A Lark Ascending

Hadn't read it myself but knew that it had been 'spun' for the film. Didn't know the details. I just loved them all rolling round the floor at the way their reserved sister had been depicted.

Now well into series 3: There are now so many threads emerging and re-emerging and everyone seems compromised. You just keep waiting for the next one to blow up. Rather like the humour too - the judges are all eccentrics, some of the opposing council utterly kooky and the Brits...well, standard US depiction of Brits clearly based on a careful study of P.G. Wodehouse. I love it.

I enjoyed Austin - luckily she was not forced on me in school so I picked up on her in my own time (along with Elliot, Hardy and the Brontes) in my early 20s. Will revisit when I have eternal Sundays in the Autumn. Tend to stick to thrillers in the fiction department - brain too frazzled for 'literature': Enjoyable Scandi-thriller set in the far north. Lots of snow. And strange meats. Just started: Been on my shelves for a year or so and finally got to it. I love Furst's tales of the 30s and 40s. Also working through the Attlee biography. Interesting but not a writing style that has me gripped. A bit too keen to point out what a wonderful man he was - doesn't really get to any depth of analysis.

Has he denied the Holocaust? I get the impression his beef is with the way he feels that the Holocaust is manipulated. Looking online it's hard to distinguish what he has said from what his critics say he has said. If he has denied the Holocaust, then shame on him. As Bill says, there is little politics in his gigs. In interviews he is completely over the top and deliberately provocative. He was interviewed in Jazzwise a couple of issues back - went off on one about how he's no longer allowed to wolf-whistle at pretty girls because of 'political correctness'. Seems rather Daily Mail!

I don't know the name but have enjoyed a fair number of Reel recordings (and Ogun reissues). Very grateful for his work there.

And, of course,...

The Star says so. It must be true. Barbecue Spring!

Due in a couple of weeks: A nice mix of contemporary Brit composers with the horn at the centre.

Free hearing tests offered today! They obviously know I listen to more than an hour of music a day. Must be some tracker in my hi/fi and mp3.

Who will pay for a shiny new concert hall for Sir Simon Rattle to play in? It appears that the musical cognoscenti are not happy with the Barbican Hall

I can see the appeal of vinyl. The two sides that provide a natural break after 20 minutes, the rituals associated with playing the albums, the large sleeves etc. But what never seems to get mentioned when extolling the virtues of vinyl are the clicks, pops, warps, off-centre pressings and inner groove distortion that bedevilled so much vinyl when I was buying it in the 70s/80s. The first play of an LP was agony as you sat on tenterhooks, praying it was a decent pressing. I know many vinyl enthusiasts love all that business of setting the weight of the cartridge but it just used to fill me with anxiety. CD banished all of that for me. In the early days there were a lot of very disappointing CD reissues - things rushed onto CD without care. I suspect a lot of the negativity towards CD comes from that. I've never felt any of the 'coldness' that some people claim to hear in digital formats. Mp3s have, however, brought an equivalent to the bad pressing. The carelessly 'gapped' album. Only happens occasionally now but a bloody pain in the neck when it does. I've yet to find a programme that can de-gap some of these simply. There are ways of correcting them but they are labour intensive. Surprised this has not been solved. Though I suspect that inbuilt flaw is there for a reason - to persuade us to upgrade to the newly emerging 'high quality' download formats. The industry still makes a mint from inbuilt obsolescence.

Spring 2015 arrived today. Narcissi are out though no frogs yet.

I'll be needing a very modest building later in the year. Won't be calling on the City. ******************* Of course, the appointment of Rattle could also be viewed as a chance missed: Why the male domination of classical music might be coming to an end

Does anywhere need a new concert hall? London has plenty. I can get to two easily, another four or five with a 3 hour round journey. Perhaps the far North; the West Country (I'm not aware of anything west of Bristol and Bournemouth (something of interest to me as I'm aiming to bury myself in that direction)). The new London concert hall seems like a vanity project (the political interest stimulated by envy of continental buildings). The money could be spent in other ways to widen access and interest. Not likely, I know, in the current climate. And of no interest whatsoever to the gents in the City who would probably prefer to keep things for 'the wealthiest, best-educated and least-ethnically diverse 8%'. Buildings will always triumph over less tangible ways of investing in music. After all, buildings are erections.

The problem is...London! As the article suggests at the end, why London? It already has everything (of course the answer is that The Establishment is based in London and they demand everything[and generally get it]). Rattle has shown himself to have a broader vision than this. But can he resist the temptations and use his celebrity to argue for something that can break out of the traditional mould? The most interesting part of the article...ironically given that we're talking maestros here...is where it discusses how poorly recognised composers are. The standard narrative of 'classical music' is maestro-driven. Top flight conductors and instrumentalists are followed as if they are Olympic athletes, everyone is encouraged to fawn over dead maestros. But where are the composers in all this? The dead ones seem to be there to serve the ambitions of the maestros (thus the endless duplication of standard repertoire); the classical music industry does not seem to know how to encourage interest in the living ones (probably because it's cheaper and easier to keep selling the old ones...'you must hear this new interpretation of Brahms 1', 'the 20 CD set of Schumpfendick's 1933 Berlin Bach is essential' etc). I'm not talking replacing one with another; but I'd like to see a bigger push by the likes of Rattle to throw the emphasis off the star soloist, conductor and orchestra and onto the people who write the music. Maw by Rattle, not Rattle's Maw (yes, I know Maw is dead!). When I was a kid the thing that excited me about music was hearing the new releases - you didn't know what was coming next. I then got drawn into the standard classicist approach of revering the glories of the past. Now the latter might appeal to a small demographic who have been educated to think that way. But I really doubt that it's a plan for replenishing the audience from the population at large.

Excellent article here: Simon Rattle is waving his baton at the wrong cause

Really? Similar silliness here: 'My number plate could have cost £1m'

Thanks for the recs. Both Dockings and Blow Up are on e-music so I can get those easily (and inexpensively!). The earlier records seem to be MIA. Or I might be looking in the wrong place. Played... ...last night. Really enjoyed it. Extremely varied with some absolutely blistering Miles-like fusion. I suspect what put me off when I bought it were some very poor vocals (not many) including a bit of rapping (not something I'm attuned to); I was probably expecting something a bit more free-wheeling freebop so suffered from expectations not gratified. Pain in the neck, expectations. Did not realise he was so accomplished in the classical field - seem to be a fair few recordings. **************** Thanks for the "After Django: Making Jazz in Postwar France" rec. too. Being published in paperback here at the end of the month. There's very little in print on European jazz so this will be very welcome.

Can't find an existing thread...surprised me. I know very little of his music - the 'Minneapolis We Insist' disc and the Miroslav Vitous one he guests on. Suspect he crops up elsewhere in my collection but not that I can recall. Any recommendations for records you particularly admire? He seems to have zillions of discs out.

I'm not a great one for boxes these days but this one is superb. Though I reconfigured it on CD-r into original records (as is my habit).

I've only heard him allude to them occasionally - though I seem to recall he used to require any booking to stage a discussion before the gig for those interested. Many of his albums have overtly political concepts (like many 60s jazz records that are now seen as iconic). He is Israeli in origin but completely opposed to the policies of his homeland (i.e. not anti-Jewish). This is a tremendous record: Has Palestinian and Jewish musicians playing tunes from one another's culture. http://www.allmusic.com/album/exile-mw0000029298

Gilad Atzmon has been doing overtly political gigs for years. So far the world hasn't ended. Cancelling the gig has given his cause more publicity than the actual gig would have done. (He's well worth hearing and seeing, by the way).

We're promised it will be warmer than the Mediterranean here by the weekend.

Experience

They probably caught me listening to 'La Mer'.