David Ayers

I want to get into something new but i don't know what. Suggestions?

here's the CD cover here I see for the first time, and even more weirdly, the LP cover

I really hope the jazz obsession with reissues doesn't take over in classical. There are so many great recordings coming from France now, especially of baroque music, I can't get sentimental over badly played, badly recorded, badly re-mastered Erato back-catalog.

My former colleague Brian Dillon has made a specialism of the C20th ruin - check out his book: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ruins-Documents-Contemporary-Brian-Dillon/dp/085488193X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1318580601&sr=8-1 On the satirical side, my own county of origin has come up with this un-gem: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-23482587

That article is not very recent is it? Warner has already taken control of EMI/Virgin Classics and has started to rebrand the products. The rest I don't know about. My observation is that, given the declining fortunes of the recorded music industry, I'm not sure the forced divestments will seem to have been necessary ten or even five years from now.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-ouch-23423541

Moms in the house!

Thanks Justin V for the Umbria article link and bluesoul for the Iverson link. Interesting. There is more at stake than a like/no-like discussion. People who 'don't like' Jarrett take him seriously. What happens for them - and for me, I know his music fairly well - is that we look for things that might draw us in, certain passages that might obsess us, an atmosphere that we might warm to, or just certain clevernesses which might make us at least feel recognition if not joy. When people are frustrated in this quest then they voice their reactions. That's an internal negotiation within the listener/analyst and it is more complicated than like/no-like. Some people have said they like the American quartet for the other musicians. I actually find that quartet pretty irritating myself, just because, again, I find it turned into something less than it might have been. Some people don't like that Jarrett appeals to audiences over the heads of the cognoscenti. To me that's good - that has done a great deal for jazz and jazz-related musics over the decades, for festivals and of course for his record label. I'll continue to listen to Jarrett, I don't think he's a vulgariser - at all - but that oh-my-goodness moment, which has come to me frequently in my revisiting of Waldron/Lacy in recent days (for example) remains elusive - for this listener at least.

Yes where? I'd be interested to read that... As the person that posted it twice now....ask and you will receive....because the third time is the charm. haha The full interview once again. The part about Braxton is in part 2. Cecil Taylor also is involved. http://www.furious.com/perfect/matthewshipp.html Thank you!

Yes where? I'd be interested to read that...

Vayeur is ex-Festina, so has an axe to grind. I don't know where he gets his watt-age figures from. But I would quite like to know the answer to what he says. Great spectacle though and occasionally some drama... a little kid runs out and - phew! The yellow jersey just misses him....

Quite a lot of labels didn't print track times for part or all of their existence. Many Prestige titles lack track times.

Well, there was no TdF thread this year! To get the ball rolling a little after the fact, here is the attack on doping from Antoine Vayeur in Le Monde. Wish it didn't make sense... rest here: http://www.lemonde.fr/sport/article/2013/07/21/tour-de-france-juan-pat-aidez-nous-a-comprendre-l-exceptionnel_3450751_3242.html

Worth noting that if you order the CD from amazon.co.uk (not from amazon sellers) you get the download included free...though not the pdf

Fair point, although the 1500 and 4000 titles didn't get reissued - one or two as fleeting Collector's Choice, IIRC. Babe's Blues, for example, consisted of offcuts from the sessions for those LPs, so maybe represented a lower average. That said, the Sounds were pretty consistent...

It may be true that, as MC claimed, the Sounds did not sell well (presumably he means the pre-RVG CD re-issues). But the effect is that the record is doctored, and also I feel that some of those titles issued as JRVGs have pretty good sound and also the striking Reid Miles covers that sell records. Although it was a horrid instrument, the Sounds records are among the small minority of Blue Notes recorded in Rudy's studio where you can actually hear the piano properly, warts and all - so for that reason alone....

Would the last person to leave ebay please turn out the lights

I find it a pity that the The Three Sounds were excluded from the whole RVG reissue program outside Japan. I know the Sounds were regarded as weak sellers. I know they don't register with folks the same way that Lee Morgan or Herbie Hancock do. But. Their albums are good on their own terms and I think if they had been rolled out alongside those many artists 'we' here on this board prefer they could have caught on.

Just playing Virgin Beauty - quite pretty, head structures, nice tunes...

PS I haven't heard the recent Wergo recording of Symphonies 3-5 with Janowski, but it is a good bet they are preferable to the conductor's own versions on the DG set.... PPS Oh, and, i am also remembering that the Decca recording of Voices, which was much-praised and was also a hi-fi collector's favorite, does not make it on to this set which is strictly DG but is available on CD from an independent label.

That Henze Requiem is much celebrated and there is even a DVD. Sony need to reissue that, it is a pity it has dropped into a black hole. The DG set represents what they did in the period up to the 70s (don't know the exact date), plus the Knussen recording of Undine plus odds and ends. So yes, it is not very complete, and as well as orchestral works of course his many subsequent operas and other vocal works are not there. We're trained, I suppose by the example of Beethoven, to see a composer in terms of symphonies plus the rest, i.e. with the ideas in symphonies being the most important, but it is a bit of an illusion with most composers and in Henze's case not really applicable. So these 'symphonies' are not really a 'cycle', just a succession of orchestral works - interesting but not the core of an oeuvre. Of the later symphonies I think 9 is the most serious and central, and 7 is more of a symphony in the conventional sense. Those two are available cheaply on EMI but without the necessary text for No. 9 so beware, 7-9 are on wergo, and 10 is on (can't remember). So this set is the history of a recorded collaboration, not a 'best of'. Of the vocal pieces, El Cimmaron has a real performing history, Medusa was recorded but not even performed once due to protests (I think by the musicians) against its leftist politics, I do not think Ungeheuer has ever been revived. Der Junge Lord is occasionally performed but Boulevard Solitude [not in this set] is I think the most revived and those wanting to put on Henze operas have had many to choose from recently. The shorter vocal pieces on this set do not seem to get revived (could be wrong). Again, Henze was so busy until the end of his life that there were always many new works for people to perform. Those interested in Henze's orchestral works and wanting a best of might do well to track down Requiem [instrumental - a mixture of piano concerto and trumpet concerto] , and if you can stand a choral symphony intended as a response to Beethoven's 9 but on a sombre anti-Nazi theme, then of course his Ninth Symphony (with caveat about text and note that this is not an Ode to Joy!).

I know Ornette's music relatively well and for years he was my favorite. He's basically a melodist, his ideas are rooted in triadic harmony, in fact his music is easy on the ear although the electric bands are a bit noisy (and live unbearably noisy). I like his music, his core idea of free jazz gave rise to many things and was an incredible inspiration, but it is also clear to me - and I think this is what Taylor was getting at - that he doesn't proceed far beyond his initial assumptions and that a more conscious and constructivist approach is required to "break with Western traditions" - if we are to use that nonsensical phrase which ignores that the tradition of Western modernity has never been about anything other than constant innovation....

Overclaim about harmolodics, which - as Cecil Taylor noted - is usually rooted in conventional triads. Taylor's attempt to play with OC reportedly ended in acrimony for this reason - it is in the notes to a CT LP, just don't recall which one but I've got it here.

Sung or recited texts, yes. Henze is probably more than anything a vocal writer. Most of the works here are vocal - Der Junge Lord and Elegy for Young Lovers are operas, the latter presented only in excerpt. The Raft of the Medusa and Der langwierige Weg in die Wohnung der Natascha Ungeheuer are also stage works, both very agitprop (!). El Cimarrón is a long recital, based on a slave narrative, and many other works are vocal (Whispers From Heavenly Death; 5 Neapolitan Songs; Being Beauteous; Essay On Pigs; Cantata Of The Ultimate Fable; Muses Of Sicily; Moralities), some political, some not. So basically CDs 7-14 are vocal, which is half the set. For that reason the texts could be quite helpful! I've got pdfs for three of those eight and could make one I suppose for another, but I am lacking the rest. PS also a pity they missed out the Decca material which they could have included - In fact I think there was more on Decca which never made it to CD. In fact I know there is - one of the pieces, Labyrinth, is a kind of 'jazz' and features Tony Coe. Ungeheuer features Gunther Hampel's group!

I have some doubts the Henze booklet will include all the texts. We'll have to see if we can piece it together in some way - I've made a start....