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Jazzjet

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Posts posted by Jazzjet

  1. Great choice. I've just been through a similar upgrade as a sort of delayed mid-life crisis. I went for an Oppo BDP 105D which is a universal disc player plus a beefy Rotel RA 1570 amp to go with my Quad 11L speakers. One of my motivations was to create a media room with a large flat screen TV so I could enjoy Blu-Ray movies and sport. The Oppo has excellent video processing capability and the picture quality is amazing but the real bonus is that it has a couple of reference DACs (Sabre) which are usually found in even more expensive equipment and the sound that this setup provides is breathtaking. The bass is highly articulate, drums are wonderfully detailed and the soundstage is wide and revealing. Like you, I was expecting only marginal gains from my previous setup but this is way beyond that. Like a kid in a sweet shop I'm digging out my favourite CDs and experiencing them all over again. Steely Dan's 'Gaucho' on SACD is one that I always use as a reference.

    For streaming I'm continuing to use my Sonos system, connected to the Oppo. I do have a turntable but it is purely used to digitise my vinyl collection so I can listen to via a computer attached to the Oppo via a USB audio cable.

    In the old days all you had to do was to attach a couple of cables to an amplifier and that was about it. Nowadays network connection is also essential. It took the engineer half a day to sort this out. I guess that's what comes of living in a thick-walled Cornish house!

    oppo bdp-105d 01.jpg

  2. Weren't those Festive 50s audience choices? The 1976 one looks very 'album rock' mainstream. I recall much greater diversity in Peel's own taste - and he had no time for the likes of Yes or Genesis (even though the latter did early sessions on his programme). 

    I don't remember the Festive 50 when I was a regular listener (1970-3) though I was aware of it in the mid-70s because it got quite a bit of publicity. 

    danasgoodstuff wrote: Or, maybe he just disliked various people he'd met who liked jazz, been known to happen and not just re jazz.

    Perhaps. Though in my experience, in Britain at least, there is a particular outlook that is suspicious of music that shows any form of complexity or flash. It became rock music orthodoxy from around '76. I think Peel was just instinctively drawn to music that didn't try to be too 'clever'.

    I noticed that outlook in a recent Guardian review of the new Dave Gilmour record that ends:

    There are simple and undeniably lovely moments here – the hymn-like opening to Today is especially beautiful – but these are heavily outnumbered by displays of muso virtuosity.

    http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/sep/20/david-gilmour-rattle-that-lock-album-review-weighed-down-by-opulence

    I've no horses in the Gilmour stakes...to my ears he peaked decades ago. Just found it interesting that the prejudice against what is termed 'muso virtuosity' is still there in rock music. A world view that sees virtuosity as something to be suspicious of is unlikely to warm to jazz (and I know jazz is about more than virtuosity and all the arguments there about technique and feeling).  

    A lot of it in Britain is about class (everything in Britain is about class!). Though Peel (like Robert Wyatt) was from the comfortable middle classes and like many of the young well-to-do of the 60s revolted into what Joni Mitchell called 'the boho zone' (where did that accent come from?). Whatever the working class origins of jazz, by the 70s it was often viewed, along with classical music, as a middle/upper class affectation.  

    You're right that the Festive 50s were based on audience votes but my guess is that there was some sort of feedback loop going on, ie the audience votes reflected what Peel was playing. Interestingly, there was no proper Festive 50 in 1977 and Peel chose his favourite tracks. These included pub rock band The Motors at Numbers 1 and 3 but Neil Young's 'Like A Hurricane' is in there too. The rest is mostly punk - The Clash, Sex Pistols, The Rezillos etc.

    On your last point about the class view if jazz, which I agree with, my view is that jazz was also seen as rather straight, all suits and so on. It wasn't until Miles started to wear funky threads and free jazz stars like Archie Shepp, Coltrane etc started to wear ethnic clothing that jazz began to make some inroads with the young.

  3. I blame Corbyn personally :)

    as for the barbarians storming the walls of Castle Prog, I knew you were joking. One man's Year Zero is another's misty nostalgia trip. Don't get me started on that R4 programme.......

    It would be interesting to look back at Peel's playlists for 75-78 and see how much of a complete break there was or whether some lines of continuity did exist. I fear a bit for the book but I'm not too sure why.  l hope I'm wrong. I'm fairly certain Peel's self-deprecation (which I took to be honest) would mean he'd shudder at the subtitle

     

     

    This site has playlists for his Festive 50's from 1976 onwards. 1976 is standard stuff in the main and a marked contrast to 1978, although even then Led Zep, Van Morrison, Dylan etc make an appearance so he clearly hadn't completely gone over to the 'dark side' (joke).

    Festive 50s

  4. I remember listening to Peel's 'Perfumed Garden' on the pirate Radio London station. This was before he signed to the new BBC Radio One. It was about the only way to listen to the new music from the West Coast plus UK bands like Pink Floyd, Spooky Tooth, The Misunderstood etc unless you happened to work behind the counter at one of the import shops like One Stop or Directions. He often came out with stuff like, 'it's a lovely day so why not go and say hello to a cloud'. He rather lost me in the mid 70s with his wholesale conversion to punk and then indie but I still retain a great affection for the man. And, of course, when he was DJ'ing in the US in the early 60s he claims to have been in the underground police garage when Lee Harvey Oswald was shot by Jack Ruby.

  5. Very good, well-balanced rehabilitation of The Moody Blues here:

    The Moody Blues – psychedelia’s forgotten heroes

    At the age of 14, my first 'favourite band'. Fell down the pecking order as I became more aware of their frequent twee-ness and cod-spirituality but their records always remind me of a time and place.

    I like this article - for its ability to pin point what appealed to me as a teenager whilst admitting to the more embarrassing elements of the band. And nicely scathing on hip rock journalism (which, admittedly, can't hold a candle to hip jazz or classical journalism).

    I have the author's new book on the shelf ready to enjoy when I finally finish Keith Richards auto-bio:

      51xQDnbOoHL._SX338_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

    Though it will be read with nothing stronger than a bottle of Doom Bar. 

     

    How about going for good old Betty Stog's to replicate the psychedelic effect?

  6. As a slight digression, I catalogue my collection in forename/surname order, ie Cannonball Adderley not Adderley, Cannonball. I started doing this because digital downloads from, er, various sources usually come with metadata in that format and it's too much trouble to change them all. I haven't quite got around to reorganising the physical stuff, CDs and vinyl etc, on the shelves in that format but I'm thinking about it. It's surprisingly easy to get used to. 

  7. As someone said this morning, you could never confuse Van with a ray of sunshine but musically he has produced a fine body of work, possibly more consistent than any others of his generation. His bootlegs alone provide a great overview of his career. 'Pagan Streams, recorded in Utrecht in 1991 is a good example.

  8. I guess that this couple of days is what counts as BBC4s 'jazz feature' offering to us plebs for this year. Minimum advance warning, low profile, no new Jazz 625s etc. Why the heck didn't they get round to broadcasting the Tubby Hayes stuff that is supposedly in the vault?

    My hope is that BBC 4 are waiting until later in the year when the Tubby Hayes documentary (A Man In A Hurry) comes out. This is due at the end of October 2015. I think I read somewhere that there are plans to show it on BBC 4 so that would be an ideal opportunity to show the 1966 Jazz Goes To College broadcast. I hope I'm not imagining that.

  9. I posted this in the Hum Dono thread but really it should go here:

    Tubbs news update! A very authoritative source has just revealed that Universal Music Group has now unearthed full master tapes for all of Tubby's Fontana records. Also found is the "lost" quartet session with Louis Stewart from 1969, alongside some tapes that have yet to be identified. Apparently some of this material was stored in Germany and has only latterly been brought back to the UK, hence the "lost" rumours. Additionally, some Tempo master tapes too, notably for Tubby's Groove have been located too. All the previously issued Japanese and Universal UK CDs of Tubby were dubbed from vinyl. In some cases (Return Visit and 100% Proof) from knackered vinyl!

    Thanks for the news, Roger. Sounds great and let's hope the new masters see the light of day. There probably won't be a better opportunity than Tubby's anniversary year plus the publicity from the book and Martin Freeman's film.

  10. Wasn't aware that that tape had survived. According to the book, that one was filmed at Queen Mary College on the Mile End Road and Tubby never actually got to see it.

    Looking at YouTube, both the 1965 Jazz 625 programme and a big band 'Jazz Scene' show from Ronnies taped in 1969 seem to be available for viewing. The picture quality for the 1969 show is not the greatest.

    I would love to go into those BBC archives and sort out what is what in their jazz archive once and for all !

    Apparently a Tubby documentary narrated by Martin Freeman is in the works for showing this Summer. Maybe BBC4 will broadcast it ?

    This thread gives more information on missing episodes of Jazz Goes To College as well as other BBC jazz programmes (at the bottom of the thread).

    http://missingepisodes.proboards.com/thread/2633

  11. Strangely enough they're not coming down to Cornwall (!). We only seem to get tribute bands although I do recall seeing The Animals when the only original member was the drummer,who nobody remembers anyway,

    Fripp and Theo Travis played Penzance a few years back.

    You can also compensate with a lo-fi (but enjoyable) recording from just over the international frontier:

    667d087c3539efd81d962b50254_prev.jpg

    I remember this MM front page from the middle of 1972 like it was yesterday:

    e79e74a4cf379f43c96d0b55cbb0f4be.jpg

    Really annoyed at the time as I idolised 'Close to the Edge' - but it all worked out for the best.

    And this was the one after which we persuaded our hip art teacher to minibus us to Oxford:

    mBt8m9Z6qBv1RGX5vuNgAuA.jpg

    I think I have that Plymouth recording somewhere, despite my strongly held principles.

    I saw Yes at the Rainbow in (I think) 1973.

  12. Yes, there were some interesting things happening in the early 70s in the UK with artists like Nick Drake and John Martyn.

    One Nick Drake LP features solos by jazz musicians such as Ray Warleigh and the South African composer/pianist Chris McGregor!

    I was surprised to read that the jazzy arrangement of Mellow Yellow by Donovan was done by Led Zep's John Paul Jones, who was heavily influenced by jazz in his youth.

    But as early as 1962, you had jazz musicians like Peter Ginger Baker saying that he decided to 'go commercial, and start playing R&B as opposed to jazz and it just took off.'

    He had previously played in hard bop groups like the Johnny Burch Octet and the Ronnie Scott, Bert Courtley and Joe Harriot bands.

    There was indeed a lot of crossover in the early 70s, not just folk, blues and jazz but also rock. Examples include Manfred Mann Chapter Three and Keith Tippett's Centipede project.

    Arguably, the involvement of modern jazz musicians in the early to mid 60s with R&B was largely because modern jazz was dying on its feet as a result of the twin assaults of beat groups and trad jazz. After all they had to earn a living and a number of them turned to R&B which was also experiencing a boom and was often horn-based. The book on John McLaughlin ('Bathed In Lightning') is particularly good on this period. It was only towards the latter part of the 60s that modern jazz started to regain its self-confidence and identity.

  13. Graham Collier - Down Another Road

    Mike Westbrook - Metropolis

    Nucleus - Solar Plexus

    Harry Beckett - Flare Up

    Tubby Hayes - Mexican Green

    Keith Tippett - Dedicated to You But you Weren't Listening

    John Surman - The Trio

    New Jazz Orchestra - Le Dejeuner Sur L'Herbe

    John McLaughlin - Extrapolation

    Alan Skidmore - TCB

    This selection spans the five year period 1967-1971. I can remember most, if not all the music from these British jazz albums.

    Ask me to remember the music from 10 British jazz albums from the period 1977-1981 or subsequent years and I cannot.

    I think this is partially due to coincidences of extraordinary talent and serendipity more than anything else. Also they were just

    more memorable and, dare I say, better or more original? (runs for cover :rolleyes: ).

    Couldn't have put it better myself, Roger.

    Maybe the thing about this period is that British jazz found its identity rather than slavishly copying American styles. It's always been difficult to define the nature and identity of British jazz of this period. To me there are echoes of church music, British classical music and folk themes overlaid on the standard jazz framework, plus elements of the rock revolution and openness to experimentation of the time.

  14. Interesting question, Bev. It may just be that most UK jazz listeners are of a 'certain age' and naturally hark back to the music that captured them in their youth and the feeling of excitement and involvement that goes with early discovery. The same applies to pop and rock. I would suggest that the same age group (generally) probably doesn't think much of modern pop and rock compared to the 60s/70s variety. There may also be a cultural element to this in that from the mid 60s Britain at last started to find its own identity and distance itself from the war generation (some historians identify Churchill's funeral in 1965 as a turning point moment) and perhaps the music from that era had and has a greater resonance.

    Logically, it follows that today's music will be recognised as a 'golden age' around 2060!

    For what it's worth, the overwhelming bulk of my listening is pre-80s with just a few exceptions.

  15. Just arrived from Vocalion and listening right now. Very nice job by Michael Dutton. No information about the remastering except 'Remastered by Michael J Dutton' on the back cover. Certainly sounds great, particularly Dave Green's bass. Nice liner notes by Amancio's son, Stephano, in addition to MIchael Shera's original sleeve notes.

    Very few Brit Jazz 'Holy Grails' left, with 'Le Dejeuner Sur L'Herbe' to come out next month, although the Tracey's mentioned above would be nice.

  16. This reissue by folk singer Mike Cooper might have flown under the radar but it is worth checking out, particularly for the involvement of Harry Miller, Mike Osborne, John Taylor etc.

    'The molting began in 1970 with Trout Steel, on which Cooper took a decisive step away from the folk and blues scenes in which he was well-known—he had toured with Michael Chapman and traveled in the same circles as Bert Jansch, Wizz Jones, and Davey Graham, among others—toward the New Thing jazz of Pharaoh Sanders, Sonny Sharrock, and Derek Bailey, without sacrificing any of his lyrical songwriting or forsaking his established roots in the soil of the American Southern vernacular. Producer Peter Eden (Donovan, Bill Fay, Clive Palmer) assembled a crack team of English and South African jazz and folk musicians (including Mike Osborne, Harry Miller, Geoff Hawkins, Stefan Grossman, and Heron) to record these remarkable sessions, and the results are absolutely sui generis, a compelling mix of tradition, group improvisations, and unfettered studio explorations that presaged Cooper’s adventurous work for decades to come.'

    http://www.paradiseofbachelors.com/products-page/cd/pob-13

  17. Me too.

    I find the thought of connecting everything up too frightening. So I work off a Heath Robinson arrangement.

    Keep looking at one of these:

    naim-unitilite-audio-streaming-cd-player

    Lovely piece of kit. You won't go wrong with that.

    Have you considered a Sonos system? Very easy to set up. Large choice of streaming options, eg Spotify, plus iTunes and also includes Qobuz for lossless streaming. And you can connect pretty much anything to it. A big plus for me, with a house with thick walls, is that it creates a wireless network that is actually more robust and reliable than my main network (BT).

  18. If it's something I want to revisit a lot I'll download it. Though I suspect even that is part of the old model of 'ownership'. If I was 14 and starting anew I doubt if I'd bother with the downloading and burning.

    I guess you're right about the generational difference but, to me, the question of 'ownership' is an important one. If you're happy not to physically own music and just stream it from the Cloud or wherever this implies that you don't value it as much. This could well colour your whole attitude to music which becomes more casual.

    I use Spotify a lot and find it a great way to check out new music and artists but, for me, it doesn't replace the process of listening to a CD or LP while reading the liner notes.

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