A Lark Ascending

Nice new Alan Barnes set of less familiar Ellington...and good to see Tony Coe getting onto record. Why is he allowed to hide? Not remotely innovative, groundbreaking etc. Just marvellous music superbly played by excellent musicians. I'm sure if Appleby had survived we'd have heard this live. A pity.

Probably the case with the examples you give. But I sometimes think this idea that ECM albums would be more enjoyable with different production values misses the point that most of its output is very different from the US mainstream, regardless of how it was recorded. I don't find the recent ECM recordings of Italians like Bollani, Trovesi or Rava as engaging as what I've heard elsewhere (on Splas(h) or Label Bleu, for example). But I don't think it's just the sound...I think the music itself is set up rather differently. There's something a bit solemn and self-consciously serious about it. Bollani is a player who is full of fun but you'd never guess this from his ECM recordings. With music like that in this Touchstone series I have no problem - this was one of the ways I first heard jazz in the 70s so it fits my expectations; whereas I first got to enjoy Italian jazz elsewhere and have been a bit disappointed with the ECM releases. I think a fair amount of the criticism levelled at ECM simply comes from bringing one set of expectations and finding them not met by a very different approach. With people like the AEofC that's hardly surprising, given how extensively they were recorded elsewhere (though I first heard them on ECM so never had a problem with the sound of those records).

I know it's not a serious suggestion, but remastering ECM as RVGs does sound a bit like re-cutting films from Europe for the American market. Most listeners in the States would remain uninterested and those who were would probably say they preferred the originals. With a few exceptions, the music and the production at ECM works off a different aesthetic (and, in many cases, tradition) to American jazz. If you can't hear the beauties there in its existing form then no amount of technical tweaking is going to make it any more likely to give up its treasures. I think 'Gnu High' was my first Wheeler album back in the mid-70s, but it's not one I return to a great deal. I'm not sure why - it sounds like a standard quartet date to my ears compared with Wheeler's later discs. I suspect that may come from years of hearing him on record, the radio and live in more unconventional groupings - everything from Azimuth (my favourite setting) to the early Dave Holland quintets (to say nothing of his occasional forays into the free world).

Egea have just put a batch of recordings up on e-music.

I didn't get to any of the freezone sessions but did see the three on the main stage. I'd imagine these are a mix of solo, duo and trio improvs (that's what they did on the main stage). I must admit I didn't really connect with Rothenberg. Might give this a go to see if I can find a way in.

There's a very different Dunmall on at least one of Danny Thompson's 'Whatever' albums - inside playing, very folksy.

I'm still waiting for Lookout Farm! There are some marvellous recordings in that reissue batch if your particular taste runs to the sort of approaches ECM favour (mine does). If funky and greasy is your touchstone then you'll almost certainly wonder what the fuss is all about.

He played Appleby last year - very impressive. Several of his discs are on e-music. I especially like the recent Frith/Bjork one.

I mentioned it before, but I strongly recommend the organ work 'La Nativite du Seigneur'. It was the first Messiaen I bought c.1975, on the back of the organ solo in the centre of Henry Cow's 'Living in the Heart of the Beast'. It has the same immediacy that the Quartet for the End of Time has. I'm still working on the longer organ pieces!

I've been trying to find 'Lampo' for a while, after reading your earlier enthusiasms, seeline. It's been unavailable for a few years but I notice a 2008 release with that title but a different cover on Amazon: as opposed to: Seems to be the same track list. Not a remake, by any chance?

Dropped into the Sidmouth Folk Festival a couple of weekends back and was transported to another world by these two: Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill slowly unpeeling Irish tunes. Very different from the usual 'last one to the end of the tune is a sissy' approach to Irish music. Hayes is originally from County Clare in Ireland but, I believe, lives in Seattle now - I think Cahill is a Chicago native. Look out - could be in your area sooner than they'll be in mine!

I'm sure there's a more proper way to describe it, papsrus! Well worth a listen - De Vito has consistently put out very individual vocal discs, a million miles from the 'standards' based records that flooded the marked in the late 90s/early noughties. You can hear some De Vito samples here: http://www.myspace.com/mariapiadevito Though I'd suggest starting with the Italian titles. 'Voccuccia de no pie' (from an earlier recording) is especially lovely.

Just acquired this as a download from the DG website: Very interesting disc: 1. Concert à quatre 2. (Les) Offrandes oubliées 3. (Un) sourire 4. (Le) Tombeau resplendissant 1 + 3 are very late pieces; highly accessible - 1. sounds like Debussy in places! 2 + 4 are some of his earliest orchestral pieces, owing a good deal to Firebird era Stravinsky. Interesting because according to the bio he was highly critical as a young man of the later neoclassical-era Stravinsky (and neo-classicism in general).

Here's a splendid new release: Stumbled on it at e-music. Maria Pia De Vito has been a favourite of mine for the last ten years or so; Huw Warren is from Wales and has played in both the jazz world (roughly in that rather zany Loose Tubes area) and in the folk world (he was June Tabor's pianist for many years). Gabrielle Mirabassi is on a few tracks so I suppose that makes this one Italian! I saw the Warren/De Vito duo in an Appleby concert last year - spellbinding. This Cd is marvellous too. De Vito has something in common with Norma Winstone, though she's more prone to break into free form vocalising. I was underwhelmed by her Joni Mitchell project on Camjazz last year but this one works very well. From icy ECM-ish ballads to vocal pyrotechnics and a particularly fine track with Mirabassi going bonkers on clarinet. Recommended.

In the UK you get three points on your license for a speeding offence (plus a fine...I think it was £60 last time, though I think they are changing to an incremental system). If you get 12 points you lose your licence. I got caught just over three years back, following a school coach through Wales. We both got zapped! Then just over a year later I got caught late one night on a camera on a 30 mph stretch on the edge of town following a 40 mph in the middle. With six points I started driving very carefully. With 3 years since the first lapsed I'm now back to three points. Lots of grumbling over here about authorities using cameras as revenue milk cows. Doesn't bother me much...if I'm daft enough to speed then I deserve the fine/points.

Caught with a lighter on Brighton Pier? Or even Wigan!

Whilst driving around on holiday I chanced on a broadcast of the last ten of the 'Vingt regards sur l'Enfant Jesus' and was smitten - I'd always expected something arid and forbidding. Led me into something of a Messiaen-fest over recent days. I read this at virtually one sitting: A relatively short (240 pages) bio that gives you the context and chronology of the music. Light on musical analysis (a plus for me as I usually don't understand it!). Recommended to anyone who is interested in Messiaen but doesn't already have a deep knowledge. I've popped some of his shorter pieces (that get can lost in couplings with larger works) on the ipod - really enjoying hearing things like 'L'ascencion', 'Oiseaux exotique', 'Couleurs de la citie celeste' and two organ pieces - 'Lw Banquet Celeste' and 'Apparition de L'Eglise Eternelle' in their own right.

Two beautiful new solo piano records: Reminds me of Jarrett c. 'Facing You', before he got too god-bothering. Highly melodic tunes with a folksy edge to them.

Just played it for the first time - absolutely marvellous. I know it will be a regular as I'm driving the interstate highways from Wiltshire to Cornwall. Well done Jim, Joe and Randy. And thank you for the music (as some Swedes once said).

After refusing to even consider an ipod for the last few years (for no other reason than its trendiness) I got to a state last week where my Archos 20GB finally filled up. Looking around Archos seemed to only offer something more expensive clearly designed mainly for showing films. So I bit the bullet and bought an 80GB ipod - well, what a revelation. So much simpler to load than the Archos (which had some bizarre ways of storing tracks even within the same album!). Having spent the last few days loading up I today experimented with the shuffle...what a great facility. I just had to make sure I excluded all the classical stuff first...a 20 minute Mahler movement doesn't quite work next to Hank Williams, The Hollies and Sonny Rollins! And I've also got one of those gizmos that allow you to play it through your car stereo via a free radio frequency. 5 years ago I took off on holiday with a large box of CDs. Now I've got oodles more in the palm of my hand. What amazing days we live in. When I consider the crappy record player that I started out with in 1970 where I had to sellotape a coin to the cartridge to stop it skipping!

All my vinyl -purchased from 1970 until the late 80s - is now in the loft, apart from things I don't have on CD in one form or another. I went through a phase in the early 80s when I hardly touched my rock collection. But I then found I got just as much enjoyment from those records as from anything I acquired subsequently in the jazz/classical/folk fields. So much of it has been bought again on CD in the last 25 years or so (along with music from that era I never owned or even knew). Whatever simplicities much of that music might have is more the compensated for by the nostalgic charge the tracks contain. I recall my parents telling me at the time that I would grow out of my early 70s collection. Doesn't seem to have happened (probably says more about me than the music but...).

You've clearly never been to Weston-super-mare!

Just rattled through the door here in the UK.

Like others, I fell for George Coleman's sound on the 'My Funny Valentine' Miles album when I first heard it in the late 70s. Since then I've picked up a fair few of his solo discs, having a particular fondness for 'Amsterdam after Dark.' I think he came over to the UK nearly every year during the 80s/90s - I got to see him just the once quite late on. Here's a good 1990s club date from Ronnie's: British rhythm section plus a guest appearance by Peter King. It also exists in a twofer with and 1979 date from Ronnie's ('Playing Changes'). Both are on e-music. There was another recording from Ronnies from the late 70s that appeared on the brief Ronnie Scott house label. For some reason that never got to CD: From http://www.georgecoleman.com/discography_frame.html I assume that lies in the same attic as Ronnie Scott's own 'Serious Gold'.