A Lark Ascending

Those albums in Jim's post look fascinating. A pity even 1/100th of the effort put into repackaging the Miles or selected items from the Blue Note/OJC catalogues was not put into reissuing (or at least making available by download) things like this.

Many thanks, both. Yes - the Mr Joy is the Limelight one. The Scorpio I have came off Amazon's download site, just that album. I've got my eye on 'Improvisie' - it exist in downloadable form.

Just been enjoying 'Paul Bley and Scorpio'. I know his use of synths and e-p were a bit controversial at the time. Any suggestions, opinions? I particularly like the look of 'Mr Joy' (a tune I love!) and 'The Paul Bley Synthesiser Show' but they seem well OOP.

I don't know. Dame Edna always looked a bit like the wife of a Soviet Politburo member.

Maybe I should have said 'Evil Empire Speech'. I'm afraid we study alternative interpretations - from Reagan as bimbo-brained warmonger to Reagan as a quiet genius pushing the Soviets into bankruptcy. The kids much prefer the former interpretation.

I recall being petrified by 'Threads' - this was the era of Reagan's 'Evil Empire' and the deployment of Cruise missiles in Europe. I played it to a class of 16-17 year olds a couple of years ago (as part of a unit I teach on The Cold War) and they were most unimpressed. The production values that were so realistic in the early 80s looked like a Dr Who set. The long build up and slow moving post-attack parts had them extremely restless.

You probably know this, Jeff, but there's a fascinating line of development back to Ireland where recordings of Irish music made by emigrants to America were shipped back to Ireland and helped kick start the Irish traditional revival in the 1950s. Some nice stories of 'traditional' musicians in hamlets in, say, the Kerry hills being reverentially interviewed and recorded as a direct link to some ancient musical loadstone; but when asked where they learnt the tune, replying 'Oh, off a record by Michael Coleman that Uncle Seamus in Amerikay sent back to us.' There was a very nice TV series in the early 90s called 'Bringing It All Back Home' that looked at the two-way traffic and got musicians from both sides of the Atlantic playing one anothers' music.

Pretty depressing in the far south west at present: Lostwithiel in Cornwall. Hope Jazzjet is OK. ****************** I can cope with November - Xmas, despite its many annoyances, brightens things up. It's January/early Feb that I hate.

Why insert November?

Introvert in new situations or with unfamiliar people. Extrovert where I'm comfortable - with friends, family, at work, in a classroom.

Anything to distract us sheep from the economy. This ploy last activated back in 1981 .. Quite. The inner city riots, I recall, suddenly glossed over with wedding dresses and bunting. Someone alluded to this on the radio a couple of days back and referred also to the Princess Margaret marriage in the early 70s. I only vaguely remember that but it would fit with the economic and social unrest of the time.

Ellington-a-thon 11 Chicago Stomp Down - 1927 - [James P. Johnson/Henry Creamer] Ducky Wucky - (Dance) - 1932 - [Duke Ellington-Barney Bigard] Rude Interlude - 1933 - [Duke Ellington] Gal-Avantin’ - 1938 - [Duke Ellington-Cootie Williams] Jump For Joy - (Clary, Box And Bass) - 1941 - [Duke Ellington/Paul Francis Webster-Sid Kuller] Don’t Be So Mean To Baby - 1947 - [Dave Barbour/Peggy Lee] TATTOOED BRIDE (The) - 1948 - [Duke Ellington] I Left My Heart In San Frncisco - 1964 - [George C. Cory Jr/Douglas Cross] GOUTELAS SUITE - 1971 - [Duke Ellington] Hick - 1971 - [Duke Ellington]

Thanks for those explanations, Jeff. Just listened to the last two you mentioned in the light of them. 'Cottontail' is wonderful. The thing I became more aware of listening to this a couple of times this week was the marvellous arrangement at the end of the tune. In fact, listening to an hour of the 1940 stuff earlier in the week I found myself focusing on the written parts more than the solos - amazing how in many tunes he varies these arrangements from bar to bar; no sense of a stock arrangement that then gets repeated every time the chorus comes round.

Jazz Library BBC Radio 3 Norma Winstone interviewed by Alyn Shipton. Excellent survey of her career from the late-60s to today.

And one of the things you can't work out from the books alone is their very different centres of gravity. Although they shared a broad interest, Morton was the modernist with interests spilling into contemporary classical; Cook became increasingly traditionalist to the point of curmudgeonliness in his last years (see the Jazz Review editorials!). Yet it's hard to distinguish two separate personalities in the guides.

A side comment. I know very little Sondheim, but... Assertions like this leave me utterly baffled!

Only realised when reading the end of this one that he's an American. I'd always assumed he was British - not a great US presence in his novels. His website has Django R. as a soundtrack!

I no longer understand how to watch TV so I missed series 3 and 4. Rewatched series 2 last month via online rental and got to the first one of these. Like Morse, just very nice Saturday evening viewing. The Oxford background, eccentric characters, often excellent classical music snippets and the atmospheric Barrington Pheloung background score all make me feel good - I hardly notice the corpses.

Almost certainly true of the physical CD. But downloading has made it difficult to know just what is being collected. There so many different sources. Although it's clearly possible to monitor what is being downloaded be it separate tracks or whole albums, and also by genre, I'm not aware that this has been done. Interesting that there was a real buzz around the kids in school today - apparently a new version of a computer game called Call of Duty has just been released. Not that long ago it was a new Oasis album that got the 6th Formers skipping lessons! The question is, do those kids hooked on the computer games grow out of them with some becoming more interested in music - and exploring music beyond the easily available or immediately current? Thinking of the 20 somethings I work in I'd say that yes, quite a few do have exploratory tastes (though not necessarily our way); I'm not so sure their interests go very far backwards. But then the classical music industry seems to be still flourishing. And that is heavily biased towards music of the past.

Depends where you were and how tech savy. I don't think I connected until around 1999! I first came across it at work; didn't know many people with it then.

That bit rings true with me! It's not just about what is on the disc.

I suspect the OOP dropping was a practical decision - they must have tested the patience of their publishers with the sheer size. It's also worth remembering that C + M never claimed it as a definitive guide. It was one way of slicing the loaf. Lots of other people did it other ways, mostly adopting the 'Essential Recordings' approach. The jazz interested customer was not short of choices. I still find Penguin teeming with reviews, despite the gaps. To be honest, the only way to keep an ongoing database of recordings and reviews in anything like a comprehensive way it to archive it online. I'd hoped C + M might do that. But I suspect it would be uneconomic - too expensive to do for free, not likely to attract enough subscribers to make it a viable pay site.

When I bought my first Penguins I was more than a fleeting jazz listener; but not quite an obsessive. In fact I was buying more classical music at that time than jazz. It was Penguin which made me realise that that there was more to jazz than the well known Americans and the Brits who played domestically. Probably helped steer me back from classical to a more jazz dominated listening habit. The imperfect representation of the music I was aware of...Cook and Morton spelt it out in their introductions. What drew me was the fact that, despite having gaps, it was still stuffed full of more information than I could find anywhere else. I also liked the dry humour (that might just be a Brit thing) - I still chuckle over the comments of late Coltrane being 'God-bothering' or the 'two cheesecloth shirts, four sandals' comment about McLaughlin/Santana. Like everyone else I got cross when they got sniffy about my favourites - but I still make it a first port of call as a starting point when I'm wanting to know where to begin on an unfamiliar performer (after this place, of course!). Are you sure? What about those who collect mint copies and keep them in their shrink-wrap? Or every available version of a vinyl release in every available sleeve format? I expect they do listen and enjoy - but I'm not sure the listening is what the collecting is about.

Strange that. One of the common criticisms of Penguin used to be the way it limited itself to albums that were currently in print or easily available in the UK.

Onward - to the utopia of Cecil Taylor and Anthony Braxton! Onward to jazz nirvana!