Royal Oak

And invariably around that time-frame it would be a radiogram with auto-changer and a knitting needle-ish stylus. The first was an "ALBA" box with the built-in speaker. Yes, it was an auto-changer. Couldn't say about the stylus but it did have a decimal halfpenny glued to the headshell.

When I used to buy records (when records were all you could buy, unless you consider cassettes) I don't recall it being such a big deal keeping them in pristine condition - you played them and that was that. Chances are you had a crappy turntable, you'd bump into it and send the arm flying, or you'd drop the arm trying to cue on to a certain track. You might leave the thing on the platter for days on end. You didn't wash your hands before you handled it, you were often stoned/drunk and clumsy (record sleeves were used for skinning up). If it got scratched, so be it. I never felt I was in posession of a "precious thing" - it was just, well, a record, a way of listening to music you liked.

Jean-Luc Ponty - "Sunday Walk". This is from 1967, so predates his time with Zappa, yet sounds Zappa-esque to me.

It's the Handy's that "bite" isn't it? Thanks for the heads up. I agree with your comment about Criss - on everything I've ever heard so far Criss certainly tries his bollocks off (an old term I used to hear in greyhound racing circles!)

Is anyone familiar with the two Sonny Criss titles? Going off the track listings (lots of pop tunes), these must be 70s albums? Are they any good?

I'm not sure any future jazz reissues are viable, seriously. That must make a couple of members who are involved in doing reissues feel very good. It gives me no pleasure to say it - I simply can't see that there can be a market, other than the diehards.

I'm not sure any future jazz reissues are viable, seriously.

I don't know exactly what that is, but I am nonetheless shocked and horrified, and I feel compelled to weep openly, for you, for your children, and your children's children. Bow tie; why I didn't call it that probably speaks volumes on a Freudian level, ie wearing one makes you feel like a dick.

Roll the dice, pay the price, add some spice with this slice of nice Gryce. Don't make me say it twice, buy online and get it in a trice. I'm imagining Oscar Brown junior saying this as I type...

Brought back painful memories of lugging my alto on the bus to school 30 years ago. In fact, it brings back a few painful memories of playing the thing - school concerts where you had to wait around backstage for hours while the cool kids played Bowie's "Let's Dance" on repeat, wearing a dicky bow, playing hokey shit in the concert band with 70 bar rests aplenty, compulsory membership of the school choir with 2 months of rehearsals for a Carol concert, being forced to join a marching band and go to all-day brass band competitions etc etc Seems they may be doing the boy a favour!

Wow, a preface, a forward, AND an introduction. What, no prologue? Do you think Clem's poem will be in there?

Aren't those all from different labels too? I have most of them, so won't be buying. It's awfully cheap for a lot of nice Gryce.

Alan Bennett - Untold Stories. The passages about his mother's mental health problems are superb - his observation of mental illness and all that goes with it is incredibly perceptive and very unsentimental. It should be required reading for mental health professionals, in the UK at least. IMO of course

I'm looking at a pile of unopened OJCs from the Oldies sale.

Still unseasonably warm today. Can't complain, doing an outdoor job.

We are now confirming the stereotype that English people love to talk about the weather..... Tune into tonight's JRR on the BBC replayer and another great British topic lies in one track. Django Bates' 'The Importance of Boiling Water' with instructions how to make a proper cup of tea. My wife bought one of those "one-cup" kettles; it doesn't boil the water.

We are now confirming the stereotype that English people love to talk about the weather.....

I loved REM in when I was in my late teens. A chance hearing of "Rockville" turned me onto them. I saw them a couple of times on the "Green" tour, but never bought another record after "Out Of Time"

Driving on the motorway the other night, I listened to Baby Face Willette's "Face To Face". "Something Strange" had me in some kind of other-worldly state, especially in Ben Dixon's cymbal crashes at the start of the soloists' choruses. Strange how a simple blues that you've heard many times can do this. I tried it again a few days later, but it wasn't the same.

An Idiot Abroad - Karl Pilkington The book of the Ricky Gervais TV series. I literally cannot stand to look at/listen to Ricky Gervais, so I refused to watch the show for a long time. Pilkington is hilarious, but what is worrying is that I find myself agreeing with almost all of what he says.

I wasn't thinking of the intro, but the first few notes of the tune proper.

Didn't Gil Evans arrange that bit? - not inconceivable that Gil would have drawn upon this bit of Debussy. I don't know. I'd never heard the Debussy until a few months ago (obviously known Round Midnight for donkey's years). When I heard it my ears pricked up - I love stuff like that.

Aaaaay!

If I had Bitches Brew I'd try it out. FWIW, I think part of the opening riff in Debussy's "Prelude de l'Apres midi d'une Faune" (spelling?) sounds like the opening riff of "Round Midnight".

I agree wholeheartedly.