A Lark Ascending

Good question. I have the dodgy 'Dialogue' which I was promised a replacement for but it never materialised. I keep seeing Dialogue at £5 in the Fopp shops...bet its the dodgy one!

Andrew Hill is in the UK this month with an 'Anglo-American' Big Band including some great up and coming Brits...watch out for Jason Yarde everyone! I expect to see them at the Bath Festival on Saturday, 24th May. Jazz on 3 often broadcasts these concerts at a later date.

I really like 'One From the Vault' - it takes much of the Blues for Alah material in a live context. I'm not sure the title track of the latter got played much live. Dennis McNally's book that came out last year 'A Long Strange Trip' is a great read on the band. As an insider it can be a bit sentimental but keeps you gripped, gets you pulling out the albums and has you buying a few more!

Jonathan Coe - 'The Rotters Club' and 'What a Carve Up.' The former a hilarious account of a young lad growing up in 70s Britain (if you know the rock music of the time you will have found your ideal novel), the latter set against the rise of Thatcherism in the 80s. Both absolutely hilarious. Might be a bit too Brit for US tastes. Though I know from a discussion on the old Blue Note Board that these books had a following in the colonies!

If you can afford the box go for it. It's a treasure trove. I started down a similar route to you a few years back after years of indifference. I was pretty rapidly transfixed. Most people will tell you to go for the live stuff...and I think they are probably right. There's an ocean of stuff in the Dicks Picks (they're on about Vol 26 at present) and other series. Sound quality varies but, as long as you are not an audiophile, there's nothing dreadful in what I've heard. One disc I can strongly recommend - it was the disc that tipped the balance for me. 'So Many Roads' is a 5 CD set of mainly live recordings taken from across their career. It puts the emphasis on the jamming side of the Dead (less of the cowboy songs, more improvisation). There are some astounding improvisations...and its also a good primer for some of their key jamming tunes. There's also little overlap with releases elsewhere. I don't think it's that expensive for a 5 CD set either. You might find this site useful: http://www.blairjackson.com/jg_on_cd.htm I also found the AMG a great help for recommendations

I'm sure you might be able to hear it at about 4.00 a.m. in some beer joint in Austin! "Ladies and Gentlemen, please place your hands together for 'Twelve Tone Country in a Ten Gallon Hat'" I'm sure Lyle Lovett would give it a go! [if he's any sense I've just provided him with his next CD title!]

I like the Dixie Chicks - unpretentious pop-country with zing. It ain't Webern but it's great music for washing the dishes to or hoovering the front room!

Probably my favourite Thompson song! *********** There seems to be a fair bit more Thompson CD action happening, though how you get hold of these is still a bit vague: A live 1988 recording: http://www.richardthompson-music.com/catch..._day.asp?id=116 And what looks like a fascinating little project: http://www.richardthompson-music.com/catch..._day.asp?id=117 Maybe freeing Thompson from the major record company straightjacket will allow us to hear more. ************* Oh, and can I gush further about 'Semi-Detached Mock Tudor' - a tremendous live album. I've played it to death in the last month.

Lots on this here: http://forums.allaboutjazz.com/showthread....=&threadid=1339

Lindsay Cooper - first got noticed playing bassoon with the avant-rock band Henry Cow who had a very free-jazzy side. She also played with the Mike Westbrook Orchestra and smaller bands in the early 80s. I think she worked more on the modern classical side as a rule. I think I read somewhere she was wheel-chair bound. A pity. I always liked her contributions to Henry Cow and her Westbrok contributions were very distinctive. Listen to Henry Cow's 'Unrest' for some great basoon in a jazz-ish context.

I have yet to hear Komeda's CDs but can strongly recommend Tomasz Stanko's celebration of his music, Litania, on ECM.

I'm not a big fan of alternate takes unless they are substantially different. One I'm very pleased to have is the other 'Flamenco Sketches' on 'Kind of Blue'. I'm especially glad this only appeared years after I first heard it. I think most of KOB is engraved on my subconscious so hearing a very different version in the mid-90s was a great pleasure.

My favourite: Gordon, Dexter: Homecoming: Live at the Village Vanguard [76] One of the first 'proper' jazz records I bought. I really like the Robert Wyatt version too.

Bitches Brew. My first Miles LP bought in 1976. It sounded dull. I couldn't get on with the lack of harmonic variation (Good god, when is the key going to change!!!). Fortunately I heard 'Blue in Green' on the radio a couple of months later and rapidly became obsessed with Kind of Blue. For the next 15 years I had a great time exploring pre-electric Miles but never getting on with BB. Then in the early 90's I took a chance with In A Silent Way and was instantly converted. And suddenly, when I listened to BB again it all made sense. I now have the BB box and can't for the life of me understand why I was so unsympathetic for so long. It showed me that often to appreciate music you have to have certain things in place inside your own head. The fact that a piece of music doesn't affect you or even annoys you is as likely to be your fault as it is any shortcoming of the music.

Try this link to hear a solo Thompson session broadcast this evening (Fri April 25): http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/world/andykershaw.shtml Click on 'Listen to the latest programme' - it will be up for about a week. It's a 75 minute programme of world, blues, country and folk music with Richard doing five songs - 4 from the new album and 'Wall of Death'. There's also short bit of interview in each section. He comes on first about 15 mins in and again about 40 minutes in. Well worth a listen.

Hey, it's just been made harder. You have to go in two directions at once now. Roberto Rossi and Gabriele Mirabassi

Maria Pia De Vito (get the Chianti out everyone)

Most recently the CD that I just play and play and play is 'Chorale' by the Simone Guiducci Gramelot Ensemble, bought just because I liked the sound of it from a review in Jazz Review. From the joyous opening tune, sounding like an Italian folk dance melody, through another seven shifts in mood and dynamics it never fails to hold my attention. It's in my 'play every spring' pile! Guiducci plays acoustic guitar with accordion, two clarinets, bass and drums in the ensemble. That might sound like wimpy folk stuff but believe me this is most definitely well inside the jazz boundaries (wherever they may be!). Great supporting roles by Chris Speed, Ralph Alessi and, best of all, Erik Friedlander. His solo on La sigagna is worth the price of the disc alone.

Gianluca Petrella

That is the line up. The five piece without Denny threatened at one stage to be their most stable assembly. Then Sandy joined...and Mattacks left (to be replaced by Bruce Rowland)...and they imploded...and Simon Nicol returned to reform with Swarbrick/Pegg/Rowland. I recall a wonderful headline from the UK press c. Denny rejoining: 'Fotheringport Confusion!'

Bryan Spring

Chris McGregor (Let's hear it for Lol...I once attended a solo concert by him, lit only by candlelight! Ah, the early Seventies!

Harry Miller

A great guitarist who regularly turns up at the annual Fairport reunions at Cropredy - well, he used to. I've not been for a while. But he's one of those people who needs to be in someone else's group. I have a couple of solo albums by him and though they are full of clever playing the don't leave much of an impression. He seems to operate from California - plays with a group called the Telecasters with a couple of other semi-famous guitarists. I think his playing all over Fotheringay is magnificent. He also contributes a stunning counter-line to Thompson on Late November on 'Grassman.' He's also superb on Fairport's 'Nine' album, to my mind the last of their really interesting albums. In some respects his finest hour on record is his playing on 'Sloth' on the Live album of the mid-70s (I think it's called 'A Moveable Feast' in the States). The way he builds his solo is perfect; and his underplaying of Swarbrick's solo is exemplary. When I saw the band in '74 Donahue pulled of a spectacular solo on the then unrecorded 'One More Chance.' The subsequent studio release on 'Rising for the Moon', though enjoyable, never quite matched that fire (or, I suspect, length!). [side point: it was interesting hearing RT choose 'Stranger to Himself' off this album as his Sandy favourite; it's always stood out for me from an otherwise unfocussed album). There's a mid 80s Fairport disc called 'Expletive Deleted' which is all instrumental. Not an essential disc except for the closer - a medley of Shadows era tunes with Donahue and Thompson sparring. I saw them do this at Cropredy and it was electric!

John Taylor