A Lark Ascending

There are plenty of alternate takes that are less than enthralling, but the best ones are as worth hearing as anything else. I'm sure your right. Let's just say that for the casual listener* the waters of good, genuinely alternative takes are somewhat muddied by the record companies strategy of hooking in sales by putting out anything and everything - some are worse than others (calling Verve!). There's probably a very worthwhile thread there - alternative takes that offer something different, interesting or striking. *term used in a positive sense

Not that I can see - There are versions of 9 Funerals and Guider on Disc 1 but these seem to come from private tapes. 'Bee' is nowhere to be seen (though it might have changed name. In the booklet it mentions the 24th April session but has Nirvana for Mice rather than Bee. Mayve Bee was an earlier title). I almost certainly heard that broadcast when it first went out! I know I had a cassette tape of a Peel session with 9 funerals on.

I do like extra tracks of different tunes not on the original...even though there are also reasons why they were not originally issued (not always about the quality of the music - things that went out on singles, things left off for lack of space etc). I also own more versions of Larks Tongues in Aspic Part II than any sane person should possess. So I fall for the hook in other ways!

Just started series 3. How many more skeletons can Don Draper have in his cupboard? And will they all fall out at once?

Generally ignore them. Listening to a/ts has always struck me as being more about study than entertainment. Listening to more or less the same track again with minor variations has never really appealed - though I'm sure there are pleasures to be had there. I think your approach of just listening to the a/ts might be much more enjoyable. There are usually reasons why they are a/ts. Though I do like the a/t of Flamenco Sketches on KofB.

I suspect most of us were in our younger days. One of the joys of getting on in years is knowing that you can enjoy music on many levels and ignore the hierarchies (either the ones decided by others or the ones you invent for yourself!).

True of many people who grew up on vinyl or CDs; but their numbers will fall year on year. Vinyl and CD will probably survive as another form of boutique collecting (like collecting classic cars or antiques) but I can't see the future being other than downloading or the technology that supersedes it. Now whether the younger generation for whom downloading is first choice have any interest in the vast legacy remains to be seen. If they are not, Columbia needs to get this stuff out PDQ because it might be their last chance to make any money from it! Of course, as it falls out of copyright...

I can understand Columbia feeling that catalogue is currently uneconomic to release on CD. But it can't be that hard to get it to download. A few years of people sorting that out and it's done for good. They might find some volunteers to do it for free here!!!!!!! I suspect that despite its current lack of economic value they are sitting on it just in case it becomes an asset in the future.

I think 'serious' listening is way overrated. I can see its application to musicians learning about music, musicologists analysing music, engineers or other technical bods needing to understand their craft. But I'm not sure I'm ever 'serious' about listening. The difference I'd draw is between when it's on and it is going in and out of focus; and when I delberately set out to listen with full attention (i.e. if I'm trying to work out the structure of a symphonic movement or the way a track or album is built up). When I'm being 'attentive' I don't find myself being any more serious than when the music is hitting me subliminally (and I've had some very powerful reactions from music when only half attending). When I was younger I used to find wandering round a darkened room kept me well focused! I'd fall over things now!

"I'd say the majority of my listening is while multi-tasking but I do try and usually succeed in getting some close listening in." Describes me. Probably about 4-5 hours on a work day (including 90 mins on the work run). Most of the evening listening is whilst preparing lessons, marking books etc. At weekends/holidays I can have music going from 6.00 a.m through too about 10 pm if I'm not going anywhere else - ennui is offset by changing genre.

Really enjoying this tale of a divided family in south-east Ireland being forced to rethink their relationships when one member is revealed to be dying from AIDS. Like 'Brooklyn', a very strong sense of place.

Can royalties be wired to heaven? [Come to that, can they be wired to Scotland?]

I'm 'a little into African music'. Don't see why others should not be 'a little into jazz'. British art centres/concert halls increasingly run programmes that broadly mix and match genres in the knowledge that someone who comes for a salsa band might also like a blues or a folk or a jazz band. I suspect there are many people who enjoy music in that way - a dash of this, a dash of that but not caring to commit. I see no problem with that except when you get the occasional loudmouth who pronounces to his companions, claiming expertise where he clearly has a limited experience (it's always a he, immaculately dressed and attached to a designer girlfriend (envious, moi?). It's those of us who go for total immersion who are a bit odd.

Given the choice between a Mosaic and lunch at the Maze I'd go for the latter. In fact I recently was given exactly that choice and that's exactly what I did. Uh, I'm sure your cafe is nice too. I can cook for myself far cheaper. I really do penny pinch on meals out (when I was a kid we always brought sandwiches on days out!) unless its a social thing. A colleague of mine once had her friends categorised as 'musos', 'filmos' and 'foodies'. I know where I fall (but what happened to 'reados').

I'm sure the same was true of many who went to Woodstock...or Newport ten years earlier! Most of my friends in the 70s thought I took my musical interests way over the border of obsession. I recall them instantly re-steering the conversation if it got close to music, knowing I'd go off on one. It's always hard to make these generational comparisons. Older generations usually assume that younger ones are more frivolous. Given how out of sympathy I am with most of the music young adults listen to I find it hard to make judgements on how genuine their enthusiasm is. I get the impression that most the young adults I know are genuinely enthused and moved by the music they go to see or buy as recordings. Perhaps they don't approach it with the same 'gravitas' that was common 40 years ago (I doubt if many worry if it is 'art' or not). I'd say that was partly a result of the demolition job done in the late-70s where anything that dared to be more than pure pleasure or 'street' connected was laughed out of court as pretentious.

He did a really interesting clarinet duo concert with Louis Sclavis at Bath a few years back. The one I saw that blew my socks off was with a quartet including Hamid Drake at Cheltenham. One of the finest live gigs I've been to (matched the night before by a blistering John Surman quartet concert).

Rumour has it that David Murray is about to reissue his entire catalogue in one huge boxed set with free used reed included with every numbered set. No complaining, now. (I like David Murray - lots of variety in what he does. But if I thought I was part of a 'cognoscenti' I'd resign immediately).

Still exploring (new performers (to me), new genres etc). I love that moment when something new clicks and a whole new field opens out. Given that a recording these days costs the same as an inexpensive meal in a standard cafe or a cinema ticket I don't feel any guilt. You can listen to a recording again without paying again (unless you insist on buying the deluxe version in a special edition gold-plated box). I do enjoy hearing new and up-and-coming performers. I've never been hung up on the old masters thing. I play music constantly and very rarely sit and listen to it with total concentration. Still thrills me, even if I probably have precious little intellectual appreciation of it (maybe for me music is more like a train journey through a wonderful landscape rather than an hour spent contemplating a single tree). I hardly ever get rid of music I've bought - I've too many memories of deciding I've gone off a genre only to find renewed interest later down the line. I'm probably a typical child of the post-war consumer culture - programmed to look forward to the next 'new' before I've even begun to digest the last 'new'. So I voted 2!

I started in 1970 with a record player that looked something like this: Portable so I could move it from room to room. Bought with my first wages in my first part time job washing dishes. It drove me mad as it randomly skipped so I sellotaped a penny to the cartridge!!!! I have LPs that still have the aural evidence. On arriving at university (1973) I'd had enough but had little money - I bought a cheap 'stereo'. It too needed the penny treatment. In late 1974, after having a well paid summer job, I bought a Garrad deck (without case) and got a friend to rip out the stereo deck and replace it. This Frankenstein's monster got me through university. A good summer job in '76 got me a reasonable amp which improved the sound...but the Frankenstein fell apart on the train journey to start my teaching course in Exeter. Fortunately I had enough summer money to buy a Pioneer deck which was my first proper deck. When I started real work in '78 I bought some Wharfdale speakers and, a bit later, replaced the Pioneer with a Rega Planer (which drove me nuts for 18 months as everything seemed to be affected by terrible wow....turned out to be the cartridge I'd just moved from the Pioneer...all very Heath Robinson!). That particular tale might explain why I am not a vinyl nostalgic. All I remember is skipping discs, inner groove distortion, flutter and wow and rice krispies. My first CD player arriving in 1985 marked the start of comfortable listening! How I envy the students of today who can carry it all in their pockets and never have to worry about the balance of a tone arm and the effect it might have on the discs!

A subdivision of Columbus-ia, I believe.

I'd like to see the evidence that people care less about music than they once did. I suspect when it comes to recorded music there are so many alternatives for leisure that maybe less young people become music geeks in the way we did. But live music seems to be flourishing - I was reading the recent Froots (the main UK folk/world magazine) and they are convinced there that the festival scene has never been stronger (and the magazine is run by a musician who knew the heyday of the 60s at first hand) and that CDs sell by the bucketloads there. The young adults I work with in their 20s and 30s are forever going out to gigs and festivals. There's no way to prove any of this but I'd suggest people are just as interested in music as they've always been. But they are not necessarily interested in our music. Having never had a high end audio and had several experiences of upgrading equipment over the decades only to be unsure if I can hear any difference, I'm not a good judge of sound quality. I download virtually everything nowadays, burn to disc, play it through my main system. I cannot tell the difference between mp3 and CD (or vinyl, apart from the missing rice krispie noises). When I first toyed with mp3 about 3 years ago I hit a few poor transfers that made me cautious. But as others suggest above, the technology seems to have caught up. The only grief they cause me is if they are carelessly transfered without checking and mechanical errors get left in (drop-outs, strange electronic interference etc) and problems sometimes with continuous pieces divided into tracks where even 'gapless' burning leaves gaps. Again, time will sort that out. Mozart's Requiem Mass always sounds bad to me on iPods, and not too good on CDs Don't know about Mozart, but the iPod has reawakened my love of classical music in recent years. Nothing quite like a walk in the country with a substantial piece of music in your ears...I've found it has refreshed my hearing of all manner of music.

I find the idea that we must accept whatever capitalist corporations present to us without complaint a rather strange idea (and probably against the spirit of free market capitalism). No-one doubts the right of Sony to put out whatever it sees as profitable. These sets are clearly part of the same business model that releases a pop album followed a few months later by the same album with extras, deluxe packaging, remixes etc. Milking the cash cow (and I'm sure anyone studying business could reference a text book page as to how this works). But as music fans (rather than 'collectors' of packaging) we're more than a little aware of the huge range of music that Sony has rights over but has stashed away. I think its quite legitimate to express irritation at the choices Sony makes (as it is legitimate to express discontent with the choices our governments' make...or should we just shut up and accept what they say?). I'm not a fan of endless grumbling myself when it comes to music and musicians. But in this case I'd argue there is real reason to express dissatisfaction (in the full knowledge that Sony are so rich and powerful that they will not worry about the grousing for a moment). Reality is that outside of the highly popular (and in jazz terms that is Miles) Sony are not interested - I suspect we've all long been seeking music of interest elsewhere.

Talk of losing stripes had me seeking out this clip that I can't have seen for 45 years!

This is good buy - puts together 'Happy Daze' from 1978 with all but one track from the earlier 'Oh! For The Edge'. I bought 'Happy Daze' on LP with my first working paycheck when it came out! 'Daze' is a more composed, studio date with excellent tunes and solos - a very good Charig on track two (Seven for Lee). 'Edge' is a live date, more ragged (in the ensemble area) and a bit distantly recorded but still marvellous. A less manic Brotherhood of Breath (with overlapping musicians). There's also a nice disc of BBC stuff available. Saving Pipedream to relish at the weekend.

Mine arrived today - three working days (5 if you count the weekend) is good by my experience. Some great Charig on Tippett's 'Septober Energy'. Might not be what you are looking for, but he pulls off some beautiful solos on King Crimson's 'Lizard' and 'Islands' (especially the title track of the latter). There's a very free disc from the 80s called 'Boundaries' with Elton Dean and Tippett. In fact if you check Tippett/Dean in the 70s/80s he's often there. He was also in the London Jazz Composers Orchestra at one point. I think he lives in Germany or somewhere on the continent now - I've seen reference to recordings made there but have not heard them.