A Lark Ascending

This site has some pretty exhaustive information on John Stevens : John Stevens I was reading that over the weekend. If anyone deserves a biography! Hugely influential musician, complex character (it seems).

I always loved Henry Cow's stage decor. At a time when the big prog-rock bands were getting into hugely expensive stadium set, Henry Cow had: Can't see a moth eaten sofa there but that was a prop I recall. Also found this photo from around the time of that London gig - it says it was taken in Italy (where they had a big following):

I've been digging around with John Stevens of late - up to now only had recordings of him working with John Martyn and his Folkus group of the 80s. Of course I was aware of him and SME but have been digging around a bit. Those 'Away' discs - which I remember from back in the day - seem nowhere to be seen apart from one issued by bassist Nick Stephens: http://www.loosetorque.com/integration.html I know a fair bit of rock from Vertigo was issued on CD, including this retrospective box set. But no John Stephens there: The one that intrigues me but is also out of print is Birds of a feather, (Byg 529), a 1971 date including Julie Tippetts.

Knowledge of a musician's sexuality is clearly important in understanding a musician's music - it's a powerful part of what makes them who they are. It's not necessary in enjoying that music. I was aware of Britten's sexuality long before I heard his music. It's not something I think about at all when listening, except where words come into play like in 'The Turn of the Screw' or 'Death in Venice'. And there something more disturbing comes into play given Britten's liking for young boys - I find that very uncomfortable and can't ignore it (though some would argue that is what 'art' is all about - confronting the dark side). [incidentally, I find leering after female 'jailbait' in rock songs equally uncomfortable - but that too reflects what really goes on in life].

Henry Cow 5 times! Easily my most obsessive gig following. You can hear me clapping on the track with Robert Wyatt on the 'Concerts' album. Only saw Hatfield once, National Health that one time. Caravan a couple of times. Never caught the Soft Machine. Oh, and I was at the Kevin Ayers/Nico/John Cale/Eno jamboree at 'The Rainbow' that produced: Though I've never heard the album. Hope my clapping was up to scratch.

I finished it last night. His conclusion is a bit uncertain - the old fogey wants to say 'it's all copying today', the self-aware 'modernist' wants to see something great in the future. He seems too nice a chap to get really brutal. His earlier books include 'Rip It Up And Start Again' and 'Bring the Noise'. He's a Brit but has lived in New York for a while and now in California. I was unfamiliar with 90% of the music he wrote about but just found myself drawing the parallels with the contemporary music I do know all the time. BillF wrote: Yes, he deals with that idea towards the end of the book.

Gosh! That LSE WAS the one I went to! (I came up from Reading. I can never quite recall as I also saw Henry Cow there around the same time - that must have been the Autumn '75 trip). Pity I can't get beyond the first paragraph of this without paying silly money: http://www.rocksbackpages.com/article.html?ArticleID=10227

I have the CDs and they are very muddy.

There was a good BBC4 programme about her a while back. Like with Peel I'd long lost track with her musical preferences but her enthusiasm and determination to champion what she thought was wonderful shone through. Don't recall being particularly smitten by her as 'a lady' (to use the parlance of the day) at the time.

There was a third in the early 80s in memory of Alan Gowen who died. Also a thing gathering together various stray bits and pieces that came out in the 90s. The Cuneiform would be the live one from the Greaves line-up. Much edgier than the studio albums. I have a short book written by Dave Stewart describing his time from Egg to National Health. It sounds as if it must have been really grim trying to make a living with music that just didn't fit the Zeitgeist. I was at their first concert at the London School of Economics c. 1975/6. Mont Campbell was with them on bass and Bill Bruford as a second drummer. Fabulous concert. I assumed it was another step towards the musical future. Little did I know what was fermenting in the pubs only a few miles away!

Yes, it's John Greaves. He joined the band for their second album. Looks like he was brought in to provide a bit of visual stimulus - National Health were swimming against the tide trying to play tricksy prog-jazz-rock in the world of punk and new wave. [i'm jesting - Greaves is a marvellous bass player with a nice voice] I remember them as an ocean of sanity in a musical world I'd ceased to understand. Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6x9gjzJha4

A bombshell if revealed 50 years ago, but in 2011? Now if you told me they were KGB agents...

We all come from such different contexts that music will inevitably sound different to each one of us. Ralph Vaughan Williams might fill me with utterly bliss given my closeness to the English countryside but leave a Brooklyn uber-hipster quite unmoved. Musicians/critics who think they see, with their projections, music's true, objective worth are only fooling themselves.

The biggest gulf I noticed in the UK was response to black music. My parents constantly grimaced at soul/gospel-like singing. Whereas growing up during the 60s it was part of my aural landscape either via the top twenty or filtered through blues based rock groups. Whatever differences there might be between contemporary pop/rock and the record collections of older people, I don't think there is anything like that cultural divide. We've all grown up with the background of black music. With my parents generation (born in the 20s, before widespread immigration) the jazz, rhythm'n blues or blues enthusiasts were few and far between.

Oh, I'm not suggesting these musicians are choosing the style of music for commercial reasons; the love is clearly genuine. Just that often the way it's assembled has a clear marketing angle. Which is understandable - like anyone else making a living you have to get your wares noticed. What seems to have changed in the last 30-40 years, however - and I think this is where Reynolds is coming from - is that it used to be easier to market things as new and breaking with the past. Whether the music of the 60s/early 70s really was iconoclastic or not all the time, the idea of breaking new ground was one of a number of marketable concepts at that time. It still has a hold on niche listeners but I don't see that desire to tear it up as being anywhere near as attractive an ideal as it was once. But I'm sure it will return. Its too exciting an idea to be abandoned in favour of constant recycling or re-assembly of past styles.

"The Hour" Up to episode 4/6. Set around the time of Suez/Hungary (1956) a tale of espionage in the early days of BBC TV as the idea of TV reportage is being created. Some great performances. Has been lazily described as the 'British Madmen' but apart from the roughly similar period and the screen filled with cigarette smoke it's very different.

'Retro' could also be simply a packaging concept. Send a group of not particularly well known jazz musicians on a tour as the John Smith Sextet and it'll be hard to get people to take notice. Send them out as a 'A Tribute to...' and suddenly there's something for an audience to catch onto. I notice a lot of these on the main UK jazz circuit at present. Miles, Monk, Mingus or whatever themed performances/discs. You could even suggest the San Francisco Jazz Collective has taken this route - a theme around a past great with original music within that mix. I'm not knocking the music - in the best hands the music is re-imagined if only in the soloing. Alan Barnes has virtually made a career out of Ellington, Mulligan, Goodman, Silver etc reconstructions and is a delight to listen too. But it seems that to get music out there to a broader audience, it often needs something familiar to hang on. Oh! Look what is about to hit the news stands in the UK: Now if that isn't retro...

Yes, and it's waiting for us to join it. Has it gone to heaven or hell?

Is jazz dead again?

Also worth remembering how often older pop music is used in film soundtracks, TV programmes and adverts (think of those adds in the 90s that used blues/depression era imagery to sell jeans and whiskey with John Lee Hooker etc on top - they got me to check out Dr. John, for example). The soundtrack album of a highly successful film, littered with musical snippets, can be very popular. I'd stress that the interest I regularly see in young people for older music is largely confined to pop/rock. When it comes to classical, jazz etc then there's rarely any connection unless they grow up in homes where that is played or are studying as musicians and come into contact that way. There are quite a few swing bands in the UK educational system - a very good one operating out of Derby. I've just been reminded of another acquaintance. Mid-20s, sings solo and in bands on a local level, fully immersed in the contemporary scene, is obsessed with Van Morrison.

I was chatting to two of my colleagues today - both women in their late 20s. One spent last weekend at the Leeds Festival (a huge UK rock festival), both are very enthusiastic about contemporary rock. Yet the one who went to Leeds is also a huge Dylan and Springsteen fan - goes to see the latter every time he's here. I recall a conversation a while back with the other expressing her admiration for Frank Zappa. They both think my musical taste is weird! But however foreign the music they prefer seems to me I can tell their interest is deep and genuine. And there are roots there. As has been said several times, it's hard to generalise. I know lots of other people for whom music is peripheral. They come from all age groups. [side thought: if there's one area of music where retromania runs rampant it's classical music. There's not just a lionisation of dead composers but of interpretations of those dead composers by dead performers. Watch classical buffs squabbling over which version of Humperdinkers 3rd Piano Concerto is 'finest'. It's usually the OOP mono 78 version recorded in Berlin during an air raid in 1943 ('The performance is so sublime you just don't notice the bombs falling.')

But could you get her to go and see Alan Barnes with you?

Intriguing. Maybe it is a matter of national variation. Things like Queen and Abba are constantly in the immediate public view through stage shows, films ('Mama Mia') etc. Our 'Stars in their Eyes/Britain's Got Talent' type programmes are built on nostalgia - people pretending to be George Michael, Michael Jackson or Elvis or whoever. Kids very much want to be 'now' and are pretty impatient with my attempts to explain why history matters. But when it comes to music they seem extraordinarily open to their parents' record collections in a way that I wasn't. There was a massive chasm between my parents' musical world and the one I inhabited from about 1969-76.

Really kind - thank you Bev! Keep it up, Alex. No retromania there!

If you're on a bus with a bunch of UK 14 year olds they can't wait to sing-along to 'Bohemian Rhapsody' or 'Dancing Queen'. I was using some reggae in some lessons in July. One girl sang along with Bob Marley's 'Redemption Song' word perfect. I had a long chat with one of my 17 year old students after his exams finished. His love of and knowledge of Hendrix was amazing. As you say, maybe this does vary across countries or regions.