A Lark Ascending

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.

When I'm working at home (marking, preparing etc as opposed to the close quarters combat of the classroom) I always have music on. It makes the work less of a chore. But it has to be instrumental - classical, jazz, bluegrass, morris dancing music, whatever. I don't pretend I'm really listening to it but it has the right ambient effect. It's words that muddle up my brain! No singing while working (that's the record player, not me!)! Unless it's in another language. It became a bit of a trend a few years back to play music in classrooms - apparently someone somewhere proved that baroque music improved student concentration. Something to do with BPM, I seem to recall. Close to the heartbeat or something. Personally I find baroque gets like an overloud grandfather clock after a while. Gnawingly irritating.

I sometimes sneak something in where I can find a vague connection with the history lesson I'm teaching. The kids normally throw things at me, however. Managed Josh White, Mingus and Big Bill Broonzy in a class doing the Civil Rights Movement recently. I normally hang around for 90 minutes after work to mark and put music on to ease the pain. Then the other staff throw things at me.

Why is this in the Miscellaneous Music section? I don't understand. Sorry, I'm British.

I think the most I saw on stage at the same time were: Archie Shepp, Grachan Moncur III, Rosewell Rudd, Andrew Cyrille, Reggie Workman with the occasional bit of reading by Amiri Baraka. And: A Kenny Wheeler big band with Abercrombie, Erskine, Holland, Taylor, Winstone, Sulzmann, Lowther, Parker, Rutherford amongst others. And: Moholo, Rogers, Tippett, Rutherford, Parker, Yarde (OK, Yarde is a bit young for 'great' yet).

Surprised we didn't get "...and a reader of..." How do you ever get to a state where you hate so much?

John Surman, Mike Westbrook, John Taylor, Stan Tracey, Keith Tippett. Evan Parker, Kenny Wheeler, Louis Stewart, Norma Winstone, Gianluigi Trovesi........ I think 30+ years of marvellous music might qualify to make you a 'great'.

A rare mid-week trip to the shops led to: Charlie Haden and John Taylor - Nightfall. A favourite bass player and piano player together! Bliss! An odd compilation of early Fleetwood Mac stuff...a result of hearing a track on Paul Jones' blues programme a few days back: and The newly issued fourth volume of Chandos' wonderful Frank Bridge series...a strange obsession of mine. Just as well they normally send me down the salt mines on week days.

Though I'm quite unfamiliar with the living/dead status of PMs, wouldn't this actually be Maggie? She'd be an ex-PM. Though she definitely clogged up space for 11 years too many. Sorry! I should be saying this in the politics column!

"What is the oldest PM you have clogging up space?" The obvious answer is Tony Blair. But I quite like the chap!

Yes, it's one of those throwaway joke songs he does every now and then.

What happened to the days when you people got really pro-active about taxmen and started dressing up as indians and throwing things in harbours?

I loved Mariano in Eberhard Weber's 'Colours' group of the late 70s. A group that explored one of the other directions that 'In a Silent Way' could lead!

Clementine, Very much enjoying the Geremia. Just my sort of a disc. His vocals remind me of Lowell George at times! Beautiful guitar playing and very well recorded. Have you ever listened to Martin Simpson? A UK guitarist/singer who hops back and forth between blues (which I suspect was where he started) and English folk. He lived in the States for a long time but I think he's back with us now. His recent 'Righteousness & Humidity' CD is a really beauty. If you can take a guy from Scunthorpe having the blues its worth your attention!

His two most recent CDs get my vote as the best he's done in a long time. Really stripped of excess production. I've always found his albums to contain a fair proportion of throwaway stuff...but every one has a few gems on. The last two seem to have higher quality control. The growing list of live recordings is fun too - you get to hear some of the songs that were swamped in the the studio (for me the studio nadir was Daring Adventures...yet it's packed with good songs!). Promised for later this year on http://www.richardthompson-music.com/ : ---RT LIVE 'RETRO' CD (SUMMER 2004) ---RT BAND LIVE DVD (AUTUMN 2004) ---RT BAND 'ARCHIVE' CD

I remember the early versions of ELO doing sessions on the BBC late night programmes in the early 70s but they never really attracted me. I loved 'Living Thing' when it came out as a single in late 1976...I distinctly recall hearing it in my Aunt's kitchen in a tiny seaside village in Cornwall on the morning I'd gone down to be introduced to the school where I was to do my teaching practice. I bought the album and really liked it for a few months...and then it wore off. After that I just associate ELO with that late-70s era where everything I loved to listen to (the whole early-70s prog-rock thing) just disappeared, flattened by the punk/New Wave onslaught. ELO were one of the few dinosaurs to maintain some success in the UK...and I'm afraid what they had to offer sounded very thin to my ears. So on balance ELO do not bring back happy memories. I much preferred The Move!

That's interesting. I can half remember hearing a farewell Fotheringay concert on BBC radio all those years ago, well before I got interested in Fairport or Fotheringay. I remember the announcer getting all sentimental about this band I knew virtually nothing about. I didn't have a tape machine either (I must have been about 15).

I think this might have been a case of cultural misunderstanding. Thompson's stage persona is laced with irony. Maybe it comes across as condescending in the States in the same way that many US performers can seem over-brash to us Brits! Whenever I've seen Thompson he's had the audience eating out of his hand. In the right setting - on his solo tours in particular - he can generate a really folk-cluby repartee with the audience. I've seen him ask for requests and manage virtually every one. And not just his own songs! There was a TV documentary about him on over here last year. His family were totally astounded that he was even on stage - he was apparently an extremely shy person in his youth. I think I can detect that even now...he always seems nervous, on edge. You also get the impression that he likes to keep his distance a bit. He's never thrown himself 100% into the Fairport revival thing at Cropredy. That's the past for the odd revisiting. ******************* There's not much extra Fotheringay as far as I know. The 80s CD reissue had two excellent additions - Two Weeks Last Summer and Gypsy Davy - and there was an early version of Late November on the Sandy Denny Box from the sessions for their proposed second album. There's also a few dodgy live things...I'm not sure Fotheringay playing 'Memphis Tennessee' is essential listening!!! But who knows. All sorts of intersting (if lo-fi) stuff has come out of the closet in recent years from the classic era Fairports. Both of these 4CD sets are a goldmine for anyone who loved this band in its hey-day:

I still await the day when a live broadcast from the Bath Jazz Weekend cancels "Record Review" or "This Week's Composer"!