David Ayers

I regularly visit California, and I completely appreciate the ban on smoking in bars and restaurants. It is not just a question of health but of aesthetics. Smoke smells and tastes and irritates your eyes and lungs. California really went the right way on this. There are a lot of places I won't visit here in England because they just have an unpleasant environment. In California the law is so taken for granted that hardly anyone even thinks about it asny more - that's the way it will be everywhere, eventually...

The Rava track isn't on here. I made a brief attempt to compare the CD tracks to the LPs and gave up. The sound of these CDs is pretty good.

shrugs has got it right - the LPs are the way to go

I don't have the LPs but I do have the CDs (at that amaz-ing price;)) - but there is so much material on them I don't understand HOW it can be less? Uhhh... but I'll take your word for it...

Well hopefully when the JRVG comes out we can all buy it again, and then trade it in again when we are reminded why we traded it in the last time...

The point of subsidy is access. You are right, end those subsidies you mention and the well-heeled would not have to do without. But access would be denied to the less well-off. But your hostility to venues such as Covent Garden is not an argument for subsidising anything else. Why the hell should anyone's taxes pay subsidies for any art, say for jazz or folk, which in any case is much cheaper to put on than grander things? The question is do people who want it have access? The answer in the case of jazz and ther musics is certainly yes. Only Madonna is oversubscribed and subsidies wouldn't help there. I don't think your ressentiment would translate into public policy - neither is it hard to see why public policy has not gone further in the direction you would like. By the way your argument to be effective would need to embrace other modes (theatre) and have something to say about the funding of the BBC (end the license fee) before it even began to take effect in the way you would like. The argument about who pays for what, why and how, is broader than the tired old argument about jazz subsidies. What other aspects of your life would you like tax payers to pay for?

But Bev, you understand entirely the distinction between art and non-art since it is at the heart of the radio listening figures you quoted. Setting aside the fact that audience cannot be properly understood from radio listening figures (I would stress concert attendance) you implicitly endorse the notion that jazz should be treated differently from other musical forms which you choose not to mention. Shouldn't pop rock folk etc etc all be included in your analysis? It is debatable whether jazz should be insisted on as anything other than a historical genre (I agree with Miles and Duke on this one). But if you are going to insist on this generic identity then at least acknowledge that what you are doing is insisting on a notion of art and quality. The more I look at this debate the more I think that I have over-rated jazz.

I don't think you can judge the nature of interest in jazz from the number of (re)releases and the amount of vanity publishing (yes, loss-making self-issues etc) that goes on. There are probably a few thousand collectors world wide who sustain the market in reissues. It is questionable whether such collectors constitute a viable audience base for a music that aims to be both popular and cerebral (and yet actually is not quite either). It is quite evident that jazz does not have the massive audience base of opera and classical music, which can pack large opera houses and concert halls even when competition is stiff. It is not clear that an audience of CD collectors (as opposed to a real social audience including, as at opera and concerts, many women) can meaningfully sustain the activity. As I have argued before, it is not clearly important that people in general should have a range of Donald Byrd CDs to shoose from in their record stores. This is already a matter for collectors, who by the way are of two sorts - musicians and fans. So yes there are masses of reissues out there, but this is no guarantee of a meaningful future for jazz, nor is it clear that any entity called 'jazz' deserves or desires such a future. Eminem makes more meaningful music than Greg Osby, like it or not.

But perhaps you should mind. Only about 4% of record sales are made online. Without stores the bulk of sales will be lost and all projects whether new or reissue, will become less viable. For most jazz collectors it is the availability of LPs which is the important issue. No-one has any real affection for the CD as a commodity or as an audio experience. CD collections (unlike record collections) are worth far less than they cost (at shop value). I think the truth is that we are at the end of the reissue cycle with no really compelling new music coming forward and it is hard to imagine jazz not slipping.

18.16 euros at amazon.fr going like hot cakes well, like cold custard

Our reputation for savagery precedes us. Do you know that if you play the end of the Kind of Blue LP in reverse it comes out ass backwards? There ought to be an inquiry.

Damn. I'm away for a few hours and you guys start a war. And LOSE. It was the cunning strategy of registering under your 'own' names that gave the game away. Who shall we invade next?

Gentlemen, the way forward is clear. (1) join the norah board (2) lavish praise on norah with tongue firmly in cheek (they can't ban irony, can they? uhhh, could be, they benned EVRYTHING over at the BNBB...) (3) utilise the convenient private message system to make new friends among all those bored young housewives...

I was hoping for some heavyweight contributions... but there haven't been any, so you guys feel free to hog the thread. Sheesh - try to get a serious debate going...

uhhhhhhhhh... thanks try not to make any mistakes next time

I sold off my Lloyd ECMs. I find his fluttery style soporific, not deep. Also the ECM digital sound is pretty dull on my equipment and an additional turn off. I haven't heard recent ones like Hyperion so maybe these are different, but what I once took as deep (a generous dollop of late-trane-lite) I now no longer respond to. Though of course ten years from now I'll be hunting them all down again...

I notice that Crazy Jazz are now listing more of these titles at £8.95 - which is a bit more realistic.

Good point. I can't see why they would put these out alongside the new reissues. Why not leave it a year until the new reissue cycle is over? We'll see.

Thanks HKL. So you think that this issue has been suspended or maybe cancelled altogether?

Hey! This is a serious poll! Don't ruin it with your cheap irony and nudge nudge wink wink intellectual superiority! And remember that spoof answers will be disregarded. Plus we know where you live. Or at least we could find out. Or try to. If we feel like it. Which we probably won't. But you can't rule it out. So you'll just have to live in fear for the rest of your lives never knowing when the knock on the door will come its like waiting for godot only you dont know are you waiting you dont know and they bring you food they drink they what they who are the they and the food is there the drink is there but they they what they who they oh its been too long now never see the hand the tray under the door the walls made to look like real walls the tv plugged in like a real tv and esmerelda the bells the bells

Been over to Zweitausendeins yet? Here's the latest - prices in euros: 75002 TATUM PABLO 6CD 1 9,99 9,99 75003 TATUM,A. PABLO 7CD 1 12,99 12,99 75005 ROLLINS PRESTIGE 7CD 1 12,99 12,99 75007 PEPPER A.GALAXY 16CD 1 26,99 26,99 75008 MONK RIVERSIDE 15CD 1 24,99 24,99 75009 EVANS RIVERSIDE 12CD 1 19,99 19,99 Read it and weep - and then get over there because they still have some left! Uhhhh, I should say that these are the European edition of the US Fantasy boxes which differ only in having a meagre booklet. This offer has been discussed over at AAJ.

So far its neck and neck.

Recent polls have been too liberal so I'm making it easy for you. Spoof answers will be disregarded. Chads away!

Oh damn I posted this poll twice and I can't delete it. Please vote in the other poll...

Thanks mny - but as Claude so bluntly corrected me () it is the list of re-pressings that I am after. A different issue altogether which as he rightly says was discussed on the BNBB.