Simon Weil

You guys keep going on like this and your wives are going to get suspicious....

I've got all her records now. I saw her in Bill Frisell's InterContinental's band (London, ?2003) and, although her solos weren't that striking, something about her playing transfixed me. So I got the first 3 of her records - my favourite of which remains Live At Yoshi's - but I kind of held off after that, feeling she wasn't quite where I hoped she's be. More recently (maybe a year ago), I revisited 12 Songs, which I had always been a bit equivocal about, liked it and bought a big chunk of the rest of her records. Crossing the Field and The Littlest Prisoner seem to me quality performances by a mature talent. The second's her vocals - which aren't Jazz vocals - and a kind of modernish folk background, but I hear the same underlying sensibility in both. Basically I was looking for someone up to date who I could feel was doing real stuff when I bought the records - and these two fulfil that need for me. She seems to have the ability to put it across just as well in her self-penned folk(ish) songs as in her relatively complex Jazz(ish) performances.

She functions quite well as a foil in that video - Kind of a straight woman to Konitz's performance.

Oddly enough I'm doing something on Kevin Ayers, who is probably an example of that. (Not Jazz, came out of Soft Machine, which is Jazz Rock)

Knowing where you are isn't enough. Not in the end - Sure. But you have to get to where you can speak. Not so easy.

I don't know. It's pretty close to the centre of my sensibility.

I do enjoy a challenge, but I can be swayed by BS when It comes to listening to music (anyway in the short-term) in a way that I'm not when it comes to reading text (I believe I have a better literary ear than a musical one).

The stuff that gives me a sense that I've expanded my perspectives. I get very bored listening to same old. But I don't know that I'm that good at appreciating technical innovation off my own bat.

Thanks, Ghost. Good to be back.

It's kind of difficult for me to answer you on the point about style without specific reference (I fear I'm going to get caught betwixt and between). I do always try and get a look inside a book before I buy because of the issues you mention. The preview of the British blues background book is engaging. British Blues is not really one of my subjects, but the background goes to other places as well, and I can see how I might buy it for that.

This is the link to Amazon.co.uk: What's That Sound 4th Edition £64.12 is the price there. It doesn't have any UK reviews, but the top 2 reviews from the states (imported to the UK site) do talk about price. This is a link to a search of Amazon.com versions of the book: What's That Sound (Amazon.com) There's a version available for rent at $14.99, but the standard edition still seems to cost $91 (though there's a loose leaf ed. for $63). Of course you could buy second hand.... My problem was mostly with the style - that's how I will characteristically go about deciding whether I want to buy a book, the first thing I'll look at is the style. I don't think I could read this book - so there wouldn't be a whole lot of point in me expending anything, let alone the high price. I mean, I did seriously look, because I could probably do with a book on this general subject (Though I have the Rolling Stone). My impression of the book was the actual stuff you need to know about gets diluted by the academic verbiage, the kind of rote sociological analysis and the decision made to take a "long" view of Rock history - so too wide and too deep a field. There might be value buried in it, but...I couldn't be bothered to look.

It's expensive (£64), written by an academic for a University course and I found the style in the preview on Amazon unbearably dry. As It happens it also gives short shrift (or no shrift) to the groups I came into Rock with (Soft Machine and Fairport Convention - both rock-something else fusions).

...."Haitian Fight Song" !!! Yup.

A double album of Atlantic tracks hooked me on Mingus. it was the immediacy, lyricism and sheer power that got me - because, I suppose they reminded me of Rock, only more so.

That's not untrue - And perhaps there's a reason for that.

I don't have this book, but the first 2 lines of the song quoted on the cover (For What It's Worth by Buffalo Springfield): "There's something happening in here/ What it is ain't exactly clear..." Do seem to capture the 60's.

This is going to piss people off (probably), but I think there's a kind of scale and depth to William's writing (some of it), that I don't hear elsewhere in Jazz writing. There's a kind of greatness to it. Maybe that's just because he wasn't temperamentally comfortable but ended up in that spot out of a kind of critical compulsion.

Can't help you with this. But I remember Brian Rust from his (London) Capital Radio show which I used to record for my dad to play in his car. He wasn't really interested in Jazz, but he loved this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrWjXzkTzQg

"...the aesthetic needs of creation versus the political hell of African American life..." In Greek drama the truly horrible acts occur off-stage but resonate through the drama.

".... the aesthetic needs of creation versus the political hell of African American life and the way in which these two things interact in ways so completely foreign to my initial intellectual training, which leans toward Gilman/Beckett/Robe Grillet and which tends to regard political content in art as vulgar...." I once was at an MJQ concert and, in the interval, looked at the little merchandising stall the band had set up. They were selling band T-shirts in different designs and a choice of black and white. The guy - who I assumed was their manager or something - was explaining how the white T-shirt had this complex design on the back, but the black one was plain. I said "racially segregated T-shirts!". He looked at me daggers. I said, with a grin "The white one has it, the black one doesn't". His face cracked open in the big, horrible, gold-toothed grin of a guy used to being both black and criminal and rushed off, leaving the stall to his minion. I like to think he wanted to share his pleasure with the band.

Hi Bev, Yeah, I'm in London. They do seem to play here once in while, so maybe... I checked out the video (plus a couple of others). Her vocal style there seems to be more fourth instrument rather than vocalist per se. It's recessed - and I'm sure deliberately. I quite like that, but it brings her closer in her singing to what Alison Krauss is doing with her violin in Union Station rather than her voice. Like part of the group rather than stand-out vocalist reaching for the Heavens. [Edit: It occurred to me that picture of a pig might not prove entirely popular with the Tories.]

I think both the live double and New Favourite are really good - just at the moment I'm playing New Favourite every day. There is (or was) a DVD of the concert on the live double, which has more songs plus interviews. I'm not really keen on the Robert Plant duet, though apparently it brought a lot of new people to the music. I actually came to her via the "Oh Brother, where art thou" soundtrack and it wasn't even her song that got me. It was "Man of Constant Sorrow" sung by Dan Tyminski. After that I heard her stuff. So I agree with Bev that Union Station is a well-balanced outfit - with not just her vocals, but many other quality elements. I'm actually quite a fan of her solo outings and, contrary to received wisdom, enjoy a lot of her song choices. In fact "That kind of love" qualifies as one of my all-time favourites. I am aware of Viktor Krauss from a couple of records he did with Bill Frisell. He really adds a lot to those - with quite a characteristic, I'd say unique, style. Very dark also. I'll have to check out the solo records.

I did a search here on Alison Krauss a couple of days ago and I couldn't find any substantive posts. So...Alison Krauss? My basic interest is that absolutely staggeringly beautiful voice. But I suppose I also like her darkness - And sense of humour. There's a live recording where she makes a joke about her inability to sing "up" songs. Sandy Denny was an earlier vocalist whose dark perspective spoke to me.

My line always is: I don't want to be part of anyone's damn elite.

In the UK right now, I'd say posturing rules OK. There's an awful lot of fake toughness. There's also an awful lot of delusion, despair and frustration. The frustration is why I think music like this can find an outlet if it were renewed for this age.