A Lark Ascending

Not sure what you mean. Where jazz stands in the pecking order when the grants get handed out (or, perhaps, its order of priority in placement in the BBC (or other) schedule)?

They are really worried about my teeth. Probably an assumption because I'm British.

I'm not sure why you assume your own reaction to jazz is a universal truth. This board would suggest otherwise. Outside the world of the academic and professional critic I don't think listeners are all that bothered. They just want music they can enjoy, be absorbed and excited by. If Robert Glasper does that to some listeners, then that's what matters rather than if he 'shakes up' jazz or not. Holds true of 'classical' too.

His is a nice chap and came across very well, he also denied he was the future of jazz and didn't strike me as egotistical at all. I even started enjoying the music, .......... but it's not jazz. The snippets I heard aren't what appeals to me - in fact the sort of thing I run a mile from generally. Whether it's jazz or not doesn't really bother me. And, yes, he did deny his Messiah status (a bit like Brian! perhaps he's just a very naughty boy?). But even in the humility you could hear the marketing at work. I have some sympathy with the 'jazz snob' thing - the bit about the world of jazz being like a private golf club. There are jazz enthusiasts (like there are classical enthusiasts [and heavy metal enthusiasts, I suspect]) who love the fact that it is an esoteric, obscure music and would prefer to keep it that way. But, like most of these things, it's a stereotype that doesn't even begin to take in the diversity of people who listen to jazz. As well as the 'mental beret' brigade there are loads of people who just enjoy the music, often as part of a much broader musical interest. It's the usual marketing thing of setting up a false premise in order to shoot it down. I don't imagine jazz will ever be at the cutting edge of popular culture again - but I suspect it will tick along quite nicely doing things in a variety of ways both verging on the popular and deliberately seeking something other. And the industry will try and turn someone else - willingly or otherwise - into the 'sound of now' before too long.

Brit listeners might want to keep Radio 4's 'Today' programme (BBC's flagship news programme) on over the next hour or so. We are promised Robert Glasper talking about how he intends to shake up the world of jazz. Can't recall for sure, but I imagine they must have had Jamie Cullum on doing something similar a few years back. Oh, the power of marketing. (On at 8.45 - just a couple of minutes. Seems a nice chap.)

Oh no. Another cult.

I think that's very true. When I first listened to Charlie Parker (c. 1978) it was no different to listening to Beethoven. Music that was not by a living (or even recently dead) musician, being forged in the moment. I had to get past a film of 'oldness' before I could start to experience it as living music. Whereas, I suspect to you and Peter, this was thrilling, 'in the now' music from the off. Those who like to carve out musical absolutes constantly neglect the importance of individual context on how we interpret and process music into our brains.

Me too.

I get the impression that they've made the jazz events more part of the whole festival rather than having a jazz specific weekend (though there is still a focus around that weekend). I used to like the long Saturday/Sunday sessions, generally made up of young up and coming Brits or unfamiliar European names. That side of the festival - as with Cheltenham - seems to have been replaced with more established names. There is a crying need for a festival outside of London with a focus on musicians creating new music. I like a good standard session as much as anyone; but the biggest thrills I've had at these festivals have come from the unfamiliar. I was wondering that - yet some of the best Festivals at Bath took place during the 1990-93 period, which was just as recessionary as now and with just as much pressure on the public purse. Plus - they were actually willing to take chances with their bookings. True. And jazz was dead then too (or maybe in critical, awaiting the arrival of Robert Glasper)!

Social conditioning doesn't require the influence of people immediately around you. I listened to nothing but the rock of the era of the early 70s. But there was almost an expectation that this was something you would outgrow and then move on to something 'deeper' like classical or jazz. Where did I pick that up? Parents (though they had no experience of 'high culture'), comments by teachers in school (I remember one head teacher very kindly smiling at my musical preferences and then trying to explain how Beethoven had so much more emotional depth; and a trendy English teacher laughing at my Hawkwind album and going on about jazz), even the 'what are you listening to' choices of my rock favourites in music magazines (Yes going on about Stravinsky and Sibelius, Henry Cow and Messiaen, the constant references to Coltrane and Miles amongst the Santana Mahavishnu axis). I clung tenaciously to my love of contemporary rock but all that pressure ate away - in some ways the arrival of punk gave me the excuse to break away into my 'fine taste' period. I had no experience of jazz apart from what I saw on TV (Acker Bilk, Oscar Peterson) or occasionally heard on the radio. And all the classical I'd heard up to the mid-70s was the very popular stuff. I suspect I was been driven partly by these social pressures, partly by curiosity and a wish to look the other way but above all by a wide-eyed, innocent ability to be very easily seduced by attractive, interesting and engaging music. Nothing much has changed there.

The Moody Blues 'Question'. Condemned to un-hipdom for life. Though the previous Xmas I bought Rolf Harris' 'Two Little Boys' for my mum!!!!

In 1970 the four members of the Move walked out of a nightclub in Newquay, Cornwall and into a limo right in front of me. Around the time 'Brontosaurus' was a hit (they'd just 'gone heavy, man'). They didn't say hello (or even 'elo).

I'm with you there. I've never lost that hunger for the excitement that comes from being overwhelmed by an unfamiliar record or performer or genre.

Gramophone has fallen victim to that syndrome that seems to affect so many music magazines - '50 famous-itis.' The new issue is dominated by a feature on 50 people who changed classical music and then pages and pages of the world's festivals. Then you're already in the review section. It seems to me that so much of this is about just filling the pages as easily as possible. You can take care of a couple of issues each year with 'Awards' and 'End of Year Round-up' but too often you get this sort of thing mid-year. Not quite as bad as the article on the pets of 'great composers' in the BBC Music magazine a while back. I don't pine for the magazine's more patrician days (I seem to recall it being produced on tablets of stone in the 70s) and like the less judgemental tone; but I do wish they'd lay off the lists.

Undoubtedly - you see the impact of peer pressure all the time in musical taste as in other areas. It's much stronger when you are younger, simply because you have experienced so little that you are more susceptible to those around you, magazines, radio and TV guiding you to what you ought to be listening to. But at the same time there can also be a pretty powerful impulse to go the other way to those around you - parents and peers. There's that constant tension to wanting to be part and apart. I went through much the same path as many have mentioned above. A totally indiscriminate start, then a period of what I thought of as being a follower of the more alternative style of rock of the early 70s (far less alternative than I believed at the time), then an early 20s of 'fine taste' and rejection of the 'petty' followed from my 30s onwards with a rapprochement with all I'd rejected. As you get older I think you get much less affected by social pressure - especially if you are following your musical passion largely as a personal pleasure rather than as the communal activity of one's teens. But it still happens. You don't have to look much further than this board. Right...back to a Swedish cattle calling record, just to ensure I've made my independence absolutely clear (though I'll drop in a Max Roach later on to ensure everyone knows I'm really part of the gang).

ELO really missed the opportunity for the perfect title (and cover) to their third album:

Being more accepting of...even enthusiastic for...the music you did not care for at the time of your youth (and even more so, the music of before your youth) seems to be a natural development of ageing. As Dylan put it in one of his wisest moments 'I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now' (much wiser than 'everybody must get stoned'!).

Care to share a link to that thread anyway? Post 29

Some does, some doesn't. I suspect a lot of the rock I still listen to I enjoy in spite of its limitations - I'd probably not tolerate some of the arthritic rhythm in new music (an almost instant turn off). Layers of nostalgia have rendered much of the music of my past immune from rejection. There's very little that I've been drawn to at some point that fails to give me pleasure to some degree.

I feel for you. The hardships we 'cd collectors' have to endure.

I rarely visit that 'how to cook goat' thread. Has no relevance to me. I don't see it as the future of cookery.

It's always struck me as sad that the MJQ never did a tribute to Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow disc.

'White Heat' Unlike kinuta, I've enjoyed this. Lots of dramatic cliches - former flatmates meeting up to remember a wild past, a tendency to want to reference every political and cultural event of the time, the 'difficult' father-son (and father daughter) relationship. But it's kept me interested. Yes, it's historical costume drama, but...at least there are no icebergs. Yet (I've only got to episode 3).

Happy Easter, y'all.