The re-release of two albums from the archives of the French label BYG on the CD Blase/ Live At The Pan-African Festival (Charly Records) is doubly essential. The first album, with Shepp in the eccentric company of vocalist Jeanne Lee, trumpeter Lester Bowie, two Chicago harmonica players and a rhythm section of Dave Burrell, Malachi Favors and Philly Joe Jones, contains three absolute classics: Ellington’s “Sophisticated Lady”,”There is a Balm in Gilead” and the super-cool “Blase” itself.The second album, which like the first, dates from 1969, is a quite remarkable historical document (which means, of course, that you won’t actually listen to it very often).Recorded at a festival in Algiers organised by the FLN, Shepp and his quartet are heard jamming with a massed band of Tuareg percussionists and pipers, like Brian Jones’ “Joujouka” music given a funky, black-power spin. There are only two tracks, but one of them, “We Have Come Back”, lasts for 31 minutes. Based on a poem by Ted Joans, the track begins with a recitation.

“Jazz is an African music”, Shepp declaims over and over; “We have come back!”After some strikingly eerie muezzin-type wails, the drums begin Then it starts to get really strange. The same Charly series (under the banner “Actuel”) also features BYG titles by Sun Ra, the Art Ensemble of Chicago andDon Cherry.. He’s a big name, cutting big deals for big films in a big country and making big money advertising a big bank, but Sir Anthony Hopkins has been turned into a big villain by the residents of his small home town. He’s a big name, cutting big deals for big films in a big country and making big money advertising a big bank, but Sir Anthony Hopkins has been turned into a big villain by the residents of his small home town.
The Welsh-born actor, who recently took American citizenship, has written to a Welsh Assembly member complaining that he has been made a scapegoat in the storm over Barclays Bank closures.Gwenda Thomas wrote to Sir Anthony several times over his appearance in the advertisement during her campaign against the closure of 171 branches, including the one in his home town, Port Talbot.In a hand-written letter, the Hollywood star said he felt he had been made the “villain of the piece”, when he was not, in fact, responsible for the bank.”I just have to set the record straight by saying that I do not run Barclays Bank. So if I have to be the chosen villain of the piece – so be it,” he wrote.The actor, who was reportedly paid £75,000 for his role in the advertisement with the slogan “A Big World Needs A Big Bank”, said he had been made to look responsible for “leaving thousands of people destitute”. He also pointed out that the commercial was filmed last June, months before the closures were announced, and said it seemed that the advertisement had “scandalised all of Wales”.Barclays closed 10 branches in rural Wales, including one in Port Talbot, near where Sir Anthony grew up and where his father was a baker.Ms Thomas has already called for Sir Anthony to be stripped of the honour of being a Freeman of Port Talbot, which he was awarded four years ago, because of his decision to become an American. That, she said, was even worse than his appearance in those infamous television advertisements..

‘I’ve never murdered anyone…” Forest Whitaker pauses, “but I believe that I’ve murdered someone’s spirit. By that I mean that I’ve hurt someone to such a degree that it has changed their entire outlook on life.”

‘I’ve never murdered anyone…” Forest Whitaker pauses, “but I believe that I’ve murdered someone’s spirit. By that I mean that I’ve hurt someone to such a degree that it has changed their entire outlook on life.”
He has just been asked whether he felt at all uncomfortable with the stylised violence in Ghost Dog, in which he plays a samurai-like killer who lays waste almost an entire mafia clan (see Anthony Quinn’s review on page 10) And the answer is yes and no. The violence, he explains, is not meant to be taken literally: the film is about the transience of life, the breaking of codes, about “emotional death” Hence the comparison with his own experiences. At the same time, he admits he was “startled” when audiences laughed at the death of a cop and “harboured questions” about the violence. “When I watched it last night,” he says, “I realised I killed a lot of people.”It’s easy to understand why Jim Jarmusch cast Whitaker as the mystical, pigeon-fancying assassin in Ghost Dog. The 38-year-old actor is a large Buddha-like presence (6ft 3in and roughly 17 stone) He’s a bird-lover As a kid, he used to keep doves.