A Lark Ascending

I have 'Time Fades Away' on that old black plastic stuff, what do you call it??????? Anyway it's good, but not really deserving of it's reputation as a lost masterpiece, but it goes very well with "On The Beach" and "Tonight's The Night", the later is still my favorite Neil. Oh, I've no great expectations. But I like OTB +TTN and would like the chance to hear TFA. I'd pay a fiver for it off an iTunes download.

I really like the use of tabla on the opening track - I think Kuljit Bhamra was the tabla player I saw him with in the 'bird' concert. I just find it all a bit pastel, the tunes not all that memorable. And I say that as someone who has been a long time supporter of ECM in its most pastel moments. Don't let me put you off. I expect I came to it expecting something a bit more daring.

Too much already issued stuff to be of interest to me. I'd sooner they released 'Time Fades Away'. Being Neil, I imagine it will be included in the next box but with two tracks missing, one in an alternate take and one remixed to sound different.

Some lovely shots there, y'all (as they say in Wales).

I can see that. Not sure how it did commercially but Kuhn's Live At Birdland from 2007 was very well received critically and deservingly so. This one is coming out next week and I am thinking about giving it a chance, looks intriguing: After featuring on a dozen albums with Carla Bley for WATT/ECM, Movements In Colour is Andy Sheppard s first leader album for ECM. The British saxophonist heads a specially-assembled international quintet in a program of buoyant and strongly melodic self-penned pieces. Sheppard s elegant saxophone and the strongly-contrasting guitars of Paricelli and Aarset are lifted up by the rhythmic drive of Arild Andersen s muscular bass and the crisp, dynamic tabla of Kuljit Bhamra. Been out here a while. It's nice enough especially at the start but isn't one I've been rushing to play again. I've seem some great Sheppard gigs (including one where he duetted with a bird caught in a conservatory!) but have found his discs a bit disappointing. (Having said that, I've been underwhelmed by Carla Bley since the early 80s; maybe other ears will hear more in Sheppard's disc as they do in more recent Bley).

Nothing whatsoever. I was part of that wider rock audience (and didn't get courted at the time because it all sounded so strange). All I'm saying is that if that was his primary motive for incorporating rock elements, electricity etc he could easily have produced a far more commercial sound. Others did.

I never understood the claim that electric Miles was a sellout (except in as far as certain traditionalists were never going to accept any rock influences as other than a sell out). Yes, BB had lots of rock elements. But it's far from 'easy' music - it all sounded monochromatic to me when I first listened properly in '76 (I recall hearing some of it on late night radio c. 1971). If Miles had made courting the wider rock audience his priority he could have done it much more easily - vocalists, shorter tunes (no capital on the s), clearer song structures etc. I've no doubt he was deadly serious.

The flaw for me with DJRD is 'Paprika Plains' - doesn't sustain interest for me over its length and the orchestrations are a bit over the top. I really like the other 3 sides (of the original LP). 'The Hissing of Summer Lawns' is the other peak for me - the lyrics lose that confessional 'woke-up-this-morning and found myself with David Crosby/Graham Nash or whoever' feel that can make your toes curl on some of the earlier stuff. It's either third person or stepping into the role of someone else. Great range of sounds from Hollywood orchestration (just right for the song) through African drums, sleazy lounge-jazz, primitive mono-synth and extraordinary guitar playing by Joni herself (listen to 'Don't Interrupt the Sorrow'). This is the one I want the remaster for - the sound on my first generation CD is flat as a pancake. 'Court and Spark' is a less earnest affair but has great tunes and, again, some sharp lyrics.

Love digital...no films to buy, no processing to pay for and you get a rough idea immediately if you've got the picture you want. I always felt there was a huge scam involved in film/processing. Now if someone could work the same magic on printer ink!

They fit in the plastic sleeves - though you have to chop the back cover up a bit.

They sometimes go on temporary vacation if I misfile. The one downside of of getting rid of the jewel cases and putting them in little plastic sleeves is it gets harder to find discs, especially if its a one ff artist who could be filed in several places...no quick scan along the shelves. More than made up for in the space saving - and the obvious solution now so much comes from downloads.

That's one of music's many beauties...we can all react differently. I've never been one for accepting a decisive interpretation of what is of most value in a performers output. For me the arc from Blue to Hejira is one of increasing levels of extraordinariness. I find music to enjoy before and immediately after but it doesn't have the same hold. After Mingus a have very little interest (though I did like the two discs of reinterpretations of a few years back).

I think that is what I've found hardest to get past over the years. It was certainly the major block for me in the 70s - I had no cultural/emotional connection with 'funky' and screechy electric guitars were what I was moving towards other musics besides rock to escape! It was the shimmering semi-pastoral electric music of the IASW era that first made me think again when I dared to listen in the 90s. I find the later music increasingly interesting beyond that, though still in spite of the screechy guitars/funk, rather than because of it. Which probably means I miss the original point of the music! But not having my past invested in this music probably makes me far less Romantic about it. Which makes the re-explorations of excellent musicians like Smith, Liebman etc much easier for me to find interesing.

My favourite too. Everything - music, lyrics, atmosphere so perfectly poised. What has happened to the promised remasters of the records of this era?

Interesting observations, Rooster_Ties, and not in any way disrespectful of the original musicians. After all, acknowledging the sophistication of the farming methods of a once-frontier region in no way lessens the achievement of the pioneers who originally broke the ground. I suspect one thing that divides listeners here is very much when they first heard this music; growing up with it as it was newly forged would have left such a powerful impact that hearing it any other way must be, at the least, a bit strange. Hearing it...or at least listening to it a bit more carefully...after the event leaves you with less of a commitment to the original, perhaps a greater openess to what later interpretations can bring to the music.

Now that is an interesting comment, totally out of synch with orthodox interpretations of Miles (or jazz 'masters' in general). Out of interest, in what ways do you think there are some improvements?

Would you also advise not performing Shakespeare plays? After all, the definitive ones were performed 400 years ago! And even if we can't see those, we can always get copies of mid-20th C performances by the great actors of the time. Why bother putting them on now? I'd agree that mere 'tributes' don't amount to very much...too often it's shorthand for a cash in. But I'd argue this music is rich enough to sustain revisiting; and many of the paths Miles started never got fully explored. I especially like the pre-Bitches Brew phase but before those avenues were fully investigated he was on to something else. I'm glad people are going back and asking if there might just be futher interest there. Revisiting the past doesn't deny the possibility to investigate the future. Very often it can suggest to you fresh ways to go forward. Take Stravinsky, for example....

Just been listening to that one again. Sounds wonderful. I could do without the techno beats and sampled voices in places (I imagine Miles would have approved, by contrast), but otherwise a very involving record.

I think it was the Panthalassa disc of his, doing whatever he does to some of the music of this era, that started me to move beyond Bitches Brew.

A little conundrum for you. All the literature makes much of Miles never repeating himself (apart from the last Montreux concerts), losing interest in what he made as soon as he made it prefering to move on to the next thing etc. Critics of these re-explorations/tributes or whatever you wish to call them often argue that they break the spirit of the originals by revisiting rather than ploughing on into the unknown themselves. But where does that put the listener? Are we not just as guilty going back to these treasured records or buying the boxes with all the other bits. If we really care for Miles should we not be forgetting his music and looking to the now? Not said with any attempt at overseriousness. I was just thinking about it whilst doing the ironing. [side thought: I seem to recall that the Trotskyite wing of the European improv scene used to reject the whole idea of recordings on the grounds that listening to a past performance is by its very nature reactionary).

I was thinking mainly a little way down the line from the source...otherwise you're quickly into the 'origins of jazz-rock/fusion' debate. It just strikes me that that Miles era (in all its many flavours) got marginalised for a time - but there seem to have been a lot of people trying it out again in the last ten years or so. I was just interested in what people might have heard and enjoyed. That Sonny Fortune looks interesting - I very much like his playing. Nik Bartsch gets mentioned in this light - in fact it might have been attending a concert of his a few weeks back that stirred my brain cells in this direction. I didn't actually enjoy the concert very much...things changed very slowly, often with simple repeating patterns. But then that's what once held me off this era of Miles until I started hearing other things. Played this off Spotify last night: Enjoyed it more than the concert but not yet fully convinced. But I'm intrigued enough to listen again...

I have that one heading my way too - it was briefly on e-music but vanished and doesn't seem to exist as a download in the UK. One of most impressive takes I heard on the later part of the early 70s era was a live performance by British drummer Martin France with John Parricelli and Mike Walker on twin guitars and Ian Ballamy on soprano/tenor. Never made it to disc - when France did put out a CD it was much more aligned to techno with lots of beats. Something Miles would probably have approved of but did nothing for me. It'll probably become my favourite record in 2029! British trumpeter Gerard Presencer has also recorded in this area.

Yes, that was my thought too.

'Yo Miles' set me off on this current exploration a few weeks back. Just got an e-mail that 'Upriver' is heading my way. Amazon.co.uk are clearly still hunting down a copy of 'Sky Garden'. I particularly like Roney's exploration of the transitional late 60s Miles period on this CD...

My exhibit no.1 for the case that there is just as imaginative jazz singing happening today as in the 'classic' era: Wonderful reinventions of well known tunes, often inverting the sentiment of the lyrics through a very different musical slant.