A Lark Ascending

Evidence for the defence:

Yes, Alan has a very deflationary view of Britishness! At a talk he gave on Basie he remarked that drummer Sonny Payne used to throw the sticks in the air and catch them on the way down. When I interjected "And sometimes drop them" (which I'd seen) Barnesy quipped, "There speaks an Englishman!" I'd sooner have the self-deprecation than all that 'Britain's Got Talent/Stars in Their Eyes' 'I'm going to reach for my dreams - weep weep - you are all so special - I want to share my pain with the world so you can see what I've had to go through to get here...blah! blah blah!' Behind the stiffer upper lip, trench humour there's normally something very genuine and positive going on. I'm not sure about all the candyfloss emoting we seem to have imported in the last 50 years.

Yes, it goes in waves. I suppose it can be particularly influential when a generation of musicians find their preferred genre veering off in directions that can't comprehend or just find unsympathetic (as with your 1939 example); though its equally likely to affect younger musicians completely out of sympathy with the tenor of their own times (think Wynton!). It's not the revisiting that unsettles me; its just the conceit that this is all being done as some sort of homage. There's a very nice Alan Barnes Silver 'tribute' called 'Yeah!' - he dryly remarked at Appleby that if Silver had been British he'd have called that track 'Perhaps'. A good 3CD reimagining by the San Francisco Jazz Collective too, with newer compositions woven in.

Funnily enough on my only visit to New York I saw a concert at Birdland with the likes of Brian Lynch, Tom Harrell and Adam Nussbaum doing a 'tribute' to the early 50s Miles. It was a fantastic concert; what was more it got me investigating that period which is well away from the more celebrated Miles eras. Similarly, Joe Henderson's 'So Near, So Far' went for some (mainly) unusual choices and produced what is my favourite late Henderson album. It's the idea of 'tribute'/'celebration' that seems a bit icky. Re-exploring the music of earlier jazz eras has been part of the process all along and can deliver interesting new variations (Gil Evans' 'New Bottles, Old Wine') much as using tried and tested standards. Maybe its just the straight re-construction of an album or concert that runs the greatest risk of just being a shadow. Possibly nice to attend in a concert, but not something you need to listen to again.

Just do your singing in the bath - the acoustics do the rest.

One of those bizarre cheapo labels that crop up on e-music. You can also have: Better than a hairy chest, I suppose.

Actually heard the ultimate 'American-college-kid-with-backwards-baseball-cap' term 'Awesome' used yesterday on BBC Radio 3, in a review of a passage from Walton's 'Belshazzar's Feast' (by a man in a suit and tie, of course). I knew the introduction of phone-ins, e-mails and rundowns of the top classical top 20 on the Radio 3 breakfast show augured the collapse of civilisation. Otherwise, 'spiritual' is the one that drives me nuts! 'It was a truly spiritual performance.'

A bit like saying 'I like the smell of steam trains'. A perfectly valid preference, but life rolls on. I think David has his finger on where things are heading. I used to care for all the packaging but I realised that I rarely looked at it and most of the information needed is there via Google. Much as I don't need my sausages in a plastic tray, covered in cellophane and then with a pretty sleeve slid over the top. In the Age of Austerity, if we're going to have the luxury of non-specialist music at all, then we're going to have to adapt to getting it from a source that minimises packaging and distribution costs. I'm glass 3/4 full too - I think the curiosity to hear this music will still be there.

What a strange world we live in. My Sainsbury's has not had coriander mini-nans in for a month now! Things fall apart, the centre will not hold...

Do they do an app for lapsed Catholics to be shriven by?

Isn't that called Buddhism?

Have you tried wireless?

At the other end of things, I've never really felt the need to chase constantly after 'the best possible sound'. For me, vinyl days were purgatory and the arrival of CD did everything I needed soundwise, with the exception that many early transfers to CD were very badly done (especially with non-classical music). The second generation remasters sorted that out mostly for my ears. Much of the grumbling I read about sound quality (on CD or MP3) I mercifully don't hear. I'm sure I could educate my ears to hear it (especially with a more expensive sound system) but I'm happy getting thrilled by all manner of music via the current standard formats. Never felt the need for SACD or higher definition downloads (I bought a few lossless classical things a while back but am too cloth-eared to hear the difference).

Yes, that was excellent.

More concerned that wading through the new jazz releases there seem to be more Miles Davis compilations than ever! I do wish they had a 'bargain bin' filter like shops used to.

Item on the news this morning. 'Has the Killing led to a revival of crochet?'

I'm a bit south of Hines area and with a little more diversity to pick up on the loss of the coal mines, but still a 'social priority area'. It's starting to get hit hard - we're noticing a renewed attitude of hopelessness in some of the kids. Why bother to work/conform/behave when dad, mum, uncle are out of work or in really low paid jobs? - much more fun to tweak the noses of the teachers.

That would be nice - I'm still a bit dizzy from watching the UK adaptations of Kate Atkinson's 1st 3 mystery novels. While I liked them, 2-3 episodes per book would have worked better, I think. Absolutely - so much had to be left out.

Unless recordings are "restored" in such a way that they become unlistenable (at least to my ears), for instance as a result of heavy noise reduction, boosted highs, etc. I'm sure you are right; though I think some people are more sensitive to this than others. Especially if they've known the recordings in a previous form.

That film was relatively new when I was training as a teacher and clips were used as a critique of what was wrong with the education system. I hope we've got much better with most youngsters, but the basic inequalities are still there, the sense of alienation amongst the most disadvantaged too. I'm really enjoying the fourth of David Downing's wartime Berlin based novels, this one set as the Russians close in in April 1945.

Found it hard, when I first started listening to jazz in the late 70s, with music before about 1950. Part of this was that restoration techniques were not what they became in the 80s and there were a lot of dubious things on sale with no real effort. I had a Charlie Parker/Miles Davis LP that put me off trying Parker for another ten years. Restoration does miracles nowadays and I've generally acclimatised to the sound of earlier years - you just adjust within a few minutes of listening. But to untutored ears I know it can sound totally off-putting. You need to have motives to persevere.

More multiple monks... And mirror images too!

I must admit I find it very hard to concentrate for any length of time on a show - even normal 2 hour detective shows lose me. Give me Columbo, so I know whodunnit at the start! I tend to restrict my lengthy drama watching to Saturday nights. If it interests me than a disappear into it. But I can't do it often - too much music to listen to! The TV doesn't get turned on during the week (mainly because I fall into bed at 9.00!) I started noticing my impatience with 'pacey' TV programmes with 'Spooks'. I quite enjoyed a couple of series but then everything started happening at breakneck speed - one episode had enough in it to make a whole series. I look back to things like 'State of Play' or 'GBH' which gradually unfolded. That's why I liked The Killing.