A Lark Ascending

Rameau's greatest hits assembled as a sort of instrumental suite. Real skipping round the kitchen music (with the odd pining lament [was there ever a greater tear-jerker than 'Tristes apprets']). Works on the exercise bike too.

Heatwave as predicted ("Hottest day since...." "Margate hotter than Mars" etc). First time this year I recall it being hot without wind or clouds so you didn't get the usual British thing of enjoying the heat of the sun and then getting suddenly chilly as it disappears behind a cloud.

Brahms Op 101 Bach: 79, 192 (change at Clapham) and 80. Have had 2 1/2 Dove records for a few years without them jumping out at me. But after a radio programme a few days back re-listened and really took to them. The name Britten comes up very quickly when he's mentioned - his emphasis on vocal music, commitment to community music and music that can connect widely. There's also a gentle minimalism in there too - more Adams than Reich or Glass. Looking forward to hearing a couple of his operas - he's written loads! (The other pieces on the flute record are lovely too)

I share the irritation with mobile phone conversations as conspicuous display (at least we iPod/earbud types don't inflict our 'sounds' on others). The other day I was waiting in a cinema foyer and a middle-aged couple had their mobile on speaker phone so they could both hear the person on the other end and talk back. The entire foyer could have joined in the decision making about what needed to be bought for the party. Mobiles are a case of technology having advanced so rapidly that an appropriate set of manners to deal with them has been unable to keep up. Back in the olden days of tethered phones it was normal to take a call in the hallway where others weren't distracted. Today people will take (or even make) calls in a restaurant or pub regardless of the people they are eating or socialising with. It's striking the speed with which this all changed. I own up to a fogeyism commensurate with my age on this one.

Supposed to be the hottest day since the end of the last ice age in Britain today. Skies are clear at 7.00 a.m.

Fascinating five part exploration of where we all came from and how we got to where we are today, working off some of the more recent evidence. As ever, Alice Roberts is a calm but engaging guide.

Op 87 off first.

No 2 Didn't hear the Riley until a few years back though I remember seeing it in shops and by reputation in the early 70s. Seems to have been pretty unashamedly pillaged by the Soft Machine, The Who (so that's what Baba O'Riley was all about!), Neil Ardley and many others. Not just the looping patterns - the saxophone voicings on the second track remind me of some of the harmonies on Soft Machine records when an augmented set of reeds/brass were employed. 1933 opera by this Czech composer (another victim of the Holocaust). Enjoyed this very much - less surreal than some of the other operas in the series, so the plot is easy to follow. Occasional echoes of Janacek but has more in common with Krenek, Zemlinsky, Korngold, even Weill. Standard late-Romantic language though like a lot of those composers pushing the chromaticism; also the interventions of 'other' musics - foxtrots, sleazy saxophones, what passed for jazz in this world. Well worth a listen if you're attracted to that middle European world of the 20s/30s. Must have sounded very daring at the time; by the 50s it was old hat.

Didn't much care for this. Action/shoot-out film (with weak romantic sub-plot) overlain on an historical event. To be fair, checking up afterwards (sorry, I get worried about these things) most of the details were actually based on reality (though there's an irritating oversimplification in the first line of the background information that starts the film) - I'd assumed it was movie bunkum. Cillian Murphy plays his character much like Tommy Shelby at his moodiest in Peaky Blinders - thereby, to my mind, demonstrating the originality and unpredictability of the Peaky Blinders scripts. Not a bad film - just a bit routine especially when you consider the potential of the events it is based on.

Dug out the Dove after hearing some interesting snippets from various records on this morning's record review programme on the BBC. Enjoyed the Harpsichord Concerto on the latter but the native American flute on the Piano Concerto tried my patience.

From an e-mail from Fledg'ling Records (who put out Morning Glory and Westering Home a while back): Early in 2017 we will release The Traveller's Tale a previously unreleased suite of tunes composed by JOHN WARREN and recorded live in June 1993 by the John Surman / John Warren Brass Project. Seems to be from the same year as the ECM release by the same band. Might be some of the same music. There must be a fair few of these MIA suites from Brit jazz musicians - From the 70s onward I recall hearing Kenny Wheeler and John Taylor on the radio and live performing suites that never surfaced as recordings (until the noughties that group of musicians released very infrequently). I remember hearing a Hardy suite on the radio by Surman and a larger band - some of those pieces pop up on his ECMs. It may just be that the suites were for convenience - tended to attract more attention from the UK 'Arts' bodies for whom a suite suggested something 'serious' and therefore worthy of a grant. Given the archaeology at work on Tubby Hayes live legacy maybe we'll see some more in the future by other musicians. This gives some hope.

Bass [String, Fender] – Daryl Runswick Cello – Alen Ford*, Jennifer Ward-Clarke*, Peter Wilson (6), Vivian Joseph Clarinet, Bass Clarinet – Alan Hacker, Edward Planas* Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, Soprano Saxophone – Francis Christou Composed By, Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, Saxophone [Soprano, Tenor], Liner Notes – Tony Coe Conductor, Piano – Bob Cornford* Flute, Piccolo Flute – James Gregory (2) Guitar – Philip Lee* Lyrics By – Jill Robin Percussion – Frank Ricotti, Trevor Tomkin* Piano, Electric Piano, Organ – Paul Smythe Trombone – Chris Pyne Trombone [Bass] – Bill Geldard, Geoffrey Perkins* Trumpet, Flugelhorn – Derek Watkins, Henry Lowther, Kenny Wheeler, Martin Drover Vocals – Mary Thomas, Norma Winstone Some kind person send me a CD-r of a LP of this a few years back. I was reading about it recently and the writer commented how it could hardly have picked a worse time to be released. Three years earlier and it could have picked up on the student interest in things like this. By 1977 they were pogoing. Tony Coe and Alan Hacker are the leaders.

Interesting profile. I now know how to make pizza. Jealous of his Cape Breton retreat. I love the way he ploughs on regardless of the brickbats from The Anointed.

Another short but useful one. Chapters on Ives, Varese, Cowell and Cage and then a catch-all with very brief references to the likes of Crumb, Partch etc.

Disc 1 of the latter - 48, 90, 56 Spotify for the first three - if I'd had that at 16!

Yes, I was talking to one of the organisers last night who reeled off his achievements. He's been to Nottingham Jazz several times before it seems. I keep reasonably up-to-date on what is taking place in Britain but somehow I've missed the name completely. Don't know about Liverpool - he seems to have strong Glasgow connections (he said he grew up there - joked about how his parents moved him there from Ulster to get away from the sectarian divisions. Referred to Glasgow as Belfast-lite!). I think he is on the staff of a music college there. Benn Clatworthy opens the Sheffield season at the end of the month with John Donaldson, Simon Thorpe, Matt Home. £5 introductory gig! You wouldn't get a pint for that in parts of London!

Going back to this one, there was an article in yesterday's Guardian by Polly Toynbee that explores similar lines: Did we baby boomers bring about a revolution in the 60s or just usher in neoliberalism?

Saw Watson a couple of times in the olden days - in Nottingham in the 80s or early 90s and at Cheltenham in the late 90s. Blistering concerts in both cases. Ryan Quigley Quintet (Bonnington Theatre, Arnold, Nottingham) Ryan Quigley (trumpet); Paul Booth (tenor sax); Geoffrey Keezer (piano), Michael Janisch (double bass), Clarence Penn (drums) Now why have I never heard of Ryan Quigley before? Everyone else is a household name (well, a jazz household name). Absolutely superb trumpet player. Fabulous evening of Jazz Messenger-ish hard bop but some really nice ways of varying the choruses; also didn't have everyone soloing on everything - a fair bit of thought put into which player would be highlighted in each tune. Geoff Keezer was outstanding - heard him a few times back in the early noughties but he'd not stayed on my radar. His solos this evening were thrilling. Quigley, an Ulsterman, has a good sense of humour too; another band who really communicated their enjoyment of the playing. Another good turnout at the Bonnington. The raffle made £75 (invested into booking future acts). Bet they don't have a raffle at the Village Vanguard. Proper review here from an earlier gig: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/sep/06/ryan-quigley-quintet-review-pizza-express-jazz-club

Can't quite work out if I've heard these pieces in the past; or just on the previous track.

Reading around various reviews after finishing it a number compare it to 'The Unconsoled' which apparently has a similar indeterminate feel. Never read that - the reviews weren't encouraging and it's very long! Some reviews suggest 'The Buried Giant' is about ageing and marriage; one even suggested it's about dementia.

Just the Symphony of Psalms

"The Remains of the Day" is one of my favourite novels and I also liked "Never Let Me Go". But I really had to force myself to finish this. Set in the 'Dark Ages' at the time of the Saxon invasions - more specifically in a post-Mount Badon period of relative peace (Gawain, Arthur and Merlin have walk on parts either in person or as references). Right from the off you realise Ishiguro isn't concerned with historical reality and what unfolds is a sort of saga/fairy tale with supernatural elements. I can suspend disbelief where the author is not pretending to be authentic; but the story line failed to hold my attention. There seems to be some grand philosophical statement going on - a mist from dragon's breath has erased the populations' memory, burying resentments of the past between Britons and Saxons; yet the book seems to imply that left unresolved they only fester. I do like stories with ambiguity but this one left me puzzled. Thought for a while it might be about our forgetting of the world of conflict in the early 20thC and the likelihood of its return in a time that has grown complacent ('we want our country back'); but that does not quite work.