A Lark Ascending

Along with the 2nd Quintet box, my favourite of the boxes.

Reads to me like a gentle lampoon. Always a good thing in 'the arts'.

There must be scores! Back in the early Noughties when Diana Krall and Norah Jones temporarily made jazz singing part of the mainstream it was a major point of debate. I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now. To quote a very wise jazz singer.

I'd assumed you'd have been onto the Cohn, Bill. Worth listening to - not my centre of gravity but interesting and very enjoyable music. Yes, the Kral really struck me too - I've already eye'd up the recording it was from on e-music. Enjoyed all sorts of things outside my usual comfort zone - Jess Stacy, Miff Mole, Barbara Lea, even Ottilie Patterson and Chris Barber doing Shakespeare!

I don't know if I'm a hardcore jazz fan (I've certainly paid for the visa given how many recordings obscure my living room walls), I'm certainly not 'cool' (something I always assume you're meant to grow out of by 20) but I do like jazz singers. Jsngry put an Irene Kral clip up - not someone I'm familiar with but as chance would have it a wonderful version of 'Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most' just got played on the BBC's Jazz Record Requests. Utterly wonderful! Onto the list! Will listen to the clip when JRR ends. I suspect the problem with singers for some jazz 'hardcore' listeners is that they provide an accessible entry point, one that only occasionally draws the curious further over the threshold. In addition, it's possible to be an approximation of a competent jazz singer with far less musical knowledge than the equivalent instrumentalist would need. Which possibly makes them suspect in some eyes. Which is a pity because, to my ears, there are scores of marvellous jazz singers out there, live and dead. As for the article, jazz needs regular doses of this tongue-in-cheek ribbing - its 'hardcore' fans can take it all so seriously (as their life?'). Though perhaps the classical music world is even more in need of such send ups!

My laburnum tree just before it goes yellow.

I used to have frogs in my pond. This morning I spotted: All getting a bit J.G. Ballard!

Thanks for that - very useful.

I remember Collets 'lefty' bookshop when it was at the top of Charing Cross Road, just beyond Foyles. Full of things you'd not find elsewhere. In fact in those days every town had its lefty bookshop, often a good source for out of the way jazz, folk or world music. There was a good one in Nottingham which fed me lots of alternative views on the Ulster situation (you could even buy 'An Phoblacht' there!) but also served as an outlet for ECMs!

Don't forget the Holst programme - this Sunday, BBC4, 9.00 p.m. Two hours and 20 minutes!

Significance in music is often confused with something that I claim to get but most other people don't. - Bev Stapleton

Yes, I suppose I am thinking of the ideal world. In my ideal world an effort would be made to put out a decent version in frugal packaging and then just keep it in print (which would satisfy both the long term listener and the new arrival). It's just a pity that these same discs keep coming around again and again in 'new improved' formats or packages, 40th Anniversary editions and all the rest. I have most of the Miles boxes that came out in the 90s/00s - they made sense, collecting together a significant body of material in improved sound. It also made sense to then make available the indivdual albums from that mammoth task for those who just wanted those - and for new listeners. But I'm very dubious about what has come since, bolting on odds and sods, creating new packaging etc. It's at that point that I wish the people working inside these companies would look elsewhere. inside their resevoirs. But they know their business and clearly constantly reselling the same thing in a new coat makes good business sense.

Yes. The guys in Mole clearly never went on the 'Have a Nice Day' Customer Relations Course!

I don't recall the man himself - though I'm sure he must have served me over the years. But Ray's was always a place I'd visit (and often spend too much money in!) on my infrequent trips to London. A great place.

Ellington's Sacred Concerts? A few of the English jazzers have dabbled in this: Michael Garrick - Mr. Smith's Apocalypse Mike Westbrook - used a children's chorus on parts of 'The Westbrook Blake' John Surman - Proverbs and Songs. I really like Westbrook's use - the choir is young and ragged enough to fit Blake's ideas. Couldn't get on with the Garrick at all and haven't played the Surman in ages. I'm not a great fan of choirs bolted onto jazz - but in the UK having a large piece like this seems to improve your chances of getting a grant. Seems to make the people who give out the funds think it might be 'art'.

True - I just get a bit irritated by the endless ways the companies keep finding to repackage the same music. I know it's not a commonly accepted opinion but I'd prefer them to just get their past catalogues (where possible from a licensing point of view) available - as downloads suits me. The effort put into all this packaging strikes me as wasted effort - like the way you can go into a supermarket and buy what are essentially sausages wrapped up in a polystyrene wrap, clingfilm and a pretty picture slapped on the front. Does the boutique packaging shift units? It clearly must. (All credit to Columbia for their Stravinsky and Billie Holiday boxes - all the fripperies kept to a minimum, making the music available at a very low price.)

Lifestyle decor. Ideal for kitting out that penthouse, a nice sign of your hidden depths. There's clearly a bigger market in this than issuing OOP recordings to the dedicated audience.

Arrived today. I'm sure the music will be peerless but the introductory essay on the history of African independence is extremely disjointed and has Malcolm X as an active member of the Black Panthers. In spirit, perhaps...

Probably the record that did most to unlock post-BB Miles for me. To my mind 'He Loved Him Madly' is up there was the best of Miles. Tend to listen to the tracks in other places since those boxes came out; but a fine package nonetheless.

It's been like July for the last fortnight. Smell of barbecues on the air in mid-April? Unthinkable!

Sounds like reason enough for a Palmerstonian gesture - the Windors have dispatched a gunboat to Florida.

Nope. Such is the state of 'socialist' Great Britain.

For something of the scale of abolishing the monarchy a strong political party would have to call a general election with that aim clear in its manifesto. If it was elected it would have a mandate for change. One of the reasons why the monarch never refuses to give the royal assent to a parliamentary bill. Something of that sort happened in the early 20thC when the Liberal government curtailed the power of the House of Lords.

Can't see any orange stains on the files on my ipod. In time maybe.

Remaking perfectly good films made elsewhere (or turning books into films) and relocating them in 'the greatest country the world has ever known' (to quote a poster of a few months back!).