A Lark Ascending

"Out To Lunch" Nothing like confusing everyone from the off!

Just got this today...thanks Gary...and am playing it now. Very nice. The one which jumps out for me is track 4...I think JSngry's right. Sounds very much like Louis Stewart to me!

The disc with Jimmy Rowles is brilliant. After many years of being associated with 'new' music this was her first 'standards' project. I love it. I think it was where she first did her version of 'The Peacocks' which has been taken up by quite a few singers subsequently. I find '...like song, like weather' a bit low key. Nice, but not that exciting. I prefer 'Manhattan in the Rain' from around the same time...some odd synth in places but overall a more adventurous approach to standards. The Norma Winstone disc not to miss is her only ECM solo - 'Somewhere Called Home' with John Taylor and Tony Coe. Mainly her interpretations and lyrics to tunes by people like Wheeler, Gismonti and Towner plus a couple of standards. The version of 'Tea for Two' that ends the disc will take you apart.

Stacey's huge in the UK. One of those people who started in the jazz camp but has gained an audience well beyond. She is a target of a fair bit of flak, lumped in with the Krall phenomena, often attacked for her 'cutesy' sound (interesting interview in the current Jazz Review where Richard Cook, clearly not her greatest fan, attempts to get under her skin but just gets drowned out by her boundless innocence). I came across her by chance on her first album about five years back, loved her singing instantly and have found every one of her discs a joy. Over those six or so discs I don't think you can spot an ounce of 'artistic development.' She sings standard songs in a fifties style with a peerless swing-type jazz band. Did it on No 1. Still doing it on her most recent disc. And I lap it up. She's also (so far) avoided the temptation to do a 'strings' or 'big band' album (though she has performed with these live). A regular radio presenter too on the BBC. She does a middle of the roadish jazz show on a Saturday with great enthusiasm and complete lack of pretension. We'd like to keep her, please! You can have Sting or Phil Collins in exchange.

Any session that was booked but cancelled because of unforseen circumstances.

Yes, those would all have worked nicely. I really liked the spacious nature of the music that was able to incorporate a wide range of sounds and timbres yet still work up to some real excitement. I'll have the tape player set on Saturday afternoon. Enjoy Shakti. I've seen them a couple of times and been floored on both occasions. Hope Tommy Smith works. I saw him with the Scottish Jazz Orchestra in an excellent Ellington reconstruction. But I've never warmed to his discs. Incidentally, two new Norma Winstone discs are projected. One with the NDR Big Band on Provocateur and another with Ralph Towner, possibly on ECM. I saw her perform with the latter and Steve Swallow and John Taylor a few years back. Bodes well.

The Director walked slowly down the long line of cots. Rosy and relaxed with sleep, eighty little boys and girls lay softly breathing. There was a whisper under every pillow. The D.H.C. halted and, bending over one of the little beds, listened attentively. "Elementary Class Consciousness, did you say? Let's have it repeated a little louder by the trumpet." At the end of the room a loud speaker projected from the wall. The Director walked up to it and pressed a switch. "… all wear green," said a soft but very distinct voice, beginning in the middle of a sentence, "and Delta Children wear khaki. Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able to read or write. Besides they wear black, which is such a beastly colour. I'm so glad I'm a Beta." There was a pause; then the voice began again. "Alpha children wear grey They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever. I'm really awfuly glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able …" The Director pushed back the switch. The voice was silent. Only its thin ghost continued to mutter from beneath the eighty pillows. From Brave New World, Aldous Huxley

Have you heard his solo disc? I've bypassed it assuming it might be a bit too near the soul/electonica end of the music. But after that concert I'm intrigued. Glad you enjoyed it too.

I saw Abdullah Ibrahim last year with the NDR Big Band...a wonderful, colourful, exhuberant concert. Ibrahim had a quiet but very warm and very welcoming way of introducing the pieces. A textbook example of how to involve an audience into a concert - I'm sure he won many new admirers that night. I love the disc "Ekapa Lodumo" on Enja - more or less the tunes from that concert also done by the NDR band.

Is that really the case? There are plenty of jazz listeners who 'Know what they like and like what they know.' For every 'learning' jazz listener prepared to throw an ear to a new band, a more challenging concept or a jazz style outside of its traditional heartland there's at least one content to stick to the latest Blue Note reissue or Criss Cross release or turn up one more gig where the Sheffield New Orleans Stompers do 'Tiger Rag'. Nothing wrong with that at all. But 'learning' is no more 'required' of a jazz listener than it is of a gardener or a mountaineer or a painter. Much more fun if you do enjoy learning and expanding, however. As for people not wanting to think too much. Well, I'd say they're probably much too tired after a day or week at work to think too much. THAT's why 'Friends' is still on TV!

Yes, of course. Cussedness alone does not explain a liking for jazz. I'm sure an attraction to the music lies at the heart of all jazz enthusiasts initial involvement. After all, there are far more anti-social ways of being 'different' !!!!

Just as an aside, last week I attended a jazz concert. Great show with a really exciting, up tempo last number. The bloke in front of me turned round and barked "Would you mind not beating time with the music, please?" (I was tapping my foot on the floor). If that had been my first jazz concert it might have been my last!

I think this is often the case amongst young people. The need to be part of the zeitgeist is very strong, the fear of exclusion very real. Watch the group dynamics of any group of young people and you'll see that as a major factor. Having said that there are also those...often the excluded...who take a peverse pleasure in going against what everyone else is doing. Revolting into some alternate indie scene...or jazz. Let's be honest, isn't that what many of us were doing when we picked up on jazz. I know I very quickly got a taste for liking things everyone else hated. I'm not sure if thats much different than liking things because everyone else likes them. Move into adult life and you don't see anything like that same herd instinct. Maybe I mix with some odd adults but I tend to find they have a vast range of different interests, often far from the mainstream. Yes, they might be very conservative in their musical taste and buy whatever the big corporations are serving up. But elsewhere they're attacking their gardens, climbing their mountains, playing their hockey, doing their samba dancing etc with a gusto that at least matches my jazz enthusiasm. I think 'people' are brighter than you give them credit for.

My copy doesn't split any atoms, let alone connect physics and spirituality. Is this because the European Copy Control left all that out? It will be returned to the shop pronto!

Do the recordings have to be originally engineered by RVG to become RVGs? The recording I'd most like to see out is James Newton's 'Romance and Revolution.' Probably way to late for consideration. I'm not sure if that counts as 'logical.'

There's a much more interesting question than 'why don't many people like jazz?' touched on here. It's why do so many people actively dislike it. All of my friends, workmates and family find it positively irritating. I think it's the very thing that jazz enthusiasts like - the constant evasion of the melody ("Why won't he just play the damn tune!"), the whole unsettled feel of jazz - that turns them off. I can totally see Alexander's point about some people finding jazz makes them nervous. Another factor might be that if you don't have a feel for jazz then this might create a feeling of exclusion, a fear that you are not quite bright enough to understand this music that a small group are raving about. Which could in turn create the hostility. I think I react that way towards poetry...and ballet! ******* I always work on the assumption that if people arn't getting any 'cultural' nourishment from jazz then they are getting it from something else which I don't care for. My experience of most humans is that they all have their places to go to get the depth of feeling that we get from music. As jazz enthusiasts we're just as poor in recognising what they get moved by as they are at understanding what is so meaningful in jazz for us...and often a bit to quick to ridicule what they might like. I'd love to see jazz with a much wider audience. But I tend to accept that it is a pretty obtuse, off-centre form of expression (which might explain why less than 200 people turn out for Tyner...my question there would be 'Well, what is being done to lead people with little or no jazz experience to a point where they might a) know who Tyner is and B) have some entry point to what he is doing?). The very nature of jazz probably excludes. I think myself fortunate to have penetrated at least some way beyond its surface. But I'd prefer not to feel too pleased with myself because of it.

Many thanks, Swinging Swede. Once again your encyclopaedic knowledge answers the question.

One step closer. Here are the words. Try singing along next time you play a version of the tune: Ack, Värmeland, du sköna Ack, Värmeland, du sköna, du härliga land! Du krona för Svea rikes länder! Ja, om jag komme mitt i det förlovade land, till Värmland jag ändå återvänder. Ja, där vill jag leva, ja, där vill jag dö. Om en gång ifrån Värmland jag tager mig en mö, så vet jag att aldrig jag mig ångrar. Ja, när du en gång skall bort och gifta dig, min vän, då skall du till Värmeland fara; där finnes nog Guds gåvor med flickor kvar igen, och alla ä´ de präktiga och rara. Men friar du där, så var munter och glad! Ty muntra gossar vilja Värmlandsflickorna ha; de sorgsna - dem ge de på båten. Och Värmelandsgossen, han är så stolt och glad, han fruktar för intet uti världen. När Konungen bjuder, då drager han åstad, bland kulor och blixtrande svärden. Ja! Vore det Ryssar till tusendetal, han ej dem alla fruktar, han vill ej annat val, än dö eller segra med ära. Och skulle han ej strida med glädje och med mod, och livet sitt våga, det unga? Där hemma sitter moder och beder för hans blod, med Bruden, den älskade, unga, en Värmelandsflicka, så huld och så skön! För Kung och Land han strider, och hon skall bli hans lön, Ho kan honom då övervinna? Version 2 Ack, Värmeland, du sköna, du härliga land! Du krona för Svea rikes länder! Ja, om jag komme mitt i det förlovade land, till Värmland jag ändå återvänder. Ja, där vill jag leva, ja, där vill jag dö. Om en gång ifrån Värmland jag tager mig en mö, så vet jag att aldrig jag mig ångrar. I Värmeland är lustigt att leva och bo; det landet jag prisar så gärna. Där klappar det hjärtan med heder och tro så fasta som bergenas kärna. Och var och en svensk uti Svea rikes land, som kommer att gästa vid Klarälvens strand, han finner blott bröder och systrar. I Värmeland - ja där vill jag bygga och bo, med enklaste lycka förnöjder. Dess dalar och skog ge mig tystnadens ro, och luften är frisk på dess höjder. Och forsarna sjunga sin ljuvliga sång - vid den vill jag somna så stilla en gång och vila i värmländska jorden. Credited as follows: 1. version text: Anders Fryxell (1795-1881) 2. version text: F A Dahlgren (1816-1895) Which still leaves the question as to how it got jazzed?

AMG has an alternative title of "Ack Värmeland du Sköna". Credits vary 50/50 to Getz and traditional (I assume Getz was doing a Led Zeppelin on this, appropriating the music illicitly. Hopefully his estate will recompense the descendants of the Swedish peasantry who first dreamed up the tune). Intrigued as to how this got into the jazz song-stock. I believe Getz played in Sweden early in his career. Could he have picked it up there? Or did he acquire it from his big band experience?

A tune I've had on several discs for years without noticing it very much. Recently I've been listening to the Paul Chambers version on the Select and realised what a gorgeous tune it is...especially that fanfare type thing at the end of the main melody. Where does the tune come from? On Miles' 'Round About Midnight' it's credited to Stan Getz, on the Chambers as 'traditional.' A Swedish folk tune perhaps? Curious.

I havn't as yet bought anything specific off Blindfold 2. But the overall bluesy feel of the CD had me exploring the Blue Note/hard boppy end of my collection and then starting to fill in the gaps. (I suspect it kickstarted the inevitable reaction against my glorious summer of Scandanavian folk music!). I therefore, Dan, blame you for the surge in my buying in the last month including the two Mosaic sets sat with HM customs at present! One of those smiley faces meant to denote that the accusation is actually light-hearted!

Bought and played this today and enjoyed it hugely. I first heard Young on the McLaughlin/Santana 'Love Devotion and Surrender.' Though I've enjoyed the other Young recordings I've heard - Unity, Into Somethin' and Street of Dreams - they've never had that frenetic sound I heard on LD&S. Still very firmly in the hard bop camp (not meant as a criticism). 'Mothership' seems to stand on the boundary between straight jazz and the swirling dervish jazz-rock of LD&S. Which is just great by me.

I don't think you'll regret the journey! Just remembered...they did a nice 'Beauty and the Beast' too. Perhaps the one tune on their set list that might be considered a Shorter 'greatest hit.' John Fordham review here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/reviews/sto...1061699,00.html Interestingly the very thing that seemed to qualify his enthusiasm - the 'minimalist use of percussion ... rather than drums abandoned the music for extended periods to a becalmed and rather puzzled air' - was what appealed to me. Instead of a concert pitched largely at full pelt with the odd quiet moment, this one had some marvellous, extended, calm moments. That's what made it so distinctive!

"Releasing this has destroted Miles" Teo Macero http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/fridayrevie...1064093,00.html

- Dear Old Stockholm - Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen - Bat Out of Hel[sinki] - Oslo Boat to China - The Reykjavik of the Edmund Fitzgerald