A Lark Ascending

Bill Bruford - I think he's serious about it and not going to do a Sinatra. Read a while back he he was doing an advanced degree in philosophy. Probably wants to work out what Fripp was on about.

Sometime in the first half of 1975. Not a lot of jazz on it but I bought it under the impression Jarrett was a jazz musician - the jazz section of the Melody Maker (music magazines had jazz and folk sections in them days) said he was. A few weeks later I bought 'Facing You' which is definitely a jazz record. (I've excluded things like Soft Machine from three years before because I bought them as rock records....though maybe Keith Tippett's 'Septober Energy' which I bought in December 1972 was the real first one (bought out of a KIng Crimson fixation...I was not yet targeting jazz).)

She did. Before introducing a song she had written of that name. Her lyrics won't be getting a Nobel prize for their contribution to world literature! Listened to her second album again yesterday - a real gem. Reading the liner notes she seems really intrigued by the point where jazz meets 'classical' music. Her husband is a string player so she probably has a foot in both worlds. Definitely a player to keep an ear on.

The Glow Quartet @ Sheffield Crucible Theatre (Sheffield Jazz event) Trish Clowes - tenor; Gareth Williams - piano and, er, voice; Calum Gourlay - bass; Martin France - drums Another marvellous evening of home grown talent (after the Great Brexit Bugger-up I doubt if we'll see much overseas talent in the future out here in the provinces - bloody foreigners!). Trish Clowes is a relatively new name, emerging as a splendid player and imaginative composer; Gareth Williams is an Evans-ish pianist with long experience in all sorts of bands. Clowes own quartet plays mainly original music, inside but pushing the boundaries (she's a big Wayne Shorter fan). Tonight had a few originals but was mainly standards (with Williams doing deadpan singing in that 'the composer sings' style) and jazz classics with just a few own tunes. Highlights included an absolutely beautiful ballad (Gordon Jenkins) duet opening the second set - just a chorus each but Clowes made the most of it in a breathy Getzish way. Best of all was a long take on a McCoy Tyner tune - very much in the mid 60s Coltrane Quartet style with all four players boiling over. Special mention for Calum Gourlay whose bass solos were wonderfully melodic throughout.

Just the Dvorak A recent BBC Music Magazine disc. They usually trawl the BBC archives for standard repertoire for these discs but every now and then they pull out something like this. Commissions from over the years by Weir, McCabe, Arnold, Harvey and Colin Matthews; and lesser known names like Matthew Kelley, David Sawer, Tammas Slater. More please.

Andy Sheppard Hotel Bristol (Bonington Theatre, Arnold, Nottingham) Andy Sheppard (saxophone); Denny Ilett (guitar); Percy Pursglove (bass & flugelhorn); Mark Whitlam (drums) Didn't really take to this in the first couple of numbers - a little too close to the Scofield/Lovano band. And then in the third tune the whole thing really took wing, especially with a tremendous duet between Sheppard and Pursglove (on flugelhorn) playing simultaneous lines weaving around each other. From there on it was marvellous. Never realised Purseglove was also a bass player (his main instrument in this band). I've seen him mainly in freer contexts (though he was in a conventional setting in a Chriustine Jensen/Nikki Iles band I saw in the summer). His two flugel features in the centre of each set were absolute highlights - beautifully lyrical and fluid. Definitely a name to watch - clearly a man of broad horizons. Guitarist was new to me - very good but at the funkier/rockier end of the jazz spectrum (in this context at least).

Sq 2 + 3 from t'first.

Romeo and Juliet and Symph 6 off first; SQ1 and Sextet off second.

No. 5 and The Tempest. Guess what I'll be listening to later! Says on the notes that the scherzo of No. 2 was partly inspired by The Who and the Velvet Underground. You can tell by the picture on the cover that he war a right lad in't 60s. First heard the Weill songs in the old (sorry, classic!) Lotte Lenya recordings - hard to get beyond Lenya's voice but I think Lemper gets the feel just right. And there are lots of songs across the two volumes I've not heard on the Lenya LPs I have.

Very nice - don't know any of those names apart from Whieldon. My sort of venue too - looks like a university seminar room. Is that John O'Donnell on the front row on the far right (he does have a sense of irony) in the second clip?

Facing the music: Rachel Podger "What single thing would improve the format of the classical concert? More communication with the audience. Firstly through playing of course. If you’re not moved by what you’re playing, the audience will not be moved either. But by talking as well. If and when I speak during a concert the vibe in the hall changes dramatically, especially if there’s a joke in there (a successful one that is!). I remember the first concert I dared do this I was much more nervous of saying anything than I was of playing, but it’s got easier, it seems to somehow enhance the enjoyment of an audience if you communicate with words what the music means to you." As far as this member of various audiences is concerned, spot on.

I really do choose the wrong time of day to post my Great Thoughts.

I didn't notice Newton as part of the programme but he's there. Bonus! I don't think I've seen him since Appleby died nearly a decade back. I didn't notice Newton as part of the programme but he's there. Bonus! I don't think I've seen him since Appleby died nearly a decade back.

Serenade for Strings and Symph 4

I find the Beethoven quartets tough music to get into - started to listen about ten years back and have given them some careful listening (as far as I can as a non-musician) in the last year and I'm getting drawn in. Hearing four live has helped (with two more to come in the next few months). A situation where I'm pursuing because of external reputation rather than responding to immediate internal reward. But it's paying off. Most of what I've booked this autumn has been in the 'chamber music' area, purely because the music at the Sheffield Crucible and Sheffield University programmes is largely unfamiliar or music I only know in passing. The orchestral programmes at Nottingham and Sheffield are very unadventurous (though there are about four I'll go to in the second half of the season).

Another listen to: No. 3 of the latter, once again with a helping hand from Robert Simpson. I've 'known' the piece since the late 70s (an Ole Schmidt LP if I recall correctly - that should get me connoisseur points!!!) but Simpson's analysis doesn't half increase your enjoyment (when I understand it!). Some great bits when his personal irritations at contemporary orthodoxies boil over. On the opening tune of the fourth movement: "The simplicity of the main tune is of a kind not cared for greatly by those intelligentsia who, in these times of desperate circumspection, cannot see how a man can express deep feelings without being psychologically in need of attention." And there's more!!!! I'd assumed the book was written in the 50s/60s but it says 1986. Suspect he got annoyed at Minimalism too.

Another local cinema visit: Shostakovich's 1930s 'jazz age' ballet, just before the full demands of conformity descended. The 'lighter' Shostakovich - short, zippy tunes (but very Shostakovich) plus oddball foxtrots, tangos and other takes of American popular music. Nice production using Constructivist-like backdrops (or Art Deco for the club scenes) and lots of recognisable iconography from propaganda posters and parades of that era in the full ensemble dances. Ballet is way outside my experience of entertainment so I've no idea of the quality of the dancing - looked bloody amazing to me. The way they throw the principal women around...don't they get dizzy? They used the highly romantic, almost cod-Rachmaninov slow movement of the 2nd Piano Concerto for the last duet (think that might be called a pas-de-deux - I'll be buying a tuttu next) - not sure if that has been slipped in as contrast to the mainly brittle music or if it was there at the start. Amazingly there's another Shostakovich coming up in this series in a couple of weeks - 'The Limpid Stream' (called 'The Bright Stream' in this production). Will try to get to that - and 'The Nutcracker' in December, something I'd never have thought I'd want to see. I was so much older then...

Very good, well-balanced article on getting to like Bobbo here: Why I took the slow train to become a fan of Bob Dylan Dylan never appealed to me when I started listening to music c.1970. It was only three years later (a long time when a teenager) that I got hooked. Still like his records and buy the odd new one but I'm no-where near the 'must pre-order the latest odds and sods box set' type of listener. So I can identify with the writer here. Written by a poet! Thought poets had gone the way of lamp lighters and royal food tasters.

Barnes is in Sheffield in a couple of weeks with Atzmon - in a quieter period I'd go but it's manic here until late November. Did see that combination earlier in the year. I am going to his Christmas show in December. however. Still the funniest man on a jazz stage.

Only the one listen but this seems the most immediately appealing of the series so far. A short one and a long multi-sectioned quartet. And how can you resist something called "Lighthouses of Orkney and Shetland". I've never been to Shetland but have very fond memories of Orkney.

I saw you'd posted a Law album on the 'listening' thread. Bought one at the gig along with the 'One' record. Haven't heard the Law but the band record sounded excellent yesterday. Law is in Sheffield again with a trio towards the end of next month - hope to get to that. In a completely different genre: Lynched (Howard Assembly Rooms, Leeds) The best thing to come out of Ireland since poteen. Saw this lot at Sidmouth in the summer and was bowled over. More or less the same songs last night yet Lynched play with such welly that I was thrilled all over again. Superb musicians, wonderful individual and harmony singers, earthy and rooted in ordinary Dublin life, traditional music and the music hall. Tremendous repartee between the band and interaction with the audience (such a contrast to the 'ssshhh, we're in church' approach of the classical concerts I've been going to recently - Lynched need to do workshops in the classical world). Hopefully a second album is not far away - there are some marvellous new songs there. Biggest cheer of the night - when announcing what was available at the merchandise stand the piper waved an Irish passport in the air.

Tim Garland Electric Quartet @ Sheffield Jazz (Crookes Social Club) Tim Garland (soprano/tenor/bass clarinet/electronic-thing-to-hit-with-a-stick-when-someone-else-is-soloing), Jason Rebello (piano/keyboards), Ant Law (guitars) and Asaf Sirkis (drums/percussion). Very exciting band of superb musicians. A bit of Garland's pastorally side, especially when Law used the twelve string (sounded like Oregon!). Some standards - 'Good Morning Heartbreak', 'Windows' (a nod to a former boss) and 'Blue in Green' (the encore). But the best was the uptempo, odd time-signatured fusiony stuff. I've never really followed Rebello even though I seem to recall he was almost famous at one point in the 80s/90s but he was marvellous on the electronic keyboards - nice old electric piano sounds which Garland clearly has a nostalgic liking for. Sirkis was as wonderful as ever - seems to turn up in all sorts of bands. Ant Law is a name I've read about but heard for the first time here. Very impressed (especially liked the look of his bodiless guitar!) - a particularly thrilling solo on the last tune that brought me back to the days of Canterbury-type jazz rock. The odd guitar.

The world of 'The Arts' bestows its largesse. Back in in the olden days Bobbo would have come back with 'Something is happening here and you don't know what it is, do you..?"