David Ayers

I hear you. Thanks to Spotify I can take a careful approach. It seems that all the titles are already on Spotify, whether or not the CDs have yet been released. Whether I can get past the things I don't warm to - the 'humor' I don't share and the jazz rockery which I find a little mechanical - remains to be seen.

I thought Green always played a hollow body of some kind - what's he got there?

Have to admit that Zappa LPs I had left my collection - I guess now I am down to Yellow Shark on CD... Listening to Hot Rats and not warming to it.... We'll see - I may be more into the rock/song aspect than the instrumental jazz rock and "classical"... I'm treating this as an archival trawl...

Schizophrenic Blues and Berlin Concert are available as lossless downloads at Destination Out, for those interested. http://destination-out.bandcamp.com/

Thanks for the link. Luke Pacholsky's info is usually pretty reliable. Yes this is a good link. I'm familiar with some later Zappa so it's the early and 70s stuff which I should probably investigate. Dont know why I never did. I'll start with Hot Rats and work out from there. I'll do it from spotify to begin with - too many to buy...probably... In any case the prices on these on amazon seems to drop markedly once the pre-order phase is over

Thanks for those links - more than I can handle though...

I'm extremely patchy on Zappa - maybe this is the time to change that? (Looks like much of it is on spotters so maybe I can answer my own question...)

Well I guess anyone I know who wants a copy of my mp3s had better take a copy now while I am still alive, before the vultures move in...

According to NBC news, UCI will contest USADA, so it will go to CAS in Lausanne... and that could take up to a year...

Very unhappy about this. Everything to do with the collective characterological flaw of these agencies and nothing to do with sport. What did you do in the war dad?

Maybe more aimed at the likes of Braxton and Vandermark? Not sure. It would be interesting if Braxton was in mind. But I just can't see anyone involved in free/improv music not seeing Braxton as an 'untouchable' of sorts, and a pioneer and fellow traveller for the Brotzmann generation. Although I'm not well versed in the aesthetic politics that would be behind these liner notes, I suspect Braxton has done it harder than any European musician. However you read it, it's an interesting intervention.

Maybe more aimed at the likes of Braxton and Vandermark? Not sure.

Like it. I've progressed from jazz to post-punk. Ain't masonry grand. Find Quality a bit derivative from that one track, but ok.

And then as people 'progress' further - leave jazz - behind - ?

Even in 'modern' jazz, heavier music has been fairly popular - Bitches Brew, A Love Supreme. Miles played to large crowds for decades.

It's gone. Wail wail. One of the very few Selects I possess, worth a hearing - anyone want to say any last words?

Sonny Clark. Doze on MacDuff.

Seems I'm not alone.

My Spanish isn't good enough to catch the blooper in the video... Anybody want to tell me...?

You guys seem to have forgotten that jazz was a major commercial music and that sex has always been part of its marketing. The cult of the individual instrumentalist and of the obscure record or niche recording - which is where the few modern elderly toe-tappers now get their arid sustenance - is not, it is true, a sexy enclave, but is only one facet of (the aftermath of) jazz. I'll suggest again that jazz is something we would move on from, not something we should imagine that supposedly benighted others should move towards. PS jazz is not a difficult music - hard to play well maybe but not hard to follow. It has an ageing fan base, that's all.

Cut the trash talk.

5 GBP less 20% VAT = 4 GBP = approx $6. 5 GBP less 20% Vat 5 x 100/120 = £4.17 = $6.25-ish

Robin Holloway obviously doesn't know shit, and evidently requires a damn good thrashing, which I'd be only to happy to provide. He presents a series of extremely subjective opinions which basically amounts to 'Well I didn't like it'. "Battleship-grey melody and harmony, factory functional in structure, in content all rhetoric and coercion". And a bit further on, describing his incredible and sublime String Quartets : "Here the horrors are different - a rapid degeneration from innocent cheerfulness via terse grimness to the long-drawn-out torture by excruciation and vacancy of the final works." Can we remove the threat of violence please?

UK sales tax (VAT) is 20% so the saving is significant and likely to offset shipping.

While some musicians famously die young, I am amazed by the longevity and productivity of musicians like Vonski. Way to live.