A disgruntled punter at a festival at Sigüenza in Spain managed to get the Guardia Civil called in. He didn’t like the music and got them to investigate his claim that the free jazz he was listening to, played by a group led by American saxophonist Larry Ochs (above) was “contemporary music” and not actually jazz.
He is claiming that a doctor has prescribed that contemporary music might be “psychologically inadvisable” for him, and is pursuing a case for a refund of his ticket price. The Guardia Civil came to the conclusion (!) that the music of Larry Ochs may indeed not be jazz and that he does have a case worthy of being put before a judge.
Here’s today’s Guardian story including an interview with the festival director.
Here’s the original story en espanol from El Pais.
I’m just curious:do the Guardia Civil still wear these funny hats?
Categories: miscellaneous
Maybe we can get them to go and arrest Kenny G on a similar basis!
*lol* That's brilliant! Psychologically inadvisable…
Alyn Shipton, the story with shedloads of background
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radio3/2009/12/what-is-jazz-dont-ask-the-span.shtml
Notwithstanding the fact that it says it was free jazz so there is nothing to refund, he could be on to something here …
The UK police offer victim counselling instead of catching criminals, can we perhaps claim that they are not in fact a police service and therefore we want our taxes back?
While we're at it, the department of transport spends all its energies handing out fines to motorists rather than fixing our collapsing infrastructure, surely we can demand our taxes back there too?
And as for the supposed department of education, they haven't educated anyone in years so that's a no-brainer …
if this is 'free jazz' I hope nobody paid to be present at the concert….still, it's fun – doodling and occasionally they get to be in tune – with each other. Is that against the rules? Not as powerful as Jackson Pollock though.