A Lark Ascending

I emailed on Saturday morning and got a reply on Saturday evening confirming how to order. Placed an order then. Just waiting for it to arrive. I think Hazel Miller does this as a cottage industry so don't expect Amazon-like responses.

Send that one to Eicher! That is a gorgeous picture!

"Awesome" and "Word" when used by anyone not currently in a US high school (as a student!).

All I get is a couple of red crosses!

The 'whining' here is not so much about the existence of these endless boxes as they way Sony is focused on exploiting this part of its inheritance to the exclusion of everything else. Personally I'd prefer to see less 'glossy' explorations of other areas of its vast holdings; and a resurrection of interest in contemporary, newly-minted jazz. Constantly repackaging the Miles catalogue might make good business sense and please 'collectors' but... I agree with Roger on the spine sets. They are nigh on perfect as ways to collect the music, look great on the shelves but are not easy to read or get discs in and out of.

A sidetrack. One of the common criticisms levelled at recordings is that they lack originality or repeat earlier music. But just as I find myself enjoying the third division in a favoured genre over the first edition in a genre that does not reach me, so I'm happy listening to music by a favourite performer that doesn't really 'move on'. I was really enjoying Stan Tracey's latest quartet disc last night. Now Stan does other things - every now and then a freeish experiment with Tippett or Parker or Moholo - but in his core quartet/trio/big band area the style and approach has hardly changed since I first started listening to him in 1976. You could say something similar about Monk from the late-50s. The same tunes shunted around, the same stylistic approach. Yet they continue to bring great pleasure right up to the early 70s.

Just checked iTunes to find the Complete On the Corner has slipped in there sometime over the last few weeks. £30 here - £5 a disc. I have it currently downloading.

An item from March I missed - mentioned in the new Gramophone magazine: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8567099.stm Statistics are UK related.

In the end Sony are a business and must have done the research to judge that this sort of thing sells. The boutique approach clearly works just as well for selling 'classic' jazz as it does for everything else sold in special presentation packs (and think of all those 'bricks' of classical centenary releases - they must do the business).

but if combined????? Don't mock...the Bath jazz festival had a run of avantish bands with alphorns in a few years back. Worth it to see them walking the bar.

I wish they had no music on at all. The only time I find myself in one is if I'm caught between two places with an hour's gap. If I'm with people I'm not listening. If I'm on my own I'd rather plug the iPod in. I was in a pub in Nottingham a couple of years back and they played the whole of KofB. A few years before that I was in shopping mall in Norway where Miles Ahead was being played. Strange!

"I like good music in any genre" How do you know it's good when you first listen? - beyond listening to what someone else has said is good (which is, I suspect how most people take their first steps in a fair bit of music, especially when it's not widely broadcast). I've no interest in reggae, rap or Tyrolean Alphorn music. Beyond having a rough idea if the players are instrumentally competent I'm not sure I could differentiate between the good and the bad. And I don't have the time (or inclination) to listen to that many genres to a pont where I might begin to have a way of sorting it out. I suspect that when people say "I like good music in any genre" they actually mean "I have quite broad tastes" (as opposed to being a dedicated jazz or rock or opera fan).

Terms like 'good' and 'mediocre' are a bit loaded. But it's not hard to recognise that some music within a genre is clearly more derivative, has less new to say or is just not so well put together or played as well. And yet... I have no problem in appreciating the groundbreaking nature of the likes of Schoenberg or Brahms; but I'd sooner listen to a third division English cowpat composer. The genre just speaks to me. I equate it with going on holiday. I could decide to spend the 25 or so years of potential holidaying time I have left just visiting the 'best' - the most renowned or historic sights or the best art galleries or the places with the most praised cuisine. The trouble I have with that is: a) I seem to be basing my decision on what someone else insists is the best. b) I actually like going to the nooks and crannies of Cornwall. It engages something I don't fully comprehend that I don't get when faced with 'greatness'. Same with music. Of course, following your own path through the less celebrated areas of music or landscape doesn't prevent the occasional visit to the more widely revered.

I'm always amazed at how long it takes to get served in these sorts of places. There's always a few people in front of me who insist on having marshmallows, chocolate chippings and wafer biscuits blended to be sprinkled on top of their skinny latte. Gives time to listen to the music, I suppose.

Episodes 1 + 2 had me rolling round the floor.

Not wanting to get into any 'who's best?' debates but John Surman is still going strong with a vast and varied catalogue. Saw him just the other day in fine fettle. I think he's earned his place alongside the others.

I ordered mine direct from Hazel Miller at Ogun Records today - £11.50 incl. p&p. She takes Paypal on: ogunrecords@googlemail.com Thanks, Headman. I've ordered via Hazel before. Will take that route.

Has yet to surface on any of the domestic UK CD sites. If anyone spots it, please alert.

All rather strange - my general experience of people in public is of fun being had. In the recreation spaces in the school where I teach, in the streets, cafes, pubs at the weekend I don't sense any strain or effort in the enjoyment. Is it really so tense in the USA? I think people know how and when to turn off here in Europe wherever you are. Different in the workplace. If you want relaxed try Italy or Spain in the night-time - whereas in the UK the night is given over to rather boisterous behaviour by lubricated youngsters, southern Europe really seems to know how to pull all the family in.

Don't succumb to this Starbucks-speak nonsense. Order "small" in a firm, authoritative tone while staring them straight in the eye. They always back down. Oh, I do! "A medium black coffee please", rather than "an Americano"! On the plus side, even the Starbucks type places over here are able to make tea. Not the case when I visited New York. Put tepid water in a cup. Dunk a teabag. What? Might have been appropriate in Boston in the 1770s but today.... My stereotyping there can be backed with extensive scientific evidence. Americans might be able to build an atomic bomb and put a man on the moon but they can't make tea.

Just remember who burnt the White House in 1812. Oh, and we finally paid off our WWII debts a few years back. Anyway, Pearl Harbor was tiny compared with the way you've invaded us with burger joints, baseball caps and coffee served in indecipherable measurements (I recall when you could order a small coffee...now you have to order a Grande which means small). Ok, that part was a little too snarky. My bad. Hit me hard...reminded me of those awful sacred heart post cards they used to sell in the Catholic churches I attended as a kid - source of another neurosis! Do I have to spell out that both of those reactions/assertions/opinions, rapid-fire as they were, were based on my comparative sense of how people behave in good-sized chunks of other societies with which I'm quite familiar, including my own? Sad though it may be, neither of the sorts of behavior I noticed or thought I noticed in Hasselt seems to be common where I live. What illegitimate forms of entertainment do people indulge in where you live? I suspect they were going on a street or two away in Belgium.

Hopefully he popped back to Belgium to take a closer look.

That I will admit to. I grew up in airmens' quarters where we weren't allowed to take short cuts through the officers' quarters. And arrived at university (thank you, the post-war Welfare State) utterly astonished to be there only to meet Hooray Henry's who just assumed it was their right. You're just easy targets for the good old-fashioned resentments of the British class system.

Well, I'd argue that it started in that strange post the seemed to mix banalities with an imperious rush to judgement about the Belgian character and its links to an imperial past. You don't hurl that sort of thing out and expect it to be deferred to. However great your mind, you are going to get challenged. There are very few posters I lock horns with here. Probably about five!

I assume he's another one of your baseball players? I'm anticipating a wave of analogies I cannot hope to comprehend. I don't even get cricket.