A Lark Ascending

Especially his solo chord melody arrangements. They are so unique and creative. He's a monster! My grasp of the technicalities is limited in the extreme (I'm no musician) but there is definitely something very personal about the way he approaches them. Impressive that he has never strayed into electric guitar or using electronics to alter the sound of his guitars (not that I have anything against the electric guitar). Yet he's been happy to play around with synths and programming on keyboards. This has certainly helped him cut a quite distinctive corner in the jazz world.

And a word for Towner doing standards! Not something he's usually associated with but he drops one or two in every now and then. A lot of Bill Evans associated tunes scattered over the Oregon/solo discs. Just been listening to his last album - 'Timeline'. Marvellous versions of 'Come Rain or Shine' and 'My Man's Gone Now.' Must be about time for a new one!

Radio Times (a TV/Radio magazine, full of fluff but the best way to know what's on the Radio in some detail). Gramophone BBC Music Magazine Froots (folk/world music) Mojo (started as a rock magazine for old crusties but, as these things go, tends to obsess on much more recent things now. Keeps me alert to interesting reissues from the olden days). Every now and then a copy of The New Statesman. That Mosaic magazine that always has 80% of the same pages - seems like something from a lost era!

Spent much of this week listening back to Ralph on his own records and with Oregon. A real treat. Two which made a huge impact: 'Batik' - the trio with DeJohnette and Eddie Gomez. I bought this on LP when it first came out and just listened for the first time in many years. One of his 'jazziest' records - the long title track (16 mins or so) is amazing - a slight theme used as a vehicle to build up real momentum with marvellous solo passages from all three. Due for reissue very shortly. Worth getting if you like Ralph but don't have the record. '1000 Kilometers' - the most recent Oregon record. They've returned to a more acoustic approach after the electronic colours of the 90s. There's a marvellous track called 'The Bactrian' which sounds like its title suggests - vaguely middle eastern. McCandless in particular works up a wonderful head of steam. I also finally CD-Rd my copy of 'Oregon in Concert', another really thrilling record.

What a brilliant photo, MG!!!! Here's mine, caught a few weeks back on holiday between heavy showers (the story of this summer): The place I long to retire to in a few years. This was my old one, taken during the only spell of good weather I recall this year in February!!!!

The thought of being stuck on a ship with the same people for 10 days, a month or whatever with little chance to escape gives me the screaming abdabs! But it might be the most practical way to do the fjords of Norway with Jan, Terje, Ketil and friends providing the music. Though I imagine that would give a lot of other people the screaming abdabs!

I agree - and admit to enjoying the indulgence of trying to tell the tale for the umpteenth time. Ever noticed how often you end up reciting the same viewpoints, telling the same stories down the pub? It's part of being human.

You can always burn a safety copy of the music...or 2....or 3. Downloading is in its very early days and I'm sure the various glitches surrounding it will rapidly be solved. I can't see any way that it won't become the major way of acquiring music in the near future. But just as things are still put on vinyl, so I imagine there will be CDs for quite a while, though I can't see them having the range of choice that downloading will offer. I'm sure with every change in technology - 78 to LP, the end of the mono option, cassette, 8 track etc, many people have been sad to see the old format go. That's understandable (I still miss the LP sleeve, though not the records themselves). But after 20 odd years of the CD model dominating all and other formats falling flat (SACD anyone?), I'd wager that this is the one that will overtake the CD. I've just got to get past my need to burn it on a CD-R and make a cover for it! Still locked into that model when I know others are already working from digital squeezboxes and the like.

I think they would have been better with Zawi. The last one I was in seemed more interested in selling those WI computer games than music! In fact DVDWI would be a more appropriate (and no more daft) name!

More or less ignored music until I turned 14 in 1969. 1. A year or so of totally indiscriminate listening to Radio 1 and Radio Luxembourg, trying to sort it all out. 2. Rapidly brainwashed by the music magazines of the early 70s into 'progressive' and 'underground' music - all the usual suspects (Moody Blues, Yes, Genesis etc). Chicago also appeared early on (II and III), I suspect laying the groundwork for brass and reeds. By the mid-70s the Soft Machine, McLaughlin, Henry Cow, the Canterbury bands were starting to dominate my listening. All those Brit jazzers on King Crimson LPs led me to Keith Tippett's 'Septober Energy, though I was brought to a sudden halt by a couple of completely incomprehensible (at the time) Tippett albums.' At the same time I was starting to explore classical (Sibelius, Mahler, Stravinsky, Bruckner). And the Fairport axis of UK folk-rock was getting me to attend the university folk club. 3. Jazz stole up on me around 1975 through hearing 'Escalator Over the Hill' and then buying a few Jarretts ('In the Light', 'Facing You', 'Bremen/Lausanne', 'Death and the Flower'. I'd heard jazz on the radio but didn't quite get it - I knew I liked the sound of the piano trio but didn't know where to start. Seeing Stan Tracey do 'Under Milk Wood' (the 1976 version with poet!) and Harry Miller's Isipingo and buying Mike Westbrook's 'Love/Dream Variations' deepened the interest. 4. The real determining factor was punk - I loathed it. Overnight there was nothing I wanted to listen to in the rock world (most of my earlier favourites had broken up their groups or were producing weak stuff). So I had to look elsewhere for musical sustenance - jazz, classical and folk all became the main areas of interest. Miles, Coltrane, the Ogun and ECM labels were major areas of focus. 5. Jazz dominated around 1978-80 and again 1983-4; then a long period when classical took over. But around 1991 jazz came back with a vengeance and it has been out front ever since. 6. Up to the late 90s most of my buying was either American (exploring the history and some new stuff) or British. But the arrival of the internet and regular attendance at festivals like Cheltenham and Bath introduced me to mainland Europe - Italy especially got me excited. 7. Today jazz dominates though I still have an active interest in classical and folk with Scandinavian folk, Brazilian music and a little country and wider world music added. I live in a small house with inexpensive furnishings but with a wealth of wonderful music that I never tire of. Though I might lose enthusiasm for particular areas for a time, I always come back later - and that includes those very early rock records.

I imagine they'll do both until the market for the physical CD dries up. Even then ECM are a label likely to continue to run a specialised 'connoisseur's' line in the physical CD. I'm not sure they could sustain more than their biggest sellers that way though. The download approach works for me, however.

The old one I'm thinking of was central - but I am going back to the late 1980s!!!!! This is the one I found hidden upstairs: http://www.thebestof.co.uk/salisbury/57170...he_best_of.aspx The Oxford HMV used to be very good for classical; and Blackwells CD shop was still there 2 years back. Mainly classical but it had one of those small but eccentric jazz sections where you could pick up something unexpected!

Apparently not available in the U.S. (yet?). 23 titles are up - including things like Facing You, Open, to Love, Solstice and American Garage. And my favourite vocal disc of all time - Norma Winstone's 'Somewhere Called Home'. Not all Touchstones - some newer titles too from Miroslav Vitous and Iro Haarla. These things cost £7 a time via iTunes. With my monthly account of 100 at £19.99 I could pull in 10-12 of these. I'll certainly be be acquiring 2 or 3 when my units refresh at the weekend.

Salisbury used to have a 'Solo' with some interesting jazz CDs usually to be found in the sales rack and a nice Avid Record vinyl shop but both of those bit the dust a few years ago. Avid also closed their Bournmouth store (always worth a look whenever I was in town) and I think the 'flagship' Oxford store has also gone. Real shame. Help an ailing memory out here, sidewinder. I seem to recall a very good classical record shop in Salisbury - quite large with a circular or semi-circular room. I asked the whereabouts from a musical instrument shop and they pointed me to a place tucked away upstairs off a sidestreet. I felt like I was looking for dodgy magazines! That shop was very good for classical and folk music; some jazz but clearly not what the owners major in. But it had a 'just visiting' feel unlike the one a I remember. Any memories of the one I recall?

I only hope they catch the airy nature of the early 70s acoustic and don't overdo the production. Most of the tunes turned up on later albums by Fairport or Sandy Denny. Two of the tracks - "Gypsy Davey" and "Two Weeks Last Summer" - were added extras to an early CD reissue of the Fotheringay album. I now see why the were not included in the 2004 reissue (though there seems to be a live version of the second) - both wonderful songs/performances. I have a feeling that the version of 'Late November' on Sandy's first solo album might have been taken from those sessions but with additional overdubbing. 'John the Gun' is a great song, though I've never heard a version to top the one on that album with an amazing Barry Dransfield fiddle solo.

The first batch of those 'Touchstones' have just appeared on e-music!!!!!!

I do believe the record shop has all but disappeared in the UK. I've not done much city shopping in the last two years, but whilst on holiday some pretty awful weather had me pulling into a number of cities in the south west - Winchester, Salisbury, Exeter, Truro. Two big changes I noticed: a) HMV and Zavvi seem to be all that is left and are more concerned with shifting DVDs. Where you once got separate jazz/folk/blues/classical sections they are now in one section mixed up alphabetically as 'specialist' music. b) Record stores I recall from three years back have gone (or are going). I recall a small west country chain called Solo (I think) which had a fair selection. The Exeter branch was still there but downstairs was empty of stock and upstairs just had a scattering - looked well on the way to curtains. The Truro shop had vanished completely! In fact what really struck me was the homogenisation of these small cities. Exactly the same stores - finding a bookstore that had not been taken over by Waterstones was virtually impossible (though they still exist in the smaller towns). Exeter had a mammoth new shopping area that was just being constructed last time I was there - could have been Meadowhall or any of the other out of town places. They only thing that has improved is the number of places you can get a coffee outside (in the rain!). Must be global warming!

You wouldn't want to dilute the brand. Something has to give when a CD that routinely sells for $17.99 is reissued with a $9.99 price tag. I think ECM is just setting us up for the inevitable hi-rez download/subscription service. I hope so. I'm surprised they haven't moved more quickly that way. Given that ECM packaging amounts to nothing more than some nice photos I'd prefer to buy that way. Other labels have shown how the artwork can accompany the downloads. I threw out all my jewel boxes six months back, putting the CDs/booklets in PVC sleeves. Saves space and, to be honest, I find the jewel boxes look a bit clunky now. I've obtained a few ECMs from iTunes and had no issue with the sound. I'm sure higher resolution options (like Chandos do) should deal with the concerns of those with more sonically sensitive ears than mine.

I completely respect that viewpoint, Lon. In a way we're saying the same thing - different experiences, backgrounds, listening sets us up with different expectations. I've read so much of the 'ECM is cold, soulless etc' expressed as some sort of absolute, by critics/posters on both sides of the Atlantic(I know that is far from what you are saying). I think a lot of listeners have been conditioned into equating the emotional signifiers of American (and especially black American) music as being what amounts to emotion in music. When it's missing in music that owes at least some of its roots to American popular (meant in the widest sense) music there is an immediate assumption that emotion is lacking. What is actually happening is that different signifiers are at work. I don't think I've ever been moved by Chinese music. That doesn't mean that Chinese music lacks soul - it just means I lack the background to pick up, even unconsciously, on what moves an audience steeped in that tradition. I'd say the adverse reactions to the ECM label are often based on a similar lack of connection.

I can see that as the case with music in the American, urban tradition (which may or not be played by Americans - I suspect that most jazz made in Europe is still in that tradition). But there's a lot on ECM that, to my hearing, because of the very nature of the music actually benefits from that spacious acoustic. To take a non-European as an example, most Ralph Towner's recordings. I can see why this might not appeal. (Afterthought - I'd suggest a fair bit of the music on ECM is actually composed/created with that house acoustic deliberately in mind. In much the same way as church composers compose music with the acoustics of a large, echo-y building in mind, actually making a virtue of those acoustics. I'm thinking particularly of John Surman (who started in music not in a sweaty basement jazz club but in a church choir!) or some of Kenny Wheeler's music (especially those multi-tracked things he does that don't sound a million miles from the sort of baroque instrumental passages you hear in Monteverdi or Handel).) ************** 'Drum Ode' is readily available over here. It's even on iTunes.

Never sure how these things happen, but I don't think it's 'Lookout Farm' I've been waiting for at all. Somewhere out of my brain came a memory that the track I heard on the radio c.1978 had something to do with 'Green...Blue' (no, not that one!). A quick google revealed it to be Arild Anderson's 'Green Shading into Blue'. So how about it, ECM? Much more interesting than an already available Pat Metheny in a snazzy new sleeve.

Or brought on Chas 'n' Dave with a cockney singalong on the ol' joanna (aka 'Oily Rags' for the non-Brit Oliver Nelson Flying Dutchman fans out there) The lads with Theresa Brewer - Don't know about Chas 'n' Dave, but wasn't that 'Pan's People' leaping around? Same ability to make you cringe!

This might be of interest to some: http://www.thebeesknees.com/?p=258#more-258

Absolutely true. I think it's also part of the current 'nostalgia' zeitgeist - endless remakes of earlier films, evocations of earlier musical periods, 'tributes' to, simplified costume drama versions of 'classic' literature. In many respects we're lucky in music. The musicians who won't go down that path can still do something different and find ways to get it out. Making something for TV and then actually getting it onto ratings-obsessed TV is nigh impossible if it doesn't fit in with prevailing views of what people want to watch. I've no problem with TV dominated by easy-viewing...just disturbed that there now seems to be absolutely no attempt to do anything else. Whatever faults 'Heimat' might have, there is simply nothing close in its scope or willingness to look sideways on UK TV.

I think that is one of the things I loved most about the series. Not just the slow unfolding of the story but the way the camera would linger over landscape. Marvellous moments when you just got a 45 degree ariel view of the hills and woods with just the wind or birds in the background. I actually think Part II was probably slower moving than part I. It covered about 15 years compared with Part I moving from 1919 to the 70s. And the terrorism element was only a small part of the plot. Like all three parts the focus was very much on the relationship between the characters - and the difficulties people have properly connecting with one another, constantly sliding past. The overall theme of the powerful draw/alienating effect of a homeland was very well handled. Something I feel very strongly every time a cross the M40. As I grow older I get more and more drawn to the part of England (the south west) where I spent the dominant part of my youth. Part III was less cohesive. Yet it had a series of unusual storylines that I couldn't see passing the drawing board stage on current UK TV. 'But where do we cast Dawn French/Robson Green?'