A Lark Ascending

Think it was earlier - I recall the Beidebecke from the early/mid-80s. I like that slow pace. I have no time for the rapid paced stuff. I recall watching 'Spooks' for a while but gave up because I found so much was telescoped into one episode that could have been more effectively handled over three. Same with things like the TV versions of Wallander and the Ian Rankin books - 90 minutes to cover a book that would take you a couple of weeks (at my term-time pace). This sort of series almost seems to happen in real time - the scenes in the drab Victorian living room of the big house with two elder aunts and a scrounging uncle really do evoke the endless tedium of a wet winter afternoon. That clinches it ! Well thank you, thank you for that award I've been seeking all my life. I'd just like to also express my gratitude to my parents, my hair stylist, God....

Forever seeking the award for the most unhip person on this board: Haven't seen this since about 1966 (when I saw it three times!). Seem to know it off by heart - we only had 2 LPs at the time so played the soundtrack endlessly (the other was 'Mary Poppins'). Enjoyed it thoroughly. I'm not good with TV or films...I get restless after 30 minutes but this kept me absorbed for its full run. Another bit of nostalgia: BBC TV serialisation from 1977 of an H.E. Bates novel. I recall watching during an Autumn of unemployment while I was seeking my first teaching job. I remember being besotted by Mel Martin in the title role as a femme fatale. I was off on interview the evening of the last episode so never saw it. Holds up well, even with the rather indoor BBC production values of the time. So far episodes 1-3. Waiting for the DVD rental people to send me disc 2.

Don't ever recall seeing these on CD. I look forward to the set as I've never heard them. The Weber box is made up of three wonderful albums - shimmery, minimalist-influenced (though not dominated) music that takes the route from In a Silent Way that Miles didn't. The two Old and New Dreams were my introduction to Ornette Coleman in the late 70s/early 80s. Kenny Wheeler's 'The Widow in the Window' is one of his best two - contemporary with 'Music for Large and Small Ensembles.' Lots of other great records there too, if you're attune to the ECM approach. Could Lookout Farm be somewhere down the line?

Great to hear, papsrus. I'll happily suggest the music for the jig!

The same could be said for quite a few of our record collections! I've gone for the larger option because with the 80gb I was already thinking of deleting things to fit on others. I'd also found myself, especially when out walking, wanting to listen to something that I would not have considered at the top of my listening list. I can now comfortably have all the Shostakovich symphonies, string quartets and concertos (for example) and it hardly makes an impression on the memory. Which gives me access to these when out. A luxury, yes. It would be cheaper to just remember to bring specific recordings on a CD-walkperson. But I just like having it there. ********* MG, as others have said, just do it. Itunes takes a bit of getting used to but is actually very easy to use. You don't strike me as the sort to get over-worried by the technicalities that are important to some. You'll love it. [i also don't use the automatic synch - I want to control what goes on the ipod.]

I think a lot can depend on just how sensitive you are to sound quality. I'm pretty tolerant (as long as things aren't going going out of tune or distorting) and can't claim to be aware of any great difference in sound quality. I appreciate that others care about that issue far more than I do. Re: the shuffle. I never use the total shuffle facility - Shostakovich next to Art Blakey followed by the Moody Blues doesn't really work. But I have set up some albums of favourite tracks - 60s/70s pop/rock, jazz, vocal jazz, country folk - which I just add to every time I'm playing an album on the CD player and a track jumps out at me. Putting that on individual album shuffle whilst travelling can be great fun. I don't know if you drive, MG, but you can get a gizmo to connect to your car radio. You synch it in with an empty radio frequency and it plays on the radio. Sound quality there is noticeably poorer and it can be a problem on long distance drives if you move into an area the frequency is being used in. But I spent a couple of weeks whizzing round Cornwall in the summer using it happily. Certainly beats carting a batch of CDs with you.

Thanks Bev. What's the best store to buy one in over here? MG I got mine through Amazon. Paid for the next day delivery and it came bang on time. The 160 gb is not cheap - £175 - but you'll wonder how you lived without it. A godsend when you're sat in places twiddling your thumbs waiting. Look for the iPod Classic - I wouldn't go below 80 gb - anything less and someone with a collection like yours will fill up very quickly (I had a 20 gb mp3 about three years back and soom found it was full).

Go for a big one, MG. I've just bought one of the new 160 gb after having an 80 gb for a year. The latter was 3/4 full so I decided to have two. The new one is for classical, the old for jazz and everything else. You'll work out how to use it very quickly. You generally have to enter your own track names for things you have recorded yourself. But I've had situations where the recognition software online was worked out an album by track length and number of tracks (unlikely with your African music). Once you upload (or download) an album it is easy to rename albums, genres etc to what suits you so it comes out tidy on the ipod itself. Go for it...I was resistant to the ipod for a long time, purely because it seemed such a fashion icon. I'd now say its my favourite incention since the CD.

Bev, doesn't Peter Friedman's post #2 say that he does have it on CD? And his follow-up says it was on Horizon itself, not another label. Perhaps Peter can give some catalog numbers for that issue... Jim Hall - Commitment - A & M CD 0811 Well. I'll be! I've obviously not been looking hard enough. Looking at the price tag on Amazon.co.uk it looks like it has not had a release here in the UK.

Jim Hall's Commitment was one of my earliest jazz records and I still love it. No idea why it has never had a reissue where Jim Hall Live has. A very different album - where the 'Live' is no frills, 'Commitment' deliberately uses different musicians/textures from track to track to create a varied but highly 'produced' tapestry. Maybe it was judged a hodge-podge. But it hooked me. 'Lament for a Fallen Matador' (the Albinoni Adagio) with Art Farmer is gorgeous, very much in the vein of his 'Concerto' version of Rodriguez.

All the best, Papsrus. My dad has been suffering from something similar. It's not pleasant. Keep rested - Mingus should help!

I actually think critics are at there best when looking at a body of work they have some time for, rather than the isolated recording that they probably have limited time to absorb but have to somehow relate to the vast history of jazz. Someone exploring, say, the Miles recordings of the 60s who sets out to make judgements about which are the more successful or enjoyable records. It's really worth reading something like that, written by someone who is basically onside with the performer, has listened thoroughly and has a wide knowledge of the context and, perhaps, a musicological understanding; but will then reach substantiated judgements about which ones really work. One of my favourite jazz books is the one Humphrey Lytttleton wrote on the jazz of the 20s and 30s. There's never any one upmanship at work there. He makes judgements by selecting a couple of dozen recording that, in his ears, deserve special consideration and then tells you why in layman's terms. My award for the worst critical writing from an erudite scholor must go to Adorno on Sibelius. Pure poison based on a bunch of preconceptions.

Which is why I said "after well-founded consideration". Of course I expect a good critic to be careful when it comes to a matter of personal preferences instead of shortcomings that remain shortcomings even after close scrutiny that is as objective as it could possibly be. You don't have to be "savage" to be outspoken, but that definitely is a very, very far cry from "mild" criticism. If a critic tells me in terms and by criteria that I can relate to why a recording (or a book) would not be what I'd expect it to be and why I better steer clear of it then I am just as grateful to this critic for helping me save my bucks from a wasted purchase as I am to one who alerts me of a great, essential buy. And again, in today's world of rampaging P.C. everywhere a good, liberal dose of outspokenness and "calling a spade a spade" can never do any harm provided that the critic really can back up his (negative) opinion with substantive evidence. I wouldn't disagree with anything you say. If critics can be that detached about it, make their points of criticism without resorting to mockery or personalised ridicule, then fine. The sort of thing I have no time for is where the critic gets a joy from rubbishing something; or some sort of thrill from being too discerning to be taken in by X, Y or Z. It happens all too frequently; sadly I've met it all to often by posters on websites taking their cue from what they've read in magazines. I probably see this differently because of my background - the good historians are those who can present an argument based on rigorous research and then reach judgements that are tentative, aware of the need to be open to alternative interpretation or fresh evidence. And in the world of education a negative put-down never achieves anything with a student apart from relieving the teacher's frustration. Start from what has been done well and then build to where improvements are needed. Maybe not appropriate to the world of music criticism. But I see no reason to cause undue hurt, even amidst the the untalented or pedestrian. Confining a recording to one of those back column pages where it gets a two liner, instead of putting it in the main review section will be all the warning any listener needs to tread cautiously. I'm no fan of Simon Callow or Alan Sugar either!

The wisest thing I ever heard from a critic was in a radio broadcast about the words critics used to write a damning review. A couple enjoyed themselves picking their favourite assassin words. Then historian Lisa Jardine was asked what words she favoured for bad reviews. She replied, ' I don't write bad reviews, I send the book back.' Wise - maybe, but a disservice to the readers/listeners. If the reader/listener is left deliberately clueless when trying to decide whether a book, recording etc. not being reviewed is bad/worthless or just happens to be off the radar of the reviewes (you just CANNOT review everything that is out there) then this is not what I would call a good service to the public. And a reviewer who does not dare to blast something that after well-founded consideration by his/her standards deserves a bad review is just lacking in guts IMHO. (I know that from a "Don't bite the hand that feed ya" stance that's easier said than done - especially in today's world - but that's no excuse at all if the rights of the public are to be upheld - and they need to be upheld. Flattering pseudo reviews abound but what good do they really do?) I don't think there's any need to blast anything. A mild indication that the record is not very original or well played or whatever is fine. It gets the job done. Too many critics (though by no means all) seem to delight in savaging a recording. And then you get the critical practice of taking something that the critic doesn't care for and lambasting it as if there is something objectively wrong with it. Savage reviews also make good entertainment...but that has nothing to do with evaluating the music. Give me a writer who can tell me why I should be listening to a piece of music; I've no interest in hearing why I shouldn't.

$2,150.00 (about £1 300) for a wrist watch!!!!! You could by a well decent stero and listen to his records withat money. You could buy all his CDs! I paid £12.99 (about $22) for a new watch on Saturday after my other one disappeared in the Autumn choppings. I was taken aback by how much more it cost this time - I'm sure I only paid £7.99 a few years back. Barmy!

Xmas albums! Personalised watches! My, the 'times' really are a-changing!

Not always. It can be a publication's policy. The wisest thing I ever heard from a critic was in a radio broadcast about the words critics used to write a damning review. A couple enjoyed themselves picking their favourite assassin words. Then historian Lisa Jardine was asked what words she favoured for bad reviews. She replied, ' I don't write bad reviews, I send the book back.'

'To Serve Them All My Days' by R.F. Delderfield. Saw a TV adaptation of this back in '79/'80 just as I was starting my teaching career. It tells the story of a shell-shocked ex-WWI chap from the Welsh valleys who finds himself teachinh history in a minor public school on Exmoor in Devon. Old fashioned sort of book but completely absorbing. Follows the events of the mid-20thC in Britain from the perspective of this isolated place. A good tale well told.

It's much harder for a critic to be omnipotent now. When things happened in print it would take ages for a response to return; and the journal the critic wrote for could simply choose what it printed or did not print. The worst examples I saw were magazines where public rejoinders were printed in a letters page and then openly mocked. A critic now has to think twice about adopting an extreme position...unless, like quite a few, the like the cut and thrust of a full on flame-war. I've been really interested to read some critical hand-wringing about the dumbing-down brought about by the web, blogs etc. Sounds very much like sour grapes now that they've lost their monopoly of comment. It's still very early days for the web. Over time we'll all find places on the web where we find comments we value and just learn to wade through the nonsense. But I welcome the greater range of comment...and the interaction...that the web has brought. One thing I have found is that I'm much more interested in the reactions of the ordinary listener than the expert opinion of the established critics. I don't discount the latter and can find what they say interesting and informative; but I'm always more drawn to the openly subjectvie, personal response to music rather than those commentators who claim an objective position in order to assert a very narrow interpretation on music. Anyway, the genie is well out of the bottle now.

Cuscuna did point out in a Jazzwise interview this year that Blue Note were seriously exploring the download option, aware they had not given this approach the attention it deserves. Something about a complete website re-fit with download shop. Not of much use to those who, for various reasons, are dissatistfied with downloading. But I can see no reason why, with a bit of care and effort, everything could not be available that way, ready to catch the wave should that next generation get interested (via name-dropping from rock bands, dance crazes or soundtrack or commercial use). Will need a major change in business practice though - away from the delete and withold until a market is created before re-issuing again approach, towards a just having it up there for when people get interested. In the days when releasing something meant all sorts of problems - manufacture, storage, distribution etc - deletion made sense. In the new technological world it makes no sense at all. There's the initial work/costs remastering, making the digital files (and checking they are error free!), setting up the website etc. After that it's just a case of keeping people aware (a publicity issue) and sometimes satisfying the demand for upgrading when better technologies come along. I suspect most people will be quite content to just have the music available in good quality sound (though I've no doubt we will continue to be pressurised into believing that we really do need to upgrade to the new premium mp17 format). Who knows. Once they have the entire back catalogue sorted, they might then have more time to focus on new recordings!

http://www.karenstreet.bigshedmusic.co.uk/recordings.htm http://www.bremme-hohensee.de/Trovesi_Coscia.htm http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2004/feb/06/jazz.shopping1

Worth getting the packed mackerel with peppercorns. A quick, tasty mid-week meal!

You even know how to spell it correctly!

Thanks both of you. I will experiment.

It would have had to have been. The only passing trade in Looe is in mackeral. Glad you enjoyed the book, Sidewinder. I was in Hebden Bridge, West Yorks a few weeks back and had to pop into the 'prog-rock' shop mentioned and pictured in the book. Didn't buy anything but I did notice a copy of the book on display in the window.