A Lark Ascending

Much more interesting - he realised music had moved on from Rachmaninov.

The flirtation between rock and classical (and jazz and classical going right back - John Kirby etc) often (but not always) strikes me as a mixture of: a) a shorthand way to get a reputation as 'classy'; b) a way for classically trained musicians (especially pianists) to use what they learned in formal training; c) a way of filling out an album with a ready made tune rather than making one up yourself (the first Renaissance album - a totally different band (that grew out of The Yardbirds, unbelievably) to the one that had mid-70s success with the same idea - filled an entire lengthy song with a large chunk of Beethoven's Pathetique sonata. It wasn't just the blues that got stung on royalty payments. Not that I'm complaining - things like The Nice doing a bit of Sibelius' Karelia Suite or ELP doing Copland's 'Rodeo' got me intrigued about the originals.

Watch out Anton!

And Holst with Joybringer (Jupiter, though not the 'big' tune, strangely enough) Then there's Keith Emerson doing everything from Bach through Sibelius and Mussorgsky to Copland. I have a feeling he even did Ginastera after I lost touch. I recall reading an interview back in the early 70s where he expressed enthusiasm for contemporary South American composers. Renaissance were also keen on unacknowledged classical borrowings in a Laura Ashley sort of way. They made a nice song out of Debussy's 'La Cathedrale Engloutie' using the piano piece to frame a folky type thing.

Whilst there are the odd 'rock meets classical' records I've enjoyed, I'm not sure they ever really 'work' in the sense of producing something really integrated. When coming from the rock end you tend to get the orchestra 'glued' on or used to provide a backdrop. The high season of this was clearly the 70s prog-era - Deep Purple at the Albert Hall with the great Malcolm Arnold conducting and helping out the young John Lord. I quite like that one but the orchestra and rock group seem in quite separate bubbles. Caravan and the New Sinfonia (a live album that I actually attended in '73) just has the original tunes with live orchestra. I got rid of them long ago but recall the mid-70s Mahavishnu albums having a large orchestral involvement (the Santana/Alice Coltrane 'Illuminations' would fit there too). And then there were Rick Wakeman's behemoths! A recent one I enjoyed was the Yes album 'Magnification' - no keyboard player but an orchestra instead. What I liked there is that eliminating the synth-centred keyboards actually helped make a more interesting record. The trouble with all these projects is the 'classical' style always tends to be stuck somewhere in the mid-to-late 19thC. A 20thC style would be far more suitable. I'm just not sure the rhythmic flexibility of classical (usually without a pronounced beat) goes with beat-driven rock music very well. There is a different beast in the former rock musician turned 'classical' composer. Jon Lord has been mentioned but what I've heard is very much in the Romantic vein. The Genesis keyboard player Tony Banks has done some stuff that I've not heard. And there's an imminent release of a transformation of some of Robert Fripp's solo guitar music for orchestra. ****** As for the classical moving into jazz Michael Tippett's 'Songs for Dov' has some freakout electric guitar (and hipster lyrics!); I think 'New Year' might have too. Bernstein's 'Mass'? (I've never heard it). I think Mark-Anthony Turnage incorporates rock in places but I don't know his music that well.

bat droppings

No, that happened when I got a teaching job. Plus the influence of an aspirational parent and being educated in a system that required us to seek out 'the finer things in life'! I find it hard to single out single albums. But a sequence that sticks for me was King Crimson's 'Lizard', 'Soft Machine 3' and Keith Tippett's Centipede's 'Septober Energy' - all showed me a way of listening quite different than before. Fairport's 'Angel Delight' (and the earlier albums I picked up in its wake) and the 'Morris On' album also had me reassessing what I was listening to. Don't recall friends having much more than a peripheral interest. My musical wanderings have always been a mystery to them.

Another live one due in May: http://www.propermusic.com/product-details/Loose-Tubes-Sad-Afrika-131365

We've mentioned the coming changes elsewhere but this in a Jazzwise article is new to me. 'a plan to draw in a broader, younger, listenership' Given Alyn Shipton is in charge I trust it won't do what it sounds like! Hope they don't drop the early jazz at the start of the programme (which can sound as out there to my ears as anything the current revolutionaries throw at us). JRR has always suffered from stopping somewhere around Ornette with the odd more recent thing creeping in in recent years. Just hope we don't get lots of beatbox stuff and singers with fruit in their hair (I especially dislike that fruit on radio).

I went TV-less from late-72 to early 78; first abandoned by my parents and left with a little old lady in Swindon; then through university at a time when there was one set in the entire residential hall.

Really? No complaints at all with the sound of my LP copy, although Pye pressings could be somewhat 'iffy'. Really, I'm afraid. And I bought it not long after release. Think I heard a track on something like the Radio 2 late night Sunday jazz programme.

Regional words are fabulous - some can be as specific as just a few towns and villages. Common one's among's my kids at school in the British East Midlands: 'mardy' or 'mardy-arse' - bad tempered. 'wagging it' - truanting 'duck' (pronounced like look) - sort of like 'my dear' or 'old chap'. 'Eh Up, me duck' = Hello! Good day! 'nesh' - scared. After 34 years in the area I'm just beginning to understand.

Sorry! That makes you middle class! [one of those smileys denoting comment not to be taken seriously]

Nope, it never has. Yet another UK recording that deserves to be re-issued> It is easy to find on vinyl. The original vinyl was awful - post-oil crisis rice krispie standard! I think I took copies back twice before I just accepted what I'd got. Love to have a CD version.

bugger Especially when said by a Cornishman (or woman - my aunt used it wonderfully as a term of affectionate abuse) with a never ending rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Live at Filmore Live at Antibes Live in...Morcambe? Only ever saw Ronnie once as an opening act at the RFH (might have been for Betty Carter). Around the time of Burning Dog. 'Serious Gold' is the one I love - big Henderson influence there with electric piano on some tracks (John Taylor) and some wonderful guitar from Louis Stewart. Sounds very 70s and contemporary (for the time) whilst still sound 100% like a jazz record.

I was in the last 18 months of school when it came out. I'd just moved schools and there was only a small Sixth Form so it was easy to see the fault lines. I moved amongst the proggies with an affiliation towards the soft-rockers (Joni, James, Neil, Carole etc). We all hated Bowie, glam etc etc. What was interesting was that another group in the Sixth Form took to it like ducks to water (they were also obsessed with the contemporary 'A Clockwork Orange' and used to carry brollies). They were much more working class than me and my more lower middle class friends. I think a lot of the 'intellectual' attraction to Bowie as an 'artist' came a bit later as fashions changed amongst we lower middle classies. Lots jumped ship and clamed to have been Bowie fans all along. The androgyny was a bother too - these were well before the days when gay pride had reached the English provinces. The whole dressing up in spandex, make-up etc was very unsettling.

Sounds good. I'll keep it in mind. I did the fresh water programme last night - loved the otters winding up crocodiles. And the piranhas stripping down a fish in seconds. Though the crocks grabbing wildebeest at the lake edge was pretty unnerving.

Indeed. I bought that in Sheffield for about 1/4 of the Tokyo price. Since then I've watched in on NHK in HD. The Beeb is in a class of it's own with this kind of documentary. I was also extremely impressed by 'Ganges' My link,one of the few that can match Planet Earth in fantastic photography. If you've missed it then I recommend it with the highest praise. Thanks, kinuta. I'll keep that in mind. I've got 'Planet Earth', 'Blue Planet' and 'Frozen Planet' lined up for the next few months. But 'Ganges' looks good too.

Actually, it was because conductors were primarily known for live performance, not recordings. In a live performance, they could take chances that wouldn't be engraved in record grooves for all time. This encouraged conductors to develop a personal style. Later, these styles made their mark on records, but that wasn't what created them. Yes, that's what I meant. Harder to hear different interpretations of Beethoven 5. If you are conducting in Krefeld in 1850 then you are only rarely in your lifetime going to hear someone else conducting Beethoven 5. The 'who's best?' circus has mushroomed with the recording industry. The connoisseur establishes his or her fine taste by asserting the superiority of recording X over recording Y (with special attention to the failings of Y).

Mountains I want a snow leopard.

Someone should write a play: 'Waiting for Hum Domo'.

Then there's this jolly pair:

I was surprised there was nothing on Google of Stalin with Shostakovich or Prokofiev (during the times when they were in). Had hoped to find Louis XIV and Lully. Had to make do with this 19thC imagining of George I with Handel:

I suspect I'm the only person in western civilisation who's never seen this. Saw some clips as part of a Geography lesson I had to teach and was utterly enthralled. So I did a rare thing and bought a DVD set. First episode - Pole to Pole. Utterly staggering!