A Lark Ascending

I expect Andy's senses will be working overtime.

Back in my youth I got all my understanding of the USA from a programme called 'Wagon Train'. They got around in these: They also had this nifty thing called the Pony Express which was much more romantic than FedEx. Now surely it would be much easier to revive these than it was to invent them in the first place? Which would create an environmentally friendly way of going to see your in-laws, getting your Mosaics delvered etc. What is more wagons like the above are much more spacious than S.U.V.s. With a few solar panels you could have a sound system, DVDs for the kids etc. What is more, the family with an S.U.V. and four kids could have eight kids because there's so much more room. Which would mean there'd be no need for condoms. Which would please the Christian Right. Tomorrow I will solve the Middle East crisis.

From the XTC website: I don't know if Atomic Kitten mean anything in the US - they are a high-gloss pop band with very attractive members. I expect we'll be waiting a while for another XTC album! Andy is probably quite distracted.

On 8th June 2005 the average price for petrol in the UK was US$5.44 per US gallon. God knows what it is today. I have to fill my car (Peugeot 206 diesel) up about every 450 miles. It costs me around £35-40. Thats $60-$68. I know the difference is basically tax; but we do look a bit mystified when we watch the USA going into a tiz about the cost of fuel.

If you're talking LPs, you can send them to this address... ← Sorry. 'Twas a CD.

57 (That RCA box boosts the score somewhat). Easily the biggest pre-1945 showing in my collection (though Mozart can't be far behind!) .

Who keeps the tally? I'd be hard pushed to do that as well as tearing round a classroom actually doing the teaching! It clearly varies from school to school but in my school (working class but not inner city) you rarely get swearing inside a lesson. In the corridors, outside in the recreation areas, a different matter. I'd like to see how you keep a tally there!

You know what I'd jump to buy. 'I'll Fly Away' A wonderful series with Sam Waterson set in the South during the Civil Rights years. It was tucked away at some godforsaken hour on UK TV - I stumbled upon it and was gripped. I'd love to use some of the scenes in my teaching of Civil Rights. (and while we're at it 'Eyes on the Prize', the documentary, would be nice too. When I saw it in the 80s I knew little about the history of that time).

I can only wish well for any of you living in that area or with relatives there. It looks terrifying. I can't even imagine living somewhere where that sort of disaster is always threatening. We get a few inches of snow here and it's an emergency situation. I am intrigued by the way this is being covered in the UK, however. Top of the bill on the BBC News 24 channel. I don't recall the floods in India a few weeks back getting that coverage. I suppose the news people feel that we identify more with the USA than India.

I'll be blowed if I'm going to wish him a Happy Birthday. I've been sending him cards for nearly 50 years and never once has he said thank you.

I'm really disappointed that no-one has pitched in with a grumpy: 'Why do you need so many Miles recordings? You can't possibly listen to them all!'

I suspect you might get thrown out of the Organ Players Guild for referring to Messiaen as a page turner! He probably has a ruler to hand (or being a devout Catholic, one of those whips with knots in it), ready to whack her across the knuckles for every wrong note.

What is this obsession with grease? Y'all work in Kentucky Fried Chicken or what? Three non-greasy... Monty Python: (though even less pleasant fluids come to mind with that picture) And Keith... Also this... More candle wax than grease.

57 individual titles...made up of 97 discs. Four days continuous listening. Yikes!

He's also someone who, once you're bitten, keeps you coming back for more. That's partly helped by all those different phases he went through. Same voice, changing contexts. With some jazz players if you're not really involved I'm sure one disc starts to sound very much like the next (though Keith Jarrett's success would seem to blow that argument out of the water - no criticism of Keith, I love his music; but on the surface there's not a huge amount of difference between Facing You and Radiance or the first and most recent Standards discs). For 20 years my Miles collection did not go much beyond 1955-65. Then I discovered 1968 onwards...another splurge of buying. Then the full Second Quintet had to be explored. I'm still pretty hazy about the 80s and the period between Birth of the Cool and the Coltrane Quartet period. It's a bit like Dylan really! Similar marketing, similar charisma/enigmatic image-making, similar willingness to keep changing. Same record company!

Looks like there's a second Evan Parker/Stan Tracey disc. Recorded at Appleby in 2004: I must, however, commend PSI for getting another Appleby recording out nearly 3000 years ahead of the performance: Annouced as: FREE ZONE APPLEBY 5003 psi 05.05 Free improvisations by: EVAN PARKER soprano saxophone, BARRY GUY bass, PAUL LYTTON percussion, PHILIPP WACHSMANN violin and electronics, and JOEL RYAN live processing of pre-recorded samples and live input - the four duos with Ryan, and the four trios without him. That's what I call avant-garde!!!!

I have to confess that I have never consciously heard Picasso's music. ← I suppose a could be really arty-farty and respond "You don't hear the music in Picasso?" (imagine the suitably patronising tone)

'Miles Davis' is a name that is known well beyond the jazz community by people who have never consciously heard his music. Like Beethoven or Picasso. I expect that when people unfamiliar with non-mainstream music decide they want to experiment a bit it's a name that they recognise and take a chance on.

I certainly heard long stretches of Bitches Brew on the late night 'progressive' programme on Radio Luxemburg in the early 70s (anyone remember Kid Jensen?). It actually put me off exploring jazz at the time. I was clueless as to what it was all about. It's also worth noting that alot of Miles is very 'pretty' - it can make excellent background/ambient music. I suspect some people hear it at dinner parties and think "That's nice, I'd like a CD of that." It's also used alot in films and TV dramas. I heard 'Miles Ahead' being played in a shopping centre in Oslo a few years back...the whole recording! Can't imagine the shopping centre that would play 'Bitches Brew.'

I expect there's a whole generation of jazz enthusiasts, like myself, who first began to wonder about taking a listen to jazz when hearing the likes of Carlos Santana and John McLaughlin enthuse about Miles Davis (and Coltrane); and reading how McLaughlin used to play with him; and seeing those mysterious 'Bitches Brew' and 'Live Evil' sleeves in record shops, magazines and on those old CBS 'inner sleeves'.

Just imagine. Keith doing his 'someone just kneed me between the legs so I'll make it look as if the divine Oneness has descended upon me.' Meanwhile, just to the side, Kurt is doing his 'I'm really Lawrence Ferlinghetti' routine. Quite a sight. ********** I'd dearly like to hear Keith playing with a horn or two again. Preferably someone well away from home territory. Gianluigi Trovesi? Fredrik Ljungkvist? Jason Yarde? Distant dreams.

David Murray and Louis Sclavis did a marvellous two bass clarinet duo concert at the Bath Festival a few years back.

'This is the Place' has reached Sherwood Forest and is going down a treat. We tend to expect mandolins and crumhorns with everything here but, hey, I expect you're saving that for disc 3. I love 'Tenderly'...and that's a song I usually have no time for. Gorgeous. Well done, y'all (as Maid Marian often says).

Yes, I heard him with Bill Bruford's Earthworks a year or so back playing lovely bc. I saw him a couple of weeks back at the Appleby Festival - I can't recall him playing bc there. This new disc of Garland's has some gorgeous bc: Another UK player who regularly features bc is Julian Siegel - both on his own solo record and as a member of the band 'Partisans'.

Just noticed Stenson is also on this new ECM release: Record is called "Parish". Group led by drummer Thomas Strønen with Stenson, clarinet/sax from Fredrik Ljungkvist and bass from Mats Eilertsen. Ljungkvist is the excellent reed fronts-person of the wonderful Atomic.