A Lark Ascending

I can get into an intense thing with a performer and buy lots over a short period. Then I'll tire and go somewhere else. But the point normally comes when I'll find my way back and then, as well as listening to what I've got I'll want to add something new. I've got lots of Monk, Coltrane etc and at this point in time have no need of anything new. But I know that I'll hear a Monk track on Jazz Record Requests at some point, be directed back and then be looking at some of the gaps. Happened with Miles a couple of months back - a few of the 70s gaps got filled.

There seem to have been a flurry of bands in the UK in recent years, happy to 'come out' as fans of what is horribly names 'prog' and anxious to revive some of the spirit - Theo Travis' bands, Curious Paradise, Asaf Sirkis' organ/guitar/drums band come to mind. But listening to a couple of old Hatfield and the North/Soft Machine albums last night I was struck by how wide of the mark they are. Enjoyable music, but they come at it back to front. Those prog bands were rock bands (something Dave Stewart has always insisted on), some of which had a jazzy approach to improvisation. Most of these newer bands are jazz musicians or musicians who have mainly played jazz, crossing over into an older style. The big difference I noticed was that the newer bands follow the jazz formula - the head, solos, head format while using prog-rock like instruments and colours. With the original bands the music was often densely composed with little windows for solos (I suspect this originally was more of a UK thing...the US fusion bands seemed closer to the jazz approach). Thinking back, one of the things I found hardest to adjust to with jazz was the skeletal nature of the compositions, being used to a music where music was composed to change direction frequently. Of course, I came to see the reason why eventually, but initially the music seemed lacking in 'event'. It would be nice to some of these newer bands with a more composed approach. If I was a multimillionaire at pay Dave Sewart to come out of retirement and give it a crack (just as long as he brought no synths!

The 'dead hand' of this lot in action, yet again. Come the revolution.... etc. etc. The UK media has never done jazz any favours. The sole exception being that phase in the 1980s when it was half-way cool with the likes of Sade in the charts' Lasted all of 5 minutes after a few jazzy TV commercials seling lager. Funny as it is, that 'Fast Show' comedy sketch pretty well sums up the attitude of 99% of the UK listening public to jazz and anything challenging in terms of improvisation. I think there's allways been a more open and healthier attitude to modern jazz in particular on the Continent - young people are prepared to give it a listen and are more receptive. It's not automatically labelled with the 'awkward squad' - especially in Germany and the Benelux countries. Hence the reason why the likes of Mike Westbrook, Nucleus etc. spent so much time touring there in the 1970s and 80s. Our eternal loss. I think things have picked up in the last ten years or so. There do seem to be an awful lot of young jazz players around. Every year when I go to Cheltenham/Bath there are a fresh set of faces; and Clark Tracey's bands seem to have an amost Blakey-ish turnround of the up and coming. I think this might be tied in with the greater acceptance of jazz as a 'legitimate' area of study in music colleges - Leeds, the one at Uxbridge where Nikki Iles teaches, the London colleges spring to mind. And I recall jazz being an accepted route through the music exam process now - wasn't Michael Garrick involved in setting up a syllabus? It might not be learning your chops on 52nd Street or in a territory band but it eems to be churning out some very able players.

This chap deserves much more attention. He's done some very free material in the past, but recently recorded these four - two solo, two trio: More in the Jarrett/Mehldau/John Taylor world, though Law writes his own tunes (and they are good ones) rather than focusing on standards. I play this earlier disc a lot: You can get an idea of his extensive discography here: http://www.nday.co.uk/discography.html He seems to have something of a monastic fixation...both in the ecclesiastical and jazz sense!

I know what you mean here, though the 'ethereal, unswinging' ones tend to be those where he's quite deliberately relating to Italy, like some of his Egea releases. They're only dull if you're listening from the direction of the American jazz tradition...I think he's doing something else here (I think there's a huge misunderstanding in America about much European jazz for that reason...but that's another tale). There is a third Pieranunzi - I have a couple of group discs with well known others that sound distinctly mainstream. They don't make it back to the CD player often. Infant Eyes and the Paris set are my favourites.

Glorious Cornwall over recent weeks:

A view on the current British scene from trumpeter Henry Lowther (check your Collier, Westbrook, LJCO etc records, not to mention a fair few 70s rock records)...I stumbled on it whilst looking for something else: http://www.artsinleicestershire.co.uk/jazzinleicestershire/

From: http://www.artsinleicestershire.co.uk/jazzinleicestershire/

This place always tickles me: http://www.brj.wrekin.sch.uk/ I don't think they encourage going down to the crossroads there.

After putting lots of titles up for download via amazon, e-music etc, there seems to have been a long hiatus. I'm waiting for one Fats Waller disc to appear. Hope financial problems haven't torpedoed the download option too!

Just listened to this - absolutely terrific. Wonderful arrangements, varying from track to track. Marvellous percussion...and the singing is fantastic (just wish I knew what she was singing about!). This is Brazilian music as I like it best. I wish this band would venture to these shores. I saw Teco Cardoso and Rodolfo Stroeter a few years back in an unforgettable concert with some UK musicians. Maybe when the World Music movers and shakers get over their fixation on freedom fighting desert bands from North Africa.

Sounds like the sort of jazz these chaps would listen to: You have to be a brit of a certain age to get the reference...though all can be relived on YouTube:

They actually began as a sort of US folk-rock/West Coast covers band - they were nicknamed 'England's Jefferson Airplane'. Their first album (before Sandy Denny joined) is almost completely in that vein (they recorded some Joni Mitchell and Dylan tracks that were not known over here, passed on by manager Joe Boyd). The English (well, really Scottish/Irish) influence began to trickle in on the next two albums until it took complete hold on Liege and Lief. It caused an early fragmentation with Ian Matthews parting from the band to follow a career with a more American feel. Give 'A Sailor's Life' off 'Unhalfbricking' a listen for an almost perfect mesh of English traditional music and Grateful Dead-like extended jamming. A magical track. If you listen to Richard Thompson's guitar you'll hear more than a hint of classic US country playing (he often does things by the likes of Buck Owens as encores etc)...though he has always avoided any blues styling, apart from a brief Blind Willie Johnson cover on the second album.

Keep listening...in time you'll do this quite naturally! I always wear a stetson and chew tobacco when listening to anything American.

A cardboard box - not all that substantial, but it kept them in place on the clipper ship that sped them across the Atlantic. I've ordered from BF a couple of times in the past and have never had any of the problems you've had...not yet, anyhow!

Good to hear that about the Salmaso - liberated my copy this morning from a neighbour who the postman left it with whilst I was away. Also the Joyce 'Slow Music'. I ordered direct from Biscoito and the prices were more than fair - no more than a full price Cd in the shops here, even after post and packing. Seemed to get here in about a week. Will keep your other rec. in mind.

Was he rummaging through bins?

It seems to be as hard as it's ever been to survive as a jazz musician in the UK - and yet there's no end of new musicians appearing in a multitude of jazz styles and substyles. Plenty of festivals and concerts (both national and international). There's a pretty strong movement here at present that is aiming at the youth market - not so much industry generated as musician generated. Young musicians who trained as jazz musicians but who were listening to indie-pop or rap or drum'n bass etc and want to include that in their music. Some of the most successful bands of recent years - Acoustic Ladyland, Polar Bear etc - have gone straight for the indie-rock audience. Of course, this can lead them to losing some of their jazz listeners (I've become less enthusiastic because I'm not keen on punk stylings or the repetitive drum/bass thing)...but that has always been the price that absorbing ideas from outside of the jazz mainstream has had to pay. It has to happen. We're not talking hear about popular bands aiming to get rich quick but young musicians who have a training in jazz but who want to be linked with their own generation. As to how far this can draw younger people into listening to the central jazz canon, I'm more sceptical. I was at a double bill a few months back- started with the Portico Quartet, a fairly lightweight semi-minimalist group who won a national prize, got on radio and therefore had the place packed with a very young and enthusiastic crowd. However, vast numbers left once their set was over, not prepared to give the Bojan Zulfikarpašić quartet a chance. Now the latter was hardly playing 'When the Saints Go Marching In' or 'Take Five' - it was an intense, burning set, including the ultra-hip drummer from Acoustic Ladyland/Polar Bear - but most of the younger crowd never gave it a chance. I've seen a number of jazz 'revivals' here over the years (i.e situations where the arts pages of the national press and the major record labels notice it for a while) but they don't last. Yet the music still thrives and new players continue to well up in a variety of settings - everything from the indie-jazz bands I mention through hard bop types (Empirical) to almost West Coast revivalists (Allison Neale). Like big bands, jazz ain't coming back...but I think it's always going to be here. Someone mentioned earlier that adults aren't as interested in music as they once were - I think that's very true in general; there are far more alternatives to leisure time activity than there were even in the mid-70s when I got hooked. But I think there will always be enough of an interested audience for music that strays off the motorways and onto the country lanes (and even the rugged footpaths) to sustain musics like jazz. But no-one is going to get rich doing it.

Great clip, TTK. Very 60s...you can almost see the John Paul Sartres sticking out of the back pockets. There's a very 70's TV music show clip of Vinicius doing Berimbau and half of the Canto de Ossanha (with Toquinho and Jobim [a bit further in]) here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AP0t2E6rqWA...feature=related Not as dark and haunting as your clip. This is how I remember European music TV in the 70s...though the music was never as good. That Os Afro Sambas album is a marvel - though I've only acquired the original in the last year or so. I very much like this later version and the interpretation on the second disc here:

Interesting, Seeline. In Scottish/Irish folklore there's a similar tale, but a woman is involved. She sheds her seal skin to come ashore in human form. What usually happens is a chap falls for her and hides the skin. She lives a human life but always seeks the skin, eventually finding it and returning to the waters. The Selkie

Two great Brazilian musical dolphins Some years ago I became smitten by the Luiz Eca tune 'The Dolphin', hearing it first on a Stan Tracey CD and then later done by Louis Stewart, Bill Evans and Stan Getz. Today, whilst listening again to the Quarteto Jobim-Morelenbaum album I was completely transfixed by the tune 'O Boto'. Looking it up on Google it turns out to mean 'The Dolphin'. So well done dolphins...you've inspired two fabulous tunes. I will check my tins of tuna with greater care in future to ensure you are not being harmed.

And once you've replaced it, here's how to make music with it: Malcolm Arnold's 'A Grand Grand Overture for 3 Vacuum Cleaners, 1 Floor Polisher, 4 Rifles and Orchestra. Skip to 7 minutes if you can't take the whole thing. The ending would do Morecambe and Wise proud. WARNING: Not for Darmstadt-isttas. You know you'll only get cross and start brandishing your slide rule and graph paper!

Reminds me of May Bank Holiday weekend - great jazz, beautiful city, nice beer. Not sure how this made its way to Worksop Sainsburys.

I don't know why but I've stuck with the Orange page - chock-a-block with celebrity news! Changed today to the much more sober but useful: http://news.bbc.co.uk/