A Lark Ascending

I've sent you a PM, Kenny. Let me know if it gets through intact. If not if you send me your e-mail address via PM I'll get through that way. The article mentions: Graeme Bell Paul Grabowsky Bernie McGann John Pochee Scott Tinkler Sandy Evans Julien Wilson Judy Jacques Andrea Keller Aaron Ottignon Mike Nock Yes, I can imagine Nicholson would be rather single-minded. I really enjoyed his book on Jazz Rock. But in the last few years he's become obsessed with this idea that jazz in the States is a spent force and that all the exciting stuff is happening elsewhere. Up to now he's hyped Europe but it would appear that Australia has provided another arrow for his quiver. He concludes (quotes from Mike Nock): 'Sure, the level of playing in the States is excellent. But what is really lacking is new, exciting music from the underground - from young people. 'Jazz there seems to be a music for older people or conservative younger people. It's quite bizarre to me. I feel Australian jazz is now closer to what jazz is all about, it's a bit irreverent and above all it's about self expression. I think those qualities are here in spades and there's some hugely talented musicians here and pretty soon the world is going to hear about them!' So, don't say you haven't been warned. Here we go again. He's also got into hot water in the letter column of Jazzwise recently. The Australian article ('Kind of Roo'...Ouch!) is in his regular column. In the early part of the year virtually every article seemed to be a rant against the Iraq War, Bush or Blair with some very tenuous jazz links. Pretty undergraduate politicking at that. In his favour he's always there to speak out for newer music and music from places not normally associated with jazz. I do wish he'd get a sense of balance, though! Incidentally, can I use this platform to nominate Kenny for the Blindfold CD in the near future. I'd like to hear some of this stuff in a nice compilation!

I say, what! If we call Jeeves over do you think he might bring over some of that '37 Chateau Fontainbleu to toast ourselves with? Can't have too much! Got to put in an hour or so at at the foreign office this afternoon. Then there's Whitham-Smythe's beastly charity dinner tonight at the Dorchester... One of those smiley things denoting a gentle p**s take.

Jim Hall and Art Farmer playing that famous Albinoni tune retitled as 'Lament for a Fallen Matador' on a wonderful mid-70s A&M Horizon. Not a piece I really care for in the original but this version is exquisite!

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"He Loved Him Madly" is my favorite post-Bitches Brew piece. Quite different from anything else I've heard from that time.

I'm not big on moral absolutes but I was under the impression that 'evil' was something that could not be limited to the personal. If that's not the case then can I take this opportunity to denounce the Great Satan, the Horn-ed One, the Beast of Newcastle...STING!!!! That feels better! Apologies. My theology is extremely dodgy.

I know there are a few Australian/New Zealand posters here. Thought you might like to know there is an article in the November issue of Jazzise by Stuart Nicholson making a big noise about the virtues of contemporary Australian jazz.

I'm far too lazy to bake. But I've recently become partial to the banana loaf and cinammon and apple loaf on sale in the local supermarket.

My reaction to electric Miles is very personal; I wouldn't dream of trying to present an objective view. The first Miles record I bought was Bitches Brew. I was bored by it. A few months later I discovered Kind of Blue and took off on a Davis spree that has yet to abate, steering well away from the post-67 period in the next decade. In the early 90s for one reason or another I bought 'Files' and 'In a Silent Way' and was overwhelmed by them. Which in turn unlocked Bitches Brew. Since then I've picked up many of the electric albums and enjoy them with varying degrees of enthusiasm. But what is my assessment now? Well, it was inevitable and right that Miles explore electric textures from the late 60s. Given his personality and experiences it was inevitable that he also explore the rock-funk world which perhaps seemed more relevant to him than the pure jazz world of the time. I find myself deeply in love with the electric music of the Silent Way era...and wishing he'd spent more time there. I love the spaceyness, the ambiguity. Once he moved into the more 'funk' driven electric era I find less of interest there. I can see why he did it, can find lots of interesting and exciting things to listen to. But in the end I find it a bit of a blind alley (I emphasise, for my personal listening taste). I go back to it frequently, but it doesn't convince like the 69, 70 music does. After the 80s comeback my interest is far less frequently piqued. I like the pop ballads like 'Time After Time' and some of the electric workouts like 'Katia' on 'You're Under Arrest' and I really like 'Heard Round the World.' But again, it doesn't quite convince. Now this is probably very much the view of a white Englishman but the turn funkwards in the early 70s strikes me as having had a suffocating effect on Davis' music and the whole fusion movement in particular. It's as if one particular strand of possibilities was allowed to dominate over all others. I know to many this was a good thing...the raising to a very high profile of an element of music they consider highly potent and sociologically very apt. But to my ears it left a shadow over electric jazz which it has found it very hard to escape from. I just think that there were other routes to take with electric jazz but somehow the 'funk route' seemed to have a magnetic pull that seemed almost impossible for musicians to resist.

Hmm! First we had Bin Laden. Then Sadaam. North Korea, Syria and Iran are all implicated. But now be very afraid. It would appear the 'Axis of Evil' has been joined by Harry Allen. What worries me is that I have two Harry Allen CDs and though I'd never make any great claims for him I really like one of them! So where does that place me and everyone else who has Allen CDs? To say nothing of all those musicians who play with him. The enemy within? I will go to bed tonight in the knowledge that the world is even more terrifying than I thought it when I awoke this morning. And I might be part of the problem! [One of those smiley things denoting the position of my tongue at present!]

Here's a relatively recent one that uses strings that I like. As a rule I'm not keen on strings in jazz...especially sung jazz. Arrangers tend to go for the Tchaikovsky/Rachmaninov style of string writing; Bartok or Stravinsky always strike me as better models for jazz.

I bought a Louis Stewart CD today after hearing track 4...the first I've bought in 20 years! It's going to be strange if track 4 is someone else!

JSngry, I take your point. Though I have to say that in the case of both Lon and yourself I never get the sense that you are doing anything else than expressing your opinions, opinions based on extensive listening. As is the case with most posters here. I too frequently sink into superlatives when expressing enjoyment. I'm very conscious of my use of 'wonderful'! I try and be more cautious in expressing my dislike of things. Except for Sting. He's shallow, lacking in depth and substance and unbearably irritating! And I mean that with total objectivity! One of those smiley things denoting irony, self-deprecating humour or whatever.

Which is my problem with the terms. They are often bandied about as absolutes when they are highly relative to the listener. Someone wants to express his/her failure to enjoy musician X...their music becomes 'lacking in depth.' What is also interesting is how often the lacking in depth/substance charge is levelled at musicians who have become popular or been taken up by listeners outside the jazz world. Now it might be that the musician has decided to stick to a few simplistic tricks to find a wider audience...but it's equally likely that the accuser is finding it hard to reconcile 'popular' with 'substance.' Tell me Stacey Kent lacks 'originality' and I'd agree. But I'd tell you that she does what she does with consummate 'craft'. The ace I'd play in her favour is her 'distinctiveness', not in the sense of being an innovative musician but simply in having a sound quite peculiar to herself, one I find very affecting. But I suppose we're back in a highly subjective world there...I could see others finding her lacking in a 'distinctive voice.' My point is that we'd all do well to be careful dismissing musicians for their failure to live up to absolute standards. Those absolutes strike me as being chimeras. By the way, 'The Trolley Song' is off her latest, 'The Boy Next Door'! It's currently the record I do the ironing to!

I too find it hard to choose. I suppose "Post-60s Progressives (anyone with roots in that era, from the seventies through today)" would be the centre ground given that much of my listening revolves around European jazz and there wasn't a great deal before the 60s!!! But I tend to hop around. I'll lock into an era for a few months and focus there; then something will throw me elsewhere. Currently I'm spending alot of time (and money!) on "Blue Note's classic LP period-say, '52 to '67" and "Progressive '60s (post bop and hardbop)" The one that excites me least is "Neo-Bop of the 80s"...but I can cite some examples I enjoy there too. Woolly-minded liberalism rules!

John Surman is the baritone player I've always loved most. Always enjoyed Harry Carney too. I've recently become interested by Pepper Adams having heard him on the Chamber Select. The Byrd/Adams Mosaic fell through my door yesterday (thanks to recommendations elsewhere on this board). I've played disc one three times so far and am loving the setting and Adam's fruity playing. A nice baritoney weekend ahead.

No pot stirring assumed. I'm intrigued by the way we all react to music, particularly the supposed dividing line between 'light' and 'substantial' music. I don't actually have fixed views but am inclining to the view that much 'profundity' is actually projected on music by the wishes of the listener. I find terms like 'depth' and 'substance' quite vague. 'Originality', 'distinctiveness', 'craftsmanship' strike me as much more precise terms for assessment. The way the thread developed just had me chasing that hare again!!!

Eloquently put, JSngry. Very close to my feelings. I suppose I'm just unsure of what happens with the 'deeply emotional stuff.' I get a huge thrill hearing Stacey sing 'I Guess I'll Have to Change My Plan.' I also get one listening to the last movement of Mahler 10. Now the musical complexity that goes into the latter, the multilayered nature of it, the fact that I can come back countless times to it and hear something anew. Maybe that is depth. Or the fact that it suggests a depth of emotion far more complex than the Kent example. I suppose where I'm undecided is if that intensity is musical - Mahler's greater ability to handle more complex musical patterns, greater ambiguity etc than Kent or Dietz/Schwartz; or emotional - an ability to communicate a greater depth of emotion than the latter two (three!). I'm inclined to feel the former. But that's an academic argument that should not have any impact on the way we enjoy the music. I'm very much with you on the benefits of being open to music of all manner of shapes and forms, simple or complex. Interestingly I give Mahler as my example of possible musical depth...yet there are plenty in the classical world who would dismiss his music as vulgar Late Romantic schmaltz. Where I get irritated is by that need of some to denigrate. I'm not sure where it comes from. To take a more suitable comparison, Stacey Kent and Billie Holiday. Without a doubt I'd place the latter as the greatest (and the one who ultimately moves me more). Now in my case it has nothing whatsoever to do with emotional depth...I think there is a real case of reading Billie's life story into her music and consequently finding it 'deep.' To me Billie Holiday is the greater performer partly because she was the first to really do the things she did the way she did; but mainly because she was able to desconstruct and reconstruct a melody with an imagination that would appear to be way beyond Stacey (or most other jazz singers!). She made more interesting patterns! And she disrupted them in the most audacious way without turning the song to anarchy. Yes, if we must pin our admired musicians into hierarchical positions then Stacey stands well below Billie (something she would probably be the first to admit). But then supermarket sausages stand well below the haute cuisine of the Dorchester in the culinary stakes (well, so I assume. I've never been to the Dorchester!). But I'd not want to be without my regular meal of supermarket sausages.

One star review in Mojo, a magazine that normally errs on the side of generosity in its reviews.

Great disc...though not my favourite Trovesi. Trovesi played what was probably my concert of the year in Bath, UK back in May. Anyone convinced that the giants no longer walk the earth should seek out Trovesi's discs. He's up there with the best in my book.

Could not agree more. When a TV show host decides to break up the interviews by entertaining his audience with his version of 'My Funny Valentine', just because a song is needed at that point in the schedule, then I can buy that there's a certain lack of depth. It's filler, something to fill a three minute slot and probably of no great significance to the singer. But to accuse Stacey Kent or Diana Krall of lack of depth...well, its presupposing a great deal. Now I know there are some listeners who like to think that when they listen to a performer that they are not just listening to a musical performance but are somehow connecting with their lives, their 'pain'. When Krall and Kent sing all you hear is two very good singers engaging with musical material they clearly love and trying to sing it in a way that makes sounds that might appeal to an audience. They're taking notes and arranging them into patterns. They produce patterns I like (I like Kent's much more than Krall's but...). I can understand that others might not like those patterns. But how we get from there to 'lack of substance' I'm not sure. I don't have much time for Jane Monheit. Why? I don't much like her voice. But I'd never be presumptuous enough to accuse her of lack of depth. For all I know she's studied hard and means every note of it. It's just that what comes out doesn't click with what I like to hear.

Add me to the Hejira fan list. Just wonderful. Up to recently its been the point where I part company with Joni. I've always found Don Juan patchy (could never get on with Paprika Plains) and disliked much of Mingus (despite hearing it at a time I was first hearing Mingus the jazz player. Recently I've acquired CD versions of the latter two and enjoyed them much more. I think Don Juan benefits from being on one CD instead of four short LP sides. What brought JOni back into focus for me was her standards disc of a couple of years back and the recent retrospective double. I steered away from that on hearing her 'grumpy aunty' comments around the time of its release but came across a very cheap copy and have been very taken by it. My take on Joni - as far as I'm concerned the most literate of all the rock writers and one of the most sophisticated musically is: First album to Ladies of the Canyon: nice moments but a little too confessional little-girly. Blue to Mingus: Astounding! The 80s: ER, no thanks! The 90s: Generally not very appealling though the occasional good track (Slouching Towards Bethlehem). The last two recordings: Very engaging twilight recordings; nice smokey voice and nostalgic delivery.

I'd say Stacey Kent does not 'affect' depth rather than that she 'lacks depth.' But I'm never quite sure what 'depth' is anyway in music. She certainly sets out with no intention to 'make a major statement' (to bring another portentous cliche). You won't find anything about 'bearing her soul', profound utterances or making a grand artistic statement. Read any of her interviews and you'll hear her say no more than that she loves the songs, loves the style, loves singing them. No more. There's not a jot of pretension surrounding her. In presentation or interpretation you won't find anything remotely original on a Stacey Kent album...except a totally distinctive voice backed by excellent players. If you're not charmed by the voice and the easy delivery then there's nothing for you on a Stacey Kent album. And no reason why there should be. There are plenty of other jazz singers to listen to. All I know is I play her discs regularly. Whilst the discs of many a contemporary singer considered 'profound' lie unplayed on my shelves. Possibly a measure of my own shallowness...

I'm besotted by Black Brown and Beige - the RCA 40s version. I first heard it around 1978 and was totally blown away by it. It gets played regularly and I never tire of it. I also like The Perfume Suite from that era. The Queen's Suite was the first Ellington I owned. It came out (to general release) just as I was getting into jazz and I was won over by 'Sunrise and the Mockingbird' on the radio. The Far East Suite is another favourite. Some great clarinet on Ad Lib On Nippon.

Surely if you died in the middle of the session then the session would be cancelled or at least delayed. You might well ruin the very music you wanted to die to, lose it for all posterity. But you'd be dead so you wouldn't worry. Unless there's a heaven and you could listen from there. But I was always taught in my catechism lessons that in heaven all you'd want to do is gaze at God. I'm lost!