A Lark Ascending

The first 3 Led Zeppelin albums: I like to get my LZ albums out for a drive every couple of years or so but... Is this what is keeping the record industry afloat? At £90 a set even £50 Man will have to save up here. There's tons of this stuff: http://www.spincds.com/box-sets

£5.04 on e-music in UK. http://www.emusic.com/album/cecil-taylor-feel-trio/2-ts-for-a-lovely-t/11980817/ £34.99 on iTunes! £11.99 on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/music/album/Cecil_Taylor_Feel_Trio_2_Ts_for_a_Lovely_T?id=Bkl5ehajesocuwczoqysnvwbrgi&hl=en £7.99 on 7 Digital: http://www.7digital.com/artist/cecil-taylor-feel-trio/release/2-ts-for-a-lovely-t

An easy to read summary of the conflicts that surrounded the French/British retreat from empire and the growth of American interventionism. Don't know the writer but he comes across at times as a grumpy old colonel - can't resist taking pot shots at lefty intellectuals bedazzled by Moscow or Beijing. But using the right filters it tells an interesting tale.

Never detected any noticeable arrogance when I've seen him or read interviews with him. I think he might have suffered over the years from the sheer volume of output and the range of his activities. Ten years ago I was buying up everything he released (including that downloadable 12 CDs worth of complete performances from the Jazz Standard engagement which proved that I don't need 12 CDs of anyone's live engagement in one week!) but recently they got too thick and fast. The folky thing he did a while back never engaged me. I know many people prefer his earlier more avant approach. I loved the Charms of the Night Sky group and, especially, those bands he put together investigating the sound world of the electric jazz of the late 60s/early 70s. Always love a Fender Rhodes. Must go on a field trip through my recordings. I have a particular liking for this live set:

Julie Fowlis in a funny crescent shaped room at the back of Sheffield City Hall. She looks like a contestant for the X-Factor but, four albums into her career (plus contributions to other band LPs and Transatlantic Sessions appearances), is sill performing straight Scots Gaelic folk music. One of the loveliest voices around today and a small but very powerful band (bouzouki, guitar, fiddle (Duncan Chisholm who is fast becoming a star in his own name) with very accomplished whistle (and the odd bit of harmonium) from the singer). Good range from yearning ballads to jigs and reels, though the star turns come with the fast paced mouth music. Lovely evening.

I'm not sure what criteria you would use to decide that. Steve Lacy seems more self-consciously 'artistic' (not a criticism, I very much like his music). Coxhill, though working in an arty-farty area, seems like many Brits to be a bit unsettled by it. I know when I saw him live he'd frequently stop the performance randomly, have a chat, then play something else. An almost deliberate avoidance of a finished, deliberately sculpted piece (and some of his records contain absurdist sections to disrupt any sense of overseriousness). I only saw Lacy the once and everything there seemed very crafted, a more traditional sense of creating well proportioned pieces, however freely improvised. We were lucky to have them both.

I wouldn't say it is worth paying a lot for. Phil Miller's records post National Health have tended to be jamming type things. A throwaway head (sometimes sounding like a theme from the Canterbury era), then a funky or riff-based sequence of jamming. On this one from 1987 the synths are very heavily employed; and there's a lot of fretless bass which was common to a lot of British jazz-rock at that time. There's none of the structured writing or songwriting you got on the Hatfield or National Health albums. Enjoyable to play once in a while but a lost classic it is not.

No Buddy Bolden?

They missed a trick. Could have reissued it in 1973 as a McLaughlin album with a picture like this on the sleeve: Like those 'John Coltrane' albums you see where he was actually a fairly minor sideman, looking all spiritual on the cover.

I think mine was a Rega Planar 2. The base was black but it had a wooden rim around it. It died on me around 1992 - I took it for repair, the chap swapped something inside and the motor came back to life for another 15 years! He wouldn't even charge me!

I had a Rega from 1979-ish until it died on me in the late-noughties. Best turntable I ever had. No frills - everything spent on getting a good sound. I bought a cheap Project for transferring records to mp3 after that which does what is required.

What I read today makes me want to read this: He comes across as quite the character.

"Hair - At It's Hairiest" too! Makes want to hear it.

Thanks for that, 7/4. Interesting reading.

Over half way now. Very interesting all round, though I do wonder if he really wanted to write a bio of Duffy Power! Just reached 1968/9 (Experiments with Pops, Windmill Tilter, Extrapolation) - McLaughlin served a long apprenticeship before emerging as a solo star. Quite a lot of coverage of the John Stevens/SME/Little Theatre/Old Place areas of activity. JM and Howard Riley playing in pubs in 1968! According to Riley the second side of 'Angle' was supposed to be a mixture of collaborations including the duo with JM. But the latter had gone off to find himself on a beach in the north-east. If you like McLaughlin or are interested in the Brit jazz of this era, worth getting, despite the occasional typos.

When they discover a 'line' to promote it to a wider audience. The theme here (well, one of the themes...the main one was about the construction of a British identity in the wake of the Hanoverian accession against the Jacobite threat) was that celebrity, over the top stars and groupies were not a 20th/21st century invention. Someone needs to think up a 'narrative' for jazz beyond the "troubled genius with one or layers of skin less than normal mortals, requiring a life of introspections supported by substance abuse" to hang future programmes on.

Seems the above 18thC thing got rebranded - "Rule Britannia! Music, Mischief And Morals In The 18th Century" First episode was very enjoyable. Standard BBC popular history - an attractive presenter wanders around modern London telling the tale with inserts of contemporary paintings and prints, interviews and short musical performances. Could have done without the demonstration of the surgical tool used to create castrati! Worth catching on the replayer.

Review of Saturday night here: http://www.theartsdesk.com/new-music/evan-parker-70th-birthday-celebration-kings-place And here: http://www.marlbank.net/lives/1616-evan-parker-70th-birthday-celebration-kings-place-london And here: http://thebluemoment.com/2014/04/05/evan-parker-wstrings/ And if you missed it, you could try Canterbury Cathedral on May 4th for a different birthday bash: http://www.canterbury.co.uk/Canterbury-Evan-Parker-70th-Birthday-Concert/details/?dms=3&feature=1079&venue=3033503 Looks like a fine way to spend a bank holiday.

Amazing book. I couldn't put it down. Explains Heart of Darkness amongst other things. Try 'In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz' by Michela Wrong for an account of more recent horrors (the Mobutu years and after). I read that first and got the recommendation for the King Leopold's Ghost book from there.

I was really taken aback by the soprano opening of the second track on the At The Vortex record whilst travelling home on the tube after the concert. Quite extraordinary.

Ralph has played over here solo quite often, sometimes with Brit musicians. But I don't recall an Oregon concert. I'm sure they must have.

John Stevens and Juhani Aaltonen too! We had our hip moments. The acoustic was remarkable. As you say, everything crystal clear. Yes, and Django was intriguing - none of his usual fingerprints (no zany moments). Seemed to deliberately submit himself to the whole.

The recurring theme of the early part of the book is that no matter how much some musicians might have wanted to play jazz, very few could make a living that way. Where, for a time in the early/mid 60s R'n B could pay the bills. So in someone like McLaughlin's case the blues thing was as much necessity as choice. Finding the section on the session world of the mid-60's very interesting. Though JM still seems to have only a walk on part in his own bio. It's almost as if Harper was planning another book and has used the material to flesh out a time when there's not a lot of evidence about the man himself. I'm sure that will change as he emerges as a more front line player.

Excellent 70th concert. Very much demonstrated Parker's commitment to the idea of ensemble playing. Five pieces for alternating quartets and trios in the first half with everyone just playing once. Then a very dense toute ensemble second half with waves of great intensity broken through by passages allowing smaller combinations to create distinctive texture. But never any sense of a solo as such. Evan did come back for a short soprano piece showing his mesmerising circular breathing. Need to hear some of his music with strings on record now. Very taken by some of the Webernesque passages in the first half. A project for Spotify next week. Nice to chat to mjazzg and friend. Don't often get to enthuse about this sort of music (or jazz in general) in real life.

Beautiful band. I came to them in the late 70s off the back of Towner's 'Solstice' album - 'Out of the Woods' was quite widely available over here where their earlier records had vanished if they'd ever been around outside the metropolitan centres. They are probably too pretty for the more hair shirt jazz aficionado. But I've always found their melodies very strong, balanced in with improvisation and a real sense of tonal colour. I enjoy their more recent records too, where the synth is held in check rather more than in the early ECMs.