A Lark Ascending

Wonderful shots, Serioza. And not a million miles in style from neo-classical Bath.

The glorious city of Bath this last weekend:

Ah! The one I'm thinking of was Ellendune (825) at Wroughton. Amazingly enough, there's lots about it here: http://everything2.com/title/Battle%2520of%2520Ellendun I recall Liddington from when I lived that way - knew someone at school who lived in the village. I've had a walk up to the hill fort on the cards a few times but weather has blown it every time. I did a fair bit of Anglo-Saxon history at uni 30+ years back. More recently I've been teaching a new GCSE course with a 'Raiders and Invaders 450-1100' unit involved. Obviously it just skims the surface, but it reactivated my interest - when I was down that way last summer I spent a fair bit of time Alfred hunting! I can really recommend this book for a marvellous bit of speculative detective work on the later Saxon/Viking age. It's Yorkshire based but absolutely gripping: If Stan Tracey was still doing this sort of thing I'm sure we could commission an 'Anglo-Saxon Suite' from him!

I know of Mount Badon - reputedly where Arthur (or someone similar) halted the Anglo-Saxon advance for 50 years or so. I didn't know Solsbury Hill claimed it as a site (I assume that is Peter Gabriel's Solsbury Hill?). I think I've heard of the battle of Dyrham but never associated it with the area on the way to the motorway. (Passed through Batheaston, by the way, after lunch by the canal at Bathampton, just before the toll bridge - fabulous drive up single carriageway roads from Batheaston to the Marshfield plateau). There are a couple of sites associated with Dark Age scraps a bit further away. Wroughton (where I once lived for a year) just outside of Swindon is supposed to be the site of the Battle of Elandune (or Ethandune?) which I think was a pre-Alfred the Great skirmish. There's also a great drive from near Avebury, up a ridge to Westbury, which is supposedly the site of Alfred's critical defeat of the Vikings in 878. There's a hill fort up there and the Westbury White Horse. I never tire of that part of the country. Even if there are only a handful of gigs I want to attend next year, I think I'll still go, if only to explore the area.

You get some idea of the scale of Bath when you think that we both spent Sun/Monday there and only overlapped a couple of gigs! Dave Okumu is very impressive - I've seen him at Cheltenham a couple of times. I think he had a band at one time called Jade Fox - one of the F-IRE bands that never seemed to get recorded.

Over by the race track? That's the place. As you drive north the road suddenly snakes steeply down through a wooded area. That's the hill the Royalists stormed up. They'd attempting to seize Bath over the previous few days but William Waller blocked them at every turn. By the time they had captured the ridge they were so exhausted they gave up and went back to their camp at Marshfield (near the ice cream place!). Later they pushed on to Devizes where they beat Waller at Roundway Down - another excellent place to do a battlefield walk. Great views, interesting history!

My favourite (possibly because the 2LP set was my first Getz purchase back in the late 70s). The version of 'Lush Life' is breathtaking. It's also good to hear him do the Wayne Shorter tunes. I love the use of electric piano on some of the tracks too - works especially well in the Latin-flavoured tunes. Now available with some extra material!

Sorry not to have have responded to your offer, sidewinder! I've not been on here much over the last couple of weeks (frightened off by the shennangins elsewhere!) and quite missed the last few posts in this thread! Maybe next year. Very much enjoyed the weekend. In brief: Portico Quartet - pleasant enough but not enough 'soloing' for my taste. Bojan Z - fabulous. Whipped up a real head of steam but lots of interesting themes (with more than a dash of the Balkans). Josh Roseman augmented on trombone to great effect. Seb Rochford was just stunning - I'm no drum freak but I could have spent the set just listening to him. I find some of his projects too indie-rock for my ears but in a situation like this he's amazing. Jerusalem Quartet - I don't go to many classical concerts these days but this made me rethink my decision. A completely unfamiliar Haydn quartet (which has got me listening to Haydn more carefully), Bartok's 4th which I have on CD and have listened to but I think this was the first time I really 'heard' it and an old favourite in the Debussy quartet. The Curious - Tom Cawley's trio in great form. Cawley is a player I've really warmed to this year - I get the impression Acoustic Ladyland was not a natural environment. When he gets possessed, my does he go. Nik Bartsch - As with Portico, not enough going on up front to hold my attention. Excellent musicianship, interesting textures etc. But it seemed to be made up of slabs of grooves that would get locked in a cycle for five minutes before moving to another repeating pattern. Clearly influenced by 70s Miles but without the interest of a bubbling top line. Julie Fowlis - wonderfully voiced Gaelic folk music from the Hebrides. Despite having achieved fame and Radio 2 recognition it's good to see she's not been directed into an 'English language with guest DJ' format. Just her voice, whistles and (in the encore) bagpipes, accompanied by a bouzouki, guitar and fiddle. Bobo Stenson - lovely lunchtime concert, rambling round his own tunes. A glorious mid-point sequence of Ellington's Reflections in D and Fleure Africane (as so often happens I quickly picked up the melodies as they emerged but couldn't name them for the life of me until he did so at the end). Empirical/Branford Marsalis - Drank two pints of Bellringer too quickly before the concert so dozed through the Empirical set. Very much enjoyed Marsalis - fabulous piano and drums in particular. And nice to see him pull up the Empirical alto player to join in on the Monk encore. He looked like all his birthdays had come at once! All new venues for me this year. Didn't care for 'Komedia' which was very cramped and seemed more designed for nightclub like activities. The Assembly Rooms had great acoustics though the sightlines were not ideal from the back. The Forum was bizarre - I assume it's some sort of left-field church meeting place, all done up in art-deco classical decoration. Nice and spacious - lots of room to stretch your legs at the break. Bath itself was at its best - fabulous weather. With long breaks between concerts I was able to explore a bit further afield. A wonderful walk up the south side of the river which led to a field with amazing vistas of the city. And a nice drive yesterday in the footsteps of the Royalist army on its way to the Battle of Landsdown in 1643, fought just north of the city. There's a monument there to my namesake, Sir Bevil Grenville, who was killed leading the Cornish up the pretty steep hill. Looking forward to next year already!

UK members should note these Classics discs are a mere £3.95 downloaded from Amazon.co.uk. Extremely good value.

Just listened to this on Spotify today. Very nice indeed.

A very fine Brazilian recommendation from Seeline. Not wild about this - well to the jazz side, lacking the warmth of the Brazilian side (to these ears).

This has been OOP for some time. Managed to locate a s/h copy online. Tremendous performance - lots of 'proper' piano playing (as opposed to fiddling around inside!!!) and one point where he quotes a tune from one of his composed pieces!!! Strongly recommended.

Fountains Abbey in North Yorkshire a couple of weeks back. A day that went from semi-sunny to a very heavy shower to a glorious late afternoon:

Thanks, Alex. Until a couple of years ago I was pretty good at keeping up with the new people arriving. But there seems to be so much out there now - Outhouses and Porticos and this and that collective that I've lost touch with quite a bit. I think I also got scared off by the punk-indie direction that many of these bands seemed to be heading in. Nothing wrong with that as a direction - just not what appeals to me. Two names who I really thought we'd hear more of - Nikki Yeoh (who had her concert cancelled, but did appear briefly with John Surman at the start of the DeJohnette concert) and Jason Yarde. I think it was last year he did a big piece at Cheltenham...but I'm still haunted by an astounding solo he performed in Sheffield in a jaw-dropping Tippett/Moholo/Rogers/Rutherford/Parker/Yarde band. If only that had been recorded! I believe he does a lot of production work now and I'm sure I saw his name on a disc of contemporary classical British composers somewhere.

I know what it's like being under the weather there. About 4 years back I arrived recovering from a nasty attack of shingles. I still found it hard to move or touch my back against a chair back. I recall sitting in the upstairs seats in the Town Hall (seats in the Town Hall!!!) watching Jazz Jamaica doing their Motown programme and feeling very uncomfortable.

My eyes needed sticks to keep from nodding off...though the bagpipes had the effect of several espressos!!! I think I was at that Cheltenham concert - John Taylor was in the band too. I think it was the year he was artis in residence. One gripe - and I noticed this last year too. I think having the marquee opening out the festival more widely is great. But does it have to be so near the Pillar Room? In both the Grimes/Cyrille/Dunmall concert and the Arthurs one I was more than a little put off by the beat coming from outside. Must have been worse for the players. Though I'm sure they have to put up with this at festivals quite often.

Just arrived on e-music: From 1976, it says.

Bruford says he enjoyed playing with Genesis but felt that he didn't have much to do - after the scope for creativity in King Crimson it seems he felt a bit restricted playing their very arranged music. He is very complimentary towards Phil Collins, both as a drummer and person. Very interesting...Collins is ridiculed in the UK in the same way as Sting and Bonio. At least he doesn't have a ridiculous stage name.

I believe it was Pheeroan AkLaff - very impressive. I was very taken by the two reed players in the DeJohnette concert - can't recall the names though the bass clarinet player was Hutchings. Where do all these musicians come from? Every year I go to Cheltenham and another set of unfamiliar faces appear. Where do they go to, too? I absolutely loved the sets by Oriole and Julia Biel a few years back (and the fabulous set the year after with an Oriole augmented with Brazilian musicians). I assume Jonny Phillips and Julia Biel are still playing in London but they seem to have vanished otherwise. And what about Soweto Kinch? Huge splash about five years back...seems to have gone very quiet of late.

Just read this over the last week. Will interest most who have been interested in this thread. Not a conventional bio by an means - he explores a series of key questions asked of him/things that he thinks important. A few points that are relevant to the discussion above: a) Bruford stresses how the music he plays is very much a creature of a window of opportunity he was lucky to arrive in - a point when technology, affluence and clueless record company management enabled virtually anything to get on record. He talks about a situation where record companies were prepared to enter ten horses in the race. If one came through, it paid for the rest. It was also an era where Yes could make two poor selling albums and still be kept on the books (and he hints that 'The Yes Album' got attention in the US by almost payola-like manipulation of the charts!). By the 80s the management had control, inisisted on quick returns and constantly interfered in the music with 'post-production' manipulation to create hits. b) In many ways the book is very sad - Bruford seems to be suffering a major case of insecurity and lack of self-esteem. It's almost as if, having despaired of a situation where he makes rock music for a few hours and then has it taken out of his grasp to be manipulated by sound engineers, he's moved towards acoustic jazz only to feel that he's not up to the standard of jazz players...both the legends and the new up and coming whizz kids. Fripp comes across as a very difficult, unpleasant man. Bruford remains proud of his 70s work and doesn't take the easy option of so many who made their name at that time of rubbishing what he did. Seems like an honest book but one where you feel a bit sorry that after 40 years he should feel so uncertain of his worth.

'It'll Take a Long Time' Sandy Denny And, of course... 'Who Knows Where the Time Goes?' There's a 'Time' somewhere on 'Dark Side of the Moon' if I recall correctly...lots of clocks and alarms in the effects department. And Al Stewart did something called 'Time Passages' - not one I know. Is 'Zeit' by Tangerine Dream allowed?

Fairing badly myself in strictly monthly terms - I've already missed February and April (just!). However, I did do 9 at the weekend so that partly makes up!

Another great weekend...though it almost fell apart on Saturday! Very enjoyable opener (for me) with Pat Martino and Julian Arguelles (though I think I'd have preferred them slightly longer as separate concerts. Really nice mix in the Jazz on 3 potpourri - very much enjoyed your brief set, Alex (and bought the Live in Oxford CD to explore further) and the Paul Dunmall bagpipe set. Didn't really 'get' the Blessing! Saturday started well with the Will Vinson band with Kurt Rosenwinkel but just as they were about to start the last tune we were all turfed out - a major power failure. Hadn't affected the PA but the fire alarms were down so health and safety stopped the gig. It was serious enough to see two later gigs cancelled (including a Nikki Yeoh/John Surman one I was looking forward to). A bit of a downer but the weather was nice and I found a pub with a beer garden that didn't have kiddiepop thumping out. The Dunmall/Grimes/Cyrille concert was impressive if a bit unrelenting - Dunmall looked as if he was ready to go on all night. He was just working up to another blast when Henry Grimes, who had clearly spotted a signal from the organisers, leant over and whispered words to the effect of 'try taking the horn out of your mouth.' Really enjoyed Madeleine Peyroux in the evening - only marginally jazz, I know, but some well crafted songs all done with restraint and poise. Reminded me of 'Blood on the Tracks' Dylan transposed to Paris (and not just because of the song she does off that...she seems to have borrowed the overall feel of he album, including the organ sound). Tom Arthurs Subtopia were a bit too Darmstadt jazz for me. But the Jack de Johnette concert - an octet of the drummer plus seven young British players who had worked together over the previous couple of days - was marvellous. Really interesting compositions from the younger players, bookended by two de Johnette favourites - Zoot Suite and One for Eric. Good to see Tom Cawley again playing amazing piano - he stood out a few weeks back playing with Dave O'Higgins and Eric Alexander. And it just kept getting better. Dave Douglas' Quintet was wonderful including a jaw dropping Donny McCaslin tenor solo mid way and fabulous drumming from Clarence Penn. The 10.30 Don Byron spot looked like it might be a bit of a let down - a very small audience. But Byron's band gave it their all with a gospel related set including a marvellous vocalist who may be famous but who I'd never heard of...one DK Dyson. Great way to finish the festival...an irreverent church service!

Strong recommendation for anyone wanting to investigate Tippett solo. A pretty forbidding first ten minutes or so, sounding like a relentless seastorm but it all then relaxes and moves through a series of passages lyrical (not in the Jarrett sense...you won't come out humming the tunes!) and muscular by turn. Available as a single track on e-music. Not bad for 47 mins of music.

By chance I just downloaded that from e-music 15 minutes ago! Rogers is an amazing bass player to watch. He doesn't so much play as mate with his bass!