David Ayers

Well going to the opera is always great, even if most of the time it falls short in some way. You are surely right to go to see Le Nozze di Figaro, one of the greatest of all operas, even if productions are often a bit twee. My second pick would be Don Carlos, which is very hard to cast - they will struggle - and which will also require good production and direction to keep it alive. I strongly suggest that you go and see it, it is a huge undertaking for them, and you can be certain that it will fall short by international standards, but it is the company's big venture of the season and I'd say you should be in the best seats supporting them, appreciating their guts, and hoping for some real magic and a triumph.

They did. It will be included in 2064, when it is released as...well, nothing will be 'released' in any 'format' any more, we will all simply have the whole of everything implanted directly in our heads....

Likely what you say is right. Let's see if others wade in.

Ok thanks. Is that definite? I don't have any of the Miles books and I don't have the Miles/Coltrane box. The notes to the Columbia stereo CD don't mention this issue. The Wikipedia entry states "On some editions, the label switched the order for the two tracks on side two, "All Blues" and "Flamenco Sketches". " but there is no further clarification and no reference is given.

That's what I don't know. Or if or why it changed. Or why the mono box doesn't restore the original running order.

On another note, the playing order. The facsimile jacket has Flamenco Sketches before All Blues, as do Bill Evans' notes. But the CD (in the mono box) has the otherwise standard running order, All Blues before Flamenco Sketches. So, does anyone know the story on this?

Have to admit to a bit of Laubrock envy at this point. I very much like the Paradoxical Frog gig posted on YouTube.

I used to cover this - bizarrely - never knew they did Odeon...sky...uncanny...

This is too easy

Classical Fall PS objectionable language alert - don't shoot the messenger

I prefer my explanation.

I think your problem is the C20th ISP.

Well obviously this is the breakout recording of modal pieces, that is well-known - the album is a sine qua non of ECM . The question is whether the musicians, who are unaccustomed to it, really manage to keep it interesting, and whether they find ways to maintain the tension which modalism was designed to slacken. The idea I think was not to produce a musical breakthrough so much as a consumer breakthrough - lifestyle music, jazz with less snap crackle and pop for use in your living-room. That part of it worked, of course. Oh and in answer to the question I'd say part of the time they slacken, elsewhere they come up with some incredibly memorable phrases.

Nothing in the UK?... that's a shame. Ryanair to the rescue...?

It's sort of sweet that you guys are so exercised by this but you are on the wrong tack. The whole idea is about what happens when you try to copy a whole album. Hint: if you want to hear the original KoB, listen to it. Though as I found when I finally played the copy out of the mono box, memory plays tricks, as do remastering engineers, and even the original is not the same.

Fat lot of use having the facsimile of the original jacket, btw, as the tracks are listed in the wrong order. Still find it boring.

As a concession to this thread I am listening to KoB for the first time in *many* years, this time in the mono CD mix. It sounds completely different!

Does the second edition include the discography?

Maybe...

Unexceptional opinions wildly stated.

Not with you on reading of 'the' , but regardless of that I don't see the piece as much more than a shorthand intended for the NYRB general reader. So just atmosphere I tend to think. I guess I assume this kind of writing has little influence so I don't get too intent on it. That said there is discussion of late Coltrane to be had. There are perhaps quite a few passages that are what they are of course but don't work too well.

Ok I guess I don't know Dyer's writing so didn't see the review as part of a campaign maybe. I read the DB review which others did not like, but I thought reasonable in that it explained the occasion - as Dyer did not - but expressed reservations about the product without disdaining late Coltrane. I'm not sure Dyer's piece is that disdainful though. I think you can see maybe what he thinks through the lines, but he is inserting elements of objectivity in terms of the journalistic lexicon of free jazz. More to say but work to do.