A Lark Ascending

Yes, I half remember two shops next to each other. I think they were below Cambridge Circus...but I could be wrong.

I don't remember the New Oxford Street shops. I do remember Dobells on Charing Cross Road - another place that did folk too. Probably a hangover from the days when, if you owned a jazz record you automatically owned a folk record, a duffle coat and annually marched to Aldermaston. The Collets on TCR was a very modern building - I'm sure it opened within my period of visiting London hunting the record shops (started about 1972). I know I'd been in Collets somewhere else but can't recall where. Maybe it was on Shaftesbury Ave.

I recall a Collets 'Left-wing' book shop that did records too in the mid to late 80s. It was in what was then a quite new building just up towards TCR tube station from Foyles. I recall it being good for folk but don't recall the jazz. In fact - I might be wrong here - when it closed it's collection might have shifted to the downstairs room in Rays. Might have been the 90s. Same enterprise?

I love Wagner (and Tristan in particular) - just don't think it's very polite to throw everything else out of the way for him. Why does it need to be a live broadcast? A time delay of a couple of hours would still get through it by midnight. The only person listening was probably David Mellor and he has 75 different versions on CD. Anyway - next year there are anniversaries for both Handel and Haydn and the BBC has plans! Expect entire weeks when everything else gets thrown overboard for 'innovative' broadcasting i.e. non-stop Handel/Haydn. Bet Guy Barker is desperately writing a jazz take on both as we speak, hoping he can get a slice of the action.

I would point out I do not 'possess' these - even more limited editions than the record label! Sorry! It's been a long day!

Another thought - most Brits would find it equally incomprehensible. The cultural context of most English people owes more to American popular music - be it Bing, Frank, Elvis, Otis or Madonna - than to anything native. I'm not sure about that. I realised in 1967 that American music was pretty well as foreign to me as Nigerian. The fact that the songs are sung in a language that more closely approximates to English than Pidgin does is, I feel, deceptive. And people are easily deceived. MG Oh, I'd argue the basic diet of the English in popular culture (music and cinema) is either American or American influenced (I'm talking Sinatra, Elvis, Rodgers and Hammerstein and what used to be called Top Twenty pop here rather than Howlin' Wolf). We've been singing pop songs in cod-American for decades. We had a young girl in school a few years back who had a great voice and simply shone because she sang in an English accent. All the others learn that mid-Atlantic twang from the music they prefer - even if the accent isn't there, the way they bend the notes owes more to soul music than the grace notes of a traditional English singer (you don't have to watch one of those 'Wanna-be-a-Star' programmes for very long to hear this). The girl with the English voice is now a fairly well known performer on the folk circuit. Whenever I use folk music in lessons - and there are many songs that are wonderful for history lessons - the kids can hardly contain themselves from falling off their chairs laughing (just as well they weren't subjected to folk music via 'Singing Together' as I was in the early 60s....'Oh No John, No John, No John, No' - the Britten-Pears School of Folk Music!!!). The Scots and Irish (I'm not so sure about the Welsh) are much better at drawing on their native traditions, mainly because it helps distinguish them from the English. The English seem more concerned to be seen as....well...modern! Which has tended to mean American for about a century. (Of course this is all complicated by the fact that many English traditional folk songs are re-imports of things that went off to America at some point (either from England, Scotland or Ireland) and then returned again, being reabsorbed into the local culture).

Another thought - most Brits would find it equally incomprehensible. The cultural context of most English people owes more to American popular music - be it Bing, Frank, Elvis, Otis or Madonna - than to anything native.

This is fun - five different composers turning well known Xmas songs into orchestral confectionary. All very tuneful, major key (mainly) and full of Xmas cheer (no-one is suffering for their art here!). Sounds like movie music evoking Xmas or the sorts of thing the BBC uses when advertising its Xmas season.

I thought it was you, Hot Ptah. I know what you mean. Sometimes you hear music that has absolutely nothing you can get a grip on. Most criticism is written as if there's some ultimate hierarchy of importance/significance that we're trying to establish; yet, so often, it's the context from which you are listening that is most important. I think it's why so much jazz from Europe strikes Americans (and those who listen to mainly American music) as cold. The reference points are so different.

I bet he loved that photo shot! Probably taken in early August!

Two that sound amazing if you can find a moment of peace in the still of late night/early morning: If you like British slanted folky stuff (though there's some unusual Americana in here) the 4CD will keep you happy: And I love these three (though someone on this board or another once bought them on my recommendation and hated them!):

I really fall into the 'reactionary old codger' camp when it comes to sticking guitars through synths. I like the clean guitar sound Pat had in the late 70s; shoved through all those electronics he always sounds like a bloody mouth-organ (see other thread) to me. All credit to Pat for constantly trying to do something different from what he did before - it just doesn't work for me when it's about synths. John McLaughlin is another - I really have no sense of him as a player on his albums of the last ten or so years. I actually enjoyed 'Industrial Zen' but would be hard pressed to pick out where John is playing in places. Even in the Remembering Shakti groups he seems more a colouristic presence than a distinctive voice.

But didn't you notice, Bill, how all the classical evening concerts were cancelled in order to broadcast from the London Jazz Festival a while back? In another world, perhaps. One not run by Oxbridge types.

Maybe Manfred and e-music decided that, with all the grumbling over the years about ECMs being not-jazz, soulless etc etc, there's no real market in the US for these! One of those smileys spelling out the fact that this is not meant to be taken as a serious comment!

They actually quote a review you wrote on one of the Wellins' CDs (When the Sun Comes Out). I think it has swayed me to buy the CD. What is the other one - Snapshot - or something else? 'Snapshot' - came out a few months back. Like the previous one it comes from live performance. I've never felt that the studio discs Bobby Wellins has done have really captured him. But these two are perfect. Nice, long tracks with all four musicians playing their part to the full. I'd liken them in feel to the Miles 'My Funny Valentine/Four and More' recordings or George Coleman's own live recordings. Wellins, of course, sounds nothing like Coleman.

The one with Tracey and Wellins, "Amoroso ... Only More So," mostly standards, is the best vocal album I've heard in a good while. ... I was going to post elsewhere, but this is as good a place as any. Trio Records, which put out Amoroso Only More So has a website with a fair number of Tracey and Wellins CDs: http://www.triorecords.toucansurf.com/ Not a bad price as UK pricing goes (generally 11 pounds and more for this one as it is a double CD). However, I wanted to find out the price to ship to the US, and they said that it was included in the price, so maybe a better deal for US (and European) residents than for UK residents. I'll probably hold off on this one, but am eyeing two other CDs of interest. Trio is run by Andy Cleyndert, bassist to Stan amonst others. Great player and versatile chap - in the last few years of Appleby he seemed to be playing one in three sets...and recording a fair few of them. The two most recent Bobby Wellins records on Trio are fantastic.

Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals. Love them! Love the songs!

Same here. There's some harmonica stuff on the Art Ensemble box Chuck put out and I didn't like it at all. You must be thinking of Roscoe's "sound" on Delmark. I did produce that session but think the harmonica sound last less than 20 seconds. U R a tuff crowd. I like many "mouth-organ"/harmonica performances. Both "Sonny Boys" are high on my list. I like it in other contexts - like those you mention. But not in jazz - gets all a bit Larry Adler.

You've just given me a million dollar idea. It'll be an attachment for the iPod with a loop of surface noise and some random crackles that mixes in with your mp3s. Maybe I could make it skip every now and again and I'll have to add a little bit of distortion every 20 minutes or so to simulate innergroove mistracking. Even better, I could use the motion sensor in the iPhone so you have to physically flip it over every 20 minutes. Any chance of an off-centre spindle hole option. I love that feeling like being at sea when the music shifts a fraction of an interval at every revolution of the turntable. Could set the iPod to 'Wow!'.

The bloody mouth-organ played in jazz - Toots is prime suspect! Not keen on the sound of Stefan Grappelli. In fact, with a few exceptions, violins in jazz don't work for me.

Some of the classical sites I mentioned are offering an option of what they call 'lossless' files. I don't really understand where 'loseless' fits in the grand spectrum of audiophilia but have seen this regularly mentioned in the classical magazines as 'near-CD quality' or even 'better than CD quality'. Here are Gimmel's claims. They record mainly Renaissance church music. Their target audience will be at least as fussy as the most sound conscious jazz listener: These companies know their main market requires the security of a high quality sounding product and are responding. I don't suppose the big companies, for whom the classical/jazz wings have only ever been to do with prestige, will be going out of their way to aim higher. But if the smaller companies want to make a going business then they will need to respond to the needs of their more 'sophisticated' customer base. The classical companies seem well ahead of the game in this regard. Though Artistshare (who seem to be showing the way in the jazz world) claim 'a downloadable CD-quality (320 kbps) recording of their collaboration' for the Hall/Frisell set (doesn't quite square with Gimmel's reservations on 320 kbps). I've tried MP3 and lossless from Chandos. The only difference I've noticed is that losless cost more and take longer to download. Clearly the aged ears Jazzjet warned us about.

Music Matters in Bath - a small jazz shop. Limited back catalogue but good on new releases with some imports. Sounds Good in Cheltenham - a classical shop with a fair jazz selection. It closed a while back but reopened in a less central part of town under new management - I thought it had got better with an impressive array of new releases. I got the impression that it was not finding it easy. Wouldn't be surprised to see it gone when I'm in Cheltenham in May. Bath Compact Discs and Banks in York are good for classical. When I was last in London Rays was fun and HMV/Zavvi on Oxford Street still had large jazz sections.

I recall getting 'A History of Prussia' out of the school library at age 13 - I liked the name Prussia and had only just found out what it was. The teacher warned me with a wry smile that I might find it heavy going. Of course it was incompehensible - a dry academic tome put there in the hope 6th Form students would read it. When I brought it back the teacher asked me (same wry smile) if I'd read it. 'The bits I was interested in,' I lied. I do recall reading T.H. White's 'The Sword in the Stone' whilst ill in bed around 11. Loved it. Though it would be another ten years before I read the full 'Once and Future King'. My father left school at 14 and was never a reader; my mother reads historical romances. My dad knew how important books were but had no idea what to buy so we had some pretty random things in the house. A few copies of 'the classics' but it was more of a Reader's Digest household. Until I went to university most things I read came from the library.

All manner of Brit-kiddy things like 'The Famous Five' and 'Jennings and Derbyshire'. I recall going through a series by someone like Geoffrey Trease (Not the more famous Henry) who followed a family through various periods of history. I still remember the volume on the Russian Revolution. Growing up on RAF camps (Royal Air Force, nor Red Army Faction) with a Spitfire at the gate, I gobbled up WWII air stories - fighter pilot memoirs etc. Still like to read those now - nothing like a Spitfire to get the tear ducts welling. I think my shift to 'grown up' fiction began with John Wyndham's 'The Day of the Triffids' (I read all the rest straight afterwards) at about 14, then the Ian Fleming Bond novels. I can recall the shock when I went into Newquay library one day and was told I was banned from the children's section because I was 14!!!!! The arty-farty literature didn't start until I got hooked on Orwell when doing my 'O' Levels. I then spent a few years reading what teachers and professors told me I was supposed to like before having the confidence to read what took my fancy in my early 20s. Prefer to read contemporary fiction with a good story (rather than contemporary fiction that 'pushes the boundaries of literature'), thoughtful thrillers, musical biographies/histories and oodles of history books these days.

I'm sure it will come your way soon! E-music must solve many of the distribution issues ECM (and other European labels) have had in getting their product out in the USA. Edit: looks like the entire catalogue currently on CD is going up - another wave today pushing to 325 albums.