A Lark Ascending

Now this is embarrassing. The Verve Jazz Sides is sat there in my collection, an impulse buy on a London binge from a couple of years back. I think I got put off by the Jimmy Smith/Big Band stuff at the start of disc 1 and the disc has not had due listening. Played the Half Note stuff this evening and it is magnificent. Just what I'm looking for and I don't have to buy it! Many thanks for helping me rediscover a recess of my record collection. I'll be using some of those other recommendations too.

Seriuosly, I dig these posts, but I sincerely think some of it could have said in a much simpler fashion without losing any of the depth of the subject. I basically agree with both of you, Jim and Bev. I think you're telling me to try taking the horn out of my mouth, Mike! I think JS and myself probably agree with one another but enjoy taking the long walk saying so! Apologies for being obtuse. Not intentional. O.K. I'll let you have your Blindfold #2 thread back now! Some of those smiley things.

Keep what simple?

Not that I can remember. He does say that the album was originally conceived for group with orchestra but he then decided that one note from Garbarek was more powerful than the symphony orchestra. So maybe that's where some of the voicings come from. He also mentions that the reason he as been MIA in recent years is because he has been working on his own company 'Miroslav Vitous Symphonic Orchestra Samples', making samples for synths I presume but ones that will allow a much more real approximation of a symphony orchestra. "It has been on top of the market for the last ten years," he tells us! Apparently the work he did on that led to Universal Syncopations. He's planning to take the group - or one as close to it as possible - on the road next year; and also has plans for a quartet with Danny Gottlieb.

Apologies if this references back a few posts and keeps things off topic a bit longer but I've been to sleep for a few hours. Yes, of course historical awareness deepens understanding. One is in no position to make profound statements about the significance of Eric Alexander without a pretty good grounding on what went before. All I'm saying is excessive knowledge can be a burden as well as a blessing. I've read a dozen or so Shakespeare plays, most of Jane Austin and F. Scott Fitzgerald and forgotten it all years ago. So when I pick up a new novel does that invalidate my responses to it? My understanding of the rivers that have flowed over the past few hundred years to get to that point is deeply flawed. All I know is that I like or don't like it. Now if I was making a claim for that novel as a significant contribution to world literature then I think I'd need to be a bit more secure in my literary history. But as an ordinary Joe just looking for something to absorb him I think all I need is for it to interest me and that's quite enough for me to want to tell everyone else about it. I went to see 'Goodbye Lenin' at the cinema a couple of weeks back and was totally captivated by it. Now I'm not a great film goer, know nothing about cinema theory and even less about Post-War German cinema. I have no doubt that someone with that background might tear it apart for being derivative of something else. All I can do is say 'Wow, that was fun, moving, stimulating.' On the history issue there is a common saying that the problem with the people of Northern Ireland is that they know too much history. I'd say the two communities there know too much 'selective' history. And I thinks that is what often happens in detailed historical appraisals of jazz recordings - the critics proceeds to praise or damn based on an historical knowledge but one that is highly selective, one which has already decided what counts, what matters, what is approved. Of course there is room for the wider historical analysis and there is no reason why amateurs should not enjoy getting involved in it. I just think it needs to be done with caution. I suspect that one of the scariest things to an outsider putting his or her toe into jazz is to read a review of a jazz recording that has brought him/her into jazz and find it savaged by a critic for failing to toe the line of some jazz equivalent of historical determinism. Just to go off even further on a tangent: I think this might all look very different in Europe. Jazz is one of the great cultural achievements of the USA and as such there is a much stronger regard for the tradition there. Where new players fit into the scheme of things seems very important...and not just to the hardline Marsalist-Crouchites (sounds like a Peruvian terrorist group!). By contrast in Europe jazz has only recently developed a real independence from the US model. The result is that there is a much stronger desire to kick over the traces. Whether the many different directions European musicians are tearing off to will result in anything that will be listened to for as long as the US original remains to be seen. But there is a real sense of wanting to do things differently over here, and very little concern about where it fits in with the history. Respect for that history, most definitely. But no real sense of needing to live up to Miles or Coltrane or Armstrong. Which is where I'm starting to sense a real difference of mood. A few posts back we had a number of posters using that term 'jaded'. In the few years I've been posting on these boards the general impression I've gained from US posters is a feeling that the music has reached a pause in its development, that musicians today (like Alexander) are largely recycling the past rather than forging into the future [with a consequent turning back to the history, buying up the back catalogue rather than focusing on the new...look at the balance of discussion between new recordings and old on this board!]. Whereas the mood in Europe is very much 'Wow! We can do this ourselves and we don't have to stick by Daddy's rules any more.' Now, I'm only suggesting those as general moods and I'm fully aware that there are champions of continued evolution in the US and plenty of mouldy old figs in Europe. And I'm not for a minute saying that jazz in Europe is currently more progressive than jazz in the US. But in terms of jazz enthusiasts I sense a tilt towards pessimism in the US, a feeling that current jazz has failed to live up to the expectations of its founding fathers in the last thirty years; whilst in Europe there is a general optimism, a feeling that something new is being created. Which might help explain my lack of reverence for the jazz 'greats' and willingness to be bowled over by the new!

She'll only flub that History exam if she fails to provide the interpretation required by the marker! Just as many contemporary players get damned for failing to play within the tradition preferred by the particular critic!

Oh, I'm with you totally on the hyperbole directed at new players. "Y" is let out of the traps and is immediately proclaimed the greatest thing since sliced milk. Yes, I get just as bugged by that. But I get equally as bugged by the over-reverence for the 'greats' of the past. Of course, these people were wonderful, provided the foundation of the music etc etc. But there is a tendency to overload them with cosmic virtues to the point that no new musician stands a hope of ever living up to them. "Shakespeare was so great. Why does anyone bother writing plays these days!" There are obviously a multiplicity of ways of responding to jazz (and music...and literature...) and those of us who post in places like this obviously feel some need to do so. Expressing how music affects us matters. But I notice two very broad strains: a) Those to whom a recording excites them, who want to express that excitement and, perhaps, analyse a little as to why. B) Those who, when listening to a recording need to consider it in the broad history of the music, who need to decide its place, its significance, its importance. Who don't seem at ease with their liking for a recording unless they can prove it matters. I'm not saying either has a monopoly on enjoyment, understanding or wisdom. I just find it interesting. JSngry, as always I hear exactly what you're saying and have the utmost respect for your opinions - you're a musician which puts you in a very different place to me and you clearly have a much more extensive grasp of the history of the music than I do. Having said that, I do hear things rather differently. Which, I hope, is a good thing. [p.s. That bloody smiley is supposed to be a 'point b']

Maybe there's alot to be said for being less soaked in the jazz greats. I'm currently revelling in a host of releases by current UK players - they're on my player every evening, accompanying me to work and back and I'm as happy as a sandbag. Now I don't doubt for a minute that these musicians are far from being originals. But because I've not o.d.'ed on the originals I've lost none of the excitement that comes from hearing this music which is new to me. I havn't, for example, a clue as to who Soweto Kinch is drawing his sound from. All I know is I can't keep his debut out of the CD player! Now I've no doubt there's a critic somewhere getting his daily dose of joy expounding how worthless this disc is because it was all done so much better by X. Well, whatever makes your day... 25 years into jazz listening and most decidedly unjaded!

Thanks for the advice. My eye had been caught by the advert in the Mosaic catalogue following on from a recent listen to the final disc of the Blackhawk Miles set - being mainly unreleased stuff Kelly's playing jumped out at me. However, I wasn't aware of the number of alternates on the Mosaic and checking the Mosaic website there do seem to be a lot of them. I think I might go for the Select to hear some more Chambers and look elsewhere for Kelly. I know 'Kelly Blue' and have him on odds and ends elsewhere (a George Coleman disc, a few tracks on a Dinah Washington, a few Miles discs from the early 60s). Let me change the question. In single-disc-land where can I come across some nice Wynton Kelly?

JSngry, I hear exactly what you are saying. And in a way you are illustrating what I'm saying! Alexander sounds to you too much like his influences. Then of course he's not going to excite you much. I, by contrast have far less experience of listening to those influences. So he sounds fresh to me. The sounds he makes go direct to whatever part of my brain tugs the 'emotion' string whereas in your case your brain immediately intervenes and says, 'Hold on, we've heard this many times before, havn't we.' Now in the wider scheme of things there might be some academic value in someone pinning down who is a total original and who is to a greater or lesser extent derivative. But we all lead short lives and if I hear something that makes me smile then no amount of being told that it's a copy of earlier people is going to make me frown. Maybe in a few years if I get to hear more of the originators I might grow unsettled by Alexander and put him to one side. But I'm not going to let the academic fact that he is playing in a style gathered from others interfere with the fact that he actually moves me. Interesting comparision with Coleman. I've loved George since hearing 'My Funny Valentine' and 'Amsterdam After Dark' in the late 70s and have many of his records. I never made the connection. Maybe that's why I warm to Alexander!!!! In the end music is just patterns and the disruption of patterns to me. When those patterns are pretty but disrupted enough to be unsettling then I get that 'emotional' feeling. But I tend to believe it lies in the patterns, not in any real emotion being communicated. Different ways of looking at the world. Where would we be without them!

Yes, Jim R, I nearly weighed in myself on that Pepper thread with my fundamentalist relativist outlook but thought better of it! Although I know little of Jim Pepper's music I could identify immediately with Ron Thorne's 'emotional' appeal for the right to respect Jim as an equal to Art. An example of this with specific reference to Blindfold #2. Track One had me thinking: "Yes, very pleasant, but when is something going to happen?" Track 5 had me grimacing during the theme, reminding me of that 50s 'mainstream' style that was embraced by a certain type of UK jazz musician and seemed to dominate so many live BBC broadcasts when I wanted to hear Mike Osborne! You can still hear the BBC Big Band playing like this today. Once the soloing started, however, I was engaged! In a way track 6 affected me the same way - throwaway, standard theme statement followed by some marvellous soloing. By contrast track 4 drew me in instantly - I loved the way the tenor smeared the melody slightly out of shape during the theme. Possibly standard bluesy tricks but they affected me. The track that jumped out for me was no. 11 - 'Footprints.' A tune I must have a million versions of yet I loved the way the pianist (I'd never even heard of Michael Cochrane!) peeled off each chorus of variations. This is a disc I'll definitely seek out. It will make an intriguing contrast to the Enrico Pieranunzi Trio's sublime (to my ears!) 'Plays the Music of Wayne Shorter'. I don't claim any of the my statements as definitive comments on the music (there's a fair chance I'll react differently as I listen to the disc more); but I bet what I did and didn't find emotional will not be the same as others.

I have a suspicion that when we hear 'emotion' we're actually hearing music we like the sound of. This 'emotion' thing is highly subjective. I was driving along the M1 today listening to a jazz programme and they played a track from the forthcoming Tommy Smith CD - a CD with Lovano, Scofield, Bill Stewart, Patitucci and John Taylor, one I'm intrigued about but half expect to be something of a studio 'all star' gimmick. After a brief head Taylor flew off on the first solo and I was mesmerised. This was 'emotional' stuff to my ears. Yes, definitely one to get. As the other guys took their turns my attention wandered. By the end I was thinking, 'Well, Taylor was great but I can hear him do this on a Kenny Wheeler disc with players who are much more 'emotional.' The thing is I am forever reading reviews of discs that John Taylor plays on that accuse him of being cold, clinical, overclassical, unfeeling. Yet he speaks to me directly! He's certainly a player who has done the business in terms of technique; but I'd say he also communicates the 'emotion'...if you've the musical context to hear it. It's strange but I don't spend much time listening to the contemporary US mainstream but Eric Alexander is someone I really do like, not because of any technical cleverness (I don't have the musical understanding to recognise that beyond 'gosh can't he play fast' and 'gosh doesn't he play some funny intervals') but because he sounds to my ears...well...emotional. Whereas with a more highly regarded player like Joe Lovano I just feel like I'm on the outside looking in. Explaining why a particular musician appeals or does not appeal is always difficult. But I don't think accusing players of lack of emotion in their playing is all that helpful. I suspect 'emotion' is actually a euphemism we're using for the myriad sensations we're bombarded with when hearing a piece of music. In the end we're all on different frequencies. Trying to pigeonhole musicians as emotional, less emotional, hardly emotional at all seems to fly in the face of that reality. I'd imagine to some listeners with a strong taste for Coltrane or Mobley, Lee Konitz could sound all technique and little emotion. I don't hear him that way!

Any comment on this? I really like Kelly as a pianist and have always enjoyed Chambers on the Miles sessions and elsewhere. Worth the $96 + postage to the UK?

There's an interview with Vitous in this months Jazzwise. I wasn't all that aware of his history (despite knowing quite a few of his records) and it made interesting reading. He's not one to undervalue himself. Commenting on how he is trying to bring jazz and classical music together he says: "I am both classical and jazz musician - I actually play jazz with a classical approach - but now it has crystalised to a point it is really obvious, I am a bridge between the two musics. I am the key to these two worlds to join them..." Now maybe the self-regard that comes across here might be a result of not speaking in his native language. But it reminded me of John Surman's comments about playing with Vitous, recorded in Jazz Review earlier this year: "Well, first of all he's about the only guy who really can play great arco solos. And he's got a fantastic ear. Unfortunately he's got a fantastic ego as well and that's one of the things that really is difficult. It never was easy to work with Miroslav. I don't want to risk a lawsuit here but he was quite stubborn. He would go forward, his own way and sometimes he wasn't paying enough attention to Jon Christensen, John Taylor, Kenny [Kirkland] or myself in the music. He found it quite difficult if he wasn't the star. He liked to be the star, whereas we were very much more democratic. He was a fantastic player but had his own agenda about things and he wasn't an easy person to get on with. He had strong ideas about what he wanted for himself. He wasn't a team player. He had a goal and he wanted to follow that goal. But what a great talent. He had great time - just listen to "Now He Sings, Now He Sobs" with Chick and Roy. It's amazing."

I've yet to meet a human being who does not have emotion!

I remember Vinegar Joe!

I totted up my collection the other day and realised I'd spent more on it than the original cost of my house (throw in mortgage repayments and its a different story)! I've been a musical obsessive (as a listener) since about 1970. I don't feel the fun has gone at all. I still get a great thrill hearing new recordings - either newly recorded or just new to my ears. The way I've avoided the 'too much of a good thing' trap is to explore several genres. A summer spent listening to a great deal of folk music cleansed the palette nicely for an Autumn of jazz. Collector? Well, there's an element of that in most of us I suspect, but I rarely feel compelled to buy absolutely everything by a musician. I've certainly never been drawn down the Japanese pressings or rebuy for better packaging routes. What I will often do, however, is buy recordings that I know might not get played much but just out of curiosity as to what they sound like. Maybe that's tipping towards 'collector'. The spending doesn't worry me as long as it doesn't put me into debt. I watch others pay out on wallpaper, loft conversions, conservatories, expensive football season tickets and the like. I'm more than happy to use the money I might spend there on new discs. Yours, guilt free!

'Making Music' is my perfect Sunday morning record.

I was in a slick shopping centre (that's a 'mall'!) in Oslo in August and they were playing Miles Ahead. The entire album as far as I could gather!

I've seen that one in London and nearly bought it! Next time I definitely will!

Good point. Makes you wonder how much the sound and space of KOB influended the ECM aesthetic.

Goose Sauce - The Mike Westbrook Brass Band. Amazing version of Weill's 'Alabama Song.'

I don't know about the cover but 'The Promise' is probably my favourite solo McLaughlin disc of recent years. An occasion when the use of totally different line-ups playing very different styles still produces an album that hangs beautifully together. Remembering Shakti are a marvellous live experience. I've seen them twice - once with Hariprasad Chaurasia (one of the gigs that made up some of the first RS 2CD)and once with U Shrinivas. Two superb plauers though I must express a particular liking for the flautist.

I'm sure your right, Shrdlu. It's just that evaluations of new discs can often be couched (quite naturally) by reference to earlier ones. Where you have a disc that has an enormous reputation followed 30 years later by a similar line-up then there's a tendency to evaluate the new by the old. I just know we're going to read (not necessarily here) comments on the lines of 'This really isn't up to the standard of Infinite Search.' I recall similar things being said about the Remembering Shakti discs, finding them wanting by the comparison with the original Shakti. I've never really got that - the Remembering Shakti discs have obvious links of personel and style with the original group but also go off in different directions, a result of the changes the musicians have been through and the way the music world and the world in general have changed. All I'm saying is that its probably best to leave 'Infinite Search' to one side when listening to the new disc. It might build up expections that cannot be realised.

I really don't have much to say about the disc apart from how much I've enjoyed it. But what it has really brought home to me is how when we talk about 'jazz' on boards like this we are often talking about completely different things. The music on this disc is clearly the heartland for many people here. It's on the periphery of my jazz listening. It's no wonder we can often find ourselves at cross purposes when discussing recordings we hold in common, given the very different listening backgrounds we each have. I think I can appreciate more readily why some people have such problems with ECM discs if they are coming from a listening history of music like that heard on Dan's disc. Apart from being a great listen this disc is a timely reminder to act cautiously when finding yourself in disagreement with someone over a particular recording!