A Lark Ascending

"Joy Spring" There's a very nice vocal version by Norma Winstone!

Thank you, couw. My ego needs such massaging. I've just downloaded something called 'Media Resizer' - I was recommended it on this board last year and got the trial version which seemed to work. I'm finding it a bit tough to make sense of. It seems to go from massive to tiny! Then I have to fiddle to get it back to a decent size.

Mainly a desktop. The one I bought last year I'm very happy with. I have a laptop issued by the school where I work. It is connected to the network via a wireless system. This allows me to do things like pull up class registers each lesson...except that it frequently 'can't find my roaming profile' [i assume that's something like an aborigine's spirit!] and regularly tells me there's a 'timeout'. This means I waste valuable minutes trying to pull up a register instead of teaching. Very frustrating!

Thought this one might deserve a return a year on. Favourite spring music anyone?

A bit of playing and a better image. Incidentally, notice the artistic care with which the shot was taken. The ancient stag-head oak in the centre-left, symbolising age and decay, set against the budding spring surrounding it!!!!!

Inspired by Joe's post I did my own bit of Rousseauing today. After a fairly dull spring so far in the UK it all came right today. Here's Sherwood Forest in all its glory...well, apart from the fact that I still can't get the hang of this media resizer business. How do you manage to post such wonderful images?

In addition to those two excellent Enjas you might try this: Disc 1 is a traditional Italian town band playing hits from Italian opera. Disc 2 is the same band plus various jazzers doing modern jazz compositions. "LA BANDA" Traditional Italian Banda Banda & Jazz CD 1: Traditional Italian Banda Banda Cittá Ruvo Di Puglia, dir. by Michele di Puppo CD 2: Banda & Jazz Banda Cittá Ruvo Di Puglia, dir. by Bruno Tommaso and Willem Breuker feat. Lucilla Galeazzi (vocal) Pino Minafra (trumpet) Gianluigi Trovesi (reeds) Michel Godard (tuba) Jean-Louis Matinier (acc) Willem Breuker (reeds) I saw them do this in London a couple of years back and it was thrilling. As are these discs, CD2 in particular.

You could always try this classic from 1972. One of the most influential records on my listening habits. Seriously! As weird as any ritual music from deepest Mali.

A dig made with much affection! In the end it doesn't matter too much how anyone sees this site. It strikes me as pretty self-sustaining. And welcoming to those who stumble in here!

That could be a great first line for a song!

Octopus's Garden...can't remember where the apostrophe goes and can't be bothered to check. I find 'She's Leaving Home' cloying...a bit too earnest in its attempt at social commentary. Maybe it's because it was played to us at school to make a point (we also had 'Within You, Without You' played to awaken our spirituality but I got over that)! "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" - the verse part is wonderfully dreamy; the chorus is awful.

One thing's for sure. This is the jazz board where you'd be most likely to find eight pages of ruminating on "How other people see us..., No, not the USA... THIS BOARD!" One of those smiley faces denoting a gentle ribbing.

Time to crack open the Delius and Vaughan Williams records. When I was younger I loved Autumn. But I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now. I look forward to each spring with increasing relish. I'm inspired to take a walk in Sherwood Forest (well, what's left of it!) this weekend!

This one is spending lots of time on my CD player: Think Appalachian/bluesy folk-pop-rock with wonderful Australian accents. Great songs, lovely rootsy arrangements.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau is in the house!!!

Brilliant record! I played it to a class of 16 year olds when we were studying the Cuban Missile Crisis just before Christmas and they loved it!

"Feelings" drives me nuts. I'm convinced that the real reason Eric Clapton has the blues is because he has to play 'Wonderful Tonight' ever night (and realise that he actually wrote it [in what must have been one of his worst bouts of alcoholism/drug-dependence]). "God Save the Queen" is pretty dire too (both versions!!!).

Actually Swedish folk music but with a jazzy sensibility - that willingness to blurr things rather than play straight. My whole musical world was greatly enlivened by discovering Swedish and other Scandanavian folk and folk related music last year. Line up: Sofia Karlsson (Vocals, Härjedalspipa, Trätvärflöjt) Terje Isungset (Percussion) Rickard Åström (Piano) Jonas Simonson (Saxophones, Flutes) Mats Edén (Melodeons, Violin, Viola d'Amore) Another electrifying release from that side of the world...Finland this time...: Easily my favourite vocal group of the moment.

You can become an e-mail subscriber to Jazz Review. For £15.00 ($30.00) a year they e-mail you the pages. Much cheaper than subscribing overseas to the magazine in print form - (£50 - $100). E-mail jazzreview@excite.com for details. Jack Cooke does a couple of reviews in the current (April) issue.

They've recently released a CD of orchestral music by Genesis (possibly ex-) keyboard player, Tony Banks! The certainly have a broad brief.

I'd recommend Naxos too. If you're a classical expert you might be able to find plenty to criticise in some of the recordings. But I doubt that most of us would spot what was supposedly wrong. I like them because they explore some less visited areas of music - their ongoing British and American series have some marvellous music. And I've recently got interested in the Spanish series. Above all if you get a dud you've hardly paid a fortune. With some of the multiple offers (5 for £20) available in the shops you're paying the same price as a fast-food meal. Without the grease!

Not nearly as confused as you'll be when civilisation collapses. You'll all be desperately dialing phones that don't work and starving. We'll still be communicating via our pigeons and feasting off whippet steaks. Then it'll only be a matter of time before the Royal Navy reappears in Boston Harbour. Be nice to us!

I'm deeply offended, Tony. I innocently looked up whippets on google image search and look what appeared! http://pages.globetrotter.net/mcordeau/2003/whippet.htm (don't ask why I looked up whippets...its coffee break time, I've been working hard...)

I have a tape of 'Flight of the Bumble Bee' on a loop for when I need to drive somewhere fast.