A Lark Ascending

Thanks for the recommendation, Roger. Made me dig out Laura Jurd's earlier record Landing Ground. Will dl this when my e-music account replenishes next week.

Ah! I have that series building up on the recorder. Didn't realise he was presenting.

"The High Art of the Low Countries" Episode 3: Van Gogh, Mondrian, Magritte and Delvaux (never heard of him!). Oh, and briefly, Herge. Note to self - record those popular programmes about painting more often. Very much enjoyed the ones I've watched of late.

Very dull. Almost a list of places he visited and who he went to parties with. Very little engagement with the music. Now just skimming so I can read something more involving.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-29347895 As someone who did not come naturally to earlier classical music, I owe him a great deal. Many of my 80s/90s recordings were under his leadership. Noticed a few weeks back he was also on the Shirley and Dolly Collins folk classic, 'Anthems in Eden'.

"The High Art of the Low Countries" First two episodes of a 3 part series I've had stashed on the TV recorder for over a year. Very enjoyable - Flemish painting and then the Dutch Golden Age. I used to teach a lot of 17thC European history so this proved fascinating. Although I've seen most of the pictures in reproduction, Andrew Graham-Dixon is very good at drawing out their hidden meanings through their historical context.

There's a fair bit of British folk music that has never got to CD - one label notoriously so, that has locked up some major albums due to the awkwardness of the chap with the rights (recently deceased). So if it has never been digitalised it's probably not there on the software that spots albums. Quite a bit of British jazz too. Yes, I think there is a way of doing it but, as you say, I've already established an approach that works. I essentially work by 'Genre' (make my own up) - within that I find 'Artist' (which is where I get the zillion names on compilations). Where I've quite a lot of music I amend the artist name e.g. Schubert (Piano), Schubert (Orchestral) etc. I've also taken to putting the date of the album first "(1959) Kind of Blue" so it all falls chronologically - helps me work through things with some logic. Despite my disappointment at the abandonment of the iPod Classic by Apple I have to say I love the control you can have over the music if you ignore the automatic functions in iTunes. It's a brilliant system that ties in superbly with the Classic. It's not broke - a pity it's still being swept aside.

Bev, are you transferring a lot of music that isn't in "complete album" or "complete CD" form? I rarely have to enter song titles, as everything is automatcally tagged via CDDB when I rip a CD, so I'm wondering what's different for you. Sometimes it can't trace the album - normally if I'm transferring something I've recorded from vinyl. Also, in 'Various Artists' compilations I like the name of the performer next to the title in the track title box so I can label the artist as 'Various' or 'Various Blues'. That way I don't get zillions of artists when I look at the iPod. It's relatively easy to find a source with the title/artist together. But I've not found a way to mass input. Of course in most cases it all happens automatically.

The iPod Classic thread discussed some of the ways the big companies try and get you to pay for things you perhaps don't need to. A couple of other examples of this phenomena. 1) Back in August I went to see Loose Tubes at the Brecon Festival. Queuing up we were searched to make sure we were brining no liquids into the venue. Why? Potential terrorist activity at jazz concerts? Fear of spread of disease? No - to protect the interests of the company that had won the franchise to sell beer/soft drinks inside. I'm pretty sure the searching was illegal! 2) I just ordered a concert ticket online. My postal options were two 'special delivery' choices at over £6 each or collect from box office for free. What happened to the standard postal option? I assume the 'special delivery' option includes a glass of champagne given by the delivery van! I assume this is what Eton Boy and the people who fund his ambition mean by 'entrepreneurial spirit', 'flexibility' and 'market efficiency'.

Yes, irritates me too. If you have a faulty download they refund you the 'song'. The idea that the faulty 'song' makes the whole album a waste of space seems beyond their comprehension. I too turn all the automatic features off. I can organise it myself on iTunes. And, I have to say, iTunes is excellent for that (except I'd dearly like a way to load a bunch of song titles into an album without having to do each one individually. Can't be that hard to set up - already separated in Excel, should be a one click situation).

Keith Tippett on either 'Touch Hungary' or 'Jumping' from Harry Miller's Isipingo's disc 'Family Affair. I find it hard to choose. The solos start way before the solo - Tippett is flying around behind the other players long before it gets to his turn (but without stealing the limelight). The piano is way out of tune, sounding like a Western mining town upright but given what he does with it you wouldn't want it any other way. One minute he's vamping along with the basic pulse, then he's airborne with runs of notes that snake up and down the music. You don't hear Tippett playing in this sort of mid-sized group freebop-ish style very often - there were a flurry of recordings in the late 70s. Usually he is either solo, in very quiet or almost pulse-less small group settings or in more arranged large groups. One of the things that makes this record magical and the two solos priceless.

Well we have a release date for the new Moholo quartet disc: 4 Blokes Louis Moholo Moholo, Alexander Hawkins, John Edwards, Jason Yarde Based on a performance I saw last Autumn, this is likely to be marvellous.

Always liked Don Pullen's piano solo on 'For Harry Carney' on one of the Mingus Changes albums.

More nonsense from Neil. 'Time Fades Away' finally gets out... But... So not only do you have to buy 3 recordings you already but it's only on vinyl and in a limited edition designed for fetishists and the lad who must have everything. But hey, you get what's important. Housed in a telescopic box. Just put it out as a CD and download, Neil. Then do all the daft stuff - 45 rpm vinyl, 78, Pingo, Special Connoisseur Edition etc etc etc. Sigh!

Not sure - it is possible that the National Sound Archive may have some of them on file. I'll really miss Kenny's Big Band, in particular - and the many fine players (Ray Warleigh, Henry Lowther, Duncan Lamont, Chris Laurence) who were always featured in it. I hope that someone keeps it going. Indeed. Another great Kenny performance in Nottingham (but in a posher venue!) that I really enjoyed was a birthday big band performance around the time of the release of 'Music for Large and Small Ensembles' (my favourite KW recording).

Thanks, Sidewinder. Those were the programmes. Wonder if any of those broadcasts survived the BBC's tape wiping habits. Here's a long lost album with Kenny on that could really do with a reissue: I only have a burn from a kindly board member. I recall seeing this band in a Nottingham pub around the time it was recorded. (Source for images: www.discogs.com/Gordon-Beck-Ron-Mathewson-Tony-Oxley-Stan-Sulzmann-Kenny-Wheeler-Bill-Evans-Seven-Steps-To-Evans-A-T/release/3810844)

I don't think anyone can quarrel with paying in whatever the way the vendor requires for something you don't have. The point about the iPod Classic/Cloud thing is that once you have purchased the iPod you no longer pay to hear the music you have already bought. If it is on a cloud then you pay to access it indefinitely. So the cloud (as run presently) is not just another technological advance. In the process of moving on we have lost something that an admittedly small number of us rather value. Maybe cloud costs over time will prove cheaper than the substantial outlay for an iPod Classic. I'd relish being able to carry everything on one device. I'm still not convinced I'd get uninterrupted music - unless clouds download the album temporarily in full when accessed so interruptions in service have no effect. In Britain we still have lots of dead areas and places where signals come and go.

I think I first heard Kenny (apart from minor appearances on rock records) on the late night live sessions that used to go out as part of a BBC Radio 2 programme on a Sunday going into Monday night. At that time (late 70s) he wasn't getting recorded very much as a leader. I remember hearing slightly bigger than quintet bands performing music that you couldn't buy in the shops. He always made clear that his centre ground was in that melodic area of most of his records; but that he was intrigued by free music even if he didn't always feel safe there. The fact that he constantly pushed himself in that area was just one of his many attributes.

I imagine it is obselete because not enough people want that capacity. Usually some non-major firm arrives to plug the gap and accommodate the minority market. Hard to do with something tied right in with Apple. I'm going to have to experiment with using the iPhone connected to Spotify, Amazon etc whilst on the move. If it's anything like mobile internet/e-mail signals then its going to mean constant interruptions. Not to mention the poor battery life of the iPhone. Nothing like the iPod which is remarkable.

Appreciate that you were not excluding what I mentioned.

Excellent post. The only point I'd quibble on is the necessity for it to be danceable to make a connection. I'd agree that danceable will make it accessible to a much wider audience. But jazz can cross over to those of us who do like to sit and nod our heads (because we're too self-conscious to leap about on a dance floor). I crossed into jazz via the British jazz-rock/jazz-aware Prog-Rock of the 70s which was anything but danceable. I think a sizeable audience came that way. Your final point is exactly how I see it. We all hear jazz differently because we engage with it from such different contexts. I don't hear it like those who came of age in the Coltrane era or the Bebop era hear it. Once you are hooked you can gain nothing but further pleasure from listening to those other perspectives - they generally throw light on music you have either missed or previously been unreceptive to.

After grumbling about the 'Constable' programme I watched one on Turner I recorded a year or more back. Brought home even more starkly why I find the standard contemporary history format so annoying because this one was superb. No wandering celebrity or luvvy. Commentary was a voice over. Instead of anachronistic scenes of modern Britain/Europe there were careful reconstructions. But I loved the angle of the programme, focussing on Turner's fascination with new science (Davy, Faraday etc) and his embracing of the new technologies of the industrial revolution at a time when Romanticism tended to look backwards and view 'dark satanic mills' as a wrecker of an earlier world. Utterly compelling.

Very, very sad. Someone who has been at the heart of my jazz listening from near the beginning. Many memories of fabulous concerts; and of course a rich legacy of recordings to continue to enjoy. R.I.P.

Steered clear of this when broadcast - romance among the codgers isn't really my thing. But after watching 'Happy Valley' I decided to risk it. Well, it is sentimental but I really enjoyed it. Some really engaging characters. "Constable: A Country Rebel" Don't know much about Constable (or painting come to that) so found this interesting. Just getting a bit cheesed off with the format of historical programmes. Young trendy chap or chappess leaping round the country with modern scenes all around and the occasional look at a picture or contemporary source. The bit on 'The Haywain' - let's have him doing a jigsaw of it while he talks! I know it's impossible to fill the hour with contemporary images and talking heads are a sure turn-off but there just seems to be a bit of a formula set in.

Woke in the night to hear this - really interesting. Don't know his music but was intrigued, especially by a fragment of a version of 'Angel Eyes'. Think it might have gone out on BBC Radio 4 initially: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p026dcrq