A Lark Ascending

As individuals, we can all filter, as we've always done. I have a TV in the corner of my living room - I could complain about how there's too much there (even without satellite). Instead, I don't turn it on very often...I don't think I've hit double figures this year in TV programmes watched. It's a great bit of technology...but I prefer other options ost of the time. What I do find annoying is the need to fill public places with sound. If I'm between concerts at a festival I like to find a quiet cafe/pub to sit in, either to read quietly or listen to my own iPod. It's nearly impossible to find a place in most towns where there isn't a 1:1 kiddiepop beat thumping out. I'm more than happy in the current land of plenty. Just like a library doesn't phase me because there are too many books, so the multiplicity of entertainment options causes me no grief. I expect most of us have designed our own pathways through the jungle.

No wonder students end their courses in such debt! I'm materialist enough to want to own a copy of the music I play; but the idea of buying it in two formats doesn't compute in my brain. Can't see such a 'boutique' approach lasting long.

This became irrelevant a few years back when the big companies took the initiative out of the hands of local managers and started ordering centrally. Back in the 80s/90s I used to be able to travel to Leeds, Nottingham, Sheffield, Leicester and get a different CD buying experience from the big Virgin and HMVs and the plentiful independents. I rarely go to any of them now. They are over here! CDs have always been much more expensive in the UK than in the States or mainland Europe. A couple of years ago an ECM would set you back £15 in the shops. On iTunes you pay £8.99 (which I'd imagine would still be seen as expensive in the US). The back catalogue on e-music is much chreaper (maybe not so when the new pricing kicks in here). I've rarely resold a CD - last time I off-loaded some I was getting little more than £2.00 for things I paid 5x plus as much for. I tend to keep things on the grounds that, even if I'm not playing a CD now, the day may come when I want to hear it again. Creates storeage problems but I dealt with that by throwing out all the jewel boxes (which means I'll never be able to sell them). Although I use Spotify I'm still locked into the 'need to own' mentality. I preview there but like my own copy. I suspect to a new generation who have never or rarely owned CDs the idea of having a physical copy will seem quite daft.

I've not dumped my CDs...in fact I continue to convert the downloads to CD-R. I feel comforted by a physical product on the shelf!

I've actually never found it easier - or cheaper - to acquire music than at present. Either via download or online purchasing of CDs. Far greater choice than I experienced in the provinces in the LP/CD heyday. My only worry is how long this will last - either customer desire for recordings will diminish so companies will give up making them available; or they'll become ever present in digital download form. I'm hoping the latter! I also have no problem findings things to buy...still so much music out there unheard. But you won't find it in even the larger UK cities, except in a few isolated spots. I've not visited a record shop since late May - the still excellent jazz and classical shops in Bath - and that was just a by-product of being in the city for the festival.

Perhaps it will. It seems that, with other artists, everything gets remastered as part of the process of creating the boxed set. Then they release the individual titles. Seems you are right: http://www.spincds.com/

Well, look what turned up in the jazz new releases! Straight to the unbelievable covers thread!

The Age Of The Album might well have been a fluke. From sheet music to piano roll to 78 to Top 40 and now back to downloading a song, the focus of "western" Popular Music has been predominantly song, not album, based. I think you are dead right there. At the same time, there has always been an audience for larger scale agglomerations of music - be it sung masses, symphonies, suites, ballets etc. I imagine that audience will continue to be there into the future and distribution will shape itself to provide for it.

The line I find interesting...and suggestive of a major cultural change...is this one: Now those of us who grew up buying LPs and CDs (even 78s) will just seek that music via other means. But what about those who never went through the CD buying stage? One big thing that has changed is that when I first started buying records if you heard a track you liked you had to buy the whole album...and often bumped into something quite unfamiliar as a result. Even 'Best of' discs were not that common. Today you can download the single track you want.

Thanks as always for your guidance in this area, Seeline. I suspect that, like in rock and jazz, the 80s/early 90s have to be approached with caution. There was a time when many an established artist tried to save their career by adopting the 'dreaded beats', mawkish synths and general studio glossiness. I get the impression the Koorax/Bonfa disc was aimed at an MOR market - reminds me of the sort of "Euro-pop for grown-ups' that was around (probably still is) at the time. Eurovision Song Contest stuff. Any thoughts on this: The samples on iTunes sound nicely percussive and jammy. Thanks for the warning on the Cazes' disc. Listened to the e-music samples...not what I'm looking for!

http://www.jazzfm.com/features/jazz-cd-sales-down/

I've been mining Loronix recently. These three are tremendous...the same earthy, darkness you get in the 'Afro-Sambas': Lots of great, sugar-free percussion. However, not all is gold there. This is horrid: Drum machines, nasty synth orchestral effects. Everything the 80s were so awful for. I had to turn it off after track 3...something I rarely do. This one is curious. No drum machines, but synthetic synth backdrop. Joyce is in good voice though:

This has just arrived on e-music: One for when my credits refresh in a couple of days.

Spoilt for choice with this chap: With those Edwardian sidebars he always looks like he ought to be playing 'Roll Out The Barrell'.

An early mention of 'moon walking' would quickly see the coverage become about Michael Jackson.

I guess I singled out ECM because I don't think I need much explanation about, say, a hard bop date: I understand the tune structure, what the players are trying to accomplish, and I have a pretty good idea about the individual sound and approach of the players. But I can listen to an ECM track and say, what is really going on here? What are they trying to accomplish? Is the point of the tune the pulse, the mood, the textures, the interplay of the players, the composition, was there really a composition? Since I assume there was an intention there, it would be nice to have some entree into the thinking, since I think it would increase my enjoyment of the music. I recall making a similar suggestion about free jazz a few years back. Most ECMs (obvious exceptions like the Roscoe Mitchell and Evan Parker discs) work to relatively conventional harmonic structures - the listener can easily get a grip on what is happening from moment to moment even if they don't like or are bored by the results. Free jazz tends to be a bit like Britain in 1940 - all the signposts are taken down. Yet the response I got when suggesting that performers explain what they are doing was along the lines of 'don't be silly, if you can't hear it then no writing about it will help.' Queue the 'talking about music/dancing about architecture' quote (normally attributed to several different people). I'd imagine the general lack of liners on ECM is part of the general concept of raising an air of mystery about the records. Practically, the days of liners look numbered as digital distribution takes over. I suspect a lot of this will go into electronically distributed publicity, blogs etc. Both Miroslav Vitous and John Surman have done interviews in Jazzwise surrounding their latest discs which provide the sort of context I think mjzee is looking for. Would be good to have things like this on the website. Some of the strangest ECM liners come on Italian releases - initially written in high art/intellectual European linguistics, then translated. Quite bewildering. I believe I've got one by Umberto Eco - think it's a Trovesi disc.

What was odd was the way they mixed things up - you might get a Perry Como or Andy Williams blurb alongside Johnny Winters or Al Kooper. They also went for more niche-marketed inner sleeves, without worrying what record they turned up in. I'm sure my Soft Machine 'Third' (bought Dec, 1972... I remember these things!) had both discs with inner sleeves devoted to MOR favourites. I can almost see myself scowling with contempt as I viewed it on the bus home (I vividly recall that trip!).

A Harvest one here:

Stumbled on these today: I'm 14/15, can only afford one LP a month (probably a Chicago one in the case of these) and these tantalising inserts suggest a strange and wonderful world. I recall one with an advert for 'Live Evil' that had me curious about Miles Davis. Harvest - the EMI prog label - also did these. Other labels at: http://www.woebot.com/movabletype/archives/cat_special.html

Some ECMs have liner notes - Steve Lake has done quite a few. I can live without liner notes - they can be useful for context but too often tend to be puff pieces trying to boost the performer or album; or just excuses for the writer to manufacture a grand theory out of the ether. I never found the Blue Note ones much help. Liners work better for me when they are retrospective on reissues or compilations.

Listened to this for the first time last night: Really good to hear John in a straight quartet format again. There's an interview in the new Jazzwise where he acknowledges that his recorded discography has been somewhat unbalanced, highlighting the more arranged special projects rather than the horn and rhythm section approach that dominates his live playing. Some really fiery playing, with Jack DeJohnette in amazing form, even if the disc as a whole is quite relaxed (similar in feel to Abercrombie's own ECMs). Nice to read John refusing to get drawn into any form of chauvinism when asked to define British jazz. He acknowledges that his playing is informed by English folk influences but points out that most of his career has been played out across Europe as a whole. Not just a great player but always comes across as a nice, humble bloke.

Might well be a German thing. 'Classical music etiquette' is rarely followed by we stiff-upper-lipped Brits in jazz concerts! Actually, I'd be much more likely to go to classical concerts if they'd get rid of that 'you are now entering the portals of sacred 'Art'' vibe that can surround them - why it is rare for a conductor to speak to the audience quite escapes me. There was a flurry of updating classical concerts in the UK in the late-80s around the time of the Nigel Kennedy/Three Tenors boom - trouble was that they went to far in the other direction with amplification, light shows and the rest. I can only assume a few classical musicians damaged their reputations with those who control things and as a result this was all reined in. Thinking about it, classical musicians don't leave the stage during a piece...but if half the orchestra isn't needed for a chamber like piece, they always troop off. The people I feel sorry for are the vocal soloists who I've sometimes seen have to sit through 40 minutes of orchestral music before they get up to chirp. What does your mind do in those 40 minutes...count the light bulbs, eye-up the nice looking members of the audience, work out your shopping list?

Not nearly as annoying as the chap (it's always a chap) who launches into loud clapping at the end of a piece before the music has been given a chance to die away into silence - 'Look at me, everybody! I know this piece'! Irritation hits red when he also shouts 'bravo!'

I don't recognise this at all in the UK. Certainly at the main festivals I attend (where the concerts are held in theatres, small rooms etc) people get very animated on the whole. Out in the provinces jazz concerts tend to have an older audience - things are more subdued there, but that has more to do with age and demeanour than any lack of enthusiasm. You'll not get me hopping up and down, whooping or whatever - doesn't mean I'm not completely engaged. I am an annoying head nodder and finger and foot tapper. I rarely clap solos simply because it does seem like a ritual - you can really confuse someone sat next to you who is not used to jazz concerts by not clapping. They clap the first solo because they know that's what you do at a jazz concert, then notice the person next to them is not clapping and then get very uncertain! I've not been to a folk club for many a year but I must say that was the format I felt most comfortable in. Usually a pub with performer and audience right up close, minimal sound equipment to act as a barrier and real, genuine interaction between songs. It was always great to see the 'stars' - people like Martin Carthy - mix with the audience and sit and listen to the (usually pretty awful) floor singers at the start of the evening. The only jazz performer who I can think of who has the gift to play the sort of verbal ping-pong with the audience that seems to come naturally to folk performers is Alan Barnes. There's also a long tradition of audience involvement in folk music - singing along on choruses which can be absolutely heavenly at times. Attempts by jazz players to get you to clap along or whatever are invariably completely naff. Another great communicator is Stefano Bollani - saw him with Enrico Rave twice in a couple of weeks last year and the jokes were quite different. I'm not suggesting jazz performers should 'put on a show' for their concerts - most people attending know what they are letting themselves in for. But there are ways of being welcoming without having to do circus tricks.

Never bothers me - if anything it suggests a respect for the other musicians, especially from a front line player or leader, throwing the visual focus on those playing. I saw Branford Marsalis do this a few weeks back and thought it most appropriate - the 'star' stepping from the limelight when others were musically centre-stage. I'm far more disturbed by bands who refuse to talk to the audience - mercifully rare. But I have seen a few well known players adopt a sour-faced disregard for they audience. I don't expect pantomime but a bit of mutual 'we're glad to see you' between performer and audience works the same as in any social situation.