A Lark Ascending

Wow! Gonna hafta track this one down... It's on e-music if you do e-music.

Indeed! Treasured vinyl for many years - now in a nice CD reissue with a second album from a later Moholo band.

A fair few new releases have come out on Camjazz since this thread was last added to. Kenny is not as agile or precise as he once was (he is in his late 70s!), but the music remains as lyrical as ever. And he's still doing the free stuff - I saw him a few years back at Evan Parker's Appleby sessions. This one from last year with string quartet islovely:

I think the question largely hinges on production. The great 50s and 60s BN albums SOUND GOOD, whereas digitized jazz doesn't breathe. I love to go hear new jazz live, but must say that I find precious few albums translate the experience of live music into anything I'm compelled to buy. Well, that's a matter of personal taste. I find plenty to enjoy in what you call 'digitised jazz' and get much the same pleasure as I get from an old Blue Note (if Blue Note had been my centre of gravity for 40 years I might feel differently). Very little of what I do enjoy in contemporary jazz, however, is on Blue Note...or Verve...or Warners.

Another good one. Pleased to hear Partisans at the end - the most convincing 'fusion' band of recent years. Thought you'd like that one, Bev, when I heard it! The thing I love about JRR is that in the space of one hour you can hear the Partisans alongside Coleman Hawkins and Albert Nicholas. It's probabably done more to shape (or deconstruct!) my listening than any programme since John Peel in the early 70s! How it has survived in the world of 'target' audiences is a miracle!

The question seems backward to me. Instead of asking why are contemporary audiences wallowing in old music surely we should we be asking why contemporary musicians are not making music to attract contemporary audiences. After all, in the pop world audiences go for the 'now'. Why does an audience looking for a bit more than pop music look backwards? A glance to the classical world should provide some pointers. There's a long history there of new works bewildering audiences (even provoking riots!) yet ultimately becoming mainstream. But the high-culture new music of 50 years ago has still not been accepted by the classical music audience at large (whatever its virtues it remains of interest to other musicians and the more intellectual listener). The new classical music that is being welcomed by the wider audience is villified by the intellectual elite as a retreat from the frontiers. Of course it's not that simple - there is new jazz being made that is getting a wider audience (though not a mass-popular audience). But by and large it is jazz that those who like to sit in judgment feel they should not be choosing to listen to.

Another good one. Pleased to hear Partisans at the end - the most convincing 'fusion' band of recent years.

Well, ok, but that means that Euro-audiences are just as stuck as American ones, only instead of being stuck in the 50s & 60s, they're stuck in the 70s & 80s. I imagine some members of the American AND European audience are stuck in the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s etc. But, from what I see at concerts and at festivals, there are a substantial number happy to explore the 1920s and the 21st century. To do that you need to go beyond just one label. So I don't imagine there is any one label that really represents these times. And with technology moving at the pace it is, the idea of 'the label' may be a thing of the past.

After a very strange week, weatherwise, a glorious Saturday. Cold enough to keep the surviving snow crisp and attractive. This was the scene just up the road a few hours back:

Back to normal now.

Yes, I'm getting that too - looks like some sort of link has broken.

In the East Midlands it's a common term of endearment. 'Eh up, me duck*' ('Hello, old chap!'). Regularly used by shopkeepers, workmen etc as a way of oiling social intercourse. 'That'll be two quid, duck.' The kids where I work use it regularly. Not sure that was MG's meaning, though. * Pronounced like 'book' rather than 'pluck'.

Very true. My recommendations: Solo: 'Facing You' (relatively short tracks) or 'Bremen-Lausanne' (if you want the full extended treatment). American Quartet: I particularly like 'The Survivors' Suite'; but any of the Impulse albums has a nice mix of his lyrical and more Ornettian side. European Quartet: 'My Song' Jarrett at his most lyrical and melodic. Standards Trio: I suspect you can drop in anywhere and get the jist of this phase. I particularly like 'Tokyo '96'

We musn't forget Davadip and Mahavishnu. You'd have thought the latter, as a plain speaking Yorkshireman, would have been immune. But then Anderson is a Northerner (from't other't side 't'Pennines) too. Whippets and cloth caps are clearly no talisman against the forces of The Beyond!

Blizzard! It's not been bad enough in Notts for my school to be shut so far. But today we've got it good and proper. Nothing to see at all at 5.15 when I got up (I'm 20 miles north of work) but it was already affecting the south Midlands. Got the 'school closed' call at 6.30 (hooray!). Snow started here shortly afterwards and hasn't stopped. To be honest, I'll get far more useful done at home - clear a backlog of course planning. The last few days have been awkward with parents keeping kids home, decimated classes. Hard to know whether to plough on with courses in the knowledge that kids who are away will be bewildered next week; or just do re-enforcement things.

Yes, Keith and Ra were hardly unique in the 60s/70s in that sort of talk (I blame cheap paperbacks of Sanskrit texts and the like). They clearly believed that they were part of whatever master plan the creator had. Now where are those Alice Coltrane records.... Any rock fan who enjoyed Yes albums in the early 70s and, more to the point, was convinced that Jon Anderson's lyrics held a key to the universe was a natural for Jarrett's philosophising. Would certainly have been far more appealling to the spirtual seeker in '76 than Johnny Rotten's!

This is one of my favourite Debussy discs....not piano but has piano on it: Sonata for Flute, Viola & Harp Syrinx for Solo Flute Première Rapsodie for Clarinet & Piano Petite Pièce for Clarinet and Piano Sonata for Violin and Piano Sonata for Cello and Piano Glorious cover too.

Maybe if Keith lives into triple digits, he'll sit in front of the piano an play nothing at all. That will be recorded for one of his classical discs - Jarrett plays John Cage (the extended remix).

A wonderfully balanced post, Randy. I think your first point has a lot in it. Jarrett may have been fortunate just when he emerged as a solo performer. I too was a rock listener, enjoying the extended songs and jamming side of the music. But by 1975 I was finding it less satisfying - partly because the 'major' bands seemed to be running out of ideas, partly because of a weariness with the volume and the rock beat. Along comes this chap playing extended, melodic improvisations, seemingly out of mid-air and without any electricity or a thumped out 4/4 beat. * Right sound, right place, right time. The interesting think with Jarrett was that following him into the Impulse Quartet I met both highly melodic and exotic music (which I expected) and on his more Ornettian tunes an approach to melody that I was quite unfamiliar with. Regardless of all the spiritual/great artist baggage that surrounded him, he helped me hear in a different light. [This may be a reaction peculiar to a UK rock fan - I was not aware of the Charles Lloyd band; I think I first read about Jarrett on a CBS 'Inner Sleeve' advertising Miles' 'Live Evil'. Maybe Lloyd, and thus Jarrett, was already a known quantity to UK jazz listeners. But it's as a solo performer that I first became aware of him through write ups in the 'Melody Maker'/'NME' c. '75.]

Blizzard! First proper snow we've had for years. It was like driving home through an ECM sleeve.

Go for the two volumes of Preludes and the Estampes, Shawn. I wouldn't get too hung up on which is the best version - until you're well immersed in the music you're not going to be able to tell. I've been listening to and thoroughly enjoying this music for thirty years and have never found the need to get anxious about definitive versions. There are pretty inexpensive boxes covering a wide range of his piano music. I have this one which does the job for me: Though mine is not covered with stickers!

That's an intellectual view of things (and let me make clear I'm not trying to dismiss you as an intellectual...I'm well aware your response to music happens on many levels). What most people want out of music is something melodically memorable and/or danceable. Jarrett achieves that (and much else beside) and so makes music that has a wider reach than most jazz. Whether it is 'worthy' or not is something that is of concern to a narrow body of listeners. I have no problem with listeners rejecting Jarrett for whatever reason as a matter of personal preference (despite attempting to overcome a prejudice against Dave Brubeck, probably born of early jazz-fan snobbery, I still can't relate to him). What I find tiresome...and it was there in some of the initial comments in this thread and in just about every Jarrett thread I've read...is the 'I'm irritated by him and you should be too' implication. I know you are not saying that, Jim.

Who writes/improvises memorable, singable melody lines. Which is why he is popular.

How about 'Does Keith Jarrett swing 'hard' enough to spiritually connect with the blues?" Awesome!

By 'ordinary' listener I just mean the person whose listens without being a musician or otherwise professionally involved in music (writer, producer, administrator, record label owner etc). Though in one respect most contributors to a site like this are not going to be 'ordinary' given the sheer volume of music we listen to/purchase. Some draw their sense of identity with the professionals; others with the wider listening public.