Walking on the Moon

I'm in Cardiff this weekend for WordCamp UK. WordPress always struck me as excellent web content management software and I've been hovering around it for several months now. Yet this is the first time that I've had the opportunity to send a couple of days focused on it. It really is remarkable software.

To say that this blog will very soon be switched from Blogger to WordPress is only an initial reason for the excitement I feel about this software. MaltaMedia.com was switched to WordPress last year, but that was more a move of technical necessity rather than something I advocated through preference. In any case, I am truly impressed by the power of WordPress. I think it's the best Internet thing I've turned my attention to full-on for quite some time.

Although I'm in Wales this weekend, I prepared another edition of the Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast before I left Scarborough. The 171st MMI podcast is loosely themed around this year Malta Jazz Festival. It may therefore seem a little odd to open it with a track called A Quaint Affair from Not In A Million Lovers by the Beangrowers, but there's a simple explanation for this. Beanie singer Alison Galea has been collaborating with Oliver Degabriele's Trio to appear at this year's Malta Jazz Festival.

Unfortunately I don't have any recordings of Alison singing with Oliver Degabriele's Trio. Yet I'm happy to say that I have a recording from Oliver's Trio. Asteroid 612 is a very fitting selection, especially now that we're marking the 40th anniversary of the first moonwalk.

The Malta Jazz Festival is back to its original format after losing its way in an ill-advised private enterprise experiment over the last few years. Charles "City" Gatt has passed on the reins as artistic director to Sandro Zerafa, who seems to be doing an excellent job in restoring the event to its original spirit and venue in Valletta. Although he is not officially on the bill for the festival, it's also a good excuse for me to include another track from his White Russian 5et album, which was released last year. This time I'm playing Delightfully Disconnected.

For the final track on this week's MMI podcast, I'm moving away from the Malta Jazz Festival but staying with music that wouldn't be out of place on the playlist for a lite jazz radio station. Denny Falzon was born in Malta but moved to the USA with his parents when he was just a little boy. He was raised in Detroit but eventually settled in Florida, where he now performs regularly in Palm Beach. His main instruments are guitar and steel drum. Listen to the tune called This Dance is Forever and enjoy what someone of Maltese descent sounds like when they grow up in a culture that's very different to the one they left behind in their native country.

The RSS feed for the Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast is available here or you can simply click here to subscribe directly with iTunes. You can also follow each new episode through the MMI Podcast: Facebook Fan Page or on MySpace. If you have no idea what any of this means, just click here or listen to the podcast on the player right below this text.