ON PAUL & PAUL

Readers of The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia may have noticed that Paul McCartney has never been my favourite Beatle (he should care...) but this week's Big Issue contains an interesting and straightforward new interview with him, in which while he maintains his long dignified silence in response to the tabloid horror-stories involving his divorce, he does say a curious thing about Bob and the Beatles:

"You know, there were only four people in The Beatles, and I was one of them. That means that only three other people in the universe experienced that, which is pretty amazing. Even Bob Dylan can't say that..."

Well yes. But then Bob Dylan never split up.

Naturally Paul also plugs the new album he is bringing out on June 4th, and which apparently looks back unapologetically at his past, though through a set of new songs. The album has the absolutely brilliant title Memory Almost Full.

Meanwhile today marks the 30th anniversary of the death in New York City at the age of 52 of Paul Desmond, the alto-saxophonist in Dave Brubeck's band, including on his hits 'Take Five' and 'Blue Rondo a la Turke'. Desmond's superb, warm and insouciant playing is surely what rescues those records from the clumping brutalism of his bandleader's piano-work.