A Lark Ascending

Can you imagine the mayhem if all the regulars on this board signed up for a jazz cruise!

Overcast but no rain last weekend. Really heavy downpour on Tuesday. Then four days of blissful summer sunshine. Today, heavy rain in the morning, overcast and showers in the afternoon. I like it like this - not too much of any extreme.

That works, Jazzjet. Much nicer to see the pictures straight away rather than clicking links etc. Don't know if it's just the angle of the shot or the lense but that garden looks huge!

It's come back now. How did that post vanish and reappear in the same spot? I noticed that yesterday as well. No idea how that happened. It's the first photo I've posted so may have done something wrong. Anyone know how to make the image larger, like all the other photos? I upload the ones I want to use on the web to Photobucket. You can change the sizes there and then just right click the url as you would an album sleeve.

It's come back now. How did that post vanish and reappear in the same spot?

What about 1989's 'Gangsta-Supreme' and 2001's 'In the Transition: A Tribute to Prez, Bean and Hawk with special guests Chaka Khan, Sting and Georgie Fame'?

I very much like 'Day Dream'. This thread has reminded me to dig it out.

Where did yours go, Jazzjet? Taken it off the market? Here's my lunatic hop plant this morning. Displaying triffid like characteristics this summer:

Fancy swapping properties, Jazzjet? I'm sure Worksop would be perfect for you! That garden is gorgeous...and in just the place in the world where I want to be!

That might be because the myths are constructed on so little substance. So when a bit of careful research takes place it tends to suggest that there isn't very much evidence surviving to build a substantial case. It's a bit like searching for Robin Hood. You quickly come to the conclusion that it is all myth - but possibly of more interest is why that myth has proved so sustainable and universally appealing. Though not specifically about Johnson, I was absorbed by Marybeth Hamilton's book 'In Pursuit of the Blues' (possibly one of those you are alluding to) - made a convincing case to me about how one aspect of the past (the history of the blues) has been constructed. Although I must have heard rock versions of Johnson songs prior, I know I'd read a lot about Johnson (and Coltrane and Mahler....) before I actually heard their music. So I was predisposed to enjoy his music! I find it hard to disentangle those expectations from the reaction I actually get listening to the music.

No wonder at all, considering the fact that decades of tireless scholarship and the more recent availability of all of Johnson's recordings have really not done much to wipe away that mystery and mythology (despite the heroic claims to that effect in a few recent books). Historical scholarship rarely has much impact on embedded historical myths. The need for heroic figures from the past is much greater than the need to understand the complexities of how things might actually evolve.

As far as Johnson and Clapton are concerned, it's worth remembering the context in which Clapton heard Johnson. All those early blues records were hard to come by. As with all the British blues boomers they were hearing this music on hard to find import records, maybe the occasional visitor on one of those Chris Barber type tours and had very little to read to explain it all. Much of the appeal lay in its 'music from another planet' sound in a Britain just coming out of post-war 'austerity' with a soundtrack of recently (so it seemed) rock'n roll, 'trad' jazz, Cliff Richard and no end of MOR and novelty music. Is it any wonder Clapton's image on Johnson was surrounded in mystery and mythology?

I'm not sure that's true. It caught on very quickly in classical music over here. I tend to be a bit sceptical about 'new' music technology - in most cases it tends to want to make you buy something that makes only marginal difference. But where I can see a (for me) immediate practical advantage I tend to jump quickly. CD was like that; and the download thing more recently. SACD, on the otherhand, never seemed to offer much more than the 'best possible sound'; all well and good, but I'm content with very good sound.

I seem to recall a full price CD £9.99 in '85...I think an LP was around £5.99 or £6.99. I was in the habit of buying 2 or 3 LPs a week. Had to scale back for a while with CD. Interesting that a full price download is now £7.99...given inflation, significantly cheaper (even if you factor in the lack of packaging, cost of the CD-R, paper and ink cost if you make a sleeve etc[though I always feel those are offset by not paying petrol costs or the costs of the cup of coffee, impulse buys etc incurred when going to a record shop!)).

Hi Tom Cat, 'Jasmine' is a lovely record. They play closer to the original melodies than Jarrett normally does. I really like the Arild Andersen set too - been waiting for 'Blue in Green' for years! Very much in the early 70s ECM mould - an overall acoustic sound with a splash of colouristic electricity.

I have a few, but the reasons are well documented - the classical Hyperion label used a pressing plant where something went wrong in the late 80s, something to do with the ink on the surface leaking into the disc. In general this has led to a 'bronzing' of the discs; in a few places little holes appeared and the discs started skipping. Hyperion have a replacement campaign for this. In general I found new recordings to sound excellent; but there were some dreadful first generation transfers of existing material, many sounding flat, others with errors or pitch variation. Thus the 'remastering' phenomena (was this planned or just an unexpected boom for the record companies?) My first three discs were Julian Bream playing Granados/Albeniz (RCA), Frederica von Stade singing the Songs of the Auvergne and the Beaux Arts Trio playing the Ravel/Chausson Trios. At last I could hear instrumental and chamber music without rice krispies, classical vocal without peak distortion.

I took to them instantly - bought my first player in '85. The only thing that held me back was the price. They were at least a 1/3 more expensive than LPs. I bought mainly classical music at the time; jazz was much slower to make it to CD where the classical labels (or divisions of labels) saw the future instantly. For a few years I was buying classical on CD and everything else on LP. That changed towards the end of the 80s. What I loved was leaving behind all the imperfections of the LP - clicks, pops, inner groove distortion and the rest which had always driven me nuts.

Johnson? Or Slowhand?

I suspect there is an art in aligning those building blocks. The designers ensure you will never feel completely comportable that you have got them quite perfect...maybe they even damage the mp3s if not set up right.

Yes, I thought you meant that. And I quite agree.

Lots of gnashing of teeth about the price of the trumpet case over there. I figured a lot of the regulars there would be pre-ordering.. I'm waiting for the upcoming 'Complete Columbia Miles Davis on 7-inch Singles' (comes with free Jukebox). No price yet.

With everyone and his aunt coming up with different ways to get you to 'interface' with music, this has to be one of the strangest: From: http://www.yankodesign.com/2010/04/30/thats-no-record-player/

The less we pay attention to Clapton, the better of civilization will be. Clapton seems to hold the love-to-hate role in the blues world that Jarrett has in the jazz.

I much like the soprano as well. Maybe I really am a girl!

Wow! Spectacular shots from the Pyrenees! And yours, Alankin, looks like another early 80s ECM! Definitely a Garbarek!