I checked the volume on www.kwase-kwaza.org just now and found a big leap - can't get into the webstats from here and so I can't find out why. But its always cheering.

A dull day yesteday but we went to the northernmost island anyway - St Martins. It had changed more than any of the other islands since the last visit. I met Many Mills who has a gallery there - she studied printmaking at Camberwell and Cambridge and has a novel approach to incorporating flowers from the island into her designs. I was interested in how some of her images were formed and so that started the conversation. When I had discovered the process it seemed to be that she had a cyber-property which could be exploited. I said I would talk to Peter Chatterton about her stuff as I know this is the kind of art/technology interface he loves. At the next gallery we dropped in on the artist had the ND Introduction playing.

Yvonne, Vita and Emma are swimming with seals this morning. Sounds dangerous to me when you hear how violent seals are but I am sure they are in safe hands with Mark.

I loved the BBC2 programmes about Jamaica last night. It is amazing to think such a small population could be so creative. I liked the way that so many of the innovators had been trained in an orphanage by a nun - it reminded me of the Masekela-Huddleston link in South Africa. The music itself started quite close to South African jazz of the 1950s. The commercial links were fascinating - how the UK became the dominating secondary market for ska and bluebeat despite the neglect of the BBC. I am sure on the London scene the Jamaican influx of ideas will have blended with the South African one. There was a nice passage in the programme where Georgie Fame and some of his band talked about and played the music. Also the stuff about the evolution of the genre - the music got slower and more serious as the economic situation in the Island got worse - more of this next week.

Then there are the parallels with New Orleans which is not that far away. The emphasis on two and four came from the Jamaican interpretation of the classic swing rhythm - with its triplet feel. A guitarist illustrated this brilliantly. then as the music slowed down the bass players were released from having to stick closlely to a specific riff. You could hear how the rhythms had been designed to sound good on the bass heavy soundsytems in Trenchtown. I wonder if that is how they got the idea of holding off on the one.

Parallels were made with Tamla - a family business and a stable house band in a studio everyone understands. There was a phase of about two years where the music veered towards the pop end of the spectrum with teenage love songs sung at the upper end of the tenor range which which reminded me of M Gaye. Some of the acts like Martha and the Vandellas would play Jamaica and all the musos would turn up to pick up tips. There was also a very non-commercial music oriented attitude to making music amongst the musicians themselves which it was suggested helped pack in a vibe which keeps the music fresh even today. Sounds credible to me. (Have I mentioned how I met the 4 Tops Road Manager in Detroit this year? I got a similar family/community vibe from him.)

Bon Marley is coveredin the next programme. There was also a half hour documentary about the history of the UK band Madness which rounded off the theme well.

On the boat back from St Martins I started to sketch another post-Fifths piece. I have been jamming a lot on piccolo to Miles circa 1968 - a session on the cusp between the 2nd great 5tet and In A Silent Way.

I am buying Jennifer Searle's books - from the 2nd hand bookshop. It turns out that all four volumes I have got there so far were owned by her. I wonder what she was studying in the early 60s?

There is a Martin Buber volume - a jewish existentialist theologian who is mentioned in Honest to God. Here is a quote (from memory):

"Of all forms of human interaction the erotic is the one where dialogue and monolgue are most closely intertwined"

Yeehaa a nail on the head I would say. I have been playing with this idea - eg of all forms of cognition the aesthetic is the one where representation and fantasy are most closely intertwined.

Yvonne has given me a set of water-colours (solid) - its an extension of using water soluble coloured and lead pencils. I used them for the first time yesterday on the beech at St Martins. Its a strange experience - on the one hand I feel in the grip of a pre-existing genre which is not especially where I want to be. On the other, some of the effects are fun to achieve. I am starting to see "washes" as I look around the landscape. On the second thing I tried I put in a swathe of oil pastel and then washed over that. The water and oil avoided one another.

There's lots in my notebook I am not inflicting on the world here.