A Lark Ascending

I've seen him a couple of times - a particularly memorable gig with Steve Swallow, Norma Winstone and, I think, Kenny Wheeler (clearly not quite that memorable!!!!). All Swallow compositions, I believe.

Played the Wheeler/Skidmore disc today on the work run - very enjoyable. Two tracks with trio + Wheeler, two with trio + Skidmore and 2 with toute ensemble. Very heavily in the Coltrane-Hymn zone that Skidmore has heavily mined. Reminds me of the sort of thing you'd hear on Radio 2 after midnight on a Sunday (well, Monday) back in those days. Makes you wonder what else is lurking in the archives of German/Swiss or other more adventurous radio stations. We've had a lot of US jazz and an extraordinary amount of Soft Machine. Given how hard it was for UK musicians of the stature of John Taylor or Stan Sulzmann to get on record in those days there must be a lot of unrecorded material that made it to broadcast but no further. I can recall all manner of things on the BBC but we know what the BBC did with its tapes.

Think it's been pushed back to early 2013 http://www.plosin.com/MilesAhead/mdNews.html

Just noticed this on e-music - my credits are due to refresh at any moment: Thought it might be of considerable interest to some posters here. http://www.emusic.com/listen/#/album/jazz-live-trio/swis-radio-days-jazz-series/13496367/: The Jazz Trio seem to be: Klaus Koenig, p Peter Frei, b Pierre Favre/Peter Schmidlin, dr Details from Challenge Records: http://www.challengerecords.com/product/1336030359

I have a 35 minute run to work, both ways; the evening can be longer depending on traffic. I love listening on those journeys - I really look forward to getting in the car and enjoying an album. The iPod smart playlist function is brilliant for car journeys - I've recently had it randomly on genres with the word 'folk' in the title. Amazing what emerges from the depths. I find it very hard to sit and listen to speech on the radio - I have to be doing something manual (not anything that involves reading - I miss the speech and lose track of the reading). So the car is a great place to listen to anything with lots of talk. I just need to get better at recording it and dropping it on the iPod.

Happy Birthday

John Williams - guitar John Williams - baritone

Well into season 2. I just don't want to watch anything else at present. Forgotten how good Edie is. And Maris must have won a best supporting actress award back in the day.

4th book in the series - I am absolutely loving these. Improving my geography no end; and by the time I get to the last in the series I'm sure I'll be able to rig a frigate.

Go to Hyperion - and many other clued up record labels - and the notes are there for the asking. http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDA67861/3&vw=dc (Just click on "View sleeve notes/artwork (PDF)" in the left hand column. If you click on the picture you also get a high resolution cover picture - I make my own CD-R cover from that and screenprint the details at the end of the booklet). I often refer to track listing, timing, personnel; but notes are rarely read more than once. So having them on a website or available to save as a PDF suits me. Of course, what will most likely happen is that for some of these bigger labels there will be new enhanced versions of the downloads where you can only get the notes if you re-buy the whole package. **************** This could be used creatively - having liner notes online could allow them to be added to; interesting reviews etc. That could boost sales.

Now we may be onto something, Bev. A restaurant/library hybrid! Have a nice quiet meal and enjoy a good read. I can see it now- barbecued ribs and a copy of... Well, perhaps not. Coffee shops in book shops can serve that purpose if you are just after a sandwich or a cake. Now if they could just dispense with the obligatory Sinatra, Vivaldi or Nick Drake. Actually, while they are at it, they could stop serving those silly coffees - the one's needing chocolate bits, marshmallows etc; if ever there was a sign of a civilisation in an advanced stage of decadence! Nothing worse than being stuck in a queue behind someone ordering for a table of 300, each requiring some personal foible. But that's another grumble.

All I'd like is that there be a range - that you can find a few restaurants/cafes/pubs that have a music free policy. If I'm with people then I hardly notice the music if it's quiet or get really annoyed (like Jim) if I have to shout. Sometimes it's nice to have music you share in common going on quietly as that can be a conversation point. If I'm on my own, I want somewhere where I can sit quietly or put my iPod in. Not asking everywhere to be like this - but just some places. I wonder if anyone has actually tried it as a marketing strategy - 'Cafe Silencio - the Muzak Free Coffee Shop' or, perhaps 'The King's Ears - The Pub where you can use them.' Maybe I should just repair to a library.

I just wish public places in general would hold back on the background music, live or piped. If I find myself with an hour to kill in a city I like to go to a pub or cafe, read a paper or book etc. Finding one without piped 'atmosphere' is nigh on impossible - usually the repetitive thump of the dance beat (or the same 50 or so classical snippets or Rat Pack tunes). In this era when personal music players are ubiquitous, is it really necessary? I understand that for certain establishments it's important - bars at night, dedicated music joints etc. But too often it seems to be there because it's done. I really don't need Vivaldi or Ella Fitzgerald to help me browse the book shelves. And then there's Christmas. 'So here it is....'....... Harumph!!!

Looks like a great concert, Sidewinder/Chris, one that will really honour Lol.

Never seen those two. They look like 'Venus' label covers. This one puzzled me: Looks like an advert for tasty gravy. All the cover needs is 'special guest - Sting'.

I'm going to wait for the mono box.

Was that before or after he did a year with Weather Report?

I saw Ludwig Van Beethoven in a beerkellar in Vienna about five years back. He was muttering darkly about 'scheiße mp3s' and the fall in his royalties caused by downloading. And once at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival I spotted a clearly distraught Gustav Holst throwing his hands in the air outside the Budweiser tent. Clearly no folk songs to collect that day.

I moved school a lot - went to 4 different ones between 11 and 18, moving on as I burnt down the previous. I was lucky to have a string of very good history teachers. My inspiration was one Mr. Lavelle in Cornwall who had me constantly spellbound. He was way ahead of his time - most people of my era recall history being about making notes in silence and then doing essays and tests. When we moved into a brand new (flame-resistant) building with all mod cons we got the very first overhead projectors I'd ever seen (1969) and he used them brilliantly. Even more, he brought in his own slide projector - he'd take photos manually from books and use them just to give us a visual image of what we were studying (what he could have done with Google and Powerpoint!). He also use to just leave the curriculum occasionally and do a one-off lesson on something quite different - I still recall one based on his own photos of the long vanished Newquay canal. He was always trying out new ideas - role play debates etc. I can still recall us playing Gladstone-Disraeli Snap. The cards had a policy of one or the other; if you recognised that two from the same PM went down together you went 'snap'! Another teacher I remember with great affection, even though I only experienced his teaching for about three months, was a Geography teacher who took me in hand when I arrived in my last school, three terms into the Sixth form, told me my study skills and note-making were hopeless and just showed me how to organise myself. Oh, and an art teacher I had for a term at the age of 14. Most of the time we had let-it-all-hang-out hippy types who played James Taylor and let us express ourselves. This lady taught us perspective. I loved it. Had she stayed I'm sure my drawing talent would have blossomed. As it was I just felt adrift and spend two years drawing endless album covers with virtually no feedback (apart from the day I brought in a very carefully drawn and shaded version of 'In the Court of the Crimson King' - the hipster went wild with excitement and said if I'd shown that sort of flair before I could have really made something of myself. I didn't have the heart to tell him it was a copy - he was clearly not that hip if he didn't recognise a pretty iconic cover!)

Geoffrey Smith's BBC programme on Stephane Grappelli. Just twigged I can play the iPlayer off the iPhone meaning I don't have to be tied to the computer to listen retrospectively. Technology is amazing.

'In the Hot Tub with Webern', 'Boulez Babes'?

This one seems to be using both the physical attractiveness of the performer and an allusion to classic Italian cinema to hook you in. The odd thing is it's a baroque programme. Now I'd have gone for a late-17thC priest with a wig riding the scooter.

Most classical marketing aims either for an established or potential middle class + audience with the sort of education that programmes to aspire to classical music (e.g. me!) or to cherry pick and constantly recirculate the big tunes for general consumption (I'm not criticising that, it's just how it is). The Rhodes example is a bit different - seems to be aiming for a 'hip' (not H.I.P), alternative culture, rock audience, trying to present classical music as having kudos in that milieu. Again, marketing is a fact of life, but I'm not sure they stand much of chance there with largely 19thC Romanticism. They'd be far better off with Stravinsky, Bartok and beyond. I feel a bit sorry for Rhodes; he'll have his moment in the spotlight and then be dropped. These hipster marketing campaigns tend to have brief shelf lives in classical music; I recall a similar spurt in the early 90s where there were a number of classical concerts with light shows and the like. Made a buzz at the time but didn't really go anywhere. There's a really serious issue with regard to how off-putting a classical concert can be to a non-initiate (all those fusty rituals); but I'm not sure this is going to change much.

Nah! Complaining about it endlessly makes us what we are!