A Lark Ascending

Looks good. I've been working off this one for the last few years. Still at an exploratory phase. As mentioned elsewhere I've been reading this recently as a way of trying to get a narrative of post-1945 music (which, given the anti-narrative nature of so much modernism is probably completely the wrong thing to do!): Really enjoyable and helping to get a better picture than I had (though the 'science parts' lose me!). Has pointed me in some new directions as well as getting me exploring things buried in my collection unabsorbed. The thing I love about this exploration post-1945 is that it puts me back to where I was at 17 - when I knew very little music but discovered that pushing beyond your comfort zone could bring enormous rewards. I've been banging my head against most post-1945 music for a good 40 years (with notable exceptions like Messiaen, Britten, Tippett etc) but in the last 10 I've finally made a breakthrough and found music I really want to listen to again.

Thanks, Lon. Will give it a try.

Don't worry - more likely to be noticed in its own thread.

Choices generally reflect establishment ideas of 'culture' - with one 'slumming it' choice to show the castaway is really a fun guy/gal.

I don't think it's really about the music. I tend to hear it by chance. It often seems to be some (to me) obscure civil servant, 'arts' administrator or scientist.

Everyone else, restrain yourselves. There are other threads... Jarrett was one of my entry points to jazz in the mid-70s. Over the years I've enjoyed his solo work, the Standards Trio, the American Quartet (especially), the European Quartet and, to a lesser extent, some of his own works for orchestra etc (I've not bothered with his classical music interpretations). I have no experience of those records where he plays other instruments and percussion - things like No End (recent I know) or Spirits. But listening to the excellent Hamburg '72 release which has a fair bit of 'off the piano' playing I was wondering if they might be worth exploring. So. a) Jarrett at his most noodling or music with its own beauties? b) Any one to start with?

Louis Armstrong’s Desert Island Discs appearance found by BBC http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jan/31/louis-armstrong-desert-island-discs-bbc iPlayer here (if you can access it): http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p009y1rb Hardly the Dead Sea Scrolls, but...

Remember first seeing Star Trek in Singapore sometime in 1966 or 1967. As I recall there was only a limited amount of US TV on British TV in the 60s whereas the English language channels in Singapore were largely American imports - Lost in Space, the Time Tunnel, F Troop etc all come to mind. As an 11 year old at the height of the Space Race, this was gripping viewing. Don't think it got to British TV until 1969. We were back in the UK by then but I don't remember watching it. The space bug had clearly passed.

Drum machines

I have four compost bins - they take a long time to break things down but break things down they do. I never paid gardening any attention until about ten years ago when I decided to turn the Somme landscape outside my back door into something a bit more attractive. Have had great fun with raised borders, two ponds (the annual frog porn show is due in the next few weeks) and experimenting with all manner of plants. I think of myself as a free jazz gardener - I just try things out to see what will happen rather than studying what plants should go where. A couple of years back I bought a cheap frame/perspex greenhouse. I like to plant tomatoes, sunflowers and various plants there at Easter and see them grow; then put them out in late-May. Amazed how much pleasure I get from it.

A heavy midday fall of snow, guaranteed to turn nice children into lunatics. Allowing snow to fall on schools. Proof no. 234,567 to refute the theory of Intelligent Design.

What's going to happen to the welfare state after May if the Eton buggers manage to fool the British public again. That's a real fear.

Interesting article. His interest in the 'grammar' of music seems to be something that, perhaps, distinguishes composers from most listeners. I can see that absorption in what I've been reading about the 1950s - seeking a new grammar or a grammar that integrates all elements or even a grammar that renders the composer's ego redundant and generates its own sentences. But he doesn't seem to address whether he writes the music so that the audience can also become intrigued by the grammar; or whether there is a larger purpose that the grammar scaffolds, rendering the grammar subsidiary. After all Bach and Beethoven were also meticulous with the grammar. They are loved by millions, a large proportion of whom probably enjoy the music without either awareness of or interest in the grammatical underpinnings. I can go and visit Lincoln Cathedral and I'm impressed, excited, exhilarated, intrigued. I can access some of the grammar - very basic architectural history, historical reference, religious iconography. But the mathematics and construction techniques that make the building possible are beyond me (unless I choose to learn about them). Yet the building has at least part of its impact because of the mathematics. I absorb that unconsciously. The building is there - the 'meaning' if you like - not for the grammar but because it was intended to glorify God, remind the people of their religious duties and impress both the people and secular authorities on the power and importance of the church. Most of that has no meaning in the 21st century so people are overawed by it for other reasons. Which might suggest that even if you can't comprehend it, the mathematics is the constant. I'm blathering.

'Art'

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00N4B7VT0/ref=s9_simh_gw_p340_d0_i3?pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=03Z5K3RQMXDTAZXZ6ZMS&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=455344027&pf_rd_i=468294 El Bobo has many talents but I'm not sure twinkling is one of them.

There's a £14 s/h copy on Amazon UK at present (and a new one at £120!!!!). http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B00005NKHX/ref=sr_1_3_twi_1_olp?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1422209575&sr=1-3&keywords=Globe+Unity+Orchestra Also available as a d/l.

I've enjoyed The Burritos, Sweetheart and the solo albums - some marvellous songs and performances there. But also got the impression of an emerging talent rather than a fully formed one. I expect Parsons became a legend where Nesmith remains less known because the former lived the rock and roll lifestyle in full view. It's what legends are made of.

Utterly gripped by The Good Wife now. The individual court room dramas suffer a bit from being rushed to fit in a 45 minute episode. But the evolving back stories have you anticipating the next episode. I like the way it keeps you unsure who the baddies really are. 6 away from completing series 1 - this should keep me busy for much of the year. Also more of 'Spiral', set in a much less manicured world. Paris didn't look like this when I did the tourist spots on a day in October!

I've really enjoyed the Weinberg discs on Chandos and Naxos released in recent years. Never had any problem with music created within an existing idiom. Although it frequently reminds me of Shostakovich, so what? There's no end of jazz or folk or rock that reminds me of other jazz or folk or rock. I'm glad there are composers in every era trying to push beyond the frontiers of what is the norm for that era. But that does not mean that there is not plenty of enjoyable music being created within those frontiers. This one is very enjoyable too:

I'm thinking of music that quite deliberately steers away from all the conventions of 'classical' music in order to not repeat what has gone before. I'm currently reading Paul Griffiths 'Modern Music and After' - very interesting for the history but rapidly becomes impenetrable in the musical analysis for someone unschooled in musical theory like myself. What rapidly becomes clear is that the reasons why certain pieces of music have giant reputations lies in organisational methods that the ordinary listener will be unlikely to hear. Yet at one point Griffiths refers to an observation by Boulez: "Here is confirmation of what was said above about Kreuzspiel, that the process enacted in the music is a way of making it, not a way of hearing it. For the listener, the process lies hidden, and what is heard is a succession of instants, just as, for the observer of the world, elementary laws of physics and genetics - laws Stockhausen might have preferred to interpret as the purposes of God - are concealed behind and within a seeming chaos of phenomena'. The same could be said of the centuries of tonal music before 1945 - except that a fair amount of the structural organisation can be easily learnt and heard by an interested but non-expert listener. But I'm not sure I could ever hear Elliott Carter's layers of varying speeds (even though I've been told they are there) without first undergoing some proper musical training. Interested in this because I like to push my listening into previously unexperienced areas - I frequently find myself fascinated by the sounds I'm hearing but frustrated by the fact that I can't pin down what is going on. This applies as much to free jazz as post 1945 classical music. Musicians and musicologists are going to hear this very differently as they will be able to penetrate to the structural levels. But I'm intrigued as how other musically non-literate listeners deal with this. (Apologies for the rather vague 'post-tonal music' descriptor in the title - I was struggling for an appropriate term)

Wonderful record. I bought it when it came out, knowing nothing of the singer. Utterly bewitched me. I've bought other records by her which I've enjoyed but nothing quite got me like this one. There's a real intensity to it and everything seems to gel. 'Concept' albums often seem like a quick peg to give a recording some sort of unity - but somehow this one really does seem unified and deeply felt. On her otherwise (to my ears) rather indifferent 'Wild For You' album (mainly 70s singer songwriter covers) she does a superb version of 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.' I often have to play that two or three times in succession.

Don't think I've ever heard of that one!

Got my ticket. looking forward to seeing Cowell, McBee and Tolliver all for the first time. See you there Bev? Afraid not. I'm there the day before for the Boulez knees-up. Have to be back home for Sunday to be ready for work Monday. Would have made a good long weekend at some other time.

Another concert rather than festival in London, but with a celebratory theme: Strata-East Live: With Gilles Peterson