A Lark Ascending

Possibly the disc that has given me the greatest pleasure all year on sale here for $5 for this week only (look at the bottom of the page): http://www.noside.com/ Swedish folk-ish group 'Groupa' - a band with an almost jazzy sense of improvisation and perpetual change. The Annbjorg Lien at $9 is a bargain too - more 'proggy' but great fun from this excellent Norwegian fiddle player. Oh, and the three samplers at $5 each are astounding. In the end they cost me a fortune this year!

Who is doing the Euro end? I'm grateful to Gary for passing on the first two to me. Quite happy to do my bit when duty calls. I'm looking forward to identifying the hidden 666 track!

Churchill and FDR met on a battleship in the Atlantic. We'd probably have to go for the Indian Ocean to be realy central. I hear there's a fair few not far from there.

I think the Bebop box is a marvellous primer for that music. I play it frequently. Hitting on all Six is a great compilation too. Anyone heard the Gospel set? Proper do make error - a Louis Armstrong track crops up on the Lionel Hampton box; and there's an irritating jump back on one of the Sarah Vaughan tracks on the Powell set. But at the price I can live with those! And so do I!

I think this connects with... http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php...?showtopic=4950

Er, this sure is fun, isn't it?

I have the Bechet (which I was playing today as it happens) and the Navarro. I'm no audiophile but I do get upset by excessive distortion or undue wooziness. Given the age of these recordings they cause me no problems whatsoever. I've no doubt there are more perfect reproductions and if you're an expert you might look out for them. But if you are just wanting a general collection you can't go far wrong. Website: http://www.propermusic.com/

Take all the sweet biscuits you like. I'm 2 1/2 years into cold turkey on sweet biscuits and chocolate!

I saw this for £3 the other week. Hope it's still there next time I go to...

Well close to Plymouth, Devon anyway. http://www.jazzviews.co.uk/ A monthly UK jazz site that deals mainly with domestic jazz but does interviews from the wider world and reviews to. Miroslav Vitous interview included this month...is there anywhere Miroslave has not done an interview this month? Oh, Horse and Hound. Right! Worth a look if you're curious about how jazz might look from another place.

You know I've never heard that suggestion before? Must be in the intonation.

Wouldn't that be a vixen?

Got to admire the variety. Very tempting. Maybe the record company could offer a free set to the person who guesses how many notes he plays over the entire 17 discs.

Given how often we get a new Michael Brecker or Joe Lovano CD I thing Maria Schneider is criminally under recorded. I have her 3 generally released CDs and love them all. Beautiful, original arrangements. I love jazz 'orchestra' - without the big band mannerisms or too much of the acid rock histrionics. For this Schneider fits perfectly. Very much an inheritor and developer of Gil Evans' ways. Along with people like Kenny Wheeler, Mike Gibbs, and Colin Towns she really knows how to explore the breadth of palette available to a jazz based orchestra. Someone I'd travel a fair way to see in a live setting (she did some work in Scotland a while back...a bit further than a fair way, I'm afraid.)

I'm afraid we've already got that one too! Do you have pancake day! (The rest of the world has Mardi Gras, Carnival etc, we have Pancake Day!)

Trick or Treating? was virtually unknown in the UK until a few years back...it's become a bit of a thing in recent years largely through the influence of US TV and films. We get added madness. November the 5th is Guy Fawkes night. Bonfires, fireworks. This can drive you totally nuts if, like this year, it falls mid-week, because no-one knows when to hold their Bonfire Party. So at the moment (Sunday, 2nd Nov) it sounds like Ypres in 1915...its going to be like that every night this week and then again at the weekend. And if you're in a neighbourhod that's big on Diwali... Bah, Humbug! ******** So, here's a deal. You take back Trick or Treat? and we'll throw in Guy Fawkes Night as well. In return we'll take Thanksgiving Day off your hands (which always sounds like much more fun).

I bought this a few weeks back (in a Fopp sale at the same price!) and really like it. 'The Sidewinder' never really stood out for me but this one has made me much more curious about Morgan.

For festival mayhem this one is hard to beat. By Chris Welch from his book on Yes. It's worth the read! One of the more bizarre Yes gigs occurred in July, 1969, when they were booked to play in Ireland on a package tour that included The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band and The Nice. On paper it was a wonderful combination. Indeed, the shows they played in Belfast and Dublin were superb and, with the Bonzos on hand, the tour was rich in comic moments. But the end of the tour was a farcical disaster, the ultimate Yes wild goose chase or pig chase, as it turned out. The groups, accompanied by their managers Roy Flynn and Tony Stratton Smith and myself, spent the final day in a hot and stuffy coach, driving endlessly through twisting narrow country lanes between Dublin and Cork where the venue turned out to be a football ground on the outskirts of town. When the three bands arrived on that sunny Sunday afternoon long ago, they were fully expecting to see a massive crowd building up. Instead the ground was deserted; indeed there wasn't a soul for miles around. The roadies discovered a makeshift stage comprising a tangled mass of scaffolding, which had been set in front of the spectator's stand and apparendy given up as a bad job. Then they found the power supply: a cable that snaked across the pitch to a small wooden ticket hut where it was connected - incredibly - to an electric kettle flex stuffed into a three pin socket with the aid of match sticks. When the roadies tried to plug in the band's instruments, amplifiers and PA system the whole lot simply fused and went dead. They tried this three times to no avail. The crew advised the management that there was no chance of any of the bands putting on a show. The troupe of some 14 travelling musicians sat down on the pitch in their satin stage gear and cried with laughter. At that moment an awful stench swept across the empty field. It seemed to be emanating £rom a nearby building, which on closer inspection turned out to be the 'Cork Pork Abattoir'. The squealing of unhappy porkers rent the air. All eyes turned on The Nice's portly manager. Tony Stratton Smith sensed he could not escape retribution. He had led us into the valley of doom. The cry went up from 'Legs' Larry Smith and Viv Stanshall of the Bonzos - "Debag the rotters!" The portly manager and his accountant were chased across the pitch by a yelling mob of musos intent on removing their trousers. Nobody had ever seen Strat run before - and he put on a surprising burst of speed. The pair were saved by a sudden diversion. There was a loud explosion and a shower of rust fell from the grandstand roof Roger Spear, the Bonzos' sax player and special effects man, had let off a cherry bomb. Loud were the cheers as the sun began to set over Cork. Perhaps lured by all this noise and disturbance, a few disconsolate and somewhat tetchy locals turned up demanding to know why the bands weren't giving the advertised concert. When shown the electrical supply they shook their heads as if this was some feeble excuse. The party repaired to the nearest pub where the pints flowed and Keith Emerson of The Nice began an impromptu performance on an upright piano, playing boogie-woogie and 'Nut Rocker' with such vigour it drove the locals into a frenzy. A version of 'Give Peace A Chance' somehow turned into a chorus of 'Give Booze A Chance!' It was the craziest concert I ever saw - The Nice, Yes and Bonzos in full vocal cry. But when a wild eyed youth started beating time on the piano with glass beer mugs and smashing them to pieces, it was clearly time to escape. As glass showered in Keith's face the roadies managed to get the musicians outside and into the coach to take them to the airport and on a direct flight home to London. I was too late. The bus had sped off and I found myself surrounded by crazed revellers whose mood was starting to turn ugly, despite the unique free concert that Keith had been cheerfully orchestrating. As the angry crowd chased after the disappearing coach, I was offered a lift and foolishly jumped into a car full of strangers who seemed intent on kidnapping me and dumping me in the countryside. I convinced them to let me out and ran towards the lights of an airport. Quite how I found the elderly Aer Lingus Viscount turbo prop revving up on the darkened runway I don't remember. On board there were Yes, The Nice and the Bonzos filling the twin columns of seats. Viv Stanshall greeted me with a cry of, "We are all nudists and we want our freedom!" which had Peter Banks in stitches. Actually, he remained fully clothed throughout. As we bumped down the runway and up into the night sky, my face evidently betrayed stress and the usual fear of flying. "Don't worry," said Viv seriously, "if we crash, we'll all be fucking legends." Half way across the Irish Sea the captain made an announcement. "The Americans are about to land on the Moon." It was a wondrous story and Jon Anderson was greatly amused by the whole episode which seemed like an extraordinary dream. Did we really watch Neil Armstrong make his lunar landing from the safety of London, the same night we had got into a punch-up in an Irish pub? Says Jon, "I remember that night vividly, especially Keith playing the piano and everybody singing 'Give booze a chance'. Then us getting in the bus and listening to the news of the Moon landings. All of a sudden the bus moved off and we were on our way to Shannon airport. By then we were all so drunk I was just in fits of laughter for about three hours! It was a wonderful, crazy time."

I love the Nat Cole disc. Very hard to recall today, when she has become such a huge commercial success (and inevitably a target for jazz 'insiders'), just how fresh that sounded. I bought two more after that but found the strings and emphasis on ballads lost my interest. The crisp 'All for You' suited her better to my mind. I've never had any problem with her voice.

Immediate was a successful label in the late 60s due to the names you mention. I think it folded right at the end or the start of the 70s. I started listening and buying pop/rock in 1970 so it was really a 'past' label by then. I recall seeing LPs by The Nice on Immediate in other peoples' collections but they were already unavailable.

Couldn't find an appropriate thread for this, so... Just many thanks to those who recommended these Mosaic to me. I ordered them (in a bank-breaking splurge) a while back. They came through a fortnight back and I've been working my way through. The Byrd/Adams is an absolute joy - just 100% feel-good, exciting, heart warming music. I'd not listened to Byrd at all until earlier this year but am really taken by his way with a ballad in particular. As for the Elvin Jones. Well, I've only got through the first 2 CDs so far - I like to play them a few times before moving on and am astounded. At first I thought...no piano...this might be a bit dry over so many discs! But my god, what excitement and invention. I've always loved the flute and been disappointed by how little you hear it in jazz; well Joe Farrell certainly makes the case for it on these discs. Jimmy Garrison is astonishing on the trio tracks, especially 'Sometimes Joie.' Anyone madly in love with the Coltrane Quartet of the early to mid-60s would love this set. I've been seeking a good Elvin Jones disc since hearing a marvellous broadcast from the Jazz Machine at Ronnie's several years back. The first two CDs of the set bring back that excitement even if it's a different set of musicians. I'll be exploring this one very slowly in the next few weeks!

Afraid not! I was still only mid-teens around that time, a bit young for festivals...especially in Paris!

The John McLaughlin Montreux Concerts 1974-2003 - 17-CD set (Warner Bros) Too much of a good thing? Disc: 1 1. Power Of Love 2. Wings Of Karma 3. Smile Of The Beyond Disc: 2 1. Vision Is A Naked Sword 2. Hymn To Him 3. Sanctuary Disc: 3 1. Joy 2. India Disc: 4 1. Nata 2. Kriti Disc: 5 1. La Danse Du Bonheur 2. India 3. Get Down And Sruti 4. Joy Disc: 6 1. Meeting Of The Spirits 2. Friendship 3. Two Sisters 4. Mind Ecology & Do You Hear The Voices We Left Behind 5. Phenomenon Compulsion & Hope Disc: 7 1. La Baleine 2. Waltze 3. Romance 4. Sketches 5. Turn Around 6. Thelonius Melodius 7. Beautiful Love (dedicated to Bill Evans) Disc: 8 1. Radio Activity 2. Nostalgia 3. East Side West Side 4. Clarendon Hills 5. (1) Blues for L.W., (2) It's The Pits & (3) Living On The Crest Of A Wave Disc: 9 1. Jozy 2. Pacific Express 3. Mitch Match 4. Mitch Match (reprise) Disc: 10 1. (1) One Melody & (2) My Foolish Heart 2. El Panuelo 3. Spain 4. Chiquito 5. Florianapolis Disc: 11 1. Frevo 2. David 3. Sichia 4. Guardian Angels Disc: 12 1. Thelonius Melodius 2. Matinale 3. When Love Is Far Away 4. Nostalgia 5. Mother Tongues 6. 1 Nite Stand Disc: 13 1. Tones For Elvin Jones 2. Matinale 3. Sing Me Softly Of The Blues 4. The Man Will Fall Disc: 14 1. After The Rain 2. Mother Tongues 3. Old Folks Disc: 15 1. Seven Sisters 2. Social Climate 3. Mr. D.C. 4. Tony 5. Acid Jazz 6. Jazz Jungle Disc: 16 1. 5 In The Morning, 6 In The Afternoon 2. Ma No Pa 3. Anna 4. Finding The Way 5. La Danse Du Bonheur Disc: 17 1. Canto de Xango (Bonus Disc) 2. Frevo (Bonus Disc) Details: http://jazzmatazz.home.att.net/ Release date would appear to be Nov 17th in UK, Feb 2004 in US.

In that poster you have the explanation as to why it was so much easier to make the leap from rock to jazz in the 70s!