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Eastern Curve Garden’s pumpkin path

The much loved Eastern Curve Garden is a community asset created on a former railway line that once linked Dalston Junction with the Mildmay Line to Stratford. The line was closed in about 1965 and the land remained empty until 2009 when it was reopened to host the Dalston Mill public art event . I was part of the campaign with OPEN Dalston and other community groups to keep it open to the public as a community garden. After battles against redevelopment, as a shopping circuit linking up with Kingsland Shopping Centre, in 2020 the Council finally agreed to protect it as a community garden.

The Eastern Curve Garden hosts events for community elders, school children and its “Woodburner’ music nights. I made this short film about its hugely popular annual pumpkin festival when local residents carve hundreds of pumpkins which are lit up in the evening to provide magical illuminations.

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Spiritual Dimensions – music for Winstan Whitter’s lockdown films

I first met Winstan in 2005 when he was making his documentary about Dalston’s legendary Four Aces Club. At that time I was leading the OPEN Dalston campaign to try and save the former 1886 circus building at 14 Dalston Lane where the Four Aces Club had its home for 33 years. Winstan identified with the local community’s desire to preserve our local architectural and cultural heritage and made the film “Save our heritage” which told the story of our campaign. We later collaborated on a second documentary film “Hands off” which was made on behalf of the women who owned two striptease bars in Shoreditch, and the dancers who performed there. The film played a key part in the successful campaign opposing the Council’s plan to ban them.

During the period of Covid lockdown in 2020 Winstan made a series of short art films at home in which he experimented with colour, light and liquid. I was pleased to be asked to write the music for two of them which feature my saxophones and keyboards.

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#March For (Clean) Water

I joined the Clean Water march last Sunday ending in Parliament Square, London. Environmental groups from across the country taking part. What an energetic and festive scene it was! I did some iphone filming. The thunderous sound of the great Surfers Against Sewage samba batterie and the “Clean Water” chant drove us marchers on. All ringing in my ears (and toes) when I got home. I put the “”Clean Water” chant together with some music I’ve been writing. This short film was the result.

The reason I marched is my concern about the contribution of water pollution, from industry, agriculture and sewerage, to killing off species in our rivers and seas. Back home in Cornwall there has been a sudden and catastrophic 60% decline in the numbers of salmon and sea trout in the Fowey river over the last five years compared to the previous 10 year average. At that rate they’ll be extinct in 5-10 years. The reasons are complex but river pollution certainly isn’t helping. Scientists are now also commenting on the increase in sea temperatures impacting on plankton which are crucial to the marine food chain.

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“Seasons of Migration – from the ocean to the moor”

“Seasons of Migration – from the ocean to the moor” is a short film highlighting the beauty of Cornwall’s iconic Fowey river and the ancient legend of Saint Neot’s miracle of the three fish which took place there. It traces the path of migrating salmon, through nature’s four seasons, from the river’s coastal estuary to its source on Bodmin Moor. Once bounteous, these fish are now facing extinction.
“Seasons of Migration” also reveals an ancient, but forgotten, truth about nature and sustainability. It was first recorded over 1,000 years ago and later memorialised in the 1530 “Life of St. Neot” stained glass window in the village’s mediaeval church. The film is enhanced by a sound track with field recordings made along the river banks and flowing piano and double bass improvisations.
If you liked the film, and want to help to conserve our natural environment, you could buy a copy. The profit from its sales are donated to the ‘not for profit’ Fowey Rivers Association and to the Atlantic Salmon Trust , to help meet the costs of their research into the causes of the extinction and them protecting and enhancing the natural environment of rivers and nurturing migratory fish.

You can watch the full film by clicking on this link

I’d been exploring the Fowey river back home in Cornwall for many years. When I discovered I could make films using just my iPhone, and add field recordings and music , I fulfilled a long held ambition to tell the story of the river and its inhabitants. After many visits over two years I hope to have captured something of natures fragile beauty. But none of this was possible without the generous help of my collaborators, including gifted musicians, who shared my vision .

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Hackney Carnival 2024

After three years of postponement Hackney Carnival finally returned in 2024. Here it is in all its full on creative energy. Hope my short film and music caught the vibe!


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Timeline of resistance – film trailer

Part of the E8 Arts and Crafts Trail, I contributed to this collaborative art work which tells the story of Hackney’s Shopping Village traders’ resistance to evictions and the re-development of the Ridley Road covered market by their off-shore landlord. The art work only survivied a few days before it was torn down by the Council’s Street Cleansing team and sent to the. North London Incinerator to be burnt. The background story can be found on the OPEN Dalston blog. The work was captured on film by Tony Price with music by Adam Parry-Davies.

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Collaborations with Iain Sinclair

I first bumped into Iain at a heated public meeting where the community were demanding that the Council explain itself for auctioning off all of its shops over the heads of its tenants in Broadway Market. One of the speakers was Spirit who, from ruin, had built his Nutritious Galley and his home above the shop and who’d become a figurehead of the campaign. I’d also spoken up about the plight of the surviving Dalston Lane Terrace traders – whose shops had also been sold off at auction in one lot to an off-shore developer. Iain cornered me as we dispersed and he later wrote about our conversation in his book “Hackney, that rose-red empire”. It was later, at the OPEN Dalston meeting to celebrate the re-opening of St. Barnabus church and hall, when Iain heard me play music and invited me to collaborate. I’d performed Michael Rosen’s “Regeneration Blues” that night , on alto saxophone in the Dulce Tones jazz quintet, and Michael had then auctioned the Dalston Slab’s £63million bus stop for the bargain price of £7.50p.

After a trial run with Iain at Dalston’s Vortex jazz club, I found myself on stage with him in the South Bank’s Queen Elizabeth Hall talking and playing tenor saxophone to extracts from “Ghost Milk” on the theme of exhumation of the radioactive wastes buried in the landfill dumps beneath London Olympic 2012 site in Hackney Wick. Hearing of the event a friend, the photographer and investigative journalist Mike Wells, came with a film camera and recorded our performance for posterity in his film “Gold Dust”.

More gigs followed – an art event fundraiser for the Golden Lane Estate campaign, performances at the Poets Library and Passing Clouds and others, all in the jazz tradition of ephemeral improvisation. Then Iain suggested we commit something permanent to vinyl. Our CD “Under Offer” resulted, with my son Adam handing the recording and production as well as contributing compositions and playing. It was released alongside Iain’s book “The Last London” – famously banned by Hackney which was a great boost to sales. We performed to a sold out Cafe Oto crowd with the gig building to a frenetic climax with “Shardenfreude”. I was well chuffed by a glowing review in the Financial Times.