A Lark Ascending

I could be wrong here but I seem to recall reading an interview with him talking about how he came into music and jazz was not a big part of it...though late-period Coltrane was a huge inspiration. Unlike a lot of well known avant-gardists he didn't do the bebop/big band or whatever route before breaking away into the freer areas. If I'm recalling that right it might explain why he doesn't have any obvious jazz reference points. He's certainly not 'greasy' (more woolly!)! Always interesting to hear him with Kenny Wheeler's bands where he seems to provide a very different and distinct colour. He's also played regularly in Charlie Watts occasional bands - largely mainstream affairs but Parker still does what he does.

Some nice ones here on the BBC News site: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8442877.stm I got the magic call at 9.30 last night that we weren't expected in today. A golden opportunity to catch up on paperwork. All the usual grumbling - why has the salt run out, why isn't my road clear etc. The Beeb wheeled out the 'why do the schools have to shut' 'controversy' again (as they annually wheel out the 'scandal that the GCSE pass rate had gone up/gone down'). They should have been sat in my heads office at 10.00 a.m. yesterday as angry parents demanded he shut the school and allow them to collect their kids (I expect he spent today fielding calls from angry parents about the place being shut). I've taught in this school for over 30 years and it's only been closed by the weather 6 times maximum! We sure know how to make storms in teacups. Went into our county town, Truro, today and it was like a ghost town. Shopping was almost pleasant. Not much snow about near here so don't know where everybody was. Doing their tax returns while 'working from home'? I lived in Newquay for 3 1/2 years at the turn of the 60s/70s and it snowed once! Gone by lunch time! Back at work today (though half the kids didn't turn in); one of the few schools in the area that did open. The weekend is looking threatening - heavy snow predicted for Saturday and Sunday. The trouble is we rarely get weather like this (or not in recent years) so it's not cost or time effective to have the sort of contingency plans you'd get in Canada or Finland. If this was regular for 5 months we'd adjust accordingly. ******** The pictures here are absolutely gorgeous: http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/nottingham/hi/people_and_places/nature/newsid_8424000/8424941.stm

It is indeed. Have you read Kazuo Ishiguro's 'Never Let Me Go'? Works in a similar sort of distorted near future. The title comes from the tune much beloved of jazzers.

Hope that includes sleeve notes and liner notes. Well, it was nice to have musical accompaniment for the day. But the exam board regulations I was trying to decipher were a bit like trying to read a piece by Anthony Braxton explaining his music!

Some nice ones here on the BBC News site: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8442877.stm I got the magic call at 9.30 last night that we weren't expected in today. A golden opportunity to catch up on paperwork. All the usual grumbling - why has the salt run out, why isn't my road clear etc. The Beeb wheeled out the 'why do the schools have to shut' 'controversy' again (as they annually wheel out the 'scandal that the GCSE pass rate had gone up/gone down'). They should have been sat in my heads office at 10.00 a.m. yesterday as angry parents demanded he shut the school and allow them to collect their kids (I expect he spent today fielding calls from angry parents about the place being shut). I've taught in this school for over 30 years and it's only been closed by the weather 6 times maximum! We sure know how to make storms in teacups.

I agree. I've been lucky enough to see him many times (solo, in small groups and in larger ensembles) and he can be absolutely mesmerising. He used to do a regular afternoon session with hand picked musicians at the Appleby Festival in a small church (well known from the recordings that have been issued). He also took a group into the main marquee on a Saturday afternoon for 50 minutes. As it was a mainly bop/big band type festival, the marquee emptied the moment the group before finished, leaving a few dozen listeners. I have several records by him but they don't get played much - on record I prefer to hear him in a larger group context like the London Jazz Composers Orchestra or one of Barry Guy's other bands; or the two discs he did with Roscoe Mitchell on ECM a while back. One of those musicians I can't claim to be even close to understanding but he keeps drawing me back. Now Brotzmann is the one who loses me!

Love the deer shot, Aggie87. **************** What a difference 6 months can make...July and 30 minutes ago: And an hour later... The snowflakes are dancing!

Quite - not seen it this bad for 20 years! We only had a light dusting when I set out at 6.20 so I got in fine. But it came down non-stop from about 8.00. The school was shut at 12.00. Took nearly 2 hours to get home. My, the trees look pretty, though!

No idea how it works but I've had the same experience. I did an old Nic Jones album that has never been on CD last week. Spotted it straight away. I think, as you say, it must just recognise the number of tracks + the timings (though this must be approximate).

Outside of the British Isles I've always found this period of European history (roughly the fall of Rome to the start of the First Crusade) hard to get a mental map of...get all my Henrys, Ottos and Fredericks muddled up. I really enjoyed Holland's 'Persian Fire' and this is certainly interesting, but I'm finding it somewhat breathless and overwritten. The characters come across like cartoon figures in a perpetual state of action, the events ever-momentous. He's trying to evoke the sense of fear and anticipation in Europe as the millennium approached and the Second Coming descended. But I'm a bit irritated by it. Reminds me of quite a lot of recent TV history - high action to stop viewers switching over to special-fx films.

I've never even heard of that one!

One of the ironies is that what westerners consider to be 'real' 'world' music is often not what local people are wanting to play or listen to. They conform to western assumptions about 'authenticity'. Seeline and MG will know more about this but I think I'm right in suggesting that a fair few African performers (for example) make acoustic only recordings for a European-US market when their music at home embraces a much wider range of technology. Which is a way of saying, don't worry about if it's 'real'. Musicians have been sprinkling influences as icing sugar for centuries (Mozart and his 'Turkish' influences, for example). What matters is if it produces interesting or attractive music. And that will vary according to the ear of the beholder. ***************** In jazz you get musicians who have studied or emerged in another sphere (e.g. a 'folk' or 'roots' music) and then get interested in jazz; musicians who start in jazz and then become aware of other music that lies in their heritage and start to bring it in; and musicians who take music from spheres outside their own immediate cultural background and add it in. In theory the first two should have the best chance of being 'real', the latter should produce 'exotica'. But I'm not sure it actually works out like that all the time.

I've plenty of gripes with the BBC but I don't resent paying for it because it does things no commercial station in the UK does. I just wish it would pay more attention to its 'public service' remit. It's very good at serving the classical/intellectual end of things (on radio, that is); and has also got the knack of serving the populist end. The trouble is that it has allowed its ratings-chasing to dominate. I'd hate to see it lose the licence fee and become yet another completely commercialised concern. Sadly, I can see that happening in the next few years, not because it will be good for UK listeners and viewers but because the Murdochs of this world and other vested interests want it swept out of their path. You won't get programmes like Alyn Shipton's in Rupert (and sons) world.

I think you'll find that the BBC is funded by Satan himself.

Blue Note already have her signed up for an initial release called 'Purr Away With Me'.

Anyone with a memory for the eclectic days of the early 70s will be sad to hear Tim Hart died over Xmas. http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/dec/29/tim-hart-obituary Never my favourite band of that ilk, but 'Parcel of Rogues' and the Tim Hart/Maddy Prior record 'Summer Solstice' introduced me to a fair few folk songs. Unlike Fairport, they succeeded in cracking the USA in the early 70s and came close to making folk-rock a pop success ('All Around My Hat')!

Missed this when it was recently broadcast so got the DVD. Watched the first three episodes (1900-1918) over the last three evenings. Excellent popular history. Nice to know UK TV can be about more than "Strictly Come X-Factoring, Get Me Out Of Here".

Amerocentric, heck... it barely -- and unsurprisingly -- ventures outside of the five boroughs. Which five boroughs? NYC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borough_%28New_York_City%29 Ah! Je compris. Merci.

Amerocentric, heck... it barely -- and unsurprisingly -- ventures outside of the five boroughs. Which five boroughs?

Hopelessly Amerocentric.

Keith Tippett, Roy Babbington, Frank Perry in the very early 70s. Something more recent. About time we had a new recording from this wonderful player.

'Caravanserai', 'Love, Devotion and Surrender' and 'Welcome' all had a major impact on my listening (though they overlap with the first two Mahavishnu records in my mind). I have a feeling I first read about Coltrane in interviews associated with those records - and heard my first Coltrane tunes on the latter two (I was entranced with 'Naima'). 'Caravaserai' was my first conscious experience of Afro-Cuban percussion (it was obviously used on other mainsteam rock records...Chicago for example...but this was where I first noticed it standing up front). One slow burning influence was 'Stone Flower' - I loved the song and arrangement without having a clue where it came from. It wasn't until 20 years later that I picked up the Jobim original and the whole Brazilian thing started to open up for me. Crossover ain't always a bad thing! ******************* I'm 2/3rds of the way through the stereo Beatles. Enjoying it thoroughly - the sound quality is certainly superb.

Christmas morning in Eastwood, Notts. D.H. Lawrence country:

I have 'Lotus'...though it's a while since I played it. I recall 'Caravanserai' getting ecstatic reviews in the UK music press when it was issued. Didn't seem to translate into sales. I didn't get to hear it for at least a year and I don't think I owned a copy until the late 70s. My purchasing power was severely limited until that time.

Follow up to the 1956-64 'Never Had it So Good'. Covers the Wilson (Harold, not Brian) years up to 1970. Sandbrook writes good popular history, balancing the politics and economics (which he seems to have a particular interest in) with the cultural and social changes. Probably goes a bit to heavy on the pop music - large sections on the development of the Beatles, the appearance of the Stones, even the Kinks. Sandbrook is about 5 or more years younger than me so it's not as if he's living his youth. 250 pages in and I've got to 1966 - quite useful as I was out of the country from Aug '65 until Feb '68 (undercover in 'Nam at the time). He's currently writing a third volume on the 70s with a final book on Attila the Hen's years due afterwards.