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A Lark Ascending

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  1. Another blow - Richard Hickox, also a champion of neglected 20thC English music, died a couple of days back. I saw him a few months back doing Elgar, VW and Arnold in Truro Cathedral, Cornwall. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7745605.stm
  2. I was one of those kids who was given a ball and then abandoned by the Physical Education teacher whilst he focused on those with natural talent. Not surprisingly, I have an exaggerated dislike of all sport. Pleased to say it's very different today - my PE colleagues are amazing at being inclusive and letting all levels of ability take part at their own level. Good old days. Pah!
  3. And it all began just up the road from where I live: Scrooby Have a good holiday all. I've got the school inspectors in!
  4. Great record by a fascinating guitarist. This one is a few years old but I'd go as far to say that it offers a way forward for jazz-rock. All the energy associated with that genre but without the clutter and, above all, with a nice rhythmic bounce, rather than the standard plod or formula funk. Good themes, lots of tonal variety. Partisans are the band, Max the album. It's on e-music. Phil Robson- Guitars Julian Siegel-Tenor and Soprano Saxophones, Bass Clarinet, Cuica Thaddeus Kelly -Bass Gene Calderazzo Drums Special guests Thebe Lipere Percussion on 5,6 +8 Jim Watson Hammond B3 organ on 4,7+8 Chris Batchelor Trumpet on 1,8+9 Availablefrom e-music last time I looked.
  5. Came out about January and remains my favourite record of the year. Newly written songs set in an absorbing Brazilian jazz context. Great tunes, fabulous rhythms, nice soloing. With some really significant Robert Wyatt contributions. Contemporary music does not have to be approached with slide rule and and graph paper. With this one you'll have fun and, I suspect, weep a few tears too.
  6. Some of these discs are available on iTunes. I wonder if they'll vanish from there when they are physically deleted. Hopefully not!
  7. He had some sort of hemorrhage or stroke and brain surgery a couple of years ago. brain aneurysm. I know about Neil's illness. It was Stephen Stills who had the slurred speech on the film.
  8. This forthcoming disc gets a rave review in this month's Mojo: Neil caught live after Buffalo Springfield but before his first solo album. 1. Emcee Introduction - Various Artists 2. On The Way Home 3. Songwriting Rap 4. Mr Soul 5. Recording Rap 6. Expecting To Fly 7. Last Trip To Tulsa 8. Bookstore Rap 9. Loner 10. I Used To Rap 11. Birds 12. Winterlong/Out Of My Mind 13. Out Of My Mind 14. If I Could Have Her Tonight 15. Classical Gas Rap 16. Sugar Mountain 17. Sugar Mountain 18. I've Been Waiting For You 19. Songs Rap 20. Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing 21. Tuning Rap/The Old Laughing Lady 22. Old Laughing Lady 23. Broken Arrow
  9. Well, I doubt that. My guess is that they're just retired average joes now. Yes. Exaggeration on my part. I know a head of a maths depatment/chief examiner, a former army man now French teacher and a housewife who were at the IoW. None of them do anything close to 'letting their freak flag fly' today. And they all cut their hair (no 'almost' about it) long ago.
  10. Wouldn't that be interesting to know how they ended up? You know, the one group that (IMHO) really didn't fit on the Woodstock concert was Shanana. They seemed really out of place. I remember seeing an extended review of the film on a UK film review programme and one of the clips was Shanana. To my circle rockn'roll was definately yesterdays music so they didn't work at all. I do recall, however, certain radio DJs still playing the old rockers and bemoaning how the energy had gone out of music. Ten or so years later rock'n roll became fashionable again. So maybe Shanana were ahead of their time.
  11. I wasn't at either (too young) though as a rock conscious teenager I read about them. I do recall at that time my parents saw such things as manifestations of the poverty of contemporary culture/society. They longed for the 1940s (World Wars, atomic bombs etc but didn't everyone look after one another and leave their front doors wide open?). I love the music of that era and can still enjoy watching Woodstock the film. But even at the time I don't think I believed the mythology. I suspect most of those flower children are retired former-CEOs now. Going beyond the nostalgia, I do think that era had a sense of possibility, an openness to alternatives that was very much narrowed both politically and socially in the following decades. In music there was a real sense of 'Let's try this'. From the late 70s I became increasingly aware of 'You can't do that' (true of both punk and the Young Lions).
  12. Marvellous disc. I always enjoyed his posts at AAJ - an interesting and very humble chap.
  13. That's some real nice sarcasm there, Bev. Not meant sarcastically - I don't think anyone becomes a long term jazz enthusiast, especially with the depth and range of interest you get here, without having a need to leave the motorway and head off onto the sideroads and footpaths. I just find it odd, given how much jazz is taking place beyond the States, to see it excite so little interest. I'm not suggeting any individual has a duty to listen to (let alone enjoy) anything. Just odd that at the end of the day jazz interest is so geographically circumscribed. (Also worth mentioning that most of my jazz purchases this year have been by dead Americans; I'm going to be hard pushed to draw up a best of 2008 list!)
  14. Sylvie Courvoisier is neither a 'classic' jazz musician, nor is she American. Not much hope! People will post about what enthuses them. Nothing to complain about there. But I am surprised that the threads on non-US musicians evoke so little curiosity from hard core jazz listeners who are clearly well attuned to looking beyond the ends of their noses. On the 'classic' jazz issue, it's hardly surprising you get more commentary there. So much has already been written about these musicians that their place in the inner sanctum is quite safe. We might disagree on how close to the altar they should be placed but when we declare our love of Ellington or 'Bird' (sic) or Coltrane or Beiderbecke we know that we're going to be pretty safe. Declaring an enthusiasm for a newer atist is much riskier - their story is far from codified and we might just end up backing someone who the critics choose to tear apart (see the Redman/Mehldau spats earlier this year...and they are pretty established). Much safer to focus on the 'masters'.
  15. Over time you've also listened to a lot more music, probably some very different, so you are hearing with different ears than on initial listening. I've often listened to a recording, been underwhelmed, and then passed the musician by for years. But then hearing something else by him/her has given me a different perspective. Returning to the original recording has revealed pleasures I never previously found. It's almost as if I needed some other musical context to allow me to lock into the original purchase.
  16. I'd imagine to an outsider Haydn symphonies sound formulaic. An experienced listener can see how he started with the formula but played with it, stretched it, contracted it. The fascination lies there. You might not get the same variation of structure with jazz but what you do get is the beauty of the distinctive sound of a skilled and inspired player. There's nothing very adventurous in the arrangements on the Johnny Hodges Mosaic box but it's a joy to listen to because of the sound. Similarly, I really like some of the Zephyr albums which are very much formulaic British mainstream swing to gentle bop; yet hearing Tony Coe play inside that always catches my ear. When you first fall in love with a style of music you just want to immerse yourself in as much as possible. After a time the infatuation wears off and you need to go off somewhere else for a time if the music is still going to sound fresh. I'm not sure if that's an argument for infidelity!
  17. The Black Saint/Soul Notes have just rolled into town!
  18. My experience too...of most music. I wouldn't go as far as to say it bores me, but I lose the desire to listen to it. Time elsewhere always refreshes the ear.
  19. After really enjoying several of his late 90s albums I was really disappointed by a London concert around 2000 - he did the singing with headpiece thing there. A year later I saw him at the Iridium in New York and was just as underwhelmed. Nothing I've heard on radio or read has rekindled an interest. A pity because the late 90s records were wonderful.
  20. Read this over the last fortnight. Marvellous book - the love for both the music and Bessie herself shines through. And very good history - great care taken to point out variations in the telling of a tale when recounted by several witnesses. In fact, what I like most is the constant care with which myths are examined. I think I understand a bit better Chris' annoyance with the 'Jazz' TV series now. Something to depress (though not surprise) you, Chris. A few years back I was at a teaching conference and attended a workshop on teaching Civil Rights. The teacher running the session introduced us to what was, in teaching terms, an excellent way of gaining student interest, using Bessie Smith as a point of human interest to explain the wider social situation. Sadly, the passage used was one that recounted the story of her being refused a white hospital after her accident. There's a better lesson lying in that story - how, despite plenty of evidence proving otherwise, a strong myth will survive and be repreated regardless. Thanks for your work on the book, Chris. A great read and one that gave me a feel for the 20s and early 30s in the States that I'd not experienced before.
  21. Fish and chips are widely offered in restaurants and pubs across the UK and are normally quite pleasant. But there's something a bit different and special about those served in a dedicated fish and chip shop. When I was young we used to have a fish and chip van come around the RAF camps I grew up on. They were wonderful fish and chips. I suspect they'd be shut down under health and safety today.
  22. I can recall when Tangerine Dream were not old! There was something exotic about synths (or should that be the Moog) in the early days. I recall being overwhelmed by the bit right at the end of the first ELP album where it wheezes into life - sounded like 21stC music then!And if you listen careful to Abbey Road you can hear one whirring away. One record I'd love to hear again is one called 'Zero Time' (I think!) by Tonto's Expanding Headband. Never owned it but it was played a lot on late night radio here around '71/'72. I remember really enjoying it but was too poor to buy a copy.
  23. I bet you don't get mushy peas in the States. Something of a north of England delicacy, served with fish and chips. They sometimes serve them in pubs on their own with mint sauce! Not being a northerner I've failed to take to them, despite living in the marches of mushy-pealand for 30 years. Details here: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/blog/008-mushy-peas/ (worth reading!)
  24. It does seem strange for a chippie to sell booze. Maybe that's common in Ireland. Never been to a chippie there. MG The ones by the sea are as good as the ones you get at Whitby and places in the UK. I went to a great one in Galway a couple of years back. Could you get booze there? MG Not that I recall. But being Ireland you could probably buy nails and curtain hooks and possibly even arrange a funeral. This is the pla(i)ce - it does wine! http://www.mcdonaghs.net/
  25. It does seem strange for a chippie to sell booze. Maybe that's common in Ireland. Never been to a chippie there. MG The ones by the sea are as good as the ones you get at Whitby and places in the UK. I went to a great one in Galway a couple of years back.
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