A Lark Ascending

I certainly do - my dad still uses it to mean 'later on' rather than 'immediately'. He also eats 'AAAggs' with his bacon!

I don't!

That would be the jazz CD shop in Bath, if you are thinking East of Cornwall. Failing that it's the Jazz Record Centre or Downtown Music Gallery NYC if thinking West. I'm not sure if there are any jazz outlets these days in Exeter (there used to be a great LP shop on Gandy St but long gone now I'm afraid). Too bad that Peter Russell's 'Hot Record Store' in Plymouth is long gone. That was a good place - although a bit 'trad/mainstream' inclined. I think I'd prefer NYC! Rubbish pasties! In 3 1/2 years living in Cornwall I got out twice - both times to Plymouth! It's probably as easy to get to NYC as Bath.

I suspect that record was put together to create some joy, make a little money, by people trying to do the best job they could. And they clearly succeeded beyond their wildest dreams - I somehow doubt they had their eyes on posterity. So why does it have to be picked out of the 'pop' box and put in the 'art' box? And who decides if it should move? (most of the heated arguments about music seem to revolve around this - what is worthy. As always those who feel the need to judge come armed with a set of cultural criteria for admission into the inner sanctum that are not shared in common.) I think this is just about trying to legitimise something that has grown up in one culture in the terms of a very different set of cultural values. The Supremes don't need that validation. I'm not convinced a system of cultural measurement from the 18th/19thC has much value in the 21st.

It depends if you think a creator is obliged to reflect themselves in what they produce - that the 'art' is only 'honest' if it reflects the 'artist's' real personality. I suspect that there are a fair few 'artists' who aim at 'artifice' - the creation of something that in no ways tells you anything about themselves. Stravinsky always tried to detach the creations from the person. I doubt if you can totally divorce the two, MG, but I suspect there is a great deal of creative music etc that sets out quite deliberately to be detached. Not expressing yourself but using an 'art-form' to go somewhere very different. I'd imagine quite a few troubled people find creating music etc quite a rewarding way to escape their troubles. I find myself in two minds about this - not just with criminals, abusers etc, but with the sort of musician who does adopt a haughty and elitist demeanour. In the end I compartmentalise - what a twerp, but what marvellous music. It's always great to come across someone like Vaughan Williams whose music I adore and also comes across as a decent bloke (in spite of his pedigree!).

I wouldn't dispute that there are higher qualities - the St. Matthew Passion or Ellington 40s records clearly show people realising the fullest human potential. It's the game playing that grates - where something that can perfectly convincingly be regarded as an example of high achievement gets rubbished as a way for the rubbisher to claim a higher standard of discrimination. Music, painting, writing...the lot...exists for me in a sort of three dimensional spectrum. Dividing it into 'art' and 'not art' is purely arbitrary and more to do with tribe forming than anything else. I've no problem...and I don't think British culture - actually has much problem with intellectualism (using the brain to create, investigate etc)! We're just very guarded when it comes to pseudo-intellectualism. We've grown up with it being used by some to maintain a sense of exclusiveness. I don’t think Carey is being anti-intellectual. He’s challenging the abuse of intellectualism - the use of the intellect to create an exclusive zone rather than using it for the benefit of the community at large.

I remember that period only too well. This was the early 70s when hairy rock musicians mingled freely with jazz musicians to produce music of wildly variable quality. I remember seeing an early Mike Westbrook multi-media piece called Earthrise at the Mermaid theatre in London and sitting just in front of the whole of Manfred Mann. In fact, Manfred Mann's Chapter Three ( first album ) was a pretty successful attempt at fusing jazz and prog rock from this period. The thing I liked about this period was that almost anything was possible, eg Centipede. Can't imagine the accountants in charge of what's left of the music industry letting this kind of thing getting past the proposal stage. Absolutely - those were the days when people like Tippett could make something like a living on the college circuit. 'Septober Energy' remains a favourite of mine (though I think he pulled it off even more successfully with the almost snuck out 'Frames' a few years later, where the rock elements have vanished). Where are you in Cornwall, Jazzjet? I lived in Newquay from 1968-72 during my mid teens and have strong links with the county - my dad is from Tregony just outside Truro.

Carey's programme really hit home with me, especially the Arnold Bennett section. I enjoyed a post-war Welfare State education that had been denied my parents and recall being fed these ideas of what was good for me at school. At Uni I had to read a Bennett book ('Anna of the Five Towns') which I thoroughly enjoyed. I then had to sit through a lecture where I was told why I shouldn't have enjoyed it. I started to smell a rat at that point.

'Septober Energy' is really only fusion-y (in the jazz rock sense) for the first half of side 2 and the centre of side 4. Though the other parts certainly cross into contemporary classical territory. The fusion-y bits of Westbrook's 'Citadel' also tend to stick out like a sore thumb. Interesting that Westbrook quickly dropped that chugging funky beat thing from his music. Would the Nucleus albums fit here? Perhaps not a big band at centre but some of those records add other musicians. Much as I admire the musicians playing I've always found the rock there hard to enjoy. Too many gigs in my youth where well-spoken Englishmen in loon pants urged me to 'get down'. Carla Bley was mentioned earlier - I think this one works:

Thank you, seeline. The good news is that it's sat there waiting for me at e-music and I've still got 29 credits! Downloading as I type!

I think you'll find in Britain that even the middle classes have little interest in 'the arts' in the intellectual sense. One interesting change in the last ten years or so is that government ministers are more likely to seek photo opportunities at a football match than in an opera house. Given that elections are won and lost capturing the middle class vote, this seems to reflect the level of interest between the 'arts' and sport. The massive spending and attention devoted to the 2012 Olympics has no comparison in the fields of music, painting etc. You won't find many voices in the UK speaking out for the centrality of 'the arts'.

Taking up the side-shoot... This is how I see it too. I wonder if there might be a cross-Atlantic divide here. Over the years I've noticed that it's American posters who are more likely to make statements about the importance of 'art', more likely to differentiate between art and not art. I wonder if this is because we've had centuries of it in Europe and have just got jaded. Whereas 'art' recognised internationally as distinctive is hardly a century old in the States. Or maybe it is just so associated with the upper classes in Europe (or at least Britain which has a deeply rooted suspicion of intellectualism outside those classes). The main promotional bodies here are still dominated by that social elite. There's a book by John Carey called 'The Intellectuals and the Masses, 1880-1939' that puts a very convincing case (to me at least) that much of modernism was a deliberate attempt to put a distance between the elite and the masses at a time when mass education threatened to see the masses catch up. By creating 'art' that was deliberately obscure they could still retain their sense of superiority. I've not read the book but the TV programme a year or so back certainly played to my prejudices. There's a synopsis here: http://grumpyoldbookman.blogspot.com/2005/...and-masses.html Quite a few of the early 20thC literary giants come across as people with extremely unpleasant political and social ideas. D.H. Lawrence in a 1908 letter about the old, sick and suffering - ‘If I had my way, I would build a lethal chamber as big as the Crystal Palace’ (which returns to the main theme of the thread).

Many thanks all...and keep them coming. Will check out Kiko Dinucci. I have this early Lobo record which I love... With so much out there I was unsure where to go next. I now have a target - thanks, Seeline. The Joyce/Tutty record is indeed marvellous. I was lucky enough to see them last month as part of an all star 50th anniversary of Bossa concert in London. Joyce had the audience eating out of her hand from the moment she hit the stage. A couple of recent favourites from me: Their album with the Tamba Trio plus selections from a couple of other albums. I'd feared something a bit sugary but this has the ghostliness of the Afeo-Sambas. I keep raving about this one a Sao Paulo singer, resident in the UK. It uses mainly British musicians but it just knocked my socks off this year. The quality of the songwriting is stunning. One I got off e-music and really enjoyed yesterday: [Casuarina - self-titled] Acoustic, lots of rhythmic stringed instuments, joyous vocals.

I really like Binney's albums - wide ranging and full of interest. Especially when he's teamed with Adam Rogers. They played the Cheltenham Festival over here a couple of years back - marvellous performance. Well worth tracking down Joel Harrison's two 'Free Country' albums where Binney is a major voice. There was a live broadcast of a London gig of that band on the BBC that was very exciting. Worth going to Binney's website. He regular puts up downloads of recent gigs at very inexpensive prices.

I think a pub in somewhere like Moreton-in-the-Marsh might be nicer! Perfect !!!!! Or failing that - Stow on the Wold. In my experience Stow has traffic problems on a par with Brum. I've often had to wait 30 mins + to get through.

I think a pub in somewhere like Moreton-in-the-Marsh might be nicer!

And I thought I'd found a loophole! Tried to place an order, Jim, but when attempting to register it insists I indicate which state I'm in. Won't allow me to go any further without. I'm tempted to go for 'Armed Forces Europe'!!!!!!! I ran into that, Bev. You bypass that "State" field and go for United Kingdom aone or two farther down the page. Once that was in, the "State" field let me put in Rhondda Cynon Taff and a UK postcode. It's subtle, ain't it? You have to think a little way outside the box to get an Organissimo CD. And QRT! MG Thanks, MG. I didn't see the box below - thought it referred to the list of states. It worked with your directions. I like the cover - reminds me of the lava lamp we had in 1969!

Any recent recommendations? I just listened to the track from Os Novos Baianos on Spinning in Air and thought 'Yes!' Sadly, out of stock at Dusty. I'm currently working through some new arrivals from Jovino Santos Neto, Hamilton de Holanda and a disc of Tutty Moreno, Teco Cardoso etc. Dusty Groove has so much that its hard to know where to begin!

And I thought I'd found a loophole! Tried to place an order, Jim, but when attempting to register it insists I indicate which state I'm in. Won't allow me to go any further without. I'm tempted to go for 'Armed Forces Europe'!!!!!!!

Worksop is east of the Mississippi!!!!!! If 10 Brits pool $300 each we get a CD each and a private performance in one of our homes!!!!

I agree. It's the byways of a person's interest that create a sense of their personality. And if you should find yourself straying in that direction it becomes a goldmine of information. I always struggle with the idea of 'essential' as it suggests that there is some norm, some canon that everyone must have experienced. Most people would have 'Kind of Blue' in the essential list; yet I suspect someone interested more in blow-torch jazz could go through life without hearing it and be none the worse.

This wasa big hit in the UK in 1976 and I recall rushing to the radio to switch it off every time it appeared: 'Music' John Miles These were the days of intense trade union activism so I can only assume that the lyricists union was working to rule, putting a quota on new verses.

That's one of the things I find so unattractive about the sound of rock records from about the mid-70s on. The drums sound like they were recorded in an aircraft hanger! I'm clearly a gentler soul - prefer something more pastoral!

About the time disco got popular. But most of these bands hated disco! Most hated punk...though a fair few learnt to express an admiration for it in the hope that it might just save them from being marched off to the countryside for re-education. Bill Bruford has commented that large stadiums lose any subtly in the drums; if you're not careful with all the reverb it gets hard for the other musicians to follow. The only thing you can do is is thump out the beat as steadily as possible. I have a feeling the culprit lies there.

I'm the same with PF up to 'Wish You Were Here' - Gilmour's guitar is a beauteous thing - I've always felt he's been shortchanged by the exaggerated cult of Barrett. I find the PF and PF related music from the 80s onwards difficult to appreciate. Too much plodding beat. There was an airborne, spaciousness about them in the 60s/70s that seemed to get destroyed by the need to shape music to stadiums. But that seems to be a problem for most of the bands/musicians of that era when it got to the 80s. I was listening today to a compilation of Harvest label bands from the 60s/70s: Even the most lumpen blues rockers seemed to have a bit of lift about them. When did it become so vital to put a standard beat so far in the foreground?