A Lark Ascending

I can see your playlist, David, though haven't quite worked out how to scroll it. I downloaded the Mulligan Vanguard and Brookmeyer Electricity from amazon/I-tunes after hearing them on Spotify.

Can't have listened to that last one since 1975 - a friend of mine had it at university. Both interesting to hear - neither I feel a desire to have on my shelves. Which is where Spotify comes into its own!

Yes, I'm doing that one. I've seen Paul Dunmall a few times. And on my one visit to New York a few years back bumped into Cyrille with Reggie Workman, Roswell Rudd, Grachan Moncur III, Archie Shepp and Le Roi Jones one night (more than my fair share of legends in one go!). Never come across Grimes, though.

Rats! So near, so far. I'm booked into the Arguelles/Martino concert when you're on. I'd have definitely come along otherwise. Saturday would have been good...a bit sparse there, other than more populist things.

Not at all scary! Early days, I know!

Here you go, Ted: http://www.norwichjazzparty.com/Programme.asp Nice city, Norwich.

Cheltenham tickets on sale today. I've plumped for: JULIAN ARGUELLES w/ John Abercrombie & PAT MARTINO (two separate sets) WILL VINSON QUARTET w/ Kurt Rosenwinkel NIKKI YEOH TRIO w/ John Surman THE PROFOUND SOUND TRIO - Paul Dunmall, Andrew Cyrille, Henry Grimes MADELEINE PEYROUX - there goes my chance of joining the Kool Kat Klub for another year. TOM ARTHURS SUBTOPIA JACK DEJOHNETTE with local musicians DAVE DOUGLAS DON BYRON Enough there to chew on. Bath has its programme online too - haven't been able to study it yet. Some nice events though nothing that jumps out. Saturday night has Maceo Parker headlining - I'll need convincing that's worth my time. Leaves a big hole - might end up going to hear a string quartet instead! And given how many times I've seen Dave Holland, I might plump for Scottish Gaelic singer Julie Fowlis (who is a lot better looking!).

Thanks, Bill. Though I can claim no great skill. I've had a new camera for a year now and still don't understand the bewildering range of controls. It's a a case of deciding if the zoom is needed or not, guessing at the setting, focus and click. Every time I try to figure out the manual settings for aperture and shutter speed I get confused. I used to be able to do this happily 20 years back on a Pentax SLR but it still has me lost on this new camera. I gave up physics in 1969!

As I mentioned earlier, Nucleus were never great favourites of mine (I recall seeing them around '74 at Reading University - intrigued me but I wasn't really ready for jazz then). But I ordered this last weekend by chance, after hearing it on JRR, and it's a cracker: I suspect the studio albums don't do themselves justice as they were limited to quite short tracks. Here the band can stretch and change pace mid song just like the Miles records of the era. I'll want to explore some of the other live albums that have come out in recent years.

I have 95% of my collection in plastic sleeves now - I use left over jewel cases as separators by genre or musician (with sticky labels on). Hunting down a CD you haven't listened to in a while can be a problem at times (especially if misfiled) but (to my mind) is more than compensated for by the space saved.

Not that I can see - I've checked out a few 'long lost' items like Wayne Shorter's 'Odyssey of Iska' and James Newton's 'Romance and Revolution' and nothing appears. They seem to have most of the in print Blue Note catalogue, lots of Verve, ECM etc. For me it's a great preview source. They seem quite ambitious, wanting to add as much as they can. There's enough there to fascinate me at present - every expansion will be a bonus. I still want my own copies; but I can see if this really does succeed than all you'll need is to pay the modest premium and you won't need a record collection. And that might well take off with a younger generation not conditioned to owning the music they listen to like I am. Won't address the concerns of audiophiles. But I find it far more exciting than (what was always for me) the false dawn of SACD.

It's spring...official... My pond a couple of hours back. It's been all action since dawn.

Changed the thread title. Sorry to those outside its area of operation. I'm sure something of this ilk will be along soon in your area.

Put a playlist together from 3 different CDs of pieces by Milhaud and Ibert that I don't know. Just had nearly 2 hours of great listening. None of the cutting out I got last week. And the interference I heard then has more to do with the medieval way I've connected the PC to the stereo! Adverts are a bit of a jolt - the Kings of Leon advertised in the middle of a sequence of neo-classical concertos! But they only seem to appear every 30 minutes or so and only between tracks. If this suits the record companies and beds in it's going to be a wonderful resource.

Never heard this album before. I clicked into Genesis at the time of 'Nursery Cryme'. The creeping synths lost my interest and when this came out in '77/8 I was well advanced in fleeing rock (in the punk era) for jazz, classical etc. Sounded much more enjoyable than I'd anticipated. And previewd for zilch. Just one advert. I do hope this site prospers.

Yes, it was there at a time when the Melody Maker/NME were dropping their jazz coverage in favour of punk.

I used to buy it in the late 70s/early 80s - there was a hole-in-the-wall newsagent on Parliament Street in Nottingham that had an extraordinary range of magazines, including Downbeat! I can't recall why I stopped buying it - perhaps it was too mainstream/pre-Miles in its affections for me to get that interested at the time. I think I'd be more open now.

Sorry, Robert. This seems to be a European thing at present. Background here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotify

How does Rhapsody work, Seeline?

My fear would be 'what if they go belly up?' How do I get access to the music? In time it will become clear if this model has a long term future. If it settles down I'd imagine it suiting many people. And young listeners who've never known recording ownership might consider it the obvious option.

I've read about things like Rhapsody but we've had nothing like this before (that I know of). I imagine it's going to get very bloody out there in the world of music delivery (distribution seems such an old fashioned word!).

Just listened through these two in full: The odd glitch but only 3 short adverts in two hours. Seems like a marvellous way to preview. Certainly beats 30 second clips!

Heard about this site on the BBC news last night. Swedish in origin, just opened out in the UK. Listen for free if you accept adverts every 20 minutes or so; or pay £10 and get advert free. Streaming music, not downloads. Has entire albums. I just signed up to the free service to have a look. Put Neil Young, Gerry Mulligan, Bob Brookmeyer into the search engine. Not comprehensive but lots there. I'm currently listening to the Gerry Mulligan Concert Jazz band at the Village Vanguard. It cuts out occasionally and there is some electronic background noise - not what you'd want for main listening but no worse than the glitches you get from DAB radio. On the radio broadcast a Universal spokesperson seemed happy it could make his company money. I'm not sure how. Depends on advertising I suspect. Even if this company doesn't work, it does suggest the future is even more radical than we've suspected. No need to actually own anything! What will we do with our lovingly assembled record collections? For the moment I'll use it to preview - I'm not sure I can drag myself away from the need to possess (well done capitalism!). But who knows, in time. Interesting times indeed. Brits might like to try: https://www.spotify.com/en/ Apologies if the rest of the world already knows about this.

Very sad. Nucleus were never a big favourite (though as it happend I'd just ordered a copy of the '76 live CD after hearing a great track on JRR a few weeks back) but I really liked Carr's 'Old Heartland', a 'jazz with strings' project that really worked. Enjoyed his Miles and Jarrett bios too - the discography in the former was central to building up my Miles collection. My favourite memory was a programme he did in the early 80s on the BBC comparing the mid 50s, Lincoln Centre and Plugged Nickel versions of 'My Funny Valentine'. Eye opening.

What exactly is white pudding? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_pudding