by Vale “I still use a manual typewriter (a 1953 Underwood portable, in a robin’s-egg blue) because the soft pip-pip-pip of the typing of keys on a computer keyboard doesn’t quite fit with my sense of what writing sounds like. I need the hard metal clack, and I need

Posted by Vale We had quite a debate recently when we published some recent post mortem photgraphs. They were respectful, intriguing and, some of them, quite lovely in their own way. But they made us – and some of you – uneasy. Did the photographer have permission to publish? Was

Posted by Vale They’ve been operating in Los Angeles (where else?) since 1974. Lately though they’ve become especially popular with local gangs – many of whom are killed in drive by shootings and who feel safer behind the bullet proof glass. Found on the web here.

  Posted by Vale Would a traditional religious ceremony with six lacklustre hymns, a perfunctory celebrant and no mention of the person in the coffin count as one? I expect most of us would say no – but, sometimes, I wonder. We often talk about the grand and the personal,