A Lark Ascending

Great documentary. I was really moved by it when it screened here a few years back.

Sadly, Randy Crawford never showed for the session.

Another one I've never heard:

Never owned this album but it was very popular around the time I first started buying records - the cover stuck in my mind.

I'd go a step further and suggest a download option (I'm not one for the 'collector's packaging' or the whole 'collectability' thing as a whole (I just like to hear the music; if I want to invest I'll buy stocks and shares)...this could be included as a PDF). I suspect the worry would be making piracy even easier. Though given how easy it is to pirate the CDs I'm not sure there's much of a margin.

Never owned this album but I was always fascinated by the cover on one of those EMI Harvest inner sleeves: And here's the gatefold: All very late-60s/early 70s...Dr. Who, Doomwatch.... And where I saw it:

You know, I can't remember. I'm sure I must have! This doesn't strike me as a book it would be easy to film. How do you handle all the background history and philosophy (and biology!)? I rarely read books more than once - I read this one twice! Not the same at all, but a book which also gets the brain thinking about the big questions: I must read that again.

One of my desert island books! Some wonderful ruminations on history in its pages. Highly evocative of the Fenland region of East Anglia where it is set. And very good on eels too!

That might explain his dress sense from the late 60s!

And hopefully lots of blues! I'm looking forward to a set of discs that go where most comps don't. That's why your jazz sets are so good, Allen.

I look forward to this. 'That Devilin' Tune' is easily the most enjoyable set of CDs compiling early jazz that I've come across. 'Blues' is a much foggier area for me so I'm hoping for an education!

Here's another interesting new one: For All We Know Nica's Dream The Sound of Music I concentrate on You Ruby My Dear Monk's Dream Sarabande Joy Spring Henry Lowther has only recorded a few solo records so it will be good to hear him...especially doing Julie Andrews! Also nice to see a new release on Andy Cleyndert's Trio Records - they seemed to go quiet for a while.

One of those very personal reactions. I've always loved Neil's voice - vulnerable, very, very distinctive. Though I can also see why he sounds like fingernails on a blackboard to some. A bit like Dylan or Robert Wyatt who just sound like bad singers to many people, yet are deeply affecting singers to others (Wyatt is one of my all-time favourites). I think Neil maintained his songwriting skills and took them down unusual routes for a much longer period than Stills. Stills was writing some great things up to the early 70s but seemed to completely lose his touch. Neil was also more prolific (and there were a fair few dull songs but a bounty of good ones). Perhaps Neil's style was a bit simpler, closer to country or blues standards. [a sideline, but I always thought David Crosby was the most original of all three - but he wrote even less! You really hear the jazz in Crosby's songs). Equally, his guitar sound was highly distinctive and, again if you are attuned, highly emotional. I love listening to chorus after chorus of him on 'Cortez the Killer'. He never struck me as that flash but he could build a solo up and take it down beautifully. Can't say I've cared for much by him since the early 90s; but in the period from the late 60s to mid-70s he is one of my touchstones.

Me too! Now waiting for disc 3 to arrive. I'm really enjoying this series.

Would like to see this on the Westbrook front: One I've never heard. http://www.westbrookjazz.de/d1_f.html

Anyone ever tried the burgers of Calais?

My bank manager is keen that you say nothing!

I enjoyed my days as a scourer of record and then CD shops. But that was then and this is now. Having weened myself off the hunt through record shops I've found I'm more than happy with the new technological model. One of the things you can do now, which it was hard to do then, is download the specific tracks you want and then assemble the album as you require (especially useful when collecting earlier pre-LP jazz). Of course you could do that with a tape recorder but would need to buy (or borrow) recordings that frequently overlapped. All that glitters is indeed not gold...including our warm fuzzy nostalgia for the past.

'Tropic Appetites' is available on iTunes. Agree, it's a marvellous album - anyone who could never bite off 'Escalator' might like to try 'Tropic' - it's like a chamber music version of that 'opera'. Julie Tippetts is in amazing voice on some of the tracks. Don't know 'Lifelines' but if Kenny Wheeler is aboard, then I'd like to see it too.

I agree - love the thread for either getting ideas for new things or getting your mind jogged about things buried in your collection. I too prefer it when people say why they are enjoying the music. Doesn't have to be erudite or an extended essay. Just a one liner communicating enthusiasm or an interesting observation can get you curious. The "Parochial US Politics" threads seem the most time-wasting (if you are not living in America)! 'How's the weather' is time-wasting but an essential expression of British character.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if Richards had been - until he got the opportunity through fame to be other! I seem to recall reading somewhere that Ritchie Blackmore - a one time wild man of rock - spent his teens practicing the guitar instead of partying! Pure party animals would be more likely to seek music where the girls are. Which is unlikely to be in any purist camp!

More to the point, if he was that purist he could never have written 'Wonderful Tonight'! I've broad ears but thats my 'non plus ultra'!

Can't wait for the boxed set with special liner notes and a DVD about how they did the remastering, not available elsewhere.

From what I've read, for every purist Eric Clapton (as he admits he was at the time) there was a Small Faces (who seemed well on top of R+B). I wonder if the purest thing was particular strong amongst the more introverted type, stuck in his bedroom listening to records (that was me later on!); where R+B struck home with those who went out and partied. There's probably an element of class there too in the UK experience! There's a distinct difference with having a personal 'non plus ultra' based on what sounds right to you; but trying to generalise that into some objective limit, well.... I think it has something to do with a human desire to tidy up the past and present it in clear boxes. You often have to do that in order to get a shape with which you can deal with it (something I've always found with learning and teaching history). Sometimes people forget that those arrangements are just there for convenience and that the past is much more overlapping and messy and open to an infinite variety of perpectives depending on where you are standing. One of they joys of the 'Devilin' Tune' series is they way you get jazz, country, blues, MOR on top of one another. Just as you would have heard them at the time.

Yes, have my eye on that too! Glad the Pavillion is back - I hated Komedia last year. Felt like an impostor being neither twenty-something nor a possessor of cool shades or an iPhone! We must say hello at some point this time! I'll promise you a pint of Barnstormer or Golden Hare (which you can now buy in Worksop in bottles!)!!!!