A Lark Ascending

I often see Julian and Phil Robson slugging it out on the central reservation by junction 25!

Short review from the Scotsman - sorry, tried to link but would not work: Cohen and Baron you know. Siegel plays tenor, bass clarinet and clarinet and is a member of the wonderful Partisans (mentioned earlier in this thread). He is also that rare beast, a jazz musician from Nottingham. Think the world of Sonny Rollins at the Vanguard.

I did cross country every week for a year - but it was approved skiving. We'd run out the school grounds and as soon as a hedge was hiding us have a nice 90 minute walk and chat in the countryside, sometimes stopping at my house where my mum gave us refreshments! We were happy. The PE staff were happy bucause they did not know what to do with us - with the weedy ones looking after themselves they could focus on those who could kick a ball straight. God knows what the risk assessment form would look like today for that approach.

This thread reminded me to get the June Christy! This record is not a Christmas disc but it does end with a gorgeous version of 'In the Bleak Midwinter' that emerges out of a mist of Impressionistic improvising: My favourite Xmas song; and just vote top of the Xmas carol pops in a poll od Britain's choirmasters. This 2CD is marvellous too, the perfect antidote to Cliff, Noddy and Roy:

I doubt if the 'print CD on demand' idea has much economic viability. Making a catalogue available permanently for download does - and some smaller companies are already doing this in classical music. Chandos - which has a very large catalogue - now has everything, including OOP material - available. I suspect the move by Camjazz to put its music (and its recently acquired Black Saint/Soul Note acquisitions) up on e-music is a similar move. I imagine the bigger companies are still playing the capitalist market game. Withholding music unlikely to make big sales now to wait for a day when a return of interest might generate bigger profits. At some point they will realise that this is not an option as illegal files of that catalogue circulate. Blue Note has much of its catalogue in digital form - its up there on iTunes. It remains to be seen if they pull those downloads when they delete the physical copies. An interesting indication of how awake they are to the massive change in the way music is being disseminated. If they'd any sense they'd also licence producing physical copies to an interested other party to produce limited runs or on-demand copies (as they do for vinyl release) to satisfy those who are not yet comfortable with downloads or downloading. Though I doubt if that solution would sustain itself for long.

Handel : Messiah Bach: Christmas Oratorio Always play these at Xmas. There's some marvellous Xmas folk music - good old gnarled finger in the ear stuff. And I finally tracked down a download of a disc of Swedish Xmas folk music after many rears by a band called Triptyk. I always buy a few Xmas discs each year. This year I've gone for: Ella and Kenny B work for me too. I love Nat King Cole doing Xmas too.

I've had this since it came out - not for Shearing (who I find a bit to bright and breezy for my taste) but for Louis Stewart. The first three discs are wonderful - a mixture of standards and tunes that were contemporary at the time (e.g. C. Corea things). Disc 4 is in a + orchestration setting. Not so fond of that one.

I don't think they'll exist five years from now...except for the equivalent of those companies who put out runs of vinyl for those who prefer that medium. I've gone over to (legal) downloads in 2008, only buying CDs if I can't find a download source.

That was me too. No wonder we ended up listening to Henry Cow records!

Another blow - Richard Hickox, also a champion of neglected 20thC English music, died a couple of days back. I saw him a few months back doing Elgar, VW and Arnold in Truro Cathedral, Cornwall. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7745605.stm

I was one of those kids who was given a ball and then abandoned by the Physical Education teacher whilst he focused on those with natural talent. Not surprisingly, I have an exaggerated dislike of all sport. Pleased to say it's very different today - my PE colleagues are amazing at being inclusive and letting all levels of ability take part at their own level. Good old days. Pah!

And it all began just up the road from where I live: Scrooby Have a good holiday all. I've got the school inspectors in!

Great record by a fascinating guitarist. This one is a few years old but I'd go as far to say that it offers a way forward for jazz-rock. All the energy associated with that genre but without the clutter and, above all, with a nice rhythmic bounce, rather than the standard plod or formula funk. Good themes, lots of tonal variety. Partisans are the band, Max the album. It's on e-music. Phil Robson- Guitars Julian Siegel-Tenor and Soprano Saxophones, Bass Clarinet, Cuica Thaddeus Kelly -Bass Gene Calderazzo Drums Special guests Thebe Lipere Percussion on 5,6 +8 Jim Watson Hammond B3 organ on 4,7+8 Chris Batchelor Trumpet on 1,8+9 Availablefrom e-music last time I looked.

Came out about January and remains my favourite record of the year. Newly written songs set in an absorbing Brazilian jazz context. Great tunes, fabulous rhythms, nice soloing. With some really significant Robert Wyatt contributions. Contemporary music does not have to be approached with slide rule and and graph paper. With this one you'll have fun and, I suspect, weep a few tears too.

Some of these discs are available on iTunes. I wonder if they'll vanish from there when they are physically deleted. Hopefully not!

He had some sort of hemorrhage or stroke and brain surgery a couple of years ago. brain aneurysm. I know about Neil's illness. It was Stephen Stills who had the slurred speech on the film.

This forthcoming disc gets a rave review in this month's Mojo: Neil caught live after Buffalo Springfield but before his first solo album. 1. Emcee Introduction - Various Artists 2. On The Way Home 3. Songwriting Rap 4. Mr Soul 5. Recording Rap 6. Expecting To Fly 7. Last Trip To Tulsa 8. Bookstore Rap 9. Loner 10. I Used To Rap 11. Birds 12. Winterlong/Out Of My Mind 13. Out Of My Mind 14. If I Could Have Her Tonight 15. Classical Gas Rap 16. Sugar Mountain 17. Sugar Mountain 18. I've Been Waiting For You 19. Songs Rap 20. Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing 21. Tuning Rap/The Old Laughing Lady 22. Old Laughing Lady 23. Broken Arrow

Well, I doubt that. My guess is that they're just retired average joes now. Yes. Exaggeration on my part. I know a head of a maths depatment/chief examiner, a former army man now French teacher and a housewife who were at the IoW. None of them do anything close to 'letting their freak flag fly' today. And they all cut their hair (no 'almost' about it) long ago.

Wouldn't that be interesting to know how they ended up? You know, the one group that (IMHO) really didn't fit on the Woodstock concert was Shanana. They seemed really out of place. I remember seeing an extended review of the film on a UK film review programme and one of the clips was Shanana. To my circle rockn'roll was definately yesterdays music so they didn't work at all. I do recall, however, certain radio DJs still playing the old rockers and bemoaning how the energy had gone out of music. Ten or so years later rock'n roll became fashionable again. So maybe Shanana were ahead of their time.

I wasn't at either (too young) though as a rock conscious teenager I read about them. I do recall at that time my parents saw such things as manifestations of the poverty of contemporary culture/society. They longed for the 1940s (World Wars, atomic bombs etc but didn't everyone look after one another and leave their front doors wide open?). I love the music of that era and can still enjoy watching Woodstock the film. But even at the time I don't think I believed the mythology. I suspect most of those flower children are retired former-CEOs now. Going beyond the nostalgia, I do think that era had a sense of possibility, an openness to alternatives that was very much narrowed both politically and socially in the following decades. In music there was a real sense of 'Let's try this'. From the late 70s I became increasingly aware of 'You can't do that' (true of both punk and the Young Lions).

Marvellous disc. I always enjoyed his posts at AAJ - an interesting and very humble chap.

That's some real nice sarcasm there, Bev. Not meant sarcastically - I don't think anyone becomes a long term jazz enthusiast, especially with the depth and range of interest you get here, without having a need to leave the motorway and head off onto the sideroads and footpaths. I just find it odd, given how much jazz is taking place beyond the States, to see it excite so little interest. I'm not suggeting any individual has a duty to listen to (let alone enjoy) anything. Just odd that at the end of the day jazz interest is so geographically circumscribed. (Also worth mentioning that most of my jazz purchases this year have been by dead Americans; I'm going to be hard pushed to draw up a best of 2008 list!)

Sylvie Courvoisier is neither a 'classic' jazz musician, nor is she American. Not much hope! People will post about what enthuses them. Nothing to complain about there. But I am surprised that the threads on non-US musicians evoke so little curiosity from hard core jazz listeners who are clearly well attuned to looking beyond the ends of their noses. On the 'classic' jazz issue, it's hardly surprising you get more commentary there. So much has already been written about these musicians that their place in the inner sanctum is quite safe. We might disagree on how close to the altar they should be placed but when we declare our love of Ellington or 'Bird' (sic) or Coltrane or Beiderbecke we know that we're going to be pretty safe. Declaring an enthusiasm for a newer atist is much riskier - their story is far from codified and we might just end up backing someone who the critics choose to tear apart (see the Redman/Mehldau spats earlier this year...and they are pretty established). Much safer to focus on the 'masters'.

Over time you've also listened to a lot more music, probably some very different, so you are hearing with different ears than on initial listening. I've often listened to a recording, been underwhelmed, and then passed the musician by for years. But then hearing something else by him/her has given me a different perspective. Returning to the original recording has revealed pleasures I never previously found. It's almost as if I needed some other musical context to allow me to lock into the original purchase.

I'd imagine to an outsider Haydn symphonies sound formulaic. An experienced listener can see how he started with the formula but played with it, stretched it, contracted it. The fascination lies there. You might not get the same variation of structure with jazz but what you do get is the beauty of the distinctive sound of a skilled and inspired player. There's nothing very adventurous in the arrangements on the Johnny Hodges Mosaic box but it's a joy to listen to because of the sound. Similarly, I really like some of the Zephyr albums which are very much formulaic British mainstream swing to gentle bop; yet hearing Tony Coe play inside that always catches my ear. When you first fall in love with a style of music you just want to immerse yourself in as much as possible. After a time the infatuation wears off and you need to go off somewhere else for a time if the music is still going to sound fresh. I'm not sure if that's an argument for infidelity!