Download on Bandcamp.

These performances and recordings are dedicated to Joan Duggan-Smith (1925-2018)––
and to a beloved life, well-lived.

You wouldn’t really call my mum warm and fuzzy. And she could have
easily stopped a charging rhino with one of her looks. But once upon
a time, long ago, she was a young girl herself. Back in the 1930s when
she was ten, she would pry open the bedroom window at night to
look at the stars and ponder the universe and her future. Like many
of us have—both before and since. Her life was a mixed bag, as it
is for any fearless soul. And she often said that when you meet
life head on, expect the best and the worst life has to offer—the
dark and the light—both of which she amply experienced
throughout her life. The photograph of her featured on this
recording is one of sixty or so taken in rapid succession
while letting her life story pass across her face in a
conversation I had with her before she died. Discovered
by a talent scout from Drury Lane late in WW2, she
found taking on a character in a play a little too easy.
And it scared her. I can see why. What we apprehend
when time takes us is a gift from the elders,
here given in improvised sound made by an
instrument that could not have existed
without her.

Tony Duggan-Smith

Somewhere else on the other side of nowhere, there's another place in space, beyond what you know as time.
(Sun Ra)

Joan Duggan Smith

 

Joan Duggan Smith