A Lark Ascending

The version of 'I am the Walrus' is a dance floor classic.

I did buy this set and think it sad that it has vanished so quickly. I dislike the whole concept of limited editions which seem to have more to do with indulging 'collectors' than making music available. At the very least you'd have thought a downloadable version would be available. Strangely the set has a fourth disc with computer files allowing you to import the music to your PC without ripping the main discs. So all the work has been done (I realise there are piracy fears but if anything they've made that easier with that extra disc - I would imagine this set is being shared widely). It's a lovely set, living up to that first disc. Captures Hall without any other distractions and before he started to experiment with that unusual processing. I just love that 'classic' jazz guitar sound. Edit: Just checked and I see this set is available on iTunes. Not cheap, not in the physical format that some prefer but if you want to hear the music...

Three Wayne Shorter discs I'd like to hear: Moto Grosso Feio 1970 Blue Note Odyssey of Iska 1970 Blue Note Native Dancer with Milton Nascimento 1974 Columbia The first two I've never heard. The third I have a CD copy of with dreadful pitch changes in places. I know it's appeared in corrected form inside a Columbia box in 2013 but it would be nice to see the rubbish version withdrawn and replaced with a single mp3 decent version.

Didn't go to many this year but I have especially fond memories of: Keith Tippett residency at the Vortex - especially the set with Julie Tippetts and string trio. Fay Hield and the Hurricane Party in Sheffield Mike Westbrook Rossini programme in the last jazz club before New York. Two afternoon concerts put on by fRoots at Sidmouth with compelling performances from Wizz Jones, Jason Steel, Olivia Chaney and Tim Erickson. Louis Moholo, Alex Hawkins, John Edwards and Jason Yarde in Sheffield. Opera North's production of Britten's 'The Turn of the Screw'

Various bits of Sibelius, Mahler, Bruckner, Vaughan Williams, Elgar, Richard Strauss - the classical composers I first explored in the mid-1970s and still have a homing instinct for.

Wasn't too taken by the pilot last year. But I stored up this series on the digibox when it was broadcast many months ago and have been watching over Christmas. The plots are contrived, the characters stock and Morse a bit too gauche but I've enjoyed them. Always like the views of Oxford; and there's always an unfamiliar opera aria to make your ears peak up. The TV series, not the book. For the 50s/60s social commentary, of course.

Just as long as it's analogue humbug. Don't want any of that digital belly-aching.

Strikes me as sentimental twaddle. Presumably next week he will introduce his kids to another sublime communion - his complete 'Carry On' film set on VHS.

My goodness, they are having it bad in the South: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25517504

Tory strongholds hit by Biblical-style floods. Should we read anything into this? Given that God has consistently voted Tory, no. [Omnipresence is a wonderful superpower to posses in order to assist ballot rigging]

The Xmas Blitz spirit - Xmas Eve in Tonbridge: No matter the weather, we've got to have our pigs in blankets. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25512391

Happy Mid-Winter all. Hope none of the Brits here are having their holiday spoilt by the flooding.

"Don't Walk, Mother******"

Does Miles Davis Way change direction every few yards whilst still moving relentlessly forwards (apart from the last few yards when it casts a glance backwards)?

The Rock and Roll life. Indulgence, groupies, trashing hotel rooms and... http://www.surrey.ac.uk/discover/bill-bruford-phd-music http://www.dgmlive.com/diaries.htm?entry=25532

I suspect Drake paid the price of his own emotional/mental issues. As for the lack of sophistication of the audience of his time, well we didn't have the posthumous benefit of myth-enhancing box sets to make him stand out from all the other engaging music of the time. I only knew one track by Drake in the early 70s - 'Hazey Jane' on an Island compilation which I loved. I should have gravitated towards him as I was hooked on the whole Witchseason stable at the time. But I never bought the records because they were so short. No big issue today when they can be bought in cost effective sets and where my income is appreciably higher than in 1971. Back then a record could be afforded once every three or four weeks - so length did matter! What drew me to the records later on was hearing his songs played by a local singer/guitarist in a Nottingham folk club in the early 80s. The Drake myth was starting to build then and like others I bought the Fruit Tree box. Those 3 LPs are wonderful - beautiful songs and singing, amazing guitar, some unusual arrangements; as are the handful of out-takes that surfaced on Fruit Tree. But that new box seems to be more about milking the legend by throwing in all manner of flotsam and jetsam. A cost effective way of getting the essential music if you don't already have it. But otherwise another industry conceit, preying on our completist tendencies.

Horses' heads nearly obscured by the buckets but...

"Star of Bethlehem" on Neil Young's "American Stars 'n' Bars"

BBC4 Documentary from the recent Blues season about Big Bill Broonzy.

Now for many a year a standard response to the question 'What sort of music do you play/like?' has been to reject the idea of categories, boxes, bags or whatever you want to call them and declare a love of 'music' without frontiers. I'm all for that. But it does help to have a few labels so you can find things if you are looking for something in a broad category rather than a specific recording or performer; or so you can store things so you can find them later. But some of the labelling given to albums via automatic labelling of downloads is bizarre. I just uploaded a CD of English folk music that became 'Country and Western'. Almost random labelling like this seems to be common. I'm forever getting folky things labelled as 'Reggae'. Is everything that is not 'Rock', 'Pop' or 'Urban' (whatever that is) automatically 'Reggae'? The UK version of iTunes does not recognise 'Folk' - music from that area lands in either 'Singer-Songwriter' (even if it's instrumental and trad. arr !!!) or 'World'. There have been various attempts to relabel 'Folk' over the last 40s years ('Roots' was popular for a while amongst the people who try and steer these things) - but I think that most of us who seek that music continue to use 'Folk' (even though that is a weasel word in itself). Not something worth losing sleep over, a minor irritation in the grand scheme of things. I just wonder who labels these things. Surely they realise that if they label things appropriately, people seeking a particular style are more likely to find them and they'll sell more. I can't imagine many reggae fans would be best pleased on playing back that John Kirkpatrick record!

A lovely one I've recently acquired. French folky stuff - lovely vocals, folky instrumentation. French folk music does not seem to get much attention outside of France - I have a couple of dozen discs but getting any idea of the history, key performers, best records etc is hard. Everything seems to stop after Alan Stivell, Malicorne and Pierre Bensusan. I do like the hurgy-gurdy/bagpipe driven stuff.

West Side Story is tremendous - but it has street cred too! The Sound of Music now has post-modern ironic street cred but that's quite recent. Completely beyond the pale for hipsters and Great Minds (an outraged eyebrow is raised above one side of the pince-nez) but I love the ballads here. Don't much care for the 'rawk' parts but I could play 'Lying Eyes' again and again, trying out the different harmonies.

I like The Sound of Music. Top that! (Well I suppose there's Andrew Lloyd Webber - I'm afraid even I can't pretended to like him)

Third and 4 are the peaks for me. 5 is good too. 6 + 7 are enjoyable too though the minimalism becomes more pronounced at the expense of the jazz. The BBC discs are well worth acquiring - and there must be more than a dozen live/radio broadcasts out there now, all morphing this music in different combinations of tunes. These records got into the lower reaches of the UK album charts. Hard to imagine now.