A Lark Ascending

Stumbled on these today: I'm 14/15, can only afford one LP a month (probably a Chicago one in the case of these) and these tantalising inserts suggest a strange and wonderful world. I recall one with an advert for 'Live Evil' that had me curious about Miles Davis. Harvest - the EMI prog label - also did these. Other labels at: http://www.woebot.com/movabletype/archives/cat_special.html

Some ECMs have liner notes - Steve Lake has done quite a few. I can live without liner notes - they can be useful for context but too often tend to be puff pieces trying to boost the performer or album; or just excuses for the writer to manufacture a grand theory out of the ether. I never found the Blue Note ones much help. Liners work better for me when they are retrospective on reissues or compilations.

Listened to this for the first time last night: Really good to hear John in a straight quartet format again. There's an interview in the new Jazzwise where he acknowledges that his recorded discography has been somewhat unbalanced, highlighting the more arranged special projects rather than the horn and rhythm section approach that dominates his live playing. Some really fiery playing, with Jack DeJohnette in amazing form, even if the disc as a whole is quite relaxed (similar in feel to Abercrombie's own ECMs). Nice to read John refusing to get drawn into any form of chauvinism when asked to define British jazz. He acknowledges that his playing is informed by English folk influences but points out that most of his career has been played out across Europe as a whole. Not just a great player but always comes across as a nice, humble bloke.

Might well be a German thing. 'Classical music etiquette' is rarely followed by we stiff-upper-lipped Brits in jazz concerts! Actually, I'd be much more likely to go to classical concerts if they'd get rid of that 'you are now entering the portals of sacred 'Art'' vibe that can surround them - why it is rare for a conductor to speak to the audience quite escapes me. There was a flurry of updating classical concerts in the UK in the late-80s around the time of the Nigel Kennedy/Three Tenors boom - trouble was that they went to far in the other direction with amplification, light shows and the rest. I can only assume a few classical musicians damaged their reputations with those who control things and as a result this was all reined in. Thinking about it, classical musicians don't leave the stage during a piece...but if half the orchestra isn't needed for a chamber like piece, they always troop off. The people I feel sorry for are the vocal soloists who I've sometimes seen have to sit through 40 minutes of orchestral music before they get up to chirp. What does your mind do in those 40 minutes...count the light bulbs, eye-up the nice looking members of the audience, work out your shopping list?

Not nearly as annoying as the chap (it's always a chap) who launches into loud clapping at the end of a piece before the music has been given a chance to die away into silence - 'Look at me, everybody! I know this piece'! Irritation hits red when he also shouts 'bravo!'

I don't recognise this at all in the UK. Certainly at the main festivals I attend (where the concerts are held in theatres, small rooms etc) people get very animated on the whole. Out in the provinces jazz concerts tend to have an older audience - things are more subdued there, but that has more to do with age and demeanour than any lack of enthusiasm. You'll not get me hopping up and down, whooping or whatever - doesn't mean I'm not completely engaged. I am an annoying head nodder and finger and foot tapper. I rarely clap solos simply because it does seem like a ritual - you can really confuse someone sat next to you who is not used to jazz concerts by not clapping. They clap the first solo because they know that's what you do at a jazz concert, then notice the person next to them is not clapping and then get very uncertain! I've not been to a folk club for many a year but I must say that was the format I felt most comfortable in. Usually a pub with performer and audience right up close, minimal sound equipment to act as a barrier and real, genuine interaction between songs. It was always great to see the 'stars' - people like Martin Carthy - mix with the audience and sit and listen to the (usually pretty awful) floor singers at the start of the evening. The only jazz performer who I can think of who has the gift to play the sort of verbal ping-pong with the audience that seems to come naturally to folk performers is Alan Barnes. There's also a long tradition of audience involvement in folk music - singing along on choruses which can be absolutely heavenly at times. Attempts by jazz players to get you to clap along or whatever are invariably completely naff. Another great communicator is Stefano Bollani - saw him with Enrico Rave twice in a couple of weeks last year and the jokes were quite different. I'm not suggesting jazz performers should 'put on a show' for their concerts - most people attending know what they are letting themselves in for. But there are ways of being welcoming without having to do circus tricks.

Never bothers me - if anything it suggests a respect for the other musicians, especially from a front line player or leader, throwing the visual focus on those playing. I saw Branford Marsalis do this a few weeks back and thought it most appropriate - the 'star' stepping from the limelight when others were musically centre-stage. I'm far more disturbed by bands who refuse to talk to the audience - mercifully rare. But I have seen a few well known players adopt a sour-faced disregard for they audience. I don't expect pantomime but a bit of mutual 'we're glad to see you' between performer and audience works the same as in any social situation.

Hated 'Red' when I bought it the week it came out (Autumn '74) - it seemed rough, hurried, full of heavy metal power chords and not that well recorded. My musical tastes were heading away from rock where 'Red' seemed to be taking KC back into rock. Time has mellowed me towards it and I enjoy it now. Odd that 'Lizard' is getting another makeover given how Fripp has frequently disowned it (and 'Islands'). As it happens 'Lizard/Islands' are my favourite KC albums - very much studio confections but marvellous nonetheless. I could not make head nor tail of the first side of Lizard when I first heard it...but in the end it opened my ears to the contemporary UK jazz of the time and was my pathway to Soft Machine, Centipede, Keith Tippett and so on...

A thread that I've mined...be interested in any new discoveries.

Any new leads? A few interesting things a-coming: http://www.biscoitofino.com.br/en/cat_prod...cada.php?id=482 http://www.biscoitofino.com.br/en/cat_prod...cada.php?id=481 Looks like a live album. And a live Joyce record with the WDR big band: http://www.dustygroove.com/item.php?id=bdhnkhr9p9 There also seems to be a disc called 'Aquarius - Joyce with Joao Donato' coming from Japan in August.

From: http://www.spincds.com/ There's also another Richard Thompson retrospective on the way: http://www.spincds.com/product.asp?id=9020971 My charitable side tells me that every few years a new audience exists, unfamiliar with this music, that will benefit from this repackaging. The cynic in me tells me that as album sales vanish into downloads the record companies are desparately trying to create marvels of packaging that might boost sales. I've nothing against this sort of thing...I've been introduced to many a performer through such boxes. But both Mitchell and Thompson have original albums in need of better remastering. I do wish the effort had gone there!

Remastered editions of the two Hatfield and the North albums are about to appear. I love these two records - bought them as the came out on LP in '74 and '75. The first CD edition of'The Rotters Club' has always been fine to my ears but the first album was remastered in a very muddy and flat way. So I'm hoping this version will do the job - I don't normally chase upgrades beyond a certain point but these records are magical to me. http://www.cherryred.co.uk/esoteric/artist...andthenorth.htm

What I'm finding out is that a lot of what "we" find "dated" is what a few generations on are often finding to be "substance". Very true. Bach was considered 'dated' for decades. What happens with time is that the 'hipness' that Papsrus talks about slips into the background. If the music has the power to engage, move, enthrall then it's that which comes to the front; the packaging is still there but it doesn't have the distracting effect it has at the time and in the immediate aftermath (especially in the immediate aftermath, when new packaging makes the old look out-dated). I can enjoy Charlie Parker or Lester Young completely undistracted by the hipness that swirled around them at the time. What matters has endured regardless of changing fashions on the surface.

I love having a big collection accumulated over 37 years to enjoy and re-explore. But the biggest thrill for me is still discovering something new...I'm forever in search of the buzz I got at 16 when it was all new. The thrill dosen't come so often but it's still regular enough. I don't get jaded with what I've got because I just change genre regularly. A month or so of electric Miles might mutate into a rediscovery of Irish folk or turn of the century Germanic orchestral music. There's so much out there still unexplored...new music as yet unplayed (and originating from places that are not usually associated with the standard jazz historical canon), and old music that I've not heard and is equally foreign. Can't see me losing the love of music for a long time yet.

'Human Nature' was a great live vehicle for the later Miles bands. Listen to Kenny Garrett on the version on 'Live Around the World'. I really like the shorter version (along with 'Time After Time') on 'You're Under Arrest'.

UK members get ECM?? I'm jealous! I thought UK was the same as eMusic Europe, which doesn't have ECM. Huh. Since late last summer they've been building up. Things like Jarrett's 'Yesterdays' is already up. Some careless transfers though - Imust admit I download with trepidation.

Much missed - one of the wisest souls I've come across on an internet board.

I don't do t-shirts with words on. But I'm in need of a beret.

I buy most of my music on MP3 now - I'll only buy a CD if I can't download it.

I take Seeline's point about lack of communication - I'd know nothing about these changes if it was not for this board. The Home page of the UK site is full of recommendations for my listening and what exciting indie-rock album has just appeared - but no mention of what is changing on the site. If they are going to compete with iTunes they are also going to need to be quicker in getting things up - the new ECMs have been appearing at iTunes over the last couple of weeks - very slow to appear at e-music. The new Adam Rogers on Criss Cross is out this week in Europe - at present e-music have no download competition for this so maybe there's an agreement to wait a while to encourage physical sales first. But in time I'd have thought as in any other area of marketing the trick will be to at least have things available at the same time as your competitors. I suspect e-music doesn't have the manpower of iTunes and so finds it hard to keep up...especially with all those 'Hits of the Big Bands' discs to upload! Another irritation I have is the situation with faulty tracks. Given how much I've downloaded over the last three years I've not had much trouble. But of late I've had a number of issues. E-music always credit you for the faulty track but you are left with an incomplete album. When I enquired recently about their replacing a track they promised it would be possible but it might take time as the fault might lie in the materials sent from the record company. Disappointingly, one of the worst offenders is ECM - normally just a single loud click or dropout but still unacceptable, especially on a label once renowned for its pristine pressings. I downloaded a particularly mauled Dino Saluzzi a few weeks back. I don't think this is an e-music problem...I've had a couple of similar experiences with ECMs downloaded elsewhere. I get the impression the transferring of ECM to downloads was hurried, without proper listen throughs. Disappointing, as I said before. All blips of a new technology finding its way, I'm sure, but irritating nonetheless.

There is so much music out there that disappointments don't figure too highly with me as they are always greatly outweighed by the excitement of hearing new things I can engage with. But I do have one huge disappointment that has been with me since the late-70s. New classical music from the mid-20th C onwards. I'm musically illiterate (in the sense that I've had no training in 'flyshit') but have always been open minded and keen to hear what's next in my preferred musical genres (I'm completely closed-minded in rock music!). Two things have disappointed me in 'new' classical music of this time (I'm excluding the likes of Britten, Messiaen etc whose music was already formed by mid-century): a) The complete impenetrability of so much 'new' music. Though I can often find surface details to latch on to - nice textures, sonorities etc - I rarely get swept along by the music, frequently find my mind drifting. Now I imagine defenders of the music would say that is the point - leaving behind the Romantic emotionalism that got us all into trouble in the first place. But without the training to read scores and unpick the architecture I'm usually lost as to how this music is supposed to be engaging me. When you then throw in the elitist Adornoisms and Babbitry that surround this music, with its dismissal of music that tries to engage the public, I'm left with something very unattractive. b) The wishy-washy nature of the reaction to Darmstadtry - all the Baltic monks and sweet-toothed new populism. There are contemporary composers I've come to enjoy - a few Scandinavians, some of the minimalists, MacMillan etc. But even there there is nothing to sweep me along like Mahler or Sibelius or Stravinsky or Bartok or Britten. Deficiencies in my ability to process music, no doubt. But a genuine disappointment - I don't like the idea of sitting contentedly with my past masters.

The UK e-music has a new button which tells you how many credits the album costs. At present this is exactly the same as the tracks. I suspect this will change. One thing I did notice was the recent Jarrett had one track (the longest) unavailable for separate download, encouaging the full album acquisition - something common on the main sites. E-music has often had 'this track is currently unavailable for download' before, but it seemed a bit random. This new approach seems a bit more systematic - maybe the bigger companies are requiring this to avoid cherry picking. As I generally download full albums not a big issue - except if it happens in the classical area where I'm often trying to avoid duplicating works. For me with the overall changes it will be a case of seeing what is cost effective. If it's cheaper off e-music, I'll go there. If it can be had cheaper elsewhere (as the 'Classics' albums can be had from Amazon_mp3), then I'll go there.

My goodness, concerts in the back yard. This is my backyard at high summer: A couple of hours back I just started playing the second disc of the Miles Cellar door box and two blackbirds landed in the garden and proceeded to screech at one another through the entire disc! Clearly Miles fans. Here's one:

Well, Save.... Disc 1: a long orchestral suite. On first listen didn't make much of an impression. But it's early days... Disc 2: as you'd expect, some lovely guitar duets. Enjoyed this very much, though the tunes are ones he's recorded many times before. Vitous would have been better calling it 'Remember the Weather Report I'd have liked to have been...' No funky rhythms or cartoon world musicisms - which was to be expected. What is stranger is that the album doesn't sound much like the Weather Report albums Vitous was on. No shimmering electronics or intense jams (I'm thinking the live side of ' Sing...'). All credit to the man for doing a tribute album and completely defying expectations (though I wonder how far the title is but a marketing hook). I liked it on first listen - the trademark singing bass of Vitous, an almost deliberate avoidance of groove, mere wisps of melody - almost an 'outside' record. In fact what it reminds me of most is those single tracks that turned up on nearly every 70s ECM from Towner to Gateway where the musicians played free - only here there's a whole album of them (kiss of death to some, I know). Reminds me also of those discs John Surman did with Paul Bley. There's a distant musing on Nefertiti, a version of Lonely Woman (the Ornette one) where the melody is allowed to sing out, a tune connecting Miles and Dvorak and sounding like neither and, the closest the album gets to a groove, a blues at the end that appears to be a variant on 'All Blues' - but even that stops and starts. Time will tell if this one makes repeat journeys to the CD player but my first impression is of relief that he didn't do the obvious. There's an interview with him in this month's Jazzwise. He clearly was not happy with the direction Zawinul took WR. I suppose that this is his alternative universe Weather Report record. In some respects it reverses back to the Miles Second Quintet or the Corea/Holland band as it might have been had it followed up its freer leanings instead of going down the rock route.

How many groups changed direction or significantly altered their sound after hearing 'Music from Big Pink'? I've heard Fairport Convention's 'Full House' and Clapton's early 70s solo work were thus influenced towards a more earthy sound after the everything + the kitchen sink vibe of the late 60s.