A Lark Ascending

Disc 2 took some trouble to get out. Will be extra cautious now!

Shirley Horn would fit the examples you give - astonishing at slow tempos. And clearly the role model for Diana Krall. You'd probably enjoy Stacey Kent, too (I do!).

I love this disc: And this double CD from last year:

Yes, I like the music too. Like listening to a 60's Michael Caine film.

Hi Kalli, And welcome. I just read Indriðason's 'Jar City' over last weekend. Had me gripped. It's the third of his I've read and I'm just taken by the complete lack of glamour in the novels. It's also so grey. I don't think it ever stopped raining in that last one. The writer I didn't take to was Hakan Nesser. Found 'Borkman's Point' a real slog - and couldn't work out what country it was all happening in!

I do the definitive version of that one...and a brilliant extended mix. ************* For a few of those I'm clueless as to who the people doing the covers are. Hopefully I'm old enough to have an excuse. ************* How about "Avalon" by Al Jolson, Buddy DeSylva and Vincent Rose. A cover of a well known Puccini ditty!

A couple of nice series with a French setting: Martin Walker's Bruno series based in Perigord. Martin O'Brien's Jacquot series based on the Mediterranean coast. Neither will allow you to rabbit on about 'the reinvention of the genre' or 'fine writing' but both authors write tense thrillers with a strong sense of place.

'Zen' New BBC series based on the Michael Dibdin novels. Nicely done if a bit hurried. Very 60s Martini advert feel, nice shots of Italy.

Don't panic - my Ellington Mosaic which was waved off from the States on 8th Dec only arrived here on 7th Jan.

An interesting one being hinted at: Jakszyk, Fripp & Collins - "A Scarcity Of Miracles" http://www.dgmlive.com/diaries.htm?entry=18764

Well I wasn't! And it was my very first concert, so I was innocent about the world of bootlegging. In the intervening years I've never known how to acquire a bootleg. So I never expected to hear anything from that concert. Saw them again, sans Muir, the following March in Bristol - just as powerful. And then in London around October of that year - everything seemed a bit more hurried by that point. I think they'd started chopping bits from pieces - I recall LTIA pt 1 missing a bit which threw me.

Sorry, I missed adding the link: http://www.dgmlive.com/archive.htm?show=248 Though sounds like you'll know it. I still find it spooky to be listening to a concert I attended 40 years ago, assuming at the time that the sounds were going straight into the ether.

Concert-wise, the biggest impact was made by my very first in November, 1972. The Fripp/Wetton/Bruford/Cross/Muir King Crimson who had only just formed and were embarking on their first tours. None of the music was familiar, but even with my inexperienced ears I could make out how they were playing structured pieces and songs but then moving between them with lengthy improvised passages. Spoilt me, I think. I'm very impatient with live concerts where performers play their latest album or greatest hits. I want to hear the music that might make the next album! I wish as was there as this band's music overall changed the way that I approached listening to music! You can be... Well for the first 40 minutes!

I presume they don't let you download to the US. (I guess I should just try.) I doubt it. We can't download from the States - all the usual licensing reasons.

I've also enjoyed Burke, Fossum and Robinson, though I've only read a few of each. I read Jo Nesbo's 'The Snowman' over Xmas - kept me engaged but it troubled me - the book seemed to relish the sadism just a bit too much. Some of the set pieces were very far fetched too - jumping out of windows into pools, bizarre strangulation rituals and a life or death struggle on a ski jump. Seemed to have been written with a Bond-like Hollywood movie in mind. I really enjoyed Kate Atkinson's 'Case Histories' over Xmas - quirky, tipping over into farce in places. Looking forward to the two follow ups that involve the same private investigator. Michael Dibdin does the same sort of thing sometimes. He would write a couple of straight detective novels and then one where the characters are all larger than life. 'Cosi Fan Tutti' is built round the plot of the opera and is written in that rather larger than life manner. The opening chapter where a group of bin men clear a street in Naples and come across a body is very comic opera. The Zen novels have just been televised over here - the first one went out last week and wasn't a bad effort at all (given how UK TV tends to reduce entire novels to 90 minutes).

Yes, another good one. Just started 'Jar City' today. Ruth Rendell, who writes the Wexford series, has also written some excellent psychological thrillers under the name of Barbara Vine. The first few are especially good. I like Rankin too.

Concert-wise, the biggest impact was made by my very first in November, 1972. The Fripp/Wetton/Bruford/Cross/Muir King Crimson who had only just formed and were embarking on their first tours. None of the music was familiar, but even with my inexperienced ears I could make out how they were playing structured pieces and songs but then moving between them with lengthy improvised passages. Spoilt me, I think. I'm very impatient with live concerts where performers play their latest album or greatest hits. I want to hear the music that might make the next album!

Henning Mankell - the Wallander series based in Ystad, Sweden. For me, the best set of mystery/detective novels going. Donna Leon - The Brunetti Series based in Venice. Michael Dibden - the Zen Series based all over Italy. Robert Wilson - the Falcoln series based in Seville (there are also two superb earlier novels based in Lisbon). Should appeal if you enjoy Morse. The detectives in each case are not the hard-boiled, tough-guys but moral types struggling with the difficulties of the modern world. All four have a beautiful sense of place too. With all of them, look up the sequence and read them in order. In Mankell and Leon's case the quality jumps around the third novel. I'd also recommend Alan Furst's marvellous series of books based in the Europe of the 30s and 40s. They hop around timewise and each one is a separate tale, though incidents sometimes overlap. Not so much detective as espionage. Some take place in the obvious places but I learnt a lot about places like Bulgaria in the 30s from these. David Downings 'Station' series are very good too - mystery novels set in Germany (Berlin specificaly) during the late 30s and 40s with an Anglo-American journalist as the main character. Excellent sense of period there too.

I just love the tone colours Maupin adds to BB. In fact, one I got the hang of it, its the colours - the shimmering keyboards contrasted with the subterranean basses and bass clarinet and then the saxes and trumpet in between - that really attract me. 'On the Corner' was a complete mystery to me until I took a chance on an inexpensive download of the box set - loved that. Agree about BB not really being a rock record at all (and JJ being the real rock record, a reason why that one took even longer to take).

Think mine might be finally here - a card from the post office on getting home tonight, requesting me to pay an extra £14.40 to release it from custody!

Am I right in remembering that as the CD they used to really launch CD?

I recall hearing Kid Jensen play a long stretch of it on Radio Luxembourg c. 1971. There used to be a long midnightish programme that played 'underground' rock at that time - I used to listen after an 8 hour stint washing dishes. Made no sense to me at the time - but I can see it fitting into the listening of more Grateful Dead/lengthy jam-band type listeners. **************** On the popularity thing, I don't know how accurate these statistics are and assume they refer to the US: Bitches Brew Miles Davis Columbia 26 [2] Released: April 1970 Chart Peak: #35 Weeks Charted: 29 Certified Gold: 5/13/76 http://www.superseventies.com/spdavismiles.html

This is such a good thread. I really enjoy reading how people have personally related to music rather than the standard 'this record is important because...(or more frequently, this record is not important because)' approach.

Gerry Rafferty clearly brought lots of people a great deal of pleasure; his passing is unfortunate. But I also never cared for that sax on 'Baker Street'. It seemed to become a template for using a sax on rock records, when there are so many other ways you can use one. Which, of course, was not Gerry's fault.