A Lark Ascending

There's an interesting passage in Bill Bruford's bio where he talks with great admiration for Towner. He reports conversations with Towner about flying into Oslo, failing to sleep and then going into the studio jet-lagged: "He'll tell you that his entire body of recorded work has been extracted from him between stifled yawns and that he has never made a record yet on which he was not half-asleep." Of course, some wags would maintain this was standard ECM recording policy!

Egberto Gismonti SAUDAÇÕES Camerata Romeu Zenaida Romeu conductor Alexandre Gismonti guitar Egberto Gismonti guitar SERTÕES VEREDAS I-VII – Tributo à miscigenação DUETOS DE VIOLÕES – Guitar Duets Recorded August 2006 and April/May 2007 ECM 2082 Miroslav Vitous Group Remembering Weather Report Miroslav Vitous double-bass Franco Ambrosetti trumpet Gary Campbell tenor saxophone Gerald Cleaver drums Michel Portal bass clarinet Variations On W. Shorter Variations On Lonely Woman Semina (in 3 parts) Surfing With Michel When Dvořák Meets Miles Blues Report Recorded Recorded fall 2006 and spring 2007 ECM 2073 (Hopefully exploring some of the very earliest textures) Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble The Moment´s Energy Evan Parker soprano saxophone Peter Evans trumpet, piccolo trumpet Ko Ishikawa shō Ned Rothenberg clarinet, bass clarinet, shakuhachi Philipp Wachsmann violin, live electronics Agustí Fernandez piano, prepared piano Barry Guy double-bass Paul Lytton percussion, live electronics Lawrence Casserley signal processing instrument Joel Ryan sample and signal processing Walter Prati computer processing Richard Barrett live electronics Paul Obermayer live electronics Marco Vecchi sound projection I II III IV V VI VII Incandescent Clouds Recorded November 2007 ECM 2066 Also things by Steve Kuhn with Joe Lovano (a Coltrane disc...ECM seems to have gone nostalgic), John Balke and Louis Sclavis (some of these might already be out). http://www.ecmrecords.com/Catalogue/ECM/20...amp;lvredir=712

A last desperate blast from the record companies? They've had a field day in the last 25 years repackaging 'classic' material - sometimes to good effect (better sound, comprehensive editions like the Miles boxes), sometimes not so (endless new editions of the same material). But with record companies scaling back, deleting back catalogue etc an anniversary like this looks like last chance hotel. Once minority music is handled almost exclusively by download there is going to be little chance to keep doing this. Though maybe I'm underestimating the marketing abilities of the music industry. Looking at the advert for this set in a music magazine I couldn't help thinking how far the public face of jazz has become part of the heritage industry. Buy these packages and become part of this timeless lifestyle!

Must have missed the news. There were a few collapses last year - some major UK distributors in particular that it was easy to miss other casualties. I wonder how the thing with e-music works. All profits to pay creditors?

Overheard words to that effect at the weekend. And the website has vanished. Though the recordings are still there on e-music. A pity...a great source for contemporary European jazz.

Looks interesting - another one to bring on the nostalgia, even if I never knew the records at the time. Don't miss this newly issued live recording on Reel from 1972 - Jeff Clyne is up front throughout a very intense blowing session: http://www.reelrecordings.org/splinters.php

I keep meaning to buy Kent's collection, 'The Dark Stuff' but get put off by the amount of punk/pre-punk in it. I never cared for all that Iggy Pop/Ramones thing that so enthralled so many of these writers in their hunt for the romantic soul of pop/rock. The article I still recall vividly was a two parter he wrote on The Beach Boys (which is in 'The Dark Stuff'). I have a feeling that, like so much music writing, I'd find it more writer-construction than revelation now. But at the time it made me hear the Beach Boys with rather different ears.

Yep, along with Steve Lake he covered jazz for Melody Maker back in the mid-70s. I used to buy that regularly and his jazz column was damn good. I recall very good, long articles about Miles 'Dark Magus' and 'Pangaea' (then rare imports to UK), Basil Kirchin's 'Worlds Within Worlds' recordings, Booker Little and I vaguelly recall one about Dupree Bolton too. It's a shame that the old Melody Makers are not available on line. He also did a nice tribute book about Miles Davis - 'Man In The Green Shirt'. Along with Lake, Nick Kent and the late Ian MacDonald, Williams always had more of interest to say than most in those days (in fact I made a mistake re: Nick Drake - that was in a MacDonald collection that came out around the same time as Williams' collection.)

Despite its rather obvious theme, this could be interesting. The Blue Moment: Richard Williams http://www.faber.co.uk/work/blue-moment/9780571245062/ A book about the impact of 'that' album. Brits of a certain vintage will recall Williams fronting 'Disco 2' and the first 'Old Grey Whistle Test' programmes. He wrote for the main music papers in the UK in the early 70s, always erudite with a contextual understanding that reached much further than the rock writers of the day. I think he's been mainly a sports writer since. I recall being really miffed around '72 by his put downs of prog-rock, comparing it to Stan Kenton in the 50s (at the time I hadn't a clue who Kenton was). With hindsight, he was probably right on the money. About ten years back I did a review of his collection of music writings - 'Long Distance Call' - for a UK magazine. I got a very nice postcard from him, along with an admission that he was the ogre who had upset my musical worldview in '72! 'Long Distance Call' was a great read - gave a real sense of just why we get hooked on music with a range that went from Dupree Bolton to Nick Drake. Which has me expecting something rather more than the usual hagiography for this new 'Kind of Blue' book.

Wonderful shots, Serioza. And not a million miles in style from neo-classical Bath.

The glorious city of Bath this last weekend:

Ah! The one I'm thinking of was Ellendune (825) at Wroughton. Amazingly enough, there's lots about it here: http://everything2.com/title/Battle%2520of%2520Ellendun I recall Liddington from when I lived that way - knew someone at school who lived in the village. I've had a walk up to the hill fort on the cards a few times but weather has blown it every time. I did a fair bit of Anglo-Saxon history at uni 30+ years back. More recently I've been teaching a new GCSE course with a 'Raiders and Invaders 450-1100' unit involved. Obviously it just skims the surface, but it reactivated my interest - when I was down that way last summer I spent a fair bit of time Alfred hunting! I can really recommend this book for a marvellous bit of speculative detective work on the later Saxon/Viking age. It's Yorkshire based but absolutely gripping: If Stan Tracey was still doing this sort of thing I'm sure we could commission an 'Anglo-Saxon Suite' from him!

I know of Mount Badon - reputedly where Arthur (or someone similar) halted the Anglo-Saxon advance for 50 years or so. I didn't know Solsbury Hill claimed it as a site (I assume that is Peter Gabriel's Solsbury Hill?). I think I've heard of the battle of Dyrham but never associated it with the area on the way to the motorway. (Passed through Batheaston, by the way, after lunch by the canal at Bathampton, just before the toll bridge - fabulous drive up single carriageway roads from Batheaston to the Marshfield plateau). There are a couple of sites associated with Dark Age scraps a bit further away. Wroughton (where I once lived for a year) just outside of Swindon is supposed to be the site of the Battle of Elandune (or Ethandune?) which I think was a pre-Alfred the Great skirmish. There's also a great drive from near Avebury, up a ridge to Westbury, which is supposedly the site of Alfred's critical defeat of the Vikings in 878. There's a hill fort up there and the Westbury White Horse. I never tire of that part of the country. Even if there are only a handful of gigs I want to attend next year, I think I'll still go, if only to explore the area.

You get some idea of the scale of Bath when you think that we both spent Sun/Monday there and only overlapped a couple of gigs! Dave Okumu is very impressive - I've seen him at Cheltenham a couple of times. I think he had a band at one time called Jade Fox - one of the F-IRE bands that never seemed to get recorded.

Over by the race track? That's the place. As you drive north the road suddenly snakes steeply down through a wooded area. That's the hill the Royalists stormed up. They'd attempting to seize Bath over the previous few days but William Waller blocked them at every turn. By the time they had captured the ridge they were so exhausted they gave up and went back to their camp at Marshfield (near the ice cream place!). Later they pushed on to Devizes where they beat Waller at Roundway Down - another excellent place to do a battlefield walk. Great views, interesting history!

My favourite (possibly because the 2LP set was my first Getz purchase back in the late 70s). The version of 'Lush Life' is breathtaking. It's also good to hear him do the Wayne Shorter tunes. I love the use of electric piano on some of the tracks too - works especially well in the Latin-flavoured tunes. Now available with some extra material!

Sorry not to have have responded to your offer, sidewinder! I've not been on here much over the last couple of weeks (frightened off by the shennangins elsewhere!) and quite missed the last few posts in this thread! Maybe next year. Very much enjoyed the weekend. In brief: Portico Quartet - pleasant enough but not enough 'soloing' for my taste. Bojan Z - fabulous. Whipped up a real head of steam but lots of interesting themes (with more than a dash of the Balkans). Josh Roseman augmented on trombone to great effect. Seb Rochford was just stunning - I'm no drum freak but I could have spent the set just listening to him. I find some of his projects too indie-rock for my ears but in a situation like this he's amazing. Jerusalem Quartet - I don't go to many classical concerts these days but this made me rethink my decision. A completely unfamiliar Haydn quartet (which has got me listening to Haydn more carefully), Bartok's 4th which I have on CD and have listened to but I think this was the first time I really 'heard' it and an old favourite in the Debussy quartet. The Curious - Tom Cawley's trio in great form. Cawley is a player I've really warmed to this year - I get the impression Acoustic Ladyland was not a natural environment. When he gets possessed, my does he go. Nik Bartsch - As with Portico, not enough going on up front to hold my attention. Excellent musicianship, interesting textures etc. But it seemed to be made up of slabs of grooves that would get locked in a cycle for five minutes before moving to another repeating pattern. Clearly influenced by 70s Miles but without the interest of a bubbling top line. Julie Fowlis - wonderfully voiced Gaelic folk music from the Hebrides. Despite having achieved fame and Radio 2 recognition it's good to see she's not been directed into an 'English language with guest DJ' format. Just her voice, whistles and (in the encore) bagpipes, accompanied by a bouzouki, guitar and fiddle. Bobo Stenson - lovely lunchtime concert, rambling round his own tunes. A glorious mid-point sequence of Ellington's Reflections in D and Fleure Africane (as so often happens I quickly picked up the melodies as they emerged but couldn't name them for the life of me until he did so at the end). Empirical/Branford Marsalis - Drank two pints of Bellringer too quickly before the concert so dozed through the Empirical set. Very much enjoyed Marsalis - fabulous piano and drums in particular. And nice to see him pull up the Empirical alto player to join in on the Monk encore. He looked like all his birthdays had come at once! All new venues for me this year. Didn't care for 'Komedia' which was very cramped and seemed more designed for nightclub like activities. The Assembly Rooms had great acoustics though the sightlines were not ideal from the back. The Forum was bizarre - I assume it's some sort of left-field church meeting place, all done up in art-deco classical decoration. Nice and spacious - lots of room to stretch your legs at the break. Bath itself was at its best - fabulous weather. With long breaks between concerts I was able to explore a bit further afield. A wonderful walk up the south side of the river which led to a field with amazing vistas of the city. And a nice drive yesterday in the footsteps of the Royalist army on its way to the Battle of Landsdown in 1643, fought just north of the city. There's a monument there to my namesake, Sir Bevil Grenville, who was killed leading the Cornish up the pretty steep hill. Looking forward to next year already!

UK members should note these Classics discs are a mere £3.95 downloaded from Amazon.co.uk. Extremely good value.

Just listened to this on Spotify today. Very nice indeed.

A very fine Brazilian recommendation from Seeline. Not wild about this - well to the jazz side, lacking the warmth of the Brazilian side (to these ears).

This has been OOP for some time. Managed to locate a s/h copy online. Tremendous performance - lots of 'proper' piano playing (as opposed to fiddling around inside!!!) and one point where he quotes a tune from one of his composed pieces!!! Strongly recommended.

Fountains Abbey in North Yorkshire a couple of weeks back. A day that went from semi-sunny to a very heavy shower to a glorious late afternoon:

Thanks, Alex. Until a couple of years ago I was pretty good at keeping up with the new people arriving. But there seems to be so much out there now - Outhouses and Porticos and this and that collective that I've lost touch with quite a bit. I think I also got scared off by the punk-indie direction that many of these bands seemed to be heading in. Nothing wrong with that as a direction - just not what appeals to me. Two names who I really thought we'd hear more of - Nikki Yeoh (who had her concert cancelled, but did appear briefly with John Surman at the start of the DeJohnette concert) and Jason Yarde. I think it was last year he did a big piece at Cheltenham...but I'm still haunted by an astounding solo he performed in Sheffield in a jaw-dropping Tippett/Moholo/Rogers/Rutherford/Parker/Yarde band. If only that had been recorded! I believe he does a lot of production work now and I'm sure I saw his name on a disc of contemporary classical British composers somewhere.

I know what it's like being under the weather there. About 4 years back I arrived recovering from a nasty attack of shingles. I still found it hard to move or touch my back against a chair back. I recall sitting in the upstairs seats in the Town Hall (seats in the Town Hall!!!) watching Jazz Jamaica doing their Motown programme and feeling very uncomfortable.

My eyes needed sticks to keep from nodding off...though the bagpipes had the effect of several espressos!!! I think I was at that Cheltenham concert - John Taylor was in the band too. I think it was the year he was artis in residence. One gripe - and I noticed this last year too. I think having the marquee opening out the festival more widely is great. But does it have to be so near the Pillar Room? In both the Grimes/Cyrille/Dunmall concert and the Arthurs one I was more than a little put off by the beat coming from outside. Must have been worse for the players. Though I'm sure they have to put up with this at festivals quite often.