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A Lark Ascending

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Everything posted by A Lark Ascending

  1. Especially that tasteful TV show Big Brother. Quite. I wonder if the people who created it were aware of the irony?...I suspect they never got past the idea of an all seeing eye. The 'Britain's Got Talent/X-Factor/Be the star of a revived musical' programmes remind me of some of the narcotic entertainments in Huxley's 'Brave New World'. Where they both got it wrong was that there are a substantial number of people who refuse to be taken in. Funny how the word 'talent' in Britain today has morphed to mean someone who can imitate someone else, however insipid, to perfection.
  2. There's a lovely line from Martin Carthy to the following effect: "The only thing you can do to damage a folk song is not play it." 'Autumn Leaves' will survive in the glories of its many previous interpretations and will, I imagine, be beautifully interpreted by many to come, regardless of whether Clapton does a good job or makes a hash of it.
  3. Derek and the Dominoes? 'Layla & OAL' is as good as anything in rock from that era if you are attuned. It aches with unsatisfied longing. I never cared for Clapton in my rock years (1970-76 roughly) - too blues-rock for me, too American. But over the years I've come to enjoy a fair bit of his music - the 70s/80s stuff sampled on the Crossroads box, the Unplugged record, From the Cradle and the Johnson record. Elsewhere the contemporary overproduction gets in the way. And I've really enjopyed some of his live recoredings - Crossroads 2 from the 70s, 24 Nights and the recent disc with Winwood. There's something a bit lazy and laid back that appeals to me. Is he a favourite? - not really; is he important? - I don't care. But there's pleasure to had there if it fits what you enjoy. This new one could go either way. Only really listened to Cream this year - a bit too blundering-riffy for me but I do like the more structured studio things like 'Badge'. Bev
  4. Wish they'd do these as downloads. It took weeks for the Shorter 2008 set to swim the Atlantic - and that is a wonderful set. Bev
  5. If he does it like power trio 'Crossroads', then yes! But if he does it like his 'Unplugged' album then it could be nice. I'd rather he did this than try to stay 'relevant' with beats, synths and rappers (and he's fallen victim to that need to keep trendy in the past). (Actually, just to scare you all even more, according to a **** review in Mojo, he is joined by Wynton Marsalis at some point (Allen Toussaint and Sheryl Crow are involved too)! Though no sign of Sting! Just in case that doesn't satisfy you enough, Phil Collins is boosting his Xmas bank balance with a forthcoming album of 18 'Motown and 60s Soul Classics'! Bev
  6. Sorry, Dan. Keep meaning to do that, but I forget. Have changed it. Bev
  7. This is becoming more and more a trend, presumably as the old rockers start to finally feel self-conscious about rocking out at 60-something; or maybe are told by their management that their audience wants something more mellow. We've had Rod and the GAS, Brian Wilson and Gershwin and many more. Now: 1. Travelin' Alone 2. Rocking Chair 3. River Runs Deep 4. Judgement Day 5. How Deep Is The Ocean 6. My Very Good Friend The Milkman 7. Can't Hold Out Much Longer 8. That's No Way To Get Along 9. Everything Will Be Alright 10. Diamonds Made From Rain 11. When Somebody Thinks You're Wonderful 12. Hard Times Blues 13. Run Back To Your Side 14. Autumn Leaves I suppose if we listeners gravitated that way, it's no surprise the musicians do too. Somehow I think there's half a chance Clapton might do something nice with it. Or it might be a total snooze. Bev
  8. I read this last about 40 years ago. The idea of returning to a place of childhood and finding it smaller appealled to me at the time; whilst I was retracing my own childhood in Cornwall a week or so back this book came to mind so, ironically, I found myself re-reading it. Strange to read it now - Orwell was the first 'proper' author I 'got' into after reading 'Animal Farm' at school. I think I was very taken by his rather jaded, cynical take on life at the time and adopted a similar outlook in my late-teens. Reading him now I'm less comfortable - his wholesale attack on the aspects of what was then modernity (assuming that the viewes of his protagonist are his own; you certainly can feel "1984" coming). Above all a sense of superiority to everyone around who doesn't seem to appreciate the tacky nature of the world, a sense of distaste towards virtually everyone he meets. Maybe it's irony, a jab at the partially educated man. But he has a wonderful way of evoking the power of nostalgia - his memories of a lost pre-First World War England. And the sense of menace - fascism, rubber truncheons, the ever present 'bombing planes' gives a real feel of how it must have felt in that year between Munich and the outbreak of war. What surprised me is that my own return to childhood places had little in common with his picture of memories shattered and places distorted beyond recognition. I was amazed at how limited the changes were, how much the old spirit seemed to be there. God knows what Orwell would have made of 2010 if he thought 1939 was tacky!
  9. As someone said on another thread, 'only in England'! Music for Royal Fireworks (with Lighter Fuel) by any chance? I suppose they have more in common than you first think - both came from abroad and established their reputations in London. Don't think Handel was at Woodstock*, though. (* Though he might have visited another Woodstock to entertain the Churchill's at some point.)
  10. How long before someone puts out "Hendrix and G.F. Handel: The Attic Tapes" as a bootleg?
  11. Smokin'!!! Man, he was really burnin'... etc etc etc
  12. Not sure he fits the female criteria, but probabl;y hit all the other bases at some point in his career: Not sure if she played music but if she did, well:
  13. Thanks, Aggie. Cornwall is where my heart lies...hope to retire there in a few years. **************** Nice flora shouts, alocispepraluger102. I love trying to get abstract pictures out of the natural world - I get very strange looks as I point my camera into rock pools or cliff faces!
  14. Anyone cast an eye (or ear) on this yet? http://www.biscoitofino.com.br/bf/cat_produto_cada.php?id=611
  15. An absolute scream - mockumentary about a Dorest morris side that upsets the morris authorities (shades of Lincoln Centre!), gets banned, leader goes of to join a new age Californian side, gets married to an American and ends up line dancing ('the dark side'!); eventually proves too much and returns to Dorest to triumph. A gentle, charming comedy - not sure if it's taking the piss out of morris or sports commentary. The Californian sequence is hilarious. If you liked Brassed Off you'll like this.
  16. dough-gees? 'Doggies' sounds rather Bertie Wooster, what?
  17. Yes, I did. And so did I, y'all; lets round up them little dowgies and mosey on out to the plains.
  18. I suspect a problem many have with Norma is that she has so many different sides, if you only hear one record its easy to decide she's not for you. If you listen to her recorded output up to the 90s there's little evidence of her standards side - most of what she recorded was original music in bands by Garrick, Westbrook and in Azimuth. This could often be wordless soundmaking that I know doesn't appeal to all. There's a glacial side to her music - in Azimuth and in the recent trio - that lies a million miles from 'hot', 'bluesy' jazz; and I wonder if her very English pronunciation might be a barrier to some (it's a big plus for me - I hate it when English vocalists drawl the lyrics...I prefer them to change the words a bit if the American language is too idiomatic rather than affect a mid-Atlantic sound). Her 80s ECM solo album, 'Somewhere Called Home', is in many ways a typical ECM album - yet I find it one of the most perfect vocal albums I know. She's also recorded with various European groups on small labels - try putting her name in iTunes and you'll come across albums (and performers) you never knew existed. Of (relatively) recent releases I'd strongly recommend the two Maritime Jazz Orchestra albums with Taylor and Wheeler; the Towns album where she takes on some surprising contemporary songs and pulls them off; and the aforementioned 'Amoroso...' with Stan and Bobby.
  19. A beautiful record. You might enjoy the record she made with Jimmy Rowles not long before his death; again mainly standards. It's called 'Well Kept Secret' and I believe has just been reissued: http://www.amazon.com/Well-Kept-Secret-Norma-Winstone/dp/B000005YPM Includes her version of 'The Peacocks' to which she added the lyrics as 'A Timeless Place' - seems to have been picked up quite widely by singers.
  20. I was at the Manchester concert for the 75th - I recall us discussing it; I was really put off by Konitz who sounded sour to my ears (and can still recall grimacing in the opening bars). I love Konitz's 50s recordings but have often found his more recent music difficult to take. I note Evan Parker is in the band again - always love it when he takes off into his own orbit in his one or two spolight moments.
  21. Well worth seeing - they played in Sheffield a couple of years back - lovely concert. The sax player had left his music at the previous venue so had to do play everything from memory - you'd not have noticed! I saw her last autumn in Nikki Iles' 'Printmakers' band with the likes of Mike Walker and Stan Sulzmann. Would like to hear that band on record. The Wheeler tour is coming to Leeds - it's on a Sunday so I might just get there!
  22. A couple of new Norma discs in the offing. One with what seems to now be her working group: And, according to a Jazzwise interview, a disc with larger forces arranged by Mike Gibbs, along the lines of the excellent disc she did with Colin Towns a few years back.
  23. Not bothered about 'who's best' - lots of names I enjoy above on an instrument I really like. One name I don't think has been mentioned so far - Tony Coe. Alan Barnes is also a very fine player. Recently I've been really enjoying Ken Peplowski - always assumed he was a 'mainstream' player but on a couple of albums recently acquired he's doing much more modern things.
  24. Read this over the last 2 weeks whilst out in the country. A lovely book, recommended to anyone with a fondness for the British folky music of the late 60s/very early 70s. Doesn't really hang together as an overall thesis because I'm not convinced he knows what it is - a general feeling that the British/English have throughout their history reacted against modernity by retreating into an imagined, idyllic myth of Albion and the countryside. He explores that through the early 20thC folk song collectors and the classical composers influenced by the folk music (often the same people) and then through the folk revival of the 50s/60s and into the heart of the book, the folk-rock movement from c. '69 to '72. Loses his way at the end where he paints a picture of a music largely lost and then presents a few random poppy examples of where the desire for something rooted in the English past bursts forth - Kate Bush, David Sylvian, Talk Talk, Julian Cope are his main examples (none of whom I've paid any attention to). Surprised there was no mention of XTC who very much went back into the idyll of an imaginary England. The biggest flaw in the book is his complete oversight of the major revival of interest in folk music that has flowered since the mid 90s in this country; a whole new generation discovered the music then and another bunch of 20-somethings are discovering it again now. The usual problem with critics presenting their prejudices and blind-spots as the truth; but I was impressed with his honest assessment of Sandy Denny's output. Her early death has led to uncritical hagiography - Young' assessment fits with my perception of a wonderful era with Fairport and two magical albums with Fotheringay and the Northstar Grassman, followed by a steady loss of focus and increasing blandness. He lays the blame at husband, Trevor Lucas' door. Nice to know I'm not alone in seeing the English early 20thC classical composers, the folky/folk-rockers and some of the more pastoral rock bands of the late 60s and early 70s as part of some sort of vague continuum.
  25. And we really should stop these locomotive things...they'll stop the chickens laying properly. Haven't the more recent iPods capped the volume available? I think volume goes up not so much out of a desire to listen to music loudly rather than a desire to drown out surrounding noise.
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